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Episode 3: Motor Racing

Episode 3: Motor Racing
Learn some words that mean to go fast.

Transcript

This story is about driving a racing car. We'll look at the word drive and the expressions full throttle and hold it flat.

All right ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to V8 Experience, all here to drive the V8s today. There's some important tips you can pick up on that can make your driving better out on the open road. Today's activity is potentially dangerous. There could be some kind of an incident that could result in an injury. The injury could even prove to be fatal, so you need to be aware of the dangers of today's activities.

A V8 is a type of racing car. There were 2 ways that he used the word drive. First he used the verb 'drive':

All right ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to V8 Experience, all here to drive the V8s today.

Next he used 'driving' as a noun or activity:

There's some important tips you can pick up on that can make your driving better out on the open road.

Now let's see some driving:

Nice and slow for this first lap. When you're ready, into fourth gear Okay two hands back up on the wheel, accelerate hard now. You can go full throttle. Hold it flat. Hold it flat, that's it. Righto, back to third gear now, third gear, over to the left, brake, brake, brake. Off the brakes, let it roll with the apex, that's it. Right out to the yellow cone, full throttle now. Hold it flat, hold it flat. That's it.

He said 'nice and slow'.

Nice and slow for this first lap.

You'll often hear 'nice and' in expressions such as 'nice and hot' or 'nice and tasty'. It's just means that slow, hot or tasty are what you want. I speak nice and slow so that you can understand. So how do you go nice and fast?

When you're ready, into fourth gear Okay two hands back up on the wheel, accelerate hard now. You can go full throttle. Hold it flat. Hold it flat, that's it.

You 'accelerate hard', 'go full throttle' and 'hold it flat' – all these expressions mean that you push the pedal hard to go faster. How fast does he go?

Now you can go full throttle again. Hold it flat. Just trust me, go to flat.

The speed of the car I drove in is amazing. I travelled about one hundred and sixty kilometres per hour?

Yeah.

He went 160 kilometres per hour. But what form of the verb drive did he use?

The speed of the car I drove in is amazing.

He used the past tense 'drove'. Listen:

The speed of the car I drove in is amazing.

There are other ways of expressing the past tense of drive. Listen:

When I was under stress in Korea I went driving around my home town.

He went driving. Instead of saying 'I drove around', he expresses the past tense with 'went' – went driving.

When I was under stress in Korea I went driving around my home town.

So we've seen that you drive a car and enjoy driving. 'Full throttle' means going as fast as you can. We'll finish with another expression which means to go faster, speed up:

At first my speed is very slow but as time goes by I can speed up.

It was so exciting, absolutely, because after overtaking I feel… I feel very nice, yeah.

Watch More

See the complete story of Kema from Korea as he gets behind the wheel of a race car in episode 5 of My Australia.

My Australia - Episode 5

English Bites is an informative and entertaining way to improve your knowledge of the English language.