If you’re in the mood to try some really, REALLY difficult but very real English, you should try checking out Car Talk.

Not only is it my favorite radio show, but for once people agree with me, and it’s a very popular program. But what kind of program is it?

Well, do you have a car?

If so, . . . well, whoop-di-do! Even if you don’t have a car, you can enjoy Car Talk. It’s a call-in advice show for people having trouble with their cars, run by “Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers” a.k.a. Tom and Ray Magliozzi. They joke, they have puzzles, they play games, and sometimes even solve people’s car problems – sometimes in very unusual ways. They’ve even gotten calls from celebrities, and once from an astronaut on the space shuttle. No foolin’!

One caveat: We’re recommending this program to more advanced listeners. Why? First of all, the hosts of the program speak very quickly. Why do they speak so quickly? Well, because they also use a VERY thick Boston dialect. If you’ve already mastered listening to standard American English pronunciation though, this is a great new challenge. Also, there’s a lot of puns and verbal jokes in this series that you have to be pretty fluent to understand. But to give you a little taste, here’s some of the cast and crew of their show:

Creative Director Drew A. Blank
Warrantee Claim Adjudicator Candace B. Rittenoff
Accounts Payable Administrator Imelda Czechs
Arbitration Expert Viola Fuss
Automotive Medical Researcher Dr. Denton Fender
Chief Legal Counsel Hugh Louis Dewey of Dewey, Cheetham & Howe

If that strikes you as funny, you will like this show. It also means you’ll probably get along well with me! Uh-oh, that means you probably need mental help (I recommend grief councilor Ariel Bummerman, hahaha!)

And along the way, you might even learn how to fix your car . . .