Hey, it's Annemarie with
Speak Confident English.
This is exactly where you want to be to
get the confidence you want for daily
life and work in English.
This week I'm answering a very specific
question from one of my students who
asked for vocabulary about
driving. For example,
how to offer to pick someone up or
drive them to pick someone up is a very
common phrasal verb that we use when
we're talking about driving an English.
She also wanted to know
about how to ask an Uber,
Lyft or taxi driver to drop you off
in a particular place or how to give
directions when they're lost. And yes,
I know that Uber and Lyft drivers
all have GPS maps on their phone,
but sometimes those maps
aren't always correct.
So we're going to talk about all of that
in today's Confident English lesson.
You're going to get the expressions
collocations and questions that native
speakers use when we are
offering to drive someone,
when we need someone
to drive us somewhere.
How to talk to your Uber and Lyft driver
and some common things that we say when
we're having car troubles or for example,
if we're going to be late to
work because of traffic problems,
and then at the end I'm going to share
with you a very common question that we
ask our friends or colleagues when we're
planning a night out together and we
need to arrange transportation.
All right,
let's start right away with common
expressions and questions that native
speakers use when you are the one driving,
let's say that you're at happy hour
after work with some of your coworkers or
maybe you're at a friend's home for a
weekend party and in a conversation you
realize that someone needs a ride home.
If you're able to give that person ARIDE,
which means you're able to drive them
somewhere or you know that you live in the
same location, so it would be
easy for you to offer them a ride.
Here are some things we often say,
I'm already headed in that direction.
I can give you a ride if you'd
like. I live in the same area.
I'm happy to give you a ride.
You can also simply ask someone,
would you like a ride home
or do you need a ride?
Now if you're with someone or a group
of people and no one drove a car but
you're all going in the same direction.
Another common question is do you want
to share a taxi or share an Uber or Lyft
and in that situation you share the
cost of a taxi or Uber drive home.
Now, let's reverse the situation.
When you are the one who
needs a ride somewhere,
whether it's a ride to
work or a ride home,
how can you politely ask a
coworker or a friend to do that?
Here are several example
questions that we often use.
Number one, where are you headed? Could
I get a ride from you? When we ask,
where are you headed? It means
what direction are you going in?
And if they're going the same
direction you are. For example,
maybe you live on the
North side of the city,
then you could ask for a ride because you
know it's in the same direction and it
might be easy for them
to do so. Number two,
would you mind dropping
me off on the way? Again,
this is something we would use when we
know someone is already going in the same
direction that we need to go.
If it's really far or if they need to
go out of their way to drop you off if
they need to go in a
completely different direction.
It's always polite to add.
I'm happy to chip in some gas money.
What that means is that you're happy to
give them a little bit of money toward
gas because honestly it can be expensive.
It's a really kind and polite
thing to do. Question number three,
I think my apartment or
home is on the way to yours.
Could I get a ride with
you? And number four,
could I ask you a big favor?
Would you mind giving me a ride to work
in the morning? My car's in the shop.
When we say our car is in the shop,
it means it's at the mechanic shop and
it's getting worked on for whatever
reason.
Now let's change this up a little bit
and talk about how to communicate with
your Uber, Lyft,
or taxi driver when you need to let
them know where to drop you off,
which means where to stop the car and
let you get out or how to give them
directions if they're lost
or the GPS map is incorrect.
Let's start with how to ask them to drop
you off or leave you at a particular
place. So most of the time we simply say,
could you drop me off at and then
give them the location. For example,
could you drop me off at the corner on
the right or could you drop me off at the
end of the block at the end of the street?
Could you drop me off just in
front of that store on the left?
Could you drop me off w hen
you get to the stop lights?
If you want to make it extra polite,
you could simply change the language to,
would you mind? Would you mind
dropping me off at the corner?
Would you mind dropping me off
at the stop sign on the left?
What you'll notice in each of those
examples is that I'm being very specific
about the location and I'm
giving a visual cue, for example,
in front of the store on the right
or at the stop sign up ahead.
Now,
if you live in a big city
or it's a particularly busy
time of day with a lot of
traffic,
it can be really hard to get someone
to drop you off in exactly the place.
So if you're flexible and you're
okay walking a short distance,
you could also say something like,
my apartment building is
up one block on the right,
but you can drop me off
anywhere. That's easy for you.
You could even acknowledge that you
recognize the traffic is bad or that it
might be difficult to drop you
off in a very specific place.
So that might sound something like, I
know traffic is really bad right now,
so feel free to drop me off anywhere
that's easy for you or that's convenient
for you. I'm happy to walk a little bit.
Now let's say that your driver is lost
or they're following the directions on
Google maps or Apple maps, but
the information isn't accurate.
Here's something that I often
say when that happens to me.
I know you've got Google maps,
but for some reason the
directions are always wrong.
It's much faster or it's much easier if
you take a left at the lights and go up
Dodge Street or take Farnam
Street, or if the driver is lost,
you could say something like, it
looks like Google maps is confused.
I can give you directions straight
to my home or straight to my work.
That's a really polite way to
acknowledge that the driver is lost.
You're not blaming the
driver for getting lost.
You're blaming it on GPS or Google maps.
Now if you want a more in depth
lesson on how to give directions,
I actually have a full lesson on that
topic and I'll leave a link to it just
below this video in the comments,
but now let's move on to common problems
that we have with our car or traffic
issues and I'm going to share one very
common question that we use when we're
coordinating transportation
with friends and coworkers.
One of the biggest frustrations about
driving is when we know we're running
late, maybe we're running late for work,
maybe we've got a meeting or maybe we're
on our way home and we have a dinner
party to get to, but we're
not going to make it on time.
There are usually just a few reasons
that happens and here's how we talk about
them in English. Number one,
there's bumper to bumper traffic,
so I'm going to be a
little late to the meeting.
Bumper to bumper traffic is when the
cars are back to back to back and there's
no movement. Maybe there's
an accident up ahead.
Maybe there's construction
or a road is closed,
so everything is just at a standstill
and that's also a word that we often use.
The second thing that you might
say is, I'm so sorry I'm on my way,
but I'm running late because of a car
accident or road construction or a
bottleneck.
A bottleneck is when you have many streets
with cars all going to the same place
and it gets narrower as
you continue. For example,
if you're coming from outside the city
where there are highways and interstates
and roads that all come into the center
of the city where the streets get
smaller and fewer.
Now what if you're running
late because you got lost?
A common thing that we say is,
I'm so sorry I'm running late,
but I made a wrong turn. I'll
be there soon. All right,
so we've talked about bumper to
bumper traffic, road construction,
car accidents, and bottlenecks as
reasons why you might be running late.
The last common reason is car problems.
Usually when something
goes wrong with our car,
it either just stops working or we know
something isn't working correctly and we
should probably stop
driving. When that happens,
we say our car broke down. The
phrasal verb is to break down,
so if you need to call your boss in
the morning due to a car problem,
you might say, I'm sorry, I'm
running late to work this morning.
My car broke down. I've
got to take it to the shop.
Similar to your car breaking down,
you might not be able to drive
because you have a flat tire.
A flat tire is when all the air goes out
and you have to change or replace it.
All right.
We've got just one more thing to cover
and that is a very common question that
you'll hear native speakers use when
they're coordinating a night out with
coworkers or friends. You'll often
hear someone ask who's going to be DD.
A DD is a designated driver.
This is someone in the group who has
decided not to drink any alcohol for the
evening so that there are no worries
or concerns about driving a car safely.
So you or a colleague might
say, I'll be the DD tonight,
which means I won't drink any alcohol. I
will drive everyone so that we're safe.
Now, to be honest, if
you live in a big city,
you probably won't hear that question
as much because we have so many
transportation options, whether
it's a Metro, a bus, a Lyft,
Uber or taxi.
But if you live in a smaller
city or outside of a city,
that is still a common
question that gets asked.
And with that you have over 20 common
expressions and questions that we use for
talking about driving in English. If
you found this lesson useful to you,
I would love to know, and you
can tell me in three ways,
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And if you know someone who would love
to get more advanced vocabulary on
driving an English, you can email
this to them as well. With that,
have a fantastic week and I'll see you
next time for your Confident English
lesson.
