Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 168, The Home Improvement Store.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 168.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Before we start today's podcast, a reminder that we have an all new website.
Wwweslpodcom has been completely redesigned and we now offer an exciting new service called For those that want even more from ESL Podcast.
You can sign up to get the complete transcript of our podcast, everything we say on the podcast, as well as lots of additional tips and information on English and the English expressions that we use in our podcasts each week.
So be sure to go to our website and take a look.
You can also see a free sample of these new learning guides for each podcast.
So you can see exactly what new exciting things we have to offer.
Today's podcast is called The Home Improvement Store, and a home improvement store is a place you go to buy things to fix your house.
So let's go.
When you own a house, there is always something that needs work.
I've been putting off repainting the garage, and I decided that I would do it this weekend.
I went to the home improvement store early in the morning to get the supplies I'd need.
I walked into the huge store and began looking for the paint department.
I walked through the garden center and the lumber department, but couldn't find the paint supplies.
I tried to find a store employee to ask about it, but there was no one in sight.
I walked down the plumbing aisles and finally found the paint department.
I looked at the paint swatches and found the color I wanted.
I took a number to have my paint mixed.
When my number was called, I gave the employee the swatch of the color I wanted and he told me he would call me again when it was ready.
In the meantime, I got some brushes and rags.
After about 20 minutes the employee called my number and I picked up my paint.
I took the paint and the other supplies and got into a checkout line.
After all that, I was exhausted and I hadn't even started painting yet.
Maybe I'll do that next weekend.
In this podcast, I go to the home improvement store.
Again, that's a place where you can buy things to fix or change your house.
I start the story by saying that when you own a house, there is always something that needs work.
To need work means to need improving.
We use this in lots of different contexts.
This essay needs.
Work means it needs to be better, it needs to be improved.
Or you can say, boy, his singing really needs work.
That's what people say about me.
Means it can be a lot, lot better.
It needs to be improved.
Well, a house always has something that needs work, that you have to fix or change.
I say that I've been putting off repainting the garage, and I decided I would do it this weekend.
To put off, two words, P-U-T-O-F-F.
To put off means to delay, to wait, to not do something now and decide to do it later.
I'm going to put off going to the dentist until I don't have any more teeth left.
Then I will go to the dentist.
Hmm.
Not a good idea.
Well, to put off things means to wait, to delay.
Usually we put off things that we don't like, that we don't want to do.
I'm putting off paying my taxes this year.
I don't want to pay my taxes.
But if I don't, the government will put me in jail.
So I will pay them.
Well, in the story, I'm putting off repainting the garage.
Well, to paint, of course, P-A-I-N-T means to put paint on a wall or outside your house to apply paint.
The verb to repaint means, of course, to paint again.
And so, for example, if you paint the outside of your house wooden house and after a few years the paint is going to start to come off,
We would say it's going to start to peel, P-E-E-L, means it starts to slowly come off the wood.
Well, then you have to put new paint on there.
You have to repaint it.
And my garage needs to be repainted.
And this is true.
If I took a picture of my garage, you would see it needs to be repainted.
And my wife has been asking me to do that, and I've been putting it off.
Well, I finally decided to go to the home improvement store, and in the United States there are several big home improvement stores that have lots of different things.
Well, I went early in the morning to get the supplies I'd need.
The supplies S-U-P-P-L-I-E-S are all of the things that you need to do something, to perform something.
Usually these are tools or instruments or materials that you use to do something, to build something, for example.
You can have art supplies.
If you are... painting someone's picture, you can get the supplies that you need.
Those are the paint and the paintbrush and so forth.
Well, I went to a huge store and huge H-U-G-E some people pronounce that huge, with the H almost not even being pronounced, and But a huge store is, of course, a large store, a very large store.
I began by looking in the paint department.
The different sections of a store are often called departments, D-E-P-A-R-T-M-E-N-T.
A department is a section or a division of a store.
We also have what are called department stores, and those are stores that sell clothes and jewelry and shoes, all sorts of different things beds, refrigerators.
Those are called department stores because they have different departments, different sections.
Well, in a home improvement store, they have different sections.
We don't call it a department store, but it does have departments.
And so I go to the paint department looking for, guess what?
Paint.
That's right.
And I then walked through the garden center.
The garden center G-A-R-D-E-N is a place where you can buy plants and and trees and bushes things that you would put in a garden.
And a garden is usually what you have in the back of a house.
Many houses in the United States have gardens in the back.
Well, I walked through the garden center.
And again, garden center is the same as garden department.
And I also walk through the lumber department.
The lumber department, L-U-M-B-E-R, is where you buy wood if you're going to build something.
Another word for wood is lumber.
And a person who works in cutting down trees used to be called a lumberjack, sometimes a lumberjack J-A-C-K.
But lumber is just a general term for wood, wood that you use to build something.
Well, I walked through the garden center and the lumber department, but I could not find the paint supplies.
I tried to find a store employee to ask, but there was no one in sight.
I-N-S-I-G-H-T, two words.
When we say there's no one in sight, we mean there is no one that I can see.
There is no one in that area.
This is actually pretty common in these home improvement stores.
They're so big that when you go into them, it's very difficult to find an employee to help you.
Well, this is what we mean by no one in sight.
There's no one that you can see.
I went to the beach.
It was raining, and there was no one in sight.
It means I couldn't see anyone.
No one was there.
Well, I walked down the plumbing aisles and finally found the paint department.
Plumbing, P-L-U-M-B-I-N-G. refers to the pipes that bring water in and out of your house.
They bring other things out of your house too, but water is one thing they bring in.
So if you want to have water in your house, you have to have a plumber P-L-U-M-B-E-R a person who will put the plumbing or the pipes together.
And of course, pipes.
P-I-P-E-S are round, long things, usually made of metal or plastic, that you can put water through.
Well, that's the plumbing department, but I use the word aisle here, A-I-S-L-E-S.
An aisle is where you walk in between two different, usually in a store, two different shelves.
A shelf S-H-E-L-F singular.
Shelves S-H-E-L-V-E-S plural are where you put things that people can buy.
And so the aisle is a small path where you walk in between these two shelves that have all of the things that you are looking for, that you are going to buy.
Well, finally I find the paint department and I take a look at the paint swatches.
A swatch S-W-A-T-C-H is a little sample of usually either a color of paint or Or.
It could also be a swatch of cloth, of the material that you make clothes out of.
A swatch is a small sample of something usually, so you can see what the color is and if it's a cloth, if it's something that you make clothes out of, you can feel it as well as see the color.
So a paint swatch is a little.
Usually it's a little card, a little piece of paper that has maybe one inch or two inches.
A square of one inch or two inches has the color.
So you can see the color and you can take a paint swatch and you can hold it next to the wall that you are going to paint and you can see what the color would be.
Well, I looked at the paint swatches and I took a number to have my paint mixed.
When you go to the home improvement stores and you want to buy some paint and you want a particular color, usually they have to make that color for you.
They have to mix the paint.
I say I take a number and that means that they have in many stores little paper numbers or paper pieces of paper that have numbers on them and you take one and then you wait until they say your number we would say until they call your number, and then you can go up and they will help you.
So it's a way of the store being able to help people order.
That is, the first people who get there will get help first and the last people who get there will be helped last.
Well, I took a number and when my number was called, when they said my number number 17, and then I go, that's me and I go up and I give them the little piece of paper that says 17 on it.
Well, I gave the employee the swatch of the color i wanted and he told me he would call me again when it was ready.
So in the meantime i got some brushes and rags.
In the mean time, m-e-a-n-t-i-m-e all one word means while i was waiting, while something else was happening.
In the meantime is when you are waiting for something else and so you decide to do something different while you are waiting.
Well, while I was waiting, in the meantime, I got some brushes.
And, of course, a brush.
B-R-U-S-H is what you use to put the paint on the wall or on the house or the garage.
A rag R-A-G is a small towel, a small piece of cloth that you use to clean things or to wipe up something that's dirty.
After about 20 minutes then, the employee called my number, said, this is ready.
I picked up my paint and I went to the checkout line.
The checkout line, C-H-E-C-K-O-U-T, is the place where you pay for something in a big store.
And of course, there are always lots of people waiting, and so we call it a checkout line.
Well, I end my story by saying, after all of that...
I was exhausted.
After all of that, or you can say after all that with no of.
They both mean the same.
That expression after all of that means after I have finished doing all of those things, or after all of those things were completed.
I was exhausted.
To be exhausted, E-X-H-A-U-S-T-E-D, to be exhausted means to be very, very tired.
And because I'm very tired, I decide that I will actually start painting next week.
Of course, what I am doing is putting it off again.
Now let's listen to the story, this time at a native rate of speech.
When you own a house, there is always something that needs work.
I've been putting off repainting the garage, and I decided that I would do it this weekend.
I went to the home improvement store early in the morning to get the supplies I'd need.
I walked into the huge store and began looking for the paint department.
I walked through the garden center and the lumber department, but I couldn't find the paint supplies.
I tried to find a store employee to ask about it, but there was no one in sight.
I walked down the plumbing aisles, and finally I found the paint department.
I looked at the paint swatches and found the color I wanted.
I took a number to have my paint mixed.
When my number was called, I gave the employee the swatch of the color I wanted and he told me he would call me again when it was ready.
In the meantime, I got some brushes and rags.
After about 20 minutes, the employee called my number and I picked up my paint.
I took the paint and the other supplies and got into a checkout line.
After all that, I was exhausted, and I hadn't even started painting yet.
Maybe I'll do that next weekend.
The script for today's podcast was written by Dr. Lucy Say.
That's all we have time for today.
Remember, if you have suggestions or ideas about ESL Podcast, be sure to email us at eslpod, at eslpodcom.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thanks for listening.
We'll see you next time on ESL Podcast.
English as a Second Language Podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
This podcast is copyright 2006.
