Let's Learn English at the Strip Mall / Shopping Plaza
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Well, hello and welcome to this English lesson that's going to be a little bit different than other lessons I've done. I'm actually here...

my local mall what we might call a strip mall because you walk along the outside and the store entrances are on the outside there's no inside part to this mall so we call it a strip mall and I'm going to walk by every single store and kind of describe the type of store it is so that will be today's English lesson a bit of a walk and talk so let's start right here this

is a hardware store. A hardware store is a store you would go to if you need to buy tools or what we call hardware, nuts and bolts, nails and screws and those types of things. I have to make sure I don't get run over here by a car. But a hardware store is a place where you go if you need to buy a hammer. Maybe you need to buy some little hinges because you need to fix a door. But this is

is a hardware store. You can see that right now they're also selling potted plants and chairs that you can use to sit outside because the weather is becoming a lot nicer here in Ontario, Canada. The next store we have here, it might be a little bit of a giveaway with the name of the store. This store is called Foodland.

And it is what we would call a grocery store or a supermarket. Both words pretty much mean the same thing. And you might have guessed it. You would go to this store when you need to buy groceries, when you need carrots or a can of soup or maybe a loaf of bread or some eggs and some milk. This would be the store that you would go to. Now, you might be wondering, you saw at the

maybe you can see way at the end there by the hardware store and here there are lots of bags for sale those bags are actually bags of dirt or soil or manure that people can use in their flower beds and in their gardens people in many parts of the world like to grow things in the warm season so you can see here we have some topsoil and further down here

I'm sure we'll have more topsoil. We call these milk crates, by the way, if you didn't know that. Topsoil, topsoil, topsoil. Wow, there's a lot of topsoil. What do we have here? Oh, this is actually manure or manure compost. So that would work as a bit of fertilizer. I'm going to spin you around here to show you the direction we are going.

I have to keep my eye out for vehicles. It's not super busy here. There's a large transport truck that is probably just finished doing a delivery. A delivery is when you bring things to a store or to a house. And then I'll slow, oh, maybe we should talk about Tim Hortons. So there's also a cafe or restaurant with a drive-thru.

where you can go if you want to buy a coffee or a donut or a treat. Okay, here we have a pet store. A pet store is a place where you go to buy, maybe you go there to buy a pet, but most often you go there to either buy pet food, like dog food or cat food, or maybe you have some fish. And then you might also buy a collar or leash at the pet store.

This is called PharmaSave, so you might have an idea of what this is. This is a pharmacy, or we sometimes call it a drugstore in Canada. I think in Britain they might call it a chemist, but we call it a pharmacy or a drugstore. You would go there to get medicine. If you went to the doctor, they might give you a prescription, and you would go there to get your prescription filled.

or you might go there to just buy over-the-counter medicine, medicine where you don't need a doctor's note or prescription to get it, like Tylenol or something like that. We also just went by a dance studio. So if you have children who want to learn to dance, you would sign them up to go for dance lessons at the dance studio. Now, this is an interesting place. This is a laundromat.

but it's also a place where you can buy water. You might wonder why would people need to buy water in Ontario, Canada and why would they do laundry here instead of at home?

Well, if you can't afford a washing machine, you will more likely come to a laundromat and pay some money to pay to get your laundry done, to wash your clothes. And we have a lot of people who live out in the country around here. So some people actually do buy water. Jen and I get our water for free because when you live out in the country, you don't have clean drinking water available. Here we have a dollar store.

but it's actually vacant right now. So let me talk about both those things. A dollar store is a place where you can buy things for only a dollar or two dollars, sometimes more. They've kind of lost their meaning, but that dollar store is vacant, which means that they weren't doing well as a business and eventually they decided to leave.

So Bob from the future here, I realized that the dollar store is actually open. If you look here, I said it was vacant. That side is vacant, but this side is actually open. So I wonder if they just reduced the size of the store. It's half the size that it used to be, but it's definitely open. Art, craft supplies, cell phone accessories, electronics and hardware, kitchen stuff.

everything that you could want for less than, usually less than five dollars. Here we have a post office. If you look, you can see it's also in French on the sign. A post office is a place where you go

to send mail or to get your mail. Probably the most common thing you would do at a post office is you would go there to get your mail. You would go to the post office and you would have a little post office box and a key and you would open that to get your mail. This is actually the post office where my post office box is. Then we have some services. This is an insurance company.

So in Canada, when you buy a car, you have to have insurance to drive it. So if there's an accident, you're covered. That's the expression we would use. If you have a house, you need insurance so that if there's a storm and something gets damaged, your insurance company will pay for it. Next to that, we have a hearing clinic. So if you're having trouble with your hearing or you need a hearing aid, you would go there. Next, we have what we would call a hair salon.

So it says hair salon and spa.

and they can take walk-ins. I'm not sure if you can see that part of the sign. So I could walk right in there and pay for a haircut. I would probably have to wait a little bit though. But you can also get your nails done there. You can have a facial, a manicure, a pedicure, and they serve as, oh, they'll take men, women, children, they'll take everybody. Then we have what's called an employment help center.

So this is where you would go if you were looking for a job.

In Ontario, Canada, we have places where if you don't have work, you can go there every week and you can find out if there are any new jobs available that you can apply for. So that's the employment help center. And then we have what's called a bar. You might just call it a restaurant. It's kind of both. There are many restaurants slash bars in Canada where you

The front part of the place is a restaurant, but at the back they do have an actual bar that you can go to. Now there's a large truck here so we can't see, but this next place is a chiropractic office. Let's see if we can see up behind there, see the sign a little bit. Obviously they're getting a delivery, but a chiropractic office is a place where you would go, like let's say my back hurt.

I might go to a chiropractor and they might adjust my back. They might do things to my back to make me feel better. Let me see here. Oh, and then we have, I go back here, we have the dental center. More commonly, we would just call this the dentist office. You go to the dentist when you need to have your teeth cleaned or maybe you need a filling because you have a cavity. You would make an appointment.

at the dentist's office. Next to that we have a yoga and fitness studio, a place where you can go if you would like to do yoga, a place where you might go. Sorry, I'm just watching here. I think this person's having a little bit of trouble.

And that man is helping her drive. So I'll just stay over here where it's safer. So yoga studio, if you want to do yoga or maybe any other class, you could go there. And then we have, I don't know how to describe this. This is called Giant Tiger. This is a store that sells almost everything. And it's also a store where things are priced reasonably well. So you can buy groceries at Giant Tiger. You can buy

a pool noodle at Giant Tiger. You can buy clothes at Giant Tiger. So the best way for me to describe it would be it's almost like a mini department store. When you go in, you can go to the clothing section, you can go to the food grocery section, you can go to the seasonal section where you can buy little kids pools and things like that.

Then we have another nail and spa place. I think this place actually focuses more on nails and is less of a spa. I think it's mostly a nail salon. And then at the end here, I'm going to cross quickly, make sure I don't get run over. That person was going a little fast for me. And then we have a pizzeria.

or what you might call a pizza shop or a pizza place. We have a lot of pizza places in Ontario, Canada. Yes, hello, I have students waving to me from...

The gas station over there. I'll talk about that in a minute And then here we have a sub shop or subway where you can buy what we just call a sub now I think the full name is a submarine sandwich. I'll put a picture on the screen so you know what I'm talking about so a pizzeria or simply a pizza restaurant or a pizza place and then also a subway and we're at the end and

I just want to show you there is one more vacant store down here and it is for lease. If you were thinking of coming to Ontario, Canada to start a business, you can start it right there.

And then lastly, often you will have a gas station in a place like this, a place where you can go to buy gas. Again, in Canada, we say gas. So either your car takes gas or diesel and you would go there. Oh, that was loud.

I guess the trucks moved from down there where we were earlier. You could go there when you need to fill up your vehicle. So if you are running on empty, if your car needs gas, if your car is empty, you could go there to buy gas. Well, hey, thanks for watching.

Thanks for joining me on this little walk and talk. Hopefully you were able to learn some new English words and phrases along the way. It was kind of daunting, that means difficult, to do this all in one take, but it was quite enjoyable. I might do more of these in the future. Anyways, if this is your first time here, don't forget to click that red subscribe button, give me a thumbs up, and leave a comment below. I love to read them. Bye.

Hi, Bob the Canadian here. Thank you for listening to this English podcast lesson. If you would like to support me in the work that I do as an online English teacher, please visit patreon.com slash bobthecanadian.