Long story short: I’m (24M) American, and I’m visiting my long-distance Romanian boyfriend for the first time soon. In Romania, most cars are manual - including all the ones owned by my boyfriend’s family (I’ll be staying with them). I’ve never driven a manual before. His dad told me he can give me a quick lesson, and that I’m welcome to use their cars if I want; otherwise, I can rent an automatic. I don’t have access to any manual cars here in the U.S. to practice on, so I’m not sure what to do.
Takes a bit of practice to get the feel for it but it’s not too hard. 90% of the learning curve is just getting the car rolling from a dead stop without stalling
And learning how to properly shift. While the car surging and stopping was funny while I learned, you don’t want to do that on a busy thoroughfare. Just make sure to practice someplace quiet and you’ll pick it up pretty quick.
Getting the car to start rolling up a hill instead of down it backwards is also an important thing to get the hang of before someone is right behind you in traffic.
Luckily you can always fall back to a handbrake start if you need to, I’ll usually always do that if I’m driving a car I’m not at all used to and find myself in an uphill start.