ELS students have all sorts of different jobs and hobbies. This summer, Raphael Abbate, a famous race car driver from Brazil, came to study at the center in St. Paul.

The 19-year-old was the youngest competitor at this year's F2000 National Championship in which he came in 4th. Between ELS classes, Raphael raced all over the USA. Listen to him discuss how he used his new English skills on the race track.

Raphael:  Hello?

Jason:  Hi, Raphael, thanks for doing this interview.

Raphael:  Thanks.

Jason:  You’re a race car driver. You’ve come to the US to study English at an ELS center. How did you decide to do that?

Raphael:  This year, I had the plan to race in the United States, to do my next step in my career, so I had to improve my English. My team shop is here in Minnesota, so I decided to come here and I found ELS. It was the best option to study English. So I am here now studying English because I need to talk with media. I need to do interviews. I need to pass information to my team, to my engineer, to my mechanic, so English is something very, very important to my career.

Jason:  Did you learn a lot of English this summer at ELS?

Raphael:  Yes. I stayed here, I think, five months and we have good teachers, good classrooms, so my fluency is much better now and I can speak English.

Jason:  When you first got to ELS and you told your classmates, “Hi, my name’s Raphael and I’m a racecar driver,” did they believe you?

Raphael:  I think so. It’s different from what most people do, but I made some friends from other countries and had a really good time here.

Jason:  So, the last thing we were hoping is you could do an English lesson about a racing term. I was wondering if you could explain, what does it mean to close in on someone on the track.

Raphael:  You start to focus on the car that is ahead of you and you start to do your best. You can’t do any mistakes. You need to use all of the track, all of the engine, and then you catch the guy. When you find the perfect momentum, you can overtake the guy. For me, this is close in.

Jason:  That’s great. Yeah. Close in just means to get closer to something, whether it’s an opponent in a race, or a goal you have in life. Are you closing on speaking perfect English?

Raphael:  Uh-huh. Yeah, I think so.

Jason:  Nice. I do.

Raphael wanted to study English when he came to the US to race this summer. He discovered that ELS was the best place to go--luckily there was a center in the same city as his racing team.

He liked his teachers and learned a lot. When the press wanted to talk to him after his races, he used the English he learned in class. His new skills also helped him communicate with his teammates and crew.

Of course, Raphael is best at English when he's talking about his passion, racing. So he gave a quick English lesson on the phrase close in. He explains that to close in means to get closer to something. Before he passes a competitor on the track, he closes in on him.

You can also close in something outside of a race. Raphael is closing in on speaking perfect English. What goal are you closing in on?

Raphael says that ELS was the best place for him to study English. Best is the superlative form of the adjective good.

A superlative is a special type of adjective that we use to compare more than two things. There are many different places where you can study English. But for Raphel, ELS was the best.

A comparative is a special type of adjective that we use to compare just two things. For example, Raphael says that his English is better now. He is comparing two things, his English before he studied at ELS, and his English now. Better is the comparative form of the adjective good.

Do you know the comparative and superlative forms of the adjective bad?