Learn English | Basic English Conversation Course | 12 lessons

Shaw English Online

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Welcome to our conversation series.

These videos are for intermediate level learners of English.

In these videos, we will talk about many expressions to help you communicate in English.

When you watch these videos you should do 3 things to help you study.

First, our teachers may say a word that you don’t know.

Please take the time to find that word in a dictionary to help you understand the video.

Second, you should always try to repeat after the teacher in the video.

Whenever the teacher uses some new vocabulary or expressions, you need to repeat how they

Last, you should always review and re-watch the videos, and practice what you learned

to help you understand the expressions being taught to you.

It takes time and effort, but these videos will help you if you watch them with a sincere

interest to learn English.

Thank you and enjoy the videos.

I’m Esther and in this video, we’re going to talk about how to describe the cost or

price of something.

Now this is important to people like me who like shopping.

So, for example, I like shopping, especially for dresses.

So, I might say, the cost of “This dress is affordable.”

Ok…

“This dress is affordable.”

‘Affordable’ means that this dress is not too expensive.

I have enough money and I can pay for this dress.

I have enough money, I ‘can’ buy this dress.

So, I would say, “This dress is affordable.”

I can also say, “This dress is inexpensive.”

We all know what ‘expensive’ is, but we say “inexpensive”, so that’s the opposite.

“Inexpensive.”

‘Affordable’ and ‘inexpensive’ have very similar meanings.

Again, I have enough money to buy this.

It’s not too expensive.

Then we have “cheap”.

“This dress is cheap.”

Now ‘cheap’ is similar.

It means it’s not expensive, but it’s a little bit more negative.

If you say that something is “cheap”, people may think that the quality is not very

It’s not very nice.

Ok, now let’s look at the opposite.

The opposite of these words is “expensive”.

“This dress is expensive.”

It costs a lot of money…too much money.

Maybe I don’t want to buy it.

We can also say, “over-priced”.

“This dress is over-priced.”

That means the price is too high.

So again, I don’t want to buy this dress.

It’s too expensive and over-priced.

Ok, let’s look at some more examples together.

Let’s look at some examples.

“The hat was affordable because it was on sale.”

“The hat was affordable because it was on sale.”

“I wish this bag was more affordable.”

“I wish this bag was more affordable.”

“This computer is surprisingly inexpensive.”

“This computer is surprisingly inexpensive.”

“These shoes look beautiful, but they are too cheap.”

“These shoes look beautiful, but they are too cheap.”

“That jacket is too expensive.”

“That jacket is too expensive.”

“I cannot buy this over-priced bag.”

“I cannot buy this over-priced bag.”

Ok, so in this video, we learned that when we want to describe the cost of something,

as not too expensive, we say “affordable”.

Ok…

Something is ‘affordable’ if it’s not too expensive.

If I can buy it with the money I have.

On the other hand, if something is not affordable, if the cost is very high, we say “expensive”

or “over-priced”.

For me, ahh…I think some brands like H&M and Forever21 are affordable.

Some people don’t think this way.

They think it’s cheap.

Uhh…sometimes, yes.

Some of the items can be cheap.

But for me, I like those brands because they are affordable.

Ahhh…another store that I like, in Korea…it’s called Zara or 자라, in Korea as they say.

Uhm…they have some items that are affordable and some items that are very expensive.

Too expensive for me to buy.

Ok, well that’s what I wanted to share in this video.

Thanks for watching.

I’m Bill.

In this video, we’re going to talk about something fun that people like to do…and

that’s vacation.

We like to go on vacation…and we like to tell people about our vacations.

Because, if we can make them jealous, that’s even better.

Now, there’s two questions here that we’re going to use to talk about ‘vacation’.

One question is ‘where we go’ for vacation.

And the other question is ‘what we do’ when on vacation.

Now, the first question is, “Did you go anywhere for vacation?”

So, vacation time is finished and it’s just time to talk about it.

So, they ask this question.

And there’s different answers you can give.

“Yes, I did.”

But, that’s boring.

Easy is not always good because you want to be interesting when you talk.

So, someone asks you, “Did you go anywhere for vacation?”

Well, start by ‘where did you go’?

“I went to…Busan.”

Or “I went to Jeju.”

Popular places people love to go to.

Or, you could just say, “I went to the beach.”…cause people like the beach.

So, that’s a place as well.

Now, “went to” is good to say.

You can also go with “visited”.

And again, just ‘what place did you visit’?

We have, “I visited Halla Mountain.”

Or…

“I visited Haeundai Beach.”

Those are all good places to visit.

But now, sometimes you can’t go on vacation.

Something stops you from going on vacation.

And, if that happens, you can use this phrase.

We have, “No, I had to…”

And we say, “I had to…” because that means something stopped you.

So now, it could be, “No, I had to work.”

Ugh…

Or…

“No, I had to save money.”

Because if you need to save money, vacation is not a good idea.

Now, let’s look at some more examples of using these.

The question was…

“Did you go anywhere on vacation this year?”

Answers can be…

“I went to the U.S.A.”

Or…

“I visited Beijing.”

Or…

“I was too busy to go anywhere.”

Ok, now that we talked about ‘where we go’ for vacation, we’re going to talk about

‘what we do’ when we’re on vacation.

And so, when that happens, we have this question here:

“What did you do on vacation?”

Because we go somewhere, but now we have to do something.

Now, the answers are not…like before, with the “I went to…”, “I visited”.

You got to think a little more, but it’s still easy.

You start with ‘I’, of course.

But now, ‘doing something’, you need a verb.

So, you have to use ‘past tense’ verb, because vacation, it’s finished.

So you have to say things like, “I swam…at the beach.”

Or, “I swam in a pool.”

Something…something like, “I hiked on a mountain.”

Just fill in what you were doing.

Ok…

Now, some people, when they go on vacation, they don’t like to do many things.

For some, vacation is about being lazy.

So some people may just say, “Ahhh, vacation, I just rested.”

That’s time to relax.

Time to feel good again.

Ok…

Let’s take a look at some more examples of these.

Now, this questions is…

“What did you do during your vacation?”

“I swam at the beach.”

“I rode a boat to Jeju.”

Or…

“I just relaxed and read a lot.”

Ok, so there you have two good and easy questions about vacations.

You have the “Did you go anywhere for vacation?”, and then the “What did you do on vacation?”.

Now, good to ask these questions to people, but it’s better to answer the questions

because that means you had vacation.

So, I hope you can talk about vacations and I hope you get to take many vacations yourself.

Alright, see you next time.

I’m Bill and what I have for you right now are three questions you can ask a foreigner

about their country.

Because, I know this.

People like to talk about where they’re from.

It’s easy and it’s comfortable for us to do.

Now, the first question we have here is this: “What is the food like in your country?”

Now, many Korean people…they say, “Our food is spicy.”

But now, some countries, they don’t eat a lot of spicy food.

So, sometimes, they might say, “Our food is sweet.”

Or even, they might answer, how do they make the food.

Something like, “Our food is grilled.”

Or, “Our food is fried.”

This is all possible answers.

Now, another thing is about the food…is they could talk about what food is popular.

Ok…

Now, just like this: “We eat a lot of…”

Now, I know from living in Korea, in Korea, “We eat a lot of kimchi.”

Alright, it’s true.

Everyday…even me.

But now, other countries maybe, like America, “We eat a lot of beef.”

It’s very popular.

Ok…

And…almost…not every day, but almost…it seems like that happens.

Or even, “We eat a lot of eggs.”

Just ‘what do you eat a lot of?’

Ok, let’s look at next question.

Alright, now here is another question you can ask a foreigner about their country.

And it goes like this.

“What is your country famous for?”

This is just about what is popular in their country.

What do people do?

What do people know about?

Ok…

So now, I’m an American, so if someone were to ask me “What is America famous for?”

I could just answer like this: “Many people know Hollywood.”

Ya, Hollywood, where America makes the movies.

Ok…

You can say, “Many people know Hollywood.”

Or, it’s ok.

“It’s famous for Hollywood.”

Ok…

Now, by ‘it’, I mean ‘my country’.

So, my country, ‘it’s’ famous for Hollywood.

We want to change it a bit…

We can talk about Canada.

“What is Canada famous for?”

Well, that’s easy, we could do, “Many people know maple syrup.”

Very tasty…Canadian food.

And also, “it’s famous for maple syrup.”

Ok…

So, these are two things that are equal that you can use to answer this question.

Ok, let’s look at the last question, now.

Alright, now, here’s our last question that will help you get a foreigner to tell you

about their home country.

And, it just goes like this: “What is there to see in your country?”

Kind of what is famous, again, but something to see.

Something to go see at.

Ok…

So now, what we have here is…the answer can go…

“People come to see…”

Now, if the person is form France, the easy answer is:

“People come to see Eiffel tower.”

Or someone from China.

“People come to see the Great Wall.”

Or again, maybe a Japanese person is visiting.

They can say, “People come to see Mount Fuji.”

Now again, if you travel to another country and someone asks you about Korea, you can

just say, “People come to see Seoul.”

Or, “People come to see Kyeongbuk Palace.”

The famous things to see.

Alright, let’s take a look at some examples.

“What is the food like in your country?’

“We eat a lot of vegetables.”

“Our food is mostly fired.”

“We don’t eat much fruit.”

“What is your country famous for?”

“It’s famous for ice hockey.”

“Many people know about our mountains.”

“It’s famous for beautiful beaches.”

“What is there to see in your country?”

“People come to see our old castles.”

“People come to see our historical places.”

“People come to see our modern cities.”

Alright, so there you have three questions that you can ask a foreigner about their country.

It’s a great way to start a conversation.

And it’s also a great way to learn something about another place.

I hope this helps you and I hope you can try it soon. Thank you.