[317] My Hilarious Car Rental Adventure
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Hey guys, you're listening to the English Made Simple Show. This is episode number 317, number 317, numero 317. Hey amigos y amigas, you're tuning in to the English Made Simple Show and as always, I'm your host Milena. Welcome back everybody, welcome back to the show. Today we're going to have some fun talking about my recent adventure of trying to rent a car in New Zealand.

If this is your first time tuning in to the EMS show, you can visit englishmadesimple.net to see what the EMS show is all about. And if you want to, you can listen to the podcast directly from the website. Simply type in englishmadesimple.net slash podcast into your browser and then start listening. Easy peasy Japanese. You know what else is easy peasy, amigos y amigas? It's today's episode.

Well, maybe not the actual experience of me renting a car, but talking about it is certainly going to be fun and hopefully it will be easy for you amigos to follow. So let me start off by asking you a question. Have you ever tried renting a car in a foreign country? It can be quite the adventure, especially if you're not used to the types of cars they have there.

So, amigos y amigas, imagine this. I'm going to share my personal experience now with you. So, imagine this. I'm in New Zealand, excited to explore the beautiful South Island, and I decided to rent a car so I can drive around, enjoy the landscapes. Sounds straightforward, right? Well, not quite. First, I went to the car rental place and told them I wanted to rent a car.

The rental agent asked me if I wanted a petrol car, a hybrid or an electric vehicle. I thought, why not try something new? So I chose a hybrid car, a Toyota Corolla. Now, a hybrid car uses both petrol and electricity. It's a bit more environmentally friendly, but here's where things get really interesting.

I'm used to driving manual transmission cars, you know, the ones where you have to change gears yourself. Driving a manual transmission car feels like an upgrade from a Flintstones car. You know what I mean by Flintstones? The prehistoric cartoon vehicle that was powered by the driver's feet. Using your feet, you can drive your car.

Unlike the Flintstones' foot-powered car, a manual transmission car uses a clutch and gear stick to change gears, making the driving experience more modern and efficient, not so ancient like the Flintstones. So I don't know how many of you would know my reference, that reference to the Flintstones, if you've ever seen the cartoon where the Flintstones...

live in the prehistoric, very ancient times. They didn't have cars back then, so their car was made of stone and rocks. That's the Flintstones car I'm talking about here. But mine is a bit better. Mine's a manual transmission car, a bit better than the Flintstones car.

Anyway, let's get back to my rental car. So my new rental Toyota Corolla was an automatic transmission. And not just any automatic. It had all these fancy buttons and screens. I felt like I was in a spaceship, for real. So I sat in the car and tried to start it. But I pushed the button. I saw a button that had the start written on it.

But nothing happened. I pushed it again and still nothing happened. My car wasn't moving. There was no sound, nothing. I started to panic a bit and I was thinking, what was I doing wrong here? Why is the car not working? Should I be using my feet like the Flintstones? I don't know. That's when I realized I hadn't put my foot on the brake.

You see, with many modern cars, you need to press the brake pedal while pushing the start button. It's a safety feature. So lesson number one, always press the brake pedal when starting an automatic car. Eventually, I got the car started. I was so excited. Yay. But then I had to figure out how to drive it. Okay, my next challenge is

I had to figure out how to drive this automatic car that didn't have a gear stick. Instead, there was a little lever that you move to put the car into drive, reverse or park. Those are the three settings you can actually choose to move the lever to start using the car. So it took me a few tries, but I finally got the hang of it. And then there was the silence button.

When you drive a hybrid or electric car, they are super quiet, especially when running on electric power. I kept thinking the car had turned off because it was so silent. There was no sound. I'm used to my manual transmission car making so much noise because it's all... I knew it was alive, you know what I mean? So I had to keep checking the dashboard in front of me to make sure that this car was still on.

Now, I thought there may be something wrong with this car. So I had to go back to the rent-a-car office and ask the agent to show me how to drive this downed car. So apparently the car is on when the dashboard shows the words ready. Okay. So I've seen some words on the dashboard and there was this text written, shown ready.

That said ready. Okay, so the car was ready. How the heck was I supposed to know that? Okay, I have to read stuff on the dashboard. So back home in Australia, I drive a soon to be extinct manual transmission car. I feel like I'm in the Flintstones cartoon when I say this out loud. Okay, it's like driving an ancient prehistoric car.

All right, amigos y amigos, how many of you actually drive a manual transmission car? I don't know. I still enjoy driving the manual car. But anyway, let's learn some useful phrases now after that short story and expressions related to car rentals and driving in general. So I've used just now, I used some expressions and phrases and expressions to do with cars. So I'll just go over...

These phrases and expressions one by one. So number one was the automatic transmission. This means the car automatically changes gears for you. So you don't need to use a clutch pedal to change gears. Okay, this is...

This is like, this is so advanced, all right, guys? Well, I think this is advanced. Right, manual transmission. So I use the words manual transmission. You have to change gears yourself using a gear stick.

and clutch pedal. When you change gears, you can go into the first gear, second gear, third, fourth, and the fifth gear when you're driving fast. When you want to drive fast, you would put the car in the fifth gear when you're going over 80 k's an hour, for example. So some newish cars, more modern cars, more modern than mine, even have a sixth gear.

My car is not that new. It only has five gears, okay? So it's still a bit old. I think it's about 15 years old now. Anyway, another phrase I'd like to mention here is hybrid car. A car that uses both petrol and electricity. I think I might be a hybrid car convert because I actually enjoyed at the end of my

that experience, that funny rental car experience, I actually enjoyed driving the hybrid car. And I realized that you can actually go a long way driving the hybrid car without stopping and putting the petrol in. So that was kind of interesting. All right. Another expression, electric vehicle, EV is short. You might hear it now in the news. That's a very

It's a current topic at the moment, electric cars or electric vehicles. You might hear people use EVs for short instead of electric vehicles. So EV, so it's a car that runs entirely on electricity or battery. So it has an internal battery, right?

I use something like push the start button. So that's new cars. More modern cars now don't have keys. They actually have buttons that you can push. So modern cars often have a button instead of a key to start the engine. Press the brake pedal. You have to use your feet or one foot, I should say, to press the brake pedal. A safety step required in many automatic cars before you can start the engine.

I use the word dashboard. Dashboard is the panel in front of the driver showing important information like speed and fuel levels. Okay, so everything you see in front of you, in front of the steering wheel, that's called a dashboard. And the last thing I wanted to mention is the word lever. L-E-V-E-R, lever. It's a handle used to control the car's gear. Okay.

So a lever, you move the lever with your left hand if you want to put your car in drive or park or if you want to put the car in first, second, third gear. All right. Cool bananas. Let's continue. So after getting the car started, I faced another challenge, which was navigating the car using the actual car.

The rental car had a built-in GPS system, which was great, but the voice was set to French. So somebody else was using this car before me and the voice that was coming from the GPS was set to French. So I had to figure out how to change it to English. Thankfully, the rental agent helped me out with that one as well.

Finally, I was on the road cruising through the beautiful landscapes of New Zealand. And let me tell you, driving an automatic hybrid car was actually quite fun. It was smooth, quiet, and I didn't have to worry about changing gears. So I could actually really enjoy the scenery. Then thinking about, you know, do I need to change now from second to third and so on. Okay. But then came the moment of truth.

parking, parking this car. I drove to a scenic spot to take some photos, you know, selfies. When I tried to park, I had to get used to the automatic parking brake. Instead of a handbrake, there was a button to press for a, you know, instead of a handbrake. So normally you would use your left hand to pull the handbrake to stop the car when, you know, to secure the car.

But in this case, there was a button that you had to press, which I figured out somehow. Okay. So it was another new thing for me to learn. But once you learn it, I mean, once you do it once, then it becomes easy, right? So despite all the hiccups, it was a great experience overall driving this hybrid, little hybrid car, Toyota Corolla.

And I think I learned a lot about these modern cars, okay? I don't know how many of you drive EVs, electric vehicles. How many of you drive hybrid cars out there? How many of you drive manual cars? Hmm, I'm still attached to my manual car after all. All right, amigos y amigas, remember, it's important to ask for help if you're unsure about something. For example, when I asked the rental agent for help, I wasn't embarrassed to ask for help.

I was a little bit embarrassed because I am an experienced driver. I just never drove the hybrid car.

But I had to go and ask somebody for help. So the rental agents, when you do decide to rent a car, the rental agents are there to assist you. And it's better to ask than to be stuck and get stuck on, you know, being stuck in the parking lot, not moving your car. So you need to go out and ask for help if you're unsure how to use these cars.

And speaking of help, remember, I have a free gift for you, amigos y amigas, that will help you with your English. Go to englishmadesimple.net

slash spell my name to download your free guide on how to spell your name clearly in English. This will come in handy when you're trying to rent a car. They will ask you for your name and they will ask you to spell it as well. So it's an invaluable resource, especially if you find yourself having to spell your name over the phone or in person if you're trying to rent a car, for example.

So that all sounds fine and dandy. And that's it for today's episode. I hope you had a great time learning about my car rental adventure and picking up some new phrases along the way. Traveling can be full of surprises, amigos y amigas, and being able to communicate clearly, especially when dealing with something new,

like driving a hybrid car, can make all the difference. It's been a pleasure sharing this episode with you. If you'd like to support the show, visit englishmadesimple.net slash transcripts and download the transcript to contribute and support the show. If you can't contribute right now, then please share this episode with your friends, your neighbors, and strangers that you see on the street.

Anybody, you can share this podcast with them. Don't forget to visit englishmadesimple.net slash podcast anytime to continue listening to the rest of the episodes. Keep practicing, amigos y amigas. Stay cool and keep in touch. Until next time, hasta la proxima.