Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 907, Buying Tools at a Hardware Store.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 907.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in the city of the beautiful city of Los Angeles, California.
Our website is, of course, eslpodcom.
Become a member of ESL Podcast and download a learning guide to this episode.
This episode is a dialogue about buying tools things you use in order to fix other things or make other things at a hardware store, a place where you buy tools.
Let's get started.
Just remember that we have a lot to accomplish today, so let's just get what we need and go, okay?
Sure.
We just need a few tools for our DIY project.
The power tools are over there.
Whoa, we're not getting power tools.
We just need a few simple hand tools.
A hammer, a wrench, a chisel, some pliers, and maybe an extra screwdriver or two.
We would get the job done so much more quickly if we had power tools.
Instead of a hammer, we should get a nail gun.
We also need a power drill and hey, a sander and a table saw.
A table saw?
We're doing some simple repairs, not remodeling our house.
Other women want clothes and jewelry, and you want power tools?
That's right.
You should be counting your lucky stars.
Our dialogue begins with Chuck saying to Ayaka Just remember that we have a lot to accomplish today.
So let's just get what we need and go, okay?
Chuck is telling Ayaka that they have a lot to accomplish today, meaning they have a lot of things they need to do today to get done today.
He just wants to go into the store, get what they need, and leave.
Ayaka says, sure, we just, or only, need a few tools for our DIY project.
DIY is an abbreviation for the phrase, do it yourself.
To do it yourself means to build something or construct something on your own.
If you want a table, you could buy a table or you could do a DIY project, a do-it-yourself project, where you build the table.
Ayaka says the power tools are over there.
Power tools are tools that are electric, that you plug into a wall.
For example, you could have a power drill.
That's a kind of tool that is used to make holes in something.
Power tools are any tools that run on electricity.
Chuck says, whoa, we're not getting any power tools.
That first word, whoa, is used to express surprise.
Chuck is surprised that Ayaka wants to buy some power tools.
He says, we just need a few simple hand tools.
A hand tool is something that is not electric.
It's a tool that you just use your own physical force with, your own bodily force or power.
A hammer, for example, is a hand tool.
It's used to hit things that you need to put into, say, a piece of wood, like a nail.
Chuck says we just need a few simple hand tools.
A hammer, a wrench, a chisel, some pliers, and maybe an extra screwdriver or two.
Hammer, we've just mentioned, is a tool usually that has a wooden handle.
That is, you grab it by a long piece of wood...
And at the end of the wood, there is a heavy metal part that is used to hit usually nails.
Nails are small pieces of metal that you use to attach something or to put something into a piece of wood.
That's a hammer.
A wrench, W-R-E-N-C-H. is a tool made of metal.
The handle, the part that you grab onto with your hand, is long and narrow.
On the top of the tool there is what looks like the letter U turned on its side.
And you are able to make the U smaller or larger in order to fit over say, a pipe, a long round metal tube that you want to turn.
That's a wrench.
A chisel C-H-I-S-E-L is a tool that has a wooden handle and a long, flat piece of metal at the other end.
That is sharp.
It's a way of cutting into wood, for example.
There are other uses for a chisel.
When we think about the great sculptors like Michelangelo, we think of someone with a hammer and a chisel, using the chisel to remove pieces of rock from the marble so that he can make the statue.
That's another use of a chisel.
Pliers, P-L-I-E-R-S, is a tool that looks a little like a pair of scissors.
It's made of usually metal. and is used to grab things.
Not to cut things, typically, but to grab them and turn them or pull them.
A screwdriver.
S-C-R-E-W-D-R-I-V-E-R is a tool, again usually made of metal.
That is looks like a long stick and at one end of the stick is a narrow piece of metal.
That is part of the stick that's used to turn something called a screw.
A screw is a small piece of metal that goes into a piece of wood or other material by turning it.
A nail is a small piece of metal that goes into wood or other material by hitting it.
So that's what a screwdriver does.
It screws or puts the screw into a piece of wood or metal or other material.
Ayaka says, we would get the job done so much more quickly if we had power tools.
Ayaka is saying, yes, we can buy hand tools, but power tools would be quicker.
Instead of a hammer, we should get a nail gun.
The other way of putting a nail into a piece of wood or other material is to buy an electric tool, a power tool called a nail gun.
It's not a real gun.
A nail gun is a power tool that pushes nails into wood in a way that doesn't require you to pound or hit anything.
It's all done by the machine.
A power drill D-R-I-L-L is a tool used to create a narrow, deep hole in a piece of wood or metal or other material.
So Ayaka says that instead of a hammer, we should get a nail gun.
We also need a power drill and, hey, a sander and a table saw.
Ayaka is walking around the hardware store, and she's seeing things that she wants to get.
That's why we have this somewhat unusual expression in the middle of the sentence, and hey.
It here indicates that she has just seen something and she's stopping herself in order to describe what she sees.
In this case, it's something she wants.
It's a sander.
A sander S-A-N-D-E-R is a machine that is used to make wooden surfaces a piece of wood smooth by rubbing or moving back and forth something called sandpaper.
Sandpaper is a piece of paper that has small hard objects on it.
And if you rub it back and forth over a piece of wood, the wood will become smooth.
That's what a sander does.
A sander is an electric power tool.
A table saw is a large machine that is used to cut long pieces of wood.
A saw, S-A-W, could also be a hand tool.
You can have a hand saw that you move back and forth.
It's like a big knife that you're moving back and forth to cut something, such as a piece of wood.
A table saw is a saw that runs on electricity that you would have in your garage or wherever you're working.
That is used to cut long pieces of wood or short pieces of wood, I guess.
Chuck says a table saw.
We're doing some simple repairs, not remodeling our house.
Chuck doesn't like Ayaka's idea of buying all of these power tools.
He says we're doing some simple, some easy repairs.
Repairs R-E-P-A-I-R-S are corrections or modifications to fix something, to get something working again.
If you have a refrigerator and it stops working, you need to get it repaired.
You need to fix whatever the problem is.
Or you can just buy a new refrigerator.
Chuck says that they're not remodeling their house.
To remodel, R-E-M-O-D-E-L, means to make... major or large changes in your house.
If you are remodeling your kitchen, you might be removing all of the things in your kitchen and basically building a new kitchen or changing things significantly.
That's to remodel.
Ayaka says, you never know when you need a good saw and I've always wanted a table saw.
You never know means you can't possibly anticipate when you will, in this case, need a good saw.
Chuck says, other women want clothes and jewelry, and you want power tools?
Chuck is surprised that Ayaka wants to buy these tools which we might associate more traditionally with men.
Ayaka says, that's right, that's correct.
You should be counting your lucky stars.
To count, C-O-U-N-T, your lucky stars, means to be very grateful for something that has happened, something that you don't have any control over.
What Ayaka is saying here, somewhat jokingly, is that Chuck is a very lucky husband because his wife doesn't want to go out and spend money and buy clothes and jewelry like perhaps some other wives do.
No, his wife just wants to buy power tools.
Now let's listen to the dialogue, this time at a normal speed.
Just remember that we have a lot to accomplish today, so let's just get what we need and go, okay?
Sure.
We just need a few tools for our DIY project.
The power tools are over there.
Whoa, we're not getting any power tools.
We just need a few simple hand tools.
A hammer, a wrench, a chisel, some pliers, and maybe an extra screwdriver or two.
We would get the job done so much more quickly if we had power tools.
Instead of a hammer, we should get a nail gun.
We also need a power drill and, hey, a sander and a table saw.
A table saw?
We're doing some simple repairs, not remodeling our house.
You never know when you need a good saw, and I've always wanted a table saw.
Other women want clothes and jewelry, and you want power tools?
That's right.
You should be counting your lucky stars.
We count our lucky stars for having the wonderful scriptwriter, Dr. Lucy Say, writing for us.
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.
