Hello Sunshine, I'm Maria.
My name is Rory, and we are the hosts of the IELTS Picking for Success Podcast, the podcast
that aims to help you improve your speaking skills, as well as your listening skills along
the way.
We've started this podcast to give you fabulous vocabulary and gorgeous grammar for your
high-IELTS score.
Your bad-night score.
Rory.
Rory Pay attention.
Sorry Maria, I was just finishing my online shopping order.
Oh, I see.
Well, hurry up.
We're gonna talk about shopping, online shopping.
Of course we are.
What a coincidence, there is no?
And you know Rory, I have a black belt in shopping.
It is like I was super professional in shopping, you know, a black belt.
We usually use this about karate.
I have a black belt in karate, right?
Yes.
I have a black belt in shopping.
But a belt is also something you can buy.
So it's a pardon as well.
Oh my god, can we get on with the episode?
It's an ad to cut, kind of day.
Ad to cut, there is no online shopping, you ad product to your cut.
You know, cut?
Help!
How often do you buy things online?
Well, a lot more than I used to because I'm still buying things for the house.
And now I'm a responsible adult, I need to do things like order decorations and materials
to make repairs to the place.
What was the last thing you bought online?
I have to check my thought to be sure, but off the top of my head, I think it was a set
of casters from my bed.
There are these tiny things that stop the bed wheels from moving and damaging things,
know that the bed is where it should be.
Do you ever see things in shops and then buy them online?
Sometimes, especially books, you can usually get them online second-hand and for a way
better price than the brick and mortar stores.
I'm not sure it's my food shopping or drawing line, I think the quality is a bit suspect.
Do you think the popularity of online shops is changing your town or city centre?
Oh, it's absolutely exploded since the pandemic.
People order things in all the time from take-aways to the regular weekly shop.
It's sort of gutted the high street, which is a bit sad, but people have access to a
wider range of goods and services than before and things are moving into a place what has
been lost.
So it's not a complete disaster.
This week in our premium episodes, Rory is describing a goal he would like to achieve in
Speaking Part 2 and in Speaking Part 3, we're discussing setting goals and achievements in
general.
The link is in the description, so make sure you check it out.
You know, Rory, what's the worst part of online shopping?
You know, what is it?
The waiting.
No, Rory.
The worst part of online shopping is having to get up and get your cards out of your
purse.
This is the worst thing.
Well, you might not even have to do that if you have an autofill.
Sorry, am I cheating the joke seriously again?
Yeah, but sometimes you still need this, you know, like three numbers and maybe you forget
them, you don't remember them.
So you kind of have to get up.
So how can we paraphrase shopping online or online shopping?
Buying things online, buying things on the internet or the net on the internet.
Yeah.
How often we can say like more often now than I used to please make sure you say, you
start like before I did that, but not anymore.
So like more often now than I used to.
I order things online, I order decorations, materials for the house online, I order materials
to make repairs, make beds in your house.
So a nice location.
I order materials to make repairs online.
And you can say that I order decorations for my house on Amazon, yeah?
How much your Amazon paying you to advertise?
No, I'm interested in the proposition.
Is it on or in or at Amazon?
It's on Amazon.
Yeah, Amazon people just pay us money for advertising.
We can say that Amazon is a marketplace or a marketplace shop.
So I usually buy things on marketplace shops such as Amazon, for example, or I shop online
using different market places.
You can also say that I shop directly, so I shop by go shopping, I shop directly on social
media.
And Roy, did you know that actually in the US, lots of people buy things on Instagram or
TikTok or just directly on social media?
Yeah, I heard about this.
There's a special kind of link that you can have.
I briefly contemplated doing it myself.
So but you don't do it.
No, I didn't.
I don't know why I don't do it probably because I don't produce enough products.
If you don't remember, a good phrase to use is off the top of my head, off the top of
my head.
It's kind of like, kind of, oh, I can't give you the answer now, but it's this.
Well, if someone asks you randomly, like what the last thing you bought was, some people
do this all the time, how are they supposed to remember?
And in the exam, you don't have your phone.
So off the top of my head, as near as I can remember or as best I can remember.
However, I'm checking my phone now.
And the last thing I bought was actually not the casters for the floor.
It was in fact a very, very small bag to take with me to a music festival I'm going
to.
Oh, okay.
Nice.
Yeah, so you can say like, what was the last thing you bought online?
Well, off the top of my head, maybe it was a bag.
Maybe it was, I know, milk.
Yeah, all right.
I would have to check my phone to find out.
I would have to do it.
I'd have to check my phone to find out.
Of the top of my head, I think it was.
But yeah, with the contraction is better.
And Rory said, casters, what do you say?
Those are a thing that you put under wheels to stop them from moving around.
So it's like a small ball with rubber on the bottom.
And when the wheels move, they only move in the ball.
They don't move the whole bed, for example, if you've got a bed or wheels.
Go to Google images and type in casters, C-A-S-T-O-R-S, and you'll see the pictures.
Rory here used a very good strategy.
He used a very specific word.
To answer this question, what was the last thing you bought online?
You, a dear listener, can choose a very specific item, like a sophisticated bed-lined word,
and say it.
So for example, Rory, what else can we say?
Like, super...
An electron microscope, a nuclear-fishing reactor.
You could just make something up.
That could go really well or horribly wrong for sure.
Yeah, go to IKEA website.
I can't do this, and choose a very specific thing that you can remember.
So if you can remember this word, okay, fine.
Maybe choose one or two.
Kind of IKEA.com, something for a house, maybe.
Or I don't know.
Maybe something for the kitchen.
I could choose two words, remember them.
And...
Hey, bed-lined vocabulary.
See, this is how you create a situation for bed-lined.
Can I say make a purchase?
Like, hmm.
The last purchase I made or I purchased a painting.
Yes.
But what purchase is it okay to use?
Or is it too formal for speaking?
It sounds a bit formal, but I don't see the problem with it apart from that.
I purchase something online.
I purchase these casters.
I can get books online.
I can get books in.
Usually, stores or shops, so buy them or get them.
You can get books online for a way better price.
A way better price, just like for a better price.
A much better price, or a far better price.
Hmm.
It makes it informal and natural.
You can get books online for a way better price.
Then where?
In ordinary shops, in usual shops or...
Oh, or brick and mortar stores, but that's just the physical stores.
Yeah.
So we contrast online shops, online stores, and the brick and mortar shops.
The brick and mortar, like ordinary offline shops.
Yeah, we can call them offline stores or offline shops.
So the brick and mortar stores, you can also use this in your essays.
You order things online or you make an order, yeah?
Or you place an order, just thinking about it there.
Yeah, or you purchase.
Rory, what did you mean when you said the quality is a bit suspect?
Suspect.
It just means that the quality is not guaranteed.
It might be really good or it might be very bad.
You don't know.
So you're suspect that it might not be so great.
And I think with online food orders, it can be very good or it can be very bad depending.
But here it's an adjective, yeah?
Yeah.
Sure.
Like possibly false or dangerous.
Like a suspect bag.
Mm, like strange bags of species.
Yeah.
Well, for example, the results were suspect.
And also, DLSN, the recent trend is, we call it R-O-P-O.
Research online purchase offline.
This is kind of vice versa.
You first do your research online, you check out what's going on with a kettle you want
to buy for to make the best tea ever.
And then you go to a brick and mortar store to offline shops and you purchase the item
offline.
Yeah, research online purchase offline.
That's the first time I've ever heard of this.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Interesting.
And it's kind of it's now kind of people are doing it now.
So they don't go to physical stores first, but the research online and then buy the
things.
Maybe to avoid this craziness with the delivery because the delivery is just all of the popularity
of online shops could change the shops in city center.
And Rory told us the popularity of online shops exploded since the pandemic.
So online shops have started being super popular.
Yeah, well, yeah, ridiculously popular.
Lots of people order things online now.
People order things in all the time.
So people order food at home.
Yes, so people order things in all the time.
Yeah, if you order it, it's usually food.
From takeaways to the regular weekly shop.
So people buy groceries like all like usual products like milk, bread, eggs online.
They order food from restaurants.
And then Rory said, it's gutted the high street.
First of all, tell us what high street is and then what gut took gut.
So the high street is a specifically, it's a piece of British English, which means that
it's talking about the place in tyrants where most of the shops are located.
So you're for most people, this is the city center.
And so that's when we refer to the high street, we're referring to these places where
things are sold in brick and mortar stores.
If something is gutted, then it means that a big chunk of it is removed like vital parts.
So if the high street is gutted, then there's lots of shops that are closing down, they're
leaping this empty space, for example, and there are no new shops taking their place.
But they're being replaced by things like coffee shops and charity shops.
So that's not necessarily a bad thing.
So the popularity of online shops damaged offline stores in city centers, the popularity
of online shops got it the high street.
But now people have access to a wider range of goods and services online.
So a wide range of goods and services online, meaning lots of things.
So any products can be bought online, right, these days, and any service as well, I think.
Well, almost any.
I'm trying to think of something that you might struggle to buy.
But maybe to open an account in a bank, in certain banks you have to go physically go to
a bank to get a card.
But some banks just you can open an account online and they can deliver the cards to you.
So no problem.
All for Rory, being a girl is so expensive, you know.
Yeah.
Are you looking at your shopping list?
Yeah, I just have to buy things, you know, perfume, cosmetics, shoes, your hair, your
dresses.
Absolutely.
Like you see my face, Rory, this look nice, look shiny, see?
I believe that your face would be nice even without all of these expensive things.
Yes, do you listen to them?
Avoid getting scammed when you buy things online.
So if we speak about dangers of online shopping, so we use the words to be or get scammed and
also frauds.
Rory, tell us about scams and frauds while shopping online.
What can I say about that?
If something is a scam, then it's something that's sold under false pretenses, so that means
that people tell you one thing that it's going to be amazing and it turns out not to work
properly, for example.
The same thing is true of fraud, actually.
It's all about saying things that are amazing about the products that are not true.
Thank you very much and we'll get back to you in our next episode.
Bye.
Bye.
How often do you buy things online?
Well, a lot more than I used to because I'm still buying things for the house and now
I'm a responsible adult, I need to do things like order decorations and materials to make
repairs to the place.
What was the last thing you bought online?
I have to check by forward to be sure, but off the top of my head, I think it was a set
of casters from my bed.
There are these tiny things that stop the bed wheels from moving and damaging things,
know that the bed is where it should be.
Do you ever see things in shops and then buy them online?
Sometimes, especially books, you can usually get them online second-hand and for a way
better price than the brick and mortar stores.
I'm not sure it's my food shopping order online, I think the quality is a bit suspect.
Do you think the popularity of online shops is changing your town or city centre?
Oh, it's absolutely exploded since the pandemic.
People order things in all the time from takeaways to the regular weekly shop.
It's sort of gutted the high street, which is a bit sad, but people have access to a wider
range of goods and services than before and things are moving into a place what has been
lost.
Complete disaster.
