I used the expression means of transport in the opening paragraph. Please note that it has the same form in both singular and plural; so you say, for example, ‘The plane is the fastest means (not: mean) of transport.’ Another general word for a thing used for transporting people or goods is a vehicle. Note also that the Americans spell traveling, traveled and traveler with one ‘l’. (Is it because they are lazier than the British or what?)
‘I’m attending a car school,’ said an 18-year-old student proudly. We all undoubtedly understand what he meant, but a business that gives people lessons in how to drive a car should properly be called a driving school. After you pass your driving test (also called a driver’s test or a road test in the USA), you hold a driving licence (in AmE, a driver’s license) and are allowed to drive a car. You might have noticed two special abbreviations concerning illegal driving in US movies: DUI (driving under the influence) and DWI (driving while intoxicated), i.e., driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
‘I can see some personal cars and some load cars,’ said a student describing a picture of a motorway (in AmE, a highway). A vehicle that can carry a small number of passengers is simply called a car. There is no need to put an adjective before the noun ‘car’, since English uses a different noun for a large vehicle that can carry heavy loads – it is called a truck (especially in AmE) or a lorry (BrE). (I like the tongue twister ‘red lorry, yellow lorry’ – try to say it three times as quickly as possible.) English has a humorous lorry idiom which people use when they talk about goods that were probably stolen to avoid asking or saying where they really came from. Instead, they say that the goods fell off the back of a lorry. A vehicle larger than a car but smaller than a lorry/truck, used for carrying goods or people is called a van. A van designed to carry up to eight passengers is usually called a minivan (AmE) / a people carrier/mover (BrE). A pickup (also called a pickup truck) has low sides and no roof at the back. A large car used for travelling over rough ground is called an SUV (= sport utility vehicle, especially in AmE), or a four-wheel drive (BrE).
‘We got into a wagon and found a free coupe,’ wrote a student in his holiday story. I seriously doubt it. According to the sentence, he and his friends got into a freight train (also called a goods train in BrE) – a train that carries only cargo, and found a car with two doors and a sloping back (a coupe/coupé). I suppose they travelled by passenger train, whose separate sections are called carriages/coaches (BrE) / cars/railcars (AmE). (A carriage and a coach were originally vehicles pulled by horses used in the past for carrying people. I wonder whether there was a difference between them. A coach was probably larger and closed.) A wagon (BrE) (in AmE, a freight car) is a railway truck for carrying goods. (Originally, a wagon was a vehicle pulled by horses or oxen used for carrying heavy loads.) One of the separate sections of a railway carriage in an express/fast train is called a compartment. Native speakers of English would more likely say ‘We got on the train,’ while the expression ‘get into a carriage/coach’ sounds less natural. All things considered, the student’s sentence should have read as follows: ‘We got on the train and found a free compartment.’ During their journey (not: during their way/travel/route), they might have felt like having a snack or a drink and got served in a dining/restaurant car. If they travelled at night, they may have slept in a sleeping car (a sleeper for short). (It is not the car that sleeps, but the people in it!)
I once watched an American comedy about a forty-year-old bachelor who was terribly shy with women. He didn’t have a car, which seems somewhat unusual in the USA nowadays. He was phoning a woman to arrange their first date. ‘What time will you pick me up?’ asked the woman. ‘Well, you know, I ride a bike,’ answered the man, feeling rather awkward. ‘Cool, I love motorcycles. My ex had one.’ The man felt even more embarrassed when he had to explain that he rode a bicycle, not a motorbike. A play on words very often doesn’t work in another language. Here, the subtitle maker translated ‘I ride a bike’ as ‘Ja nemám auto.’
Are you still confused about wagons, coupes, bikes or whatever? Never mind; the most important thing when you travel is to arrive at your destination (not: arrive to…) safe and sound.
