Hello again, and welcome back to Britain under the Microscope. 欢迎你们回到闲话英伦。
Hello Anlan
Hello everybody.
So today we're going to talk about shopping. In China this is one of the biggest topics. You hear剁手党 all the time.
It's same for the UK as well. We've always been a nation of shopaholics.
Shopaholics 就是剁手党，people who are obsessed with shopping.
Yeah, so we would say this type of people will shop till they drop.
Shop till you drop, so shop till you are completely exhausted, you fall on the floor.
Or go on the shopping spree.
A shopping spree means a lot of impulsive purchases. Just spend lots of money, buying lots of things.
And we also say it as a type of therapy. Some people would say I need some retail therapy.
Retail 是零售的意思。So retail therapy is especially for women I think. When we're not happy, we would buy things. Then we feel a lot more relax, a lot more perked up 叫购物疗法。So it's the same really around the world. So when we buy things we say to go shopping血拼，购物。I also heard do the shopping. So to go shopping and to do the shopping in England are they the same thing?
No, not quite. Go shopping is when you're doing it for, like an activity, because you want do a fun activity. Do the shopping is a chore, that's when you're going to buy food, going to the supermarket.
Oh for everyday things that you have to buy.
Yeah, absolutely. So go shopping is for fun, do the shopping is because you have to.
购买日常的杂货。I think Americans would say do some grocery shopping. You don't use grocery that much.
No, we would't say grocery.
One thing that I think a lot of Chinese learners probably have trouble understanding is whenever you talk about shopping in the UK you often hear the word the high street. Now this is quite English because the Americans don't really say the high street. What is high street?
Well, every… or almost every English town or British town they have a street in the middle of the town, and that's called the high street. That's where all the shops are. It's the center of the town.
It's like a commercial street, a business, with all the businesses.像一个商业街。
So if you think about it in the past that most towns would have just one main street and on that street would be all the shops and houses would be behind that street.
So this was…uh… something from the history and they just stayed.
Yeah, so especially towns, the high street is normally the main root in and out of the town going to a big city.
So the high street in the UK 高街 is not just one particular street, is actually the name of a street that almost every town has, it's the main business or commercial street with all the shops, restaurants. You know lately some of the English or British brands especially fashion brands are coming in. They are called the high street fashion or high street brands, they are usually not very expensive and then ready to wear 高街时尚。For example like H&M.
Yeah, so these…uh they're quite cheap and pretty much they're chain shops, they're chain stores that every little town would have.
But they do follow the fashion, they do follow the latest trend? So they are very popular among younger crowd.
Yeah. And it's also more practical fashion if you think about high fashion is a lot of clothes people wouldn't wear in everyday life.
High fashion 高端的时尚。Models would wear high fashion, but normal people high street fashion.
So the high street in UK that's not the only difference between Britain and America, you can also see in the names of the shops as well.
Yeah, this I have noticed I think in the UK you still use a lot of the older terms. So for example, in America you probably have the grocery store or food and vegetable store.
Yeah, we would call that the greengrocer's.
The greengrocer's, and in America you have liquor store where they sell alcohol.
We would call that an offlicence.
What does that mean offlicence? I see it quite often but I don't really know what that means offlicence.
It's because pubs in the UK, they have to have a licence to sell and also consume alcohol. So an offlicence is essentially a place that you can sell alcohol but you cannot drink it on the premises, you have to take it home.
Ah so it's a bottle shop. In America you have drugstore.
So we would call that chemist's.
And fish store…?
The fishmonger's.
The fishmonger's. That's something that so old sounding, very traditional sounding.

Yeah, but we still say it. And if you go into a British supermarket you'll still see the signs, because the fish counter would be called the fishmonger as well.
Fishmonger 听起来有点像鱼贩子。And also another thing that's quite different. In China, you don't really…you see a lot of shopping malls, you don't really see department stores that much anymore. Department stores 一般是百货商场，we have more shopping malls where you have different brands. But in the UK still have some very old, very long established department stores.
Oh yeah. You have department stores like John Lewis for example, which is very well known. Also Debenhams which sells clothes but also sells other things.
These are more midrange.
Yeah, but we also have shopping centers. So we don't call them shopping malls, we call them shopping centers.
Another thing that I have noticed. In China you don't really see them is on any high streets or in any town in the UK, you see a lot of charity shops, like Oxfarm. Obviously these are secondhand stores.
Yeah. These are very very common in UK, a lot of people see them as good value for money as well and they also helping out charity.
So whatever you pay in these stores, the money is go into certain types of charity.
Yeah, so for example a charity for heart disease they might have their own shop Oxfarm would have their own shop, Oxfarm is a charity for odd disease aid. So charity shops are quite popular because people donate their clothes and people go in and they buy clothes by discounting rate. In the UK it's very popular.
所以就是这种慈善商店也是一个互助的So people helping other people.
So for example when I go to the UK, sometimes go to the charity shops and have a look at the books, people donate books and you can buy books very cheaply. It's not just secondhand shops, you also have particular markets as well called flea markets which sells old furniture and clothes.
旧货市场，跳蚤市场。Ah! That's where it comes from, flea literally means 跳蚤，flea market. I have not seen that many of them. Is this still popular in the UK?
Yeah. For example, we would also have jumble sales as well, car boot sales.
Is it like American yard sales.
Oh yeah, cause we don't have yard sales, normally cause our yard is not big enough. So we would have car boot sales where people would just drive into a field at a certain day. They'll open the boot of their car, and they would sell what they want to get rid of.
就是那种车后备箱里装着自己不用的东西然后卖掉。
In China we have not car boot sale, but people do sell things out of their boot. 后备箱叫boot in British English.
So these are quite popular because people really like to go bargain hunting in this type of places.
Talking about bargain hunting, they're also other very famous markets in London like Camden Market, Portabello Road Market.
Oh yeah, they're quite a few and these are quite popular.
So one question though. In China you know it is quite normal for people to bargain or to haggle. 在中国讨价还价，bargain or haggle it's acceptable. What about in the UK?
Less so, British people generally don't haggle that much. They might haggle on a car boot sale or jumble sale, but the person that selling it is not gonna give you the outrageous price, they are not gonna say 50% off what they would actually sell it for.
Yeah, I have seen you try to bargain here in China, you always look really embarrassed and I think that is an English thing.
Absolutely, I still get incredible embarrassed when I'm bargaining, but you have to in certain cultures.
So we talked about different types of shops, the high street we also talked about department store and the markets. But there're also some famous shopping streets in London. London is too big to have one high street. And many of these I think people who are interested in London when I've been to London I've heard of, so you have Oxford Street and you have Savile Row.
Savile Row is famous for suits and they're all tailor shops. So if you have Savile Row suit, that's essentially saying I have got a suit of highest quality.
Savile Row, and I think it's really expensive. It starts at 10 thousand or one thousand pounds and up.
Yeah. Absolutely.
So if you want a very good suit made, probably Savile Row is a choice. You know that in China now online shopping is really big, really popular, what about in the UK?
It's becoming more popular but I don't think it reaches the same level as China. Because delivery costs are slightly higher and I would say it's not as accepted as in China. And I guess a lot of English people they still like to go window shopping.
Window shopping is when you just walk around, look at things without buying them.
And people like the whole activity of shopping. Lots of people still go to shops. For example, if you buy some of the presents, you might give them a gift voucher for particular shop.
A gift voucher. A voucher is like a card or piece of paper that you can use as store credits. 购物券。That's very common gift among family members, friends sometimes.
Yeah. Because giving cash to us seems somewhat a little bit impersonal.
And if you buy people things they might not like it.
Yeah, so gift voucher is somewhere in between.
Good thinking. So next time when you're in the UK, perhaps this is a good choice of gift among friends.
Yeah, definitely.
So I think we'll wrap up here today. And for more about shopping in the UK, we'll develop in the advance episode.
So until then, if you have any comments, if you've been shopping in the UK, let us know what you think.
And maybe you can also recommend us a few stores, a few shopping centers you go to.
So until next time.
See you next time.
Bye.
Bye.

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