Languages / English / Level 2 · Unit 1

I Took the Subway — Past Movement and Transportation

Lesson 28 of 170 · Level 2 of 6All lessons
In this lesson

You are learning past movement and transportation: you will read the scene it happens in, take apart the pattern behind them (transportation + movement in past tense), hear them in a conversation, rehearse them, and finish by saying one thing out loud to be graded.

The scene

Navigating NYC to find food — subway rides, wrong trains, walking through neighborhoods, finally arriving at the right place. Transportation verbs in the past tense tell half of every New York story.

Getting to Katz's — The Long Way

I wanted to go to Katz's Delicatessen on the Lower East Side. Everyone told me I had to try the pastrami sandwich. So yesterday, I took the subway from Midtown.

I got on the F train at 42nd Street. But I got off at the wrong stop — Delancey instead of 2nd Avenue. I walked for about fifteen minutes in the wrong direction. I got lost in a neighborhood I didn't recognize.

Then I ended up on a street full of small shops and cafes. I asked someone for directions. "Katz's? Go straight three blocks, turn right on Houston." It took me ten more minutes.

When I finally arrived, there was a line outside. I waited twenty minutes. But when I took the first bite of that pastrami sandwich — hot, piled high, impossibly tender — I understood. It was worth every wrong turn.