Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 941, Types of Shopping Areas.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 941.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
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This episode is going to be about places where you can go and buy things.
Sounds like fun.
Let's get started.
Come on.
We only have two more hours before the stores close and I want to make it to the outlet stores.
I thought that when you asked if I wanted to spend the day together, you meant we'd go somewhere for lunch, go to a movie or just hang out.
Isn't this much more fun?
Shopping centers are like Disneyland.
This wasn't exactly what I had in mind.
Just look.
You have two shopping malls, retail stores, outlet stores, department stores and specialty stores.
What more could you want?
That's great for you, but what am I supposed to do?
You can come with me, watch me try on clothes, and help me decide what to buy.
Come on, I want to go to those stores in the strip mall over there.
Why don't I just find a place to get a snack and wait for you?
I'm just dead weight when it comes to shopping.
But I thought you wanted to spend the day together.
I did, but I didn't know I'd have to go to shopping hell to do it.
Sarah begins by saying to Aidan Come on, we only have two more hours before the stores close and I want to make it to the outlet stores.
Come on is something you say to someone when you want them, in this case, to come with you to get moving.
Sarah says they have only two more hours before the stores close and she wants to make it to the outlet stores.
To make it there means to get there before they close.
An outlet.
O-U-T-L-E-T store is a store that sells a famous company or a famous brand's clothing at a lower price, at a discounted price.
An outlet store could, for example, sell things by Gucci or by one of the big fashion designers, but they sell it at a very low price compared to what you would normally pay for it.
Aidan says I thought that when you asked if I wanted to spend the day together, you meant we'd go somewhere for lunch, go to a movie or just hang out.
Sarah invited Aidan to spend the day with her.
Aidan thought it was going to be doing something fun, like going to a movie or...
Just hanging out.
To hang H-A-N-G out is a two-word phrasal verb meaning to spend time with another person in a relaxed way, without really any plans, without trying to get anything done.
You may just go and sit with this person and talk.
Sarah says, isn't this much more fun?
That is, isn't going shopping more fun?
Shopping centers are like Disneyland.
A shopping center is an area where you have many different stores that are close to each other.
Usually shopping centers have a big place for you to park a parking lot or a building where you can park.
At least here in Los Angeles, that's what all the shopping centers have.
Disneyland is a theme park, an entertainment park area in Southern California, not too far from Los Angeles, where people, I guess, go and have a good time.
Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck and other Disney characters can be found at Disneyland.
What Sarah is referring to here is a very fun place to go.
That's why she says shopping centers are like Disneyland.
It's just like going to Disneyland.
You can have just as much fun.
Aidan doesn't agree.
He To have something in mind.
M-I-N-D is a common expression, meaning to be thinking about a particular thing.
Someone says, I want to go to a new restaurant.
And you say, well, what did you have in mind?
What were you thinking of?
What ideas did you have?
Sarah says just look, you have two shopping malls retail stores, outlet stores, department stores and specialty stores.
What more could you want?
Sarah is explaining to Aidan why this place that they have gone to is so interesting and so exciting.
She's pointing to all of these different places saying, just look, just look at all of these places.
You have two shopping malls.
A shopping mall, M-A-L-L, is a shopping center that is all in one big building.
A shopping center is typically, or can be, A place where you walk outside to get from store to store.
There are several buildings next to each other, usually with a parking lot in front for cars.
A shopping mall is a huge building where you don't have to walk outside to go from one store to another.
The original concept of shopping malls began in part in my home state of Minnesota.
Because it's so cold during the winter.
They wanted to build a place where people could go shopping and not have to walk outside to go from one store to another.
That's at least one of the reasons why they built shopping malls.
Now there are shopping malls all over the United States and all over the world.
Usually when we use the term shopping mall, we're always referring to one of these large buildings.
When we say shopping center, we are usually talking about a place where you have to walk outside to get from store to store.
A retail store is really any store that sells anything to anyone who comes in the door.
The word retail, R-E-T-A-I-L, is used to distinguish it from a wholesale store.
A wholesale W-H-O-L-E S-A-L-E store is a place where you have to be a business or belong to a large group in order to buy things.
And typically when you do buy things, you can buy them at a discount.
The idea then, is that you would buy these things and then sell them to someone else at a retail store.
So a wholesale store is sort of a store for other stores.
Nowadays, however, things have gotten more confusing.
You'll see stores that will sell to individual members of the public, individual people, but call themselves a wholesale store or a wholesale outlet.
The word wholesale is associated in people's minds with a discount, a lower price, and that's why we have now retail stores that sell to individuals and wholesale stores that sell to individuals.
Sarah goes on and talks about the other kinds of shopping areas.
She mentions department stores.
A department store is a large store in a single building that sells a lot of different kinds of things.
They might sell clothing.
They might sell appliances for your kitchen.
They might sell gym equipment.
They might sell jewelry.
All of these different products are in one single building, in one single store.
That's a department store.
There are different sections or departments that sell different things within the store.
A specialty store.
Is is a store that sells only one kind of item, often something that is very specific.
For example, it might be a store that sells Rolex watches.
A very expensive watch and that's all they sell is just that kind of watch.
That would be a very good example of a specialty store.
Sarah asks Aidan, what more could you want?
This is an expression meaning this is everything.
This is the best.
How could you possibly want to do anything else or want anything else?
Aidan says, that's great for you, but what am I supposed to do?
Supposed to do here means expected to do.
Sarah says, you can come with me, watch me try on clothes, and help me decide what to buy.
To try on clothes is a phrasal verb meaning to put them on in the store to see if you want to buy them.
Most stores that sell clothing will allow you to put the clothing on to see if it looks good on you.
When I do that, the clothes never look good on me.
The idea is that if you can try them on, you will be more likely to buy them.
Sarah is telling Aidan that she is going to go and try on clothes and And Aiden can watch her and help her decide which clothes to buy.
Come on, she says, I want to go to those stores in the strip mall over there.
The word strip, S-T-R-I-P, can have a couple of different meanings in English.
It can mean to take your clothes off.
It can also refer to a long, narrow piece of some material.
The term strip mall refers to a small shopping center.
That is usually just one small strip of buildings, maybe four or five buildings or four or five stores in a single building, all next to each other, with a small parking lot out in front.
So a strip mall is a kind of shopping center that is very small.
Often it just has five or six stores in it.
Aidan says, why don't I just find a place to get a snack and wait for you?
A snack would be a small something to eat.
He says, I'm just dead weight when it comes to shopping.
The term dead weight W-E-I-G-H-T refers to someone or something that is making a situation more difficult, because either the person or the thing doesn't really help very much, doesn't really add anything.
In fact, it slows things down, perhaps.
That would be dead weight.
If you say he was dead weight or You mean he didn't help very much.
It was more of a burden to have him there than if he were not there.
Aidan says he's dead weight when it comes to shopping, meaning regarding or related to shopping.
Sarah says, but I thought you wanted to spend the day together.
Aidan says, I did, meaning I did want to spend the day together.
But I didn't know I'd have to go to a shopping hell to do it.
A shopping hell, H-E-L-L, would be a terrible place to go.
Hell is the opposite of heaven in Hebrew.
Certain religious traditions, especially in the Christian religious tradition, hell is where you go if you don't go to heaven, or at least if you're not eventually going to go to heaven.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Come on, we only have two more hours before the stores close and I want to make it to the outlet stores.
I thought that when you asked if I wanted to spend the day together, you meant we'd go somewhere for lunch, go to a movie or just hang out.
Isn't this much more fun?
Shopping centers are like Disneyland.
This wasn't exactly what I had in mind.
Just look.
We have two shopping malls, retail stores, outlet stores, department stores, and specialty stores.
What more could you want?
That's great for you, but what am I supposed to do?
You can come with me, watch me try on clothes, and help me decide what to buy.
Come on, I want to go to those stores in the strip mall over there.
Why don't I just find a place to get a snack and wait for you?
I'm just dead weight when it comes to shopping.
But I thought you wanted to spend the day together.
I did, but I didn't know I'd have to go to shopping hell to do it.
When it comes to writing scripts, there's no one better than our own script writer, 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.
