Shadowing Practice: Grocery Store Vocabulary: shop in English - Learn English Speaking with YouTube
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Vanessa: Hi, I'm Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com. Would you like to go grocery shopping with me? Let's do it.
75 sentences
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Vanessa: Hi, I'm Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com. Would you like to go grocery shopping with me? Let's do it.
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Have you ever been grocery shopping? Of course you have, but have you ever been grocery shopping in an American grocery store? Well, today I would like to invite you to join me and my young son, Freddie, as we go into this grocery store and pick up a couple things. I will explain along the way.
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Hopefully you will learn some useful vocabulary, some expressions, and hopefully I will not be too embarrassed to be filming in public. And you'll be able to use this in your daily life and learn something about American culture. And like always, I have created a free PDF worksheet that you can download with a link in the description with all of today's phrases, expressions, ideas, and at the bottom of the PDF worksheet, you can answer Vanessa's challenge question. So don't forget to download that PDF and continue learning.
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Never forget what you've learned today. All right, let's go into the grocery store.
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All right. First things first, we are going to go through the parking lot and get a cart. I call this just a cart, but some people call it a shopping cart. And here in the south where I live, people call it a buggy. Our first stop is the free fruit snack for kids. This is Freddie's favorite thing to do in the grocery store, so I sure hope they have something for him.
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Look at this, Freddie. Freddie: Yeah. Vanessa: You want a banana? Freddie: ‘Nana. Vanessa: Yeah? Okay. Can you open it? Maybe you need some help. Wow.
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Hold it down there. Yummy. Dan: All right. Vanessa: All right. Let's go get some stuff from the produce section.
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Notice that I said the word produce section. This just means where you can buy fruits and vegetables, but let's pay attention to the pronunciation of that word produce. The emphasis is at the beginning, produce. There's another word, which is a verb to produce something. I produce one YouTube video every week. Here the emphasis is at the end, produce. I produce a video. This is different than the produce section. We're in the produce section right now and let's see what's going to happen next. Who knows. It could be anything.
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Should I get the single ones or should I get the bag? Dan: Get a bag. We can make the sparkling water. Vanessa: Well, let's see. There's 94 cents for this. And there's 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 in here for $5. It's a better deal, but they're in a bag. We'll get this.
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Dan: What do you think? Should we get lemons?
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Vanessa: Yeah, let's get some lemons.
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When you're buying produce, you have two options. You can buy loose produce like the broccoli that I bought, or you can buy bagged produce like the lemons that I bought, or here like the potatoes.
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And really there are so many to choose from. It's pretty unbelievable the type of options that we have these days. I feel so lucky to have these options.
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As we go through the bulk section where you can buy items in bulk, you'll see these bananas in a bag that are on sale. I want you to know the difference between on sale and for sale.
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These bananas are on sale, that means there's a discount. It's on sale, but really every item in the grocery store is for sale. For sale means that you can buy it. There's no special discount.
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There's no special price. It's just for sale. Here we are at the deli counter. At the deli counter, you can order freshly sliced lunch meat. You might say, "I'd like half a pound of Turkey, please." Or, "I'd like a pound of cheddar cheese, please." We decided to not order anything today because there was only one person working early in the morning and the wait was too long, but that's all right. Let's move on to the next thing. In the bakery you can get some freshly baked donuts, bread, or cakes. Because Freddie is turning two soon, at the end of March, we've been talking about cakes a lot recently. He's very excited about getting a birthday cake or cupcakes. Let's see. What cake would you like for your birthday?
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Freddie: This.
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Vanessa: This one?
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Freddie: Yeah.
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Vanessa: This one or this one?
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Freddie: This one.
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Vanessa: This one?
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Freddie: This one.
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Vanessa: This one.
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Freddie: Yeah.
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Vanessa: This one? Oh, the one with the cereal all over it?
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That looks exciting. You know what would be really good?
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Freddie: Yeah.
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Vanessa: You get some hummus.
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You want some hummus? That's bell pepper hummus. That's yummy.
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Dan: Yummus, Freddie.
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Vanessa: Thank you.
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In the grocery store, you have the option to get fresh fish or frozen fish, but watch out because usually the fresh fish has been previously frozen. You can also get fresh cuts of meat, or you can get pre-packaged meat. If you want to get a fresh cut of meat, you could say, "I'd like two pounds of ground beef, please." This is a really polite and common statement that you can use. Now I'm going down an aisle. Notice this pronunciation.
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Aisle. The S is silent. Go down an aisle. Or you can say, "It's on aisle three." Great pronunciation. Freddie: Hey pretzels. Crackers. Vanessa: Crackers? Are you excited about crackers? Freddie: Crackers. Vanessa: All right, we got to get some pretzels.
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I want to get this kind. Freddie: Hold that. Vanessa: You want to hold it? Freddie: Yeah. Vanessa: Okay. Freddie: Pretzels. Vanessa: And I'm going to get this one. That's our special snack.
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Freddie: Take it. Good job putting it in the cart.
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Vanessa: That's our special snack. We don't get many treats like chips and stuff, but pretzels, we love pretzels.
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Dan: Always got to get pretzels.
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Vanessa: Yep.
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I'm walking past a case of frozen meat and on the other side is an end cap.
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An end cap is a shelf on the end of an aisle. The chips are on the end cap.
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We're going to get some poster board for Theo. Freddie: Me. Vanessa: And for Freddie. Okay. You need some poster board too?
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Oh, let's go down here. Freddie: Poster board. Vanessa: We need some poster board. Ah, look at this. Dan: Is it the right kind? Vanessa: Yes. Next I'm going to be walking to the dairy section. The dairy section includes milk products like milk, yogurt, cheese, and also for some reason eggs are included in this. The dairy section is refrigerated.
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There are refrigerated items in this section. Let's take a look at this pronunciation refrigerated. That final tea is going to sound like a D in American English, because it's surrounded by vowels. This is very common for American English. I'm going to say the word again and I want you to try to say it with me. Refrigerated. I'm in the refrigerated section, getting some refrigerated items. I hope that this helps. I know this word is tricky, but you can do it. All right. Let's go get yogurt.
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Where's the yogurt? Freddie: Yogurt. Vanessa: That way. Freddie: That way. Vanessa: That's right. It's that way. Freddie: That way. Vanessa: Do you think we need to buy any eggs?
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Freddie: Yeah.
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Dan: We don't need eggs, do we?
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Vanessa: We actually don't need to. We don't need to buy any eggs because our chickens make so many eggs. We are looking for a plain whole milk yogurt.
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Vanilla. I don't want vanilla yogurt. Freddie: We need yogurt. Vanessa: Plain whole milk yogurt, but this is so expensive.
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Do we need yogurt that bad, Freddie? Freddie: Yogurt. Vanessa: Okay. We need yogurt that bad? Vanessa: Okay. Freddie: No, but I don't- Vanessa: Okay. Now it's time for a little splurge. A splurge is something you don't need. Maybe it's a little too expensive, but you really want did. I'm going to get some sparkling water with a little bit of fruit juice in it, it's so tasty. Let's talk a little bit about alcohol. In the state where I live, North Carolina, you can buy wine and beer in the grocery store. This is a very simple thing to do, but if you want to buy hard liquor, so this is considered rum or vodka, you need to go to a special store called a liquor store. Here in the south where I live we call these an ABC store, but you need to go to this specialized store if you want to buy something else, not just wine and beer. But for now, I'm not going to get any of it.
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I need to get some more gardening gloves, believe it or not.
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Dan: Oh, you actually think so?
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Vanessa: Yeah. Mine have holes in all the fingers.
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The point of gardening gloves is to keep your hands safe, but if they have holes in all the fingers and this will save me a trip to Lowe's. Before we check out, there's one key that I haven't talked about yet and we need to talk about it. Can you guess what it is? It's the word grocery, grocery store. That's where I'm at and I'm buying groceries. There's two different pronunciations for this and it's just a regional difference or a personal preference.
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You can say grocery with an S sound in the middle, grocery. But for me, I say grocery with a sound in the middle. Grocery store. Both of these options are correct and it just depends on what you feel the most comfortable saying. So you could say, "I'm at the grocery store.
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Or, "I'm at the grocery store." "I'm buying groceries." Or, "I'm buying groceries." Both of these are beautiful, very natural. And it's the most common expression that you're going to hear in the US when we talk about a store where you buy food. It's the grocery store.
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Now it's time to check out. We can use this word as a noun or a verb. "Let's check out." Or, "Let's go to the checkout." You can also say the checkout counter. "Let's go to the checkout counter. I need to buy the things that I put in my cart." "Let's check out." "It's time to check out." At the checkout counter, watch out because there are a lot of snacks and junk food waiting for you. The grocery store wants you to splurge and buy these things. For me, I try to avoid them.
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It's always unhealthy, not really a good choice, but this is here to make a last minute purchase.
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I want to know, in your country are the there a lot of snacks and junk food options waiting at the checkout? I think this is common around the world, but let me know in the comments if this happens in your country. Now I'm asking the kind checkout lady if I have her permission to film while I'm checking out. I wanted to give you this experience to see the final step at the grocery store.
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Well, I forgot all of my bags today, so I can help to check out too.
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Speaker 5: Do you want paper or plastic?
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Vanessa: Let's do paper.
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Now all of the items are going down the conveyor belt and the checkout lady is scanning them while I put them in my bag. I usually bring my own bags, but this day I was so focused on filming, I totally forgot. So I chose to get paper bags. I can compost the paper bags in my garden, but you might choose to get a plastic bag because you can reuse them as a trash bag in your house.
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It's time to pay for all of these groceries. I'm scanning my membership card so that I can get a few discounts. And she asked me if I want to use cash or credit, or she might say, "Cash or card?" And you can choose which one. Checkout Lady: Okay. Thank you. Vanessa: Thank you. Checkout Lady: You have a great day. Vanessa: Thanks, you too. I appreciate your help. Checkout Lady: I hope it works. Vanessa: Yes. Freddie: Bye. Vanessa: Bye. Freddie: Bye. Vanessa: Now I go out through the automatic doors like magic and load the groceries in the car.
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I load the groceries in the car and then at home, I will unload the groceries.
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Well, thank you so much for joining me today at the grocery store, I hope that you learned a lot.
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And don't forget to remember everything that you've learned today. You can download the free PDF worksheet with the link in the description. It is my gift to you. And don't forget to answer Vanessa's challenge question at the bottom of the PDF. Well, thank you so much for learning English with me. I have a question to ask you now, how often do you go grocery shopping? Let me know in the comments and I'll see you again next Friday for a new lesson here on my YouTube channel. Bye.
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"I got my banana. That's all I want." Dan: What's he going to do when that banana's gone? Vanessa: I don't know. Dan: That's the worry right there. Vanessa: We got to go quickly. This is shopping with a child. Fast, fast, fast.
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Uh-oh, disaster. I'm going to have to go throw it away, Freddie.
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Now he's got banana hands touching everything. Ooh, good.
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Dan: Banana fingers.
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Vanessa: Can I see your banana hands?
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Freddie: No. No. Dan: My nickname in high school. Vanessa: Banana hands. Vanessa: The next step is to download the free PDF worksheet for this lesson.
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With this free PDF, you will master today's lesson and never forget what you have learned. You can be a confident English speaker.
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Don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel for a free English lesson every Friday. Bye.
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About This Lesson
In today’s lesson, you will embark on a virtual grocery shopping experience, where you will learn essential vocabulary, expressions, and cultural insights related to shopping in an American grocery store. By participating in this interactive learning journey, you will not only expand your English vocabulary but also gain useful phrases that can help you navigate grocery shopping in real-life scenarios. Engage with this practical content to improve your English speaking skills and pronunciation while integrating new expressions into your everyday conversations.
Key Vocabulary & Phrases
- Produce section - The area in the grocery store where fruits and vegetables are sold.
- Shopping cart - A wheeled cart used in a grocery store to hold purchases; also referred to as a "cart" or "buggy."
- On sale - This term indicates that an item is being sold at a discounted price.
- Deli counter - A section where you can purchase freshly sliced meats and cheeses.
- Refrigerated section - The area of the grocery store where perishable items like milk and yogurt are kept cool.
- Aisle - A passageway between rows of shelves in a store; the "S" is silent.
- Splurge - To indulge in something that isn't essential but is enjoyable, often seen as a treat.
- Bulk section - The area where you can buy items in larger quantities, often at lower prices.
Practice Tips
As you watch the video, pay close attention to the pacing of Vanessa’s speech. She speaks clearly and with appropriate pauses to allow comprehension, making it a great opportunity to practice your own pronunciation. Here’s how to maximize your learning:
- Shadowing - Try to repeat phrases and sentences right after Vanessa speaks. This technique not only helps in improving your pronunciation but also in understanding sentence structure.
- Focus on intonation and emphasis - Note how certain words are emphasized, such as "produce" vs. "produce." This will enhance your ability to communicate effectively in everyday situations, especially when engaged in IELTS speaking practice.
- Use the video as a real-life conversational guide; try to incorporate the vocabulary into your own grocery shopping visits or mock conversations.
- Consider writing down new words and phrases to reinforce memory and practice using them in sentences.
By engaging in this shadowing practice with the grocery store vocabulary from learn English with YouTube, you will improve your English pronunciation and build confidence in speaking. Enjoy your shopping adventure!
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.
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