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.
I would recommend practicing on a truck at first. The clutch is beefier and can take the punishment of a newbie, and you’ll get more of an idea of how the clutch feels when it engages.
Trucks don’t have too much to do with it. It’s completely different per car in general. I’ve driven in cars that are almost impossible to stall.
It’s less the stalling and more that the clutch is heavy duty and can take the abuse of a learner grinding it a lot more.
Hondas (90s) have been the easiet manual to get moving I’ve ever seen. You practically can’t stall them. (Toyatas too, 90’s Corollas are something else).
And I disagree with the truck - those can make learning harder. One of the hardest I’ve ever driven was a Ford from the 90’s. Heavy as hell clutch that was too small, terrible gear ratios so starting off was a bitch, with big gaps between the gears so you had to run out each gear until you ran out of revs.
But I’ve also driven old trucks with granny gears - an extra-low gear below first for getting moving with a heavy load. Those you just let off the clutch and the truck moves at a walking pace.