节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2013-11-21
难易度:Low
关键字:discount, parking lot, click, gratitude, retail, Cyber Monday
Hello, and welcome to Studio Classroom.
My name is Gabe.
And my name is Carolyn.
And your English will improve today.
We're continuing to learn in our lesson called Give Thanks, which is all about
Thanksgiving.
Now do you remember when Thanksgiving is?
What day of the month is Thanksgiving?
Carolyn?
Oh! I know, Gabe, I know.
It is, well, in America, the fourth Thursday of November.
That is right.
The fourth Thursday of November.
And in today's lesson, we're talking about a little bit about what people do
after Thanksgiving.
And the next day is called Black Friday.
And lots of people get to go out and they go shopping on Black Friday.
It can be very crowded.
Well, would you like to shop during a time where you knew there would be lots of
people?
Carolyn, how does that sound?
Well, I don't really like to go shopping if there're going to be a lot of
people.
But I do like to go shopping if there is a sale.
Ah, yes. Well, there is a sale on Black Friday.
And that's why so many people go out on Black Friday.
Let's learn more about this in our lesson right now.
Give Thanks.
The next day is a big sale day called Black Friday.
The Christmas season officially begins then, and people want to buy Christmas
gifts as early as possible.
Also, Black Friday successfully tempts consumers to spend their money on
discounted or hot sale items.
Some stores open as early as midnight.
You can hardly find a spot in the parking lot in front of a mall or a big retail
store.
OK, let's go back up to the beginning of this section here.
We're learning about Black Friday.
We read: The next day is a big sale day called Black Friday.
Of course Thanksgiving is on a Thursday, so every year this big sale is on a
Friday called Black Friday.
Well, that is a very interesting name.
I wonder where it came from.
I think Steve and Ken have that information waiting for us in the Info Cloud.
Let's go there now.
Hi, everybody.
You might be wondering how Black Friday got its name.
Now if you ask people, they might tell you that the name stems from retailers
using the day's huge receipts as their opportunity to get in the black and
become profitable for the year.
You may recall an Info Cloud lesson earlier this year in which we discussed what
it meant for a business to be in the black.
If it's creating more income than expenses, then it is in the black.
This expression comes from accounting.
It just means having made a profit.
However, that's not how Black Friday got its name.
The name actually dates back to Philadelphia in the mid-1960s.
The Friday in question falls between Thanksgiving and the traditional Army-Navy
football game that's played in Philadelphia on the following Saturday.
So the city was always bustling with activity on that day.
Now the hordes of people were great for businesses.
But they were a nightmare for police officers, cab drivers and anyone who had to
drive in the city that day.
The police started referring to the annual day of chaotic traffic as Black
Friday to reflect how irritating it was.
So if that was the case, where did the whole get-in-the-black story come from?
Well, apparently, store owners didn't want to have their biggest shopping day
associated with such a negative name.
So in the early 1980s, someone came up with the accounting angle to put a more
positive spin on the big day.
(Chinese).
Thank you, guys.
Well, let's continue here learning about Black Friday.
The Christmas season officially begins then, and people want to buy Christmas
gifts as early as possible.
Well, that sounds sensible buying something as early as possible.
And it's true, many people think that whenever Thanksgiving ends, that's when
the Christmas season begins.
When I was growing up, my mom would always put up the Christmas tree the day
after Thanksgiving or somewhere around that time.
Well, so she would put up the tree on Black Friday.
Yep.
So she was not out shopping.
No. No. Actually we weren't out shopping.
Carolyn, did you go out shopping on Black Friday ever?
Well, actually I did go once, Gabe, and...
Well, we'll talk a little bit more about why I might have gone out.
OK.
But Black Friday is a very interesting day to go shopping because it is very,
very crowded.
And people can get a little bit angry if they can't find the item that they want
to buy.
Huh. Well, I can imagine that.
It's so crowded.
There are so many people there who maybe want to buy the exact same things. Hmm.
Well, we learn here that people want to go shopping as early as possible.
That's a good phrase to know: as something as possible.
You want to do something as early as possible.
Maybe you want to do something as little as possible.
Or maybe you want to make something as big as possible.
Well, people want to spend as little money as possible on their Christmas gifts.
So we continue reading:
Also, Black Friday successfully tempts consumers to spend their money on
discounted or hot sale items.
So things are on sale, and it successfully tempts consumers or people who buy
things to come out and spend their money.
That's true. They're very successful at this.
That's why there are so many crowds on Black Friday.
Of course they have many discounted and hot sale items.
Let's take a look at those words.
The first one here from our Word Bank is discounted, or discount.
If something has a discount, that means it is on sale.
It... has a cheaper price ... some discount.
That's right, so.
You might ask someone when you are trying to buy something.
Oh, can you give me a discount?
You know, I want to buy five of them.
So surely you can give me a lower price!
Uh, just a little discount.
And I think that's OK.
It doesn't hurt to ask for a discount.
They might not agree to give you a discount, but you can always ask.
Well, here we see another word.
That's a word we use almost every day: hot.
It could be hot or cold.
But here it has a little bit of a different meaning.
What does it mean here, Carolyn?
Well, if something is hot, that means it is popular, not that the temperature is
very high, like the summer is hot, but that everyone wants to buy it.
So you might say that the new iPhone is very hot.
Or Google Glass is very hot.
Lots of people want to buy that item.
All right. So those are hot sale items.
But maybe other things are hot.
Maybe everyone's talking about something.
You can say that's a hot topic.
A hot topic.
Or maybe a lot of people like to go to that place for their vacation.
That's a hot spot for vacation.
That's right.
So there are many ways you can use that word hot.
Now these are discounted items, so lots of people want to buy them, which makes
them very hot.
They go quickly.
Now continuing:
Some stores open as early as midnight.
Wow! So you can start shopping on Black Friday at midnight, just as soon as
Thanksgiving is over.
That's right.
And I think a lot of people will go.
Those stores are opening at that time, and they want to go as soon as they can
to buy their Christmas gifts.
We read here:
You can hardly find a spot in the parking lot in front of a mall or a big retail
store.
Even at midnight, it's hard to find a parking spot in the parking lot.
Let's look at that key word... or that phrase: a parking lot.
That's where you park your cars.
That's right.
So do you have a parking lot at your office?
Can you park your car in the parking lot at the grocery store?
There are lots of parking lots around now because lots of people drive cars, and
they need a place to park.
And sometimes if you're driving around and it's hard to find a spot, you could
say that:
I can't find a parking spot.
I'll be there as soon as I can!
I'm trying to find a parking spot.
Well, Carolyn, Black Friday sounds interesting.
You said you have gone shopping on Black Friday before?
Yes, I have.
And we went, I think, at 4:00 in the morning because the store we wanted to go
to open at 6 a.m.
Wow! So you guys went there and waited in line for a couple of hours so you
could shop?
Yes. But we had our shopping done by 10 a.m.
Well, that's not bad. Very interesting.
Black Friday can be a very interesting day.
Well, it's time for us to learn more with Michelle in the Language Lab.
And then we'll see you later.