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Hey everybody, this is Connor and you're listening to episode 83 of the Listening Time Podcast.
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Alright, well today we're going to talk about street markets.
So this will be a fun topic because a lot of people like going to street markets and in different countries there are different types of street markets.
So I want to talk about a few different types of street markets in different countries.
I think that'll be a good topic to talk about today.
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All right, let's get started.
Are your ears ready?
You know what time it is.
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Okay, so let's talk about street markets.
Street markets are markets that happen in the street usually.
Or they might happen in a parking lot or something like that.
Maybe by a shopping mall in different areas, but they happen outside and they're usually just temporary.
So people have to put up these stalls or stands or booths.
We have different words for these things.
These are these little kind of like tents where people set up their tables and products, and We can usually call these stands like.
I bought tacos from that stand, for example.
So people have to set up these stands whenever these markets happen.
And then when the market is over, when the time ends, they have to take down these stands.
In English, we use that phrasal verb take down to mean that you disassemble something.
You take it apart and put it away.
So people have to take down these stalls when the market hours are over.
So that's a street market and there are different types of street markets in different countries.
I want to start by talking about farmers markets in the US.
So a farmers market is a street market where farmers can come or people that sell products not always farmers, but a lot of times it's farmers selling.
They will come and sell their products directly to consumers, directly to normal people.
So they don't have to sell their products to grocery stores who sell them to normal people, right?
These farmers can just sell their products to consumers directly and via these farmers markets, so they might sell different fruits and vegetables, other types of food, they can sell drinks, they can sell plants and even animals sometimes, but there's a lot of variety that's sold there and a lot of this food is organic, so it doesn't have pesticides or herbicides and the farming techniques are very good compared to the farming techniques used elsewhere.
In English when we use the word elsewhere we're saying in other places.
So the farming techniques used to produce this food at farmers markets is usually better than elsewhere.
And so this is high quality food.
It's usually very good, nutritious, organic, like I mentioned.
And so people view this as kind of like an expensive market.
I don't know for sure if farmers markets are always more expensive than other places, but but a lot of people have this perception of farmer's markets that you'll have to spend a little more money at these places.
I've also seen that this isn't always true.
I've read articles about this that this is more something in our mind, but in reality it's not that expensive.
It's not much more expensive than other places, but i don't know because i haven't been to a farmer's market in a while, but i think that they have good food and if you want to buy good quality food and buy directly from farmers, then i think this is a great option.
I like farmers markets and i think they're cool places to just walk around and And they often give you free samples of food at farmers markets.
So maybe someone is selling a homemade jam and they want to give people free samples so that they might want to buy this jam.
That's very common at farmers markets.
So you can often get a little free food when you go.
So there are different farmers markets in different parts of the city once a week, usually.
So, for example, maybe every Monday there's this one farmers market on one street and And then every Saturday there's a different farmer's market on a different street.
And at least in my home city, this is normal.
So there are different farmer's markets every day and they're there once a week usually.
All right, now let's talk about swap meets.
So a swap meet is a big market where a lot of things are sold.
Swap meets are also called flea markets.
Some people might use that term.
Some people might use the term swap meet.
I think they're the same thing.
And these are big markets in the US, like I mentioned, that sell a lot of different items.
They sell a lot of used items.
So you might have used furniture, clothes, clothes. other items, all kinds of things.
And you can usually find a lot of vintage type things or antiques and stuff like that.
But you can also find modern things as well.
And at these markets, they also sell food.
So you can go and eat meals there while you shop or So they sell all kinds of things.
These are really big markets.
I've only been to one or two in the US, so I don't have much experience with these.
But sometimes they can be just seasonal, like every once in a while they have a swap meet in a certain space parking lot or something like that.
But some of them have become more regular.
So maybe even once a week or twice a month or something like that.
So it really just depends on the swap meet.
But there's something for everyone there.
I think if you go to a swap meet in the US you'll probably find at least one or two things of interest because, like I said, they have all kinds of stuff.
And if I'm not mistaken, I think that it's usually at a good price.
So swap meets aren't considered to be expensive places.
Swap meets are usually thought of as being pretty cheap.
You can find products there that might cost more if you bought them somewhere else.
So this is an advantage to going to swap meets.
Okay, now i want to talk about the equivalent of swap meats in mexico.
So in mexico we have these markets called tianguis, and so this is pretty much a swap meet, but these are very regular, so they're every week, once a week, in different places.
So, for example, every saturday morning There will be tianguis in a certain neighborhood, right?
Or every Wednesday afternoon, there will be one in another neighborhood.
So these are regular, usually every week.
And some of them are a little bit smaller and some of them are huge.
There are some huge markets in Mexico where all the traffic has to go around and reroute and go somewhere else, because these markets can take up a very big space in different neighborhoods.
So you have to know. what day it is what time it is if you're driving through certain neighborhoods because if you drive through the tianguis it's going to be very hard to get through it's going to be very slow and you're probably going to have to go in a different direction to get around this market So you can find anything and everything at these markets.
So you can find a lot of different products for pretty cheap and you can find new items.
So I mentioned that at swap meets in the U.S. there are a lot of used and new items available.
I think at most tianguis in Mexico, most of the items are new.
I could be wrong.
There could be a lot of used items at certain markets, but the ones that I've been to usually sell new items.
I think in countries outside the US people don't like used items as much.
In the U S people love going to used clothing stores and things like that.
So that isn't quite as popular in other places.
So with these markets in Mexico, these new items are sold for cheap.
They're very accessible.
So you can buy clothes, you can buy um other small items, you can buy bigger things furniture, you can buy all kinds of things maybe even electronics or other things like that for cheap.
So I go to these types of markets once in a while, usually if we need to buy presents for people.
So if we don't know what gift to buy someone, we might go to one of these markets and just look around and see what they have and buy a cheap gift there.
This is something that we do sometimes.
And there's actually a lot of good food at these markets in Mexico.
So you can often find very good tacos or very good seasonal fruit and things like that.
So I like eating at these markets.
I like buying food there.
I try to find the stands that have a lot of people, because that probably means that the food there is good.
And I like to buy food there, sometimes breakfast or lunch or whatever.
There's a lot of good food at these markets.
And there's some interesting items there.
I remember in the past when I used to go, I would always see pirated movies.
In English, the term pirated means that some product was produced illegally.
So people would sell these movies illegally because they The movie had just barely come out in theaters, like it came out in theaters yesterday.
And today, somehow they're selling DVDs of this movie at these markets.
So you can buy some illegal products like that at these markets and other interesting stuff as well.
And, like I said, they have these markets every week, so this is a regular thing and some people actually go every week i definitely don't, but a lot of people do.
They like to just walk around these markets and it's pretty entertaining for a lot of people.
And there's another type of market that I've started to see a lot more of in Mexico.
But this is specifically in neighborhoods like mine that are pretty hip and cool, we would say.
I don't think this is popular in a lot of other types of neighborhoods, but in some of the nicer neighborhoods or the cool, hip neighborhoods, we have these new markets and we use the term bazaar in spanish.
In english we have this word bazaar actually, and in english we usually use that word to refer to markets in africa, the middle east, southern asia, certain style of market in certain countries, but that word is used in Spanish to describe these kind of smaller hip, cool markets and here they have all A lot of used clothes sometimes, sometimes new items.
They have food.
They have a lot of different types of things, a lot of different products.
Sometimes they sell pet products like things for your dog.
They might sell makeup, a lot of different types of things.
But these markets look more stylish and you see a lot of young women there.
This is the main demographic at these markets.
So they go to check out the different clothes, check out the natural products.
That's another big one they might sell like natural makeup products or things like that.
So there are used and new products.
And a lot of girls like these markets here in my neighborhood.
And they have them pretty regularly, like every week.
And it is a cool place to go.
Like I said, probably more for women than for men, but they usually have music, they sell food and it's nice to just walk around these places as well just to check them out, because sometimes they have pretty cool products too.
I usually don't spend much time here, but my wife does.
She likes to go to these markets.
Even if she's not going to buy anything, she still likes to go check out what products they're selling.
So it's something that's trendy now in English.
When we use the word trendy, we're talking about something that is in style, something that is cool at the moment.
So these small markets are trendy in certain neighborhoods in Mexico and And so these have become a more popular thing.
And I see new ones like every few months.
They seem to open up a new one and try to get another regular bazaar started.
So this is becoming very trendy here.
And I'm sure that this trend is here to stay.
Thank you for watching, maybe even traveling to Europe in the wintertime to go to these markets, because they really like the atmosphere here.
It's a family-friendly place usually, so you can take your kids there.
The decorations are really beautiful.
The lights are awesome.
It has a very Christmassy feeling to it.
So these are cool places for the whole family.
They have food and drinks.
Of course, a lot of Christmas type drinks like warm drinks and maybe soup.
I remember eating soup at one because it's cold during that time.
And so you want to have warm, warm food and warm drinks, and so that's really cool.
Of course, they sell a lot of products there.
Some people like buying from these christmas markets and might buy presents there.
Some people just go for the food and for the other things and they don't buy anything there.
There are sometimes rides like at an amusement park.
They sometimes have these at Christmas markets, depending on how big the market is.
But I've seen rides and different games there. for children.
And so there are a lot of fun things there.
It's not just to buy products.
There are attractions for kids and there's good food sometimes.
And like I said, the atmosphere is really cool.
This is one of the main reasons why people go there.
They like to see the decorations and the lights and be there at night and feel like This energy there.
I've only been to two Christmas markets.
I went to one very small one in London.
I was only in London for like, I don't know, less than 24 hours when I went to Europe last time.
And so I had just a brief time there.
I couldn't do a lot of things, but we saw a Christmas market that was already open in November.
So it was very early, but I went to one.
And this was a smaller one.
It was mostly with food, different food places.
And the food was very good that we had there.
But the second Christmas market that we went to was better.
This was in Paris and this was a much bigger one.
And they had rides there.
They had different attractions.
It kind of felt like a fair in the U.S.
A fair is like a carnival.
It kind of felt like that.
It had a great atmosphere.
I remember eating soup there, as I mentioned, and drinking a warm beverage.
So that was nice.
And it was nice to see all the kids there having fun, to see all the families.
And of course, there were a lot of tourists because it was in Paris.
So a lot of people were there.
And that was a cool thing.
But Christmas markets are places that draw a lot of attention.
A lot of people really like them and they're only there for that season.
So they're kind of unique in that regard, because you can't go to a Christmas market in June, for example.
So I think when something is rarer, a lot of people really want to go, right?
Because it's not always there.
So Christmas markets are very cool places to go to in Europe.
All right.
Why don't we stop there for today?
I hope this episode was interesting for you and I hope it was good practice for your listening.
Remember that if you want to reach an advanced level, if you want to start practicing with fast English, then sign up to become a listening time family member or VIP and you'll receive two new advanced episodes every month.
I speak fast and I provide the transcript.
And if you want to ask me questions regarding English or language learning, then become a Listening Time VIP and you can ask me questions every week and I'll answer them in a video.
QA session every week.
And remember that you have the transcript for this episode in the episode description.
So go down and click on that if you need it.
And if you like this podcast, please give it a five star rating and share it with anyone else who might find it useful.
All right.
Thank you for listening to this episode.
And I'll talk to you on the next episode of Listening Time.
