Hey, everyone. Hoje eu falo sobre vocabulário relacionado a um acidente de carro que aconteceu nos Estados Unidos um tempo atrás. Vamos ouvir maneiras de se dizer “o carro foi capotando montanha abaixo” e “a porta ficou balançando.”
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So all of you listening to this podcast have probably got an intermediate or advanced level of English – have you ever had the experience of trying to describe an everyday situation in English and struggling to find the right words to do it?
Well, I was listening to a podcast the other day from the Adam Carolla show, and as I heard a bit where he described a car accident, I thought it contained some pretty interesting vocabulary for our episode. Adam speculates, about how a car accident went down. And this is an accident that happened to someone else, not Adam – a man was driving a car and lost control of the vehicle. So let’s go ahead and listen to Adam as he makes his comments:
I will speculate that he was not wearing a seat belt; I will speculate that the car started to barrel roll and as it rolled, perfectly, the door, from centrifugal force, flew open. And as it was going, as the door was flinging, as it was spinning, he was launched. And if he’d had a seat belt on he wouldn’t have been launched from the car that barrel rolled as the door flung open as it went…
So Adam starts off by saying he thinks the man wasn’t wearing a seat belt. So far, so good. His next guess is that the car started to barrel roll – so what does that mean? Well, picture a barrel and imagine the barrel rolling down a mountain.
That’s what Carolla thinks happened with the car: it barrel rolled, or rolled like a barrel down a hill or a mountain. So I hope you remember this from school – when there’s something rolling like that, or spinning on it axis, centrifugal force is generated. You know that machine that dries clothes that have just been washed – a clothes or tumble drier? It’s able to dry clothes because of centrifugal force.
So Adam says that, because of centrifugal force generated as the car barrel rolled, the door flew open – a bit later on he uses the expression flung open, which basically means the same thing. Flung is the past tense of fling. So centrifugal force pushed the door open, or flung that door open; the door flew open or flung open because there was something forcing it to open.
So with the car barrel rolling down a hill, I guess, and the door flinging – or moving from one side to the other – the driver was launched from the car. The driver was launched, or ejected from the car. Then Adam finishes by saying that if the driver had had a seat belt on, he wouldn’t have been launched from the car that barrel rolled as the door flung open.
Listen to his commentary once again: I will speculate that he was not wearing a seat belt; I will speculate that the car started to barrel roll and as it rolled, perfectly, the door, from centrifugal force, flew open. And as it was going, as the door was flinging, as it was spinning, he was launched. And if he’d had a seat belt on he wouldn’t have been launched from the car that barrel rolled as the door flung open as it went…
So there you go – good vocabulary to describe a very specific situation. Awful accident, by the way! Have you ever been on a car that came barrel rolling down a hill? Let us know in the comments, and talk to you next time.
how the accident went down = como o acidente aconteceu
lost control of the vehicle = perdeu a direção (do veículo)
so far, so good = até aqui tudo bem
spinning on its axis = girando em torno de seu eixo
clothes or tumble drier = máquina de secar roupa
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