Transportation Vocabulary & Phrasal Verbs - GET ON, GET OUT OF, RIDE, GO

I GET OFF a train, bus, or subway. But: I GET OUT OF a car or taxi. I RIDE a bike and a motorcycle. How do you get to work or school? Learn how to use phrasal verbs to talk about transportation, then test yourself on the quiz at Hello. How are you? Today, we’re going to learn about getting around. This means taking public transportation or talking about how you got somewhere or how you’re going to go somewhere. All of the examples I’ve written in the past tense because somebody might ask you, “How did you get here?“ “What? I flew because I have a magic carpet. That’s how. Why?“ We have different ways of getting places. Verbs: You can say, “I took a ’bus’, a ’train’, a ’cab’, or a ’taxi’.“ “Cab“ and “taxi“ are the same. Or you can take a “plane“. So with all of these nouns -- “plane“, “cab“, “taxi“, “train“, “bus“ -- you’re going to use the verb “took“. There are no exceptions. You cannot say, “I rode a bus. I rode a train.“ It’s wrong. “Rode“ means that you were on top of the bus or on the train doing some bus surfing -- didn’t happen. I hear people say this a lot, “How did you get here?“ “I ride car.“ “Wow. What were you doing on top of the car?“ If you “ride“ something, you’re always on top of it. What can you -- what can you ride? I can ride a bicycle. So “ride“ literally means you’re on top of something. Tell me what you can ride. You can ride a bicycle, a motorcycle, a scooter, a moped. If you’re on top of it, you’re riding it -- a horse. “I go by car.“ No, no, no. These, unfortunately, are wrong. We don’t say, “I go by car“ or “I ride car.“ We say, very easily, past tense of the verb “drive“: “drove“. “How did you get here?“ “I drove.“ You do not need to say, “I drove by car“ because you’re not driving a bus; you’re not driving an airplane; you’re not driving a train. Very simply, you can say, “I drove.“ Another thing that I hear people say is, “I go by foot.“ “One foot? You have one foot? Did you hop here the whole time? You must be tired. You go by foot? Wow.“ Maybe you only have one foot. That’s cool. You should drive or take a bus. Another thing: “I walk on foot.“ This means that you take your hands, and you literally put them underneath your feet and you walk -- if this is your foot -- you walk on your hands. This is painful. I do not recommend this. I would not literally want to walk on my hands. Please don’t walk on your feet. Do not walk on your hands. “I walk on your foot“ would be, “I’m sorry“ -- walk on hands, walk on feet. You’d be stepping on your feet, and you would never get anywhere. You just want to say, “I walked.“ “How did you get here today, Ronnie?“ “I walked.“ Another thing that’s really confusing in English -- and I understand why -- is when to use the phrasal verb “got on“ or “got off“, and when to say “got in“ or “got out“. So as an example, we would say, “I got off the train.“ Let’s write that down. Or you can say, “I got on the train.“ Also, we use this with a bus. So you can say, “I got on the bus“ and “I got off the bus.“ You don’t need to use extra words. Like, you don’t want to say, “I got off on the bus.“ You don’t want to say, “I got the train off.“ Unnecessary. Please do not use extra words when you say this. You’re just going to say, “I got on“ -- the verb -- the noun. Or “I got off“, the noun. “Train“, “bus“, and the “plane“, or an “airplane“. So think about this: What does -- or what do trains, buses, and airplanes have in common? No? Nothing? No? Okay. A train, a bus, or an airplane has many people. You can think of it as something that is public or very large. So a train, a bus, or an airplane, you have to pay. It’s really big, and you can fit many people on it. So you’re going to get on or get off something that is very big. You’re going to get off something that’s very big. Or if it’s public transportation, you can fit many people.