Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 875, Shopping at the Supermarket.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 875.
I'm your host, Dr. Jeff McQuillan.
On there, you can find our ESL podcast store with additional courses in business and daily English.
This episode is a dialogue between someone who works at a grocery store a store where you buy food and a customer.
Let's get started.
Can I help you find something?
Yes, I'm looking for coffee.
That's on aisle three.
Let me show you where it is.
Thanks.
Hmm, I don't see the jitters brand that I normally buy.
It looks like we're out of stock.
We should get another shipment next week.
Okay, I'll check back.
I'm also looking for the fructose brand soda, but I didn't see it in the soda aisle.
I'm afraid that's been discontinued.
Their parent company no longer makes soda.
Really?
I love fructose soda.
How about the mushy brand bread?
I didn't see it when I checked the bread aisle.
We no longer stock the mushy brand.
There were some quality control issues at the company, so we've pulled all of their products from the shelves.
Can I help you find anything else?
No.
I guess I'll just have to try some new brands.
Oh, yes.
Do you carry worm organic apples?
We normally do, but they're out of season right now.
We won't have any until early summer.
All of this shopping, and I have nothing to show for it.
I guess I'm going home empty-handed.
We do have chocolate cakes and cookies on sale.
I'm there.
The person who begins our dialogue is...
An employee of the grocery store, of the supermarket, he's what we would call a stalker.
S-T-O-C-K-E-R.
A stalker is a person who puts the products, who puts the food items on the shelves.
He or she is the person who takes them out of a box and puts them up in a place where you can see them, take them and then buy them.
The stalker says to one of the customers named Meg, Can I help you find something?
Meg says, Yes, I'm looking for coffee.
The stalker says, That's on Aisle 3.
Let me show you where it is.
Aisle, A-I-S-L-E, refers to a passage, a place where you can walk in between two other things.
In this case, in a grocery store, in a supermarket, you have long shelves and the shelves are arranged so that you can walk in between them in order to find what you need and take it off the shelf.
That space where you walk, that area where you walk is called an aisle.
Many supermarkets number the aisles so that if you are looking for something as Meg was looking for coffee the person can just tell you where to go.
It's in aisle three.
It's in aisle four.
Then you know exactly where you need to go.
Meg says, thanks.
I don't see the Jitters brand I normally buy.
Meg is looking for a particular kind of coffee, a specific brand, B-R-A-N-D.
Brand is the name that the company gives their product.
You could have Diet Coke.
That would be a brand or We have something here in the U.S. called Coke Zero.
That's the brand.
Or Coca-Cola itself could be considered a brand.
Meg is looking for a particular kind of coffee, and she doesn't see it there.
The stocker says it looks like we're out of stock.
To be out of stock means not to have available for sale something that you normally sell.
Normally they sell this kind of coffee, but everyone came in and bought it and now they don't have any more.
They're out of stock.
Stock, I should say, refers to the things that the store sells.
The opposite of out of stock is in stock.
Do you have this in stock?
That means do you have that item available for sale?
The coffee Meg wants is out of stock.
The stocker tells her, though, that they should get another shipment next week.
A shipment.
S-H-I-P-M-E-N-T is when you get a large group of something delivered to your house or, more typically, to your business, in this case, to the supermarket.
Maybe every day they'll get a new shipment of vegetables or Boxes of vegetables that will come in and they will sell.
That's a shipment.
Meg says, okay, I'll check back.
To check back is a two-word phrasal verb meaning to come back at a later time to see if you have it.
I'll check back next week means I will come back next week and see if you have it.
Meg says, I'm also looking for the Fructose brand soda, but I don't see it in the soda aisle.
The stalker says, I'm afraid, I'm sorry to tell you, that's been discontinued.
To discontinue something is to no longer make it available, perhaps because it isn't very popular, or maybe it was just too expensive for the store to buy and sell.
To discontinue, to stop making something available.
The stalker says the parent company of the brand that Meg wants no longer makes soda.
A parent company is a large company that owns usually smaller divisions or smaller sections of their company that make different kinds of products.
The parent company is the company that is in charge of all the other small companies or, in this case, divisions of that company.
Meg says, really?
I love fructose soda.
She's disappointed.
Then she asks, how about the mushy brand bread?
How about means, do you have, in this case, the mushy brand bread?
These are not, I should say, real brands that you will find in an American supermarket.
Meg says, I didn't see the mushy brand bread when I checked the bread aisle.
The stocker says, we no longer stock the mushy brand.
Here notice stock is used as a verb, meaning to make available, to carry, to keep something available to sell.
The stocker is saying the supermarket no longer stocks this brand.
It is no longer available.
The company is still making that bread, but this supermarket no longer stocks it.
He says there were some quality control issues at the company so we pulled all of our products from the shelves.
Quality control refers to the process, the steps that a company has to make sure that what they make is good quality is what it is supposed to be.
The stalker says this company had some quality control issues.
He really means problems.
So the supermarket pulled their products.
To pull here means to stop selling something to your customers, to no longer make it available for sale.
That's what the stalker means here when he says that we've pulled all their products.
He says we've pulled all their products from the shelves.
Shelves is the plural of shelf, S-H-E-L-F.
A shelf, as I mentioned earlier, is a place where the food is put, so that you can see it and take it and buy it.
That's a shelf.
It's a place where you place things.
You put things either for someone to buy or simply to keep them there.
Shelves usually have three or four different sections in a grocery store, and each section has a space in between it so that you can put the products there.
The stocker says, Can I help you find anything else?
Meg says, No, I guess I'll just have to try some new brands.
Oh, yes.
Do you carry worm organic apples?
To carry here means to sell in your store, to have in stock, or to normally have in stock.
Something that you normally sell is something that you carry.
Meg is asking if the supermarket carries a certain kind of organic apple.
Organic, O-R-G-A-N-I-C, refers to food that is grown without any artificial or extra chemicals.
Organic food is very popular now in certain parts of the United States and other countries, of course.
The stalker says we normally do.
We normally do have these kinds of apples in stock, but they're out of season right now.
To be out of season means that this particular food is not being grown or is not available in a certain area.
If you want to buy food that is grown from your local area, from your area where you live, there'll be parts of the year when certain kinds of food is not available because it's not being grown in that area at that time.
In Minnesota, for example, where it's very cold, you can't get any fresh vegetables during the winter time because they're not able to grow the food at that time.
Of course you can get vegetables.
You can get them from other parts of the country or other parts of the world, and that's exactly what we do.
But if you only want to buy them from a certain area, it's likely that that area at some point during the year will not have that food available.
And therefore, it will be out of season.
The stocker says we won't have any of these apples until early summer.
Meg says all of this shopping and I have nothing to show for it.
The expression to have nothing to show for.
It means I've done a lot of work but I don't have any results.
I don't have what I wanted to have.
Meg says, I guess I'm going home empty-handed.
To be empty, E-M-P-T-Y, hyphen, handed, H-A-N-D-E-D, means you don't have anything.
Literally, you don't have anything in your hands.
Your hands are empty.
To go home empty-handed means to go home without having purchased or bought anything.
The stalker says...
The stalker is telling Meg that even though they don't have these other kinds of food, they still have cakes and cookies.
Meg gets excited and says, I'm there.
I'm.
There is a phrase that we use informally to show that you plan on doing something and that you are very excited about it.
Someone may say, oh, the new Star Wars movie is coming out next year.
And you say, oh, I'm there, meaning I am definitely going to be there.
I probably will not be there, but that's how we would use that particular expression.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Can I help you find something?
Yes, I'm looking for coffee.
That's on aisle three.
Let me show you where it is.
Thanks.
Hmm, I don't see the Jitters brand that I normally buy.
It looks like we're out of stock.
We should get another shipment next week.
Okay, I'll check back.
I'm also looking for the fructose brand soda, but I didn't see it in the soda aisle.
I'm afraid that's been discontinued.
Their parent company no longer makes soda.
Really?
I love fructose soda.
How about the mushy brand bread?
I didn't see it when I checked the bread aisle.
We no longer stock the mushy brand.
There were some quality control issues at the company, so we've pulled all of their products from the shelves.
Can I help you find anything else?
No, I guess I'll just have to try some new brands.
Oh yes, do you carry worm organic apples?
We normally do, but they're out of season right now.
We won't have any until early summer.
All of the shopping and I have nothing to show for it.
I guess I'm going home empty-handed.
We do have chocolate cakes and cookies on sale.
I'm there.
Good scripts are never out of season here at ESL Podcast.
We always have them in stock because they're grown by the wonderful Dr. Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2013 by the Center for Educational Development.
