U.S. Money: Do you have change for a dollar? - Culture & Vocabulary

Can you name these coins?

This is a penny. It’s worth one cent.

A nickel is five cents.

A dime is ten cents.

A quarter is twenty-five cents.

In the U.S., quarters are the most useful coins to carry these days, but sometimes we don’t have any on us.

I asked my Twitter followers to identify this object. Do you know what it’s called?

It’s a coin change machine or simply a change machine.

It’s very convenient when you need coins, but only have bills.

In this lesson, let’s talk about how you can ask for change.

And I don't mean the kind of change we make to the world around us.

I mean making change, like one set of money for another.

One large bill for smaller denominations.

There are many coin-operated machines, like...

gumball machines, candy machines, laundry machines, arcade games...

small rides like a carousel or merry-go-round.

I often need coins for vending machines when I want to buy a snack or cold drink.

So how does a change machine work? Help me out.

"Insert" is a fancy word for "put in."

And "dispense" means "to give."

Basically, with a change machine you go from bills to coins.

Four quarters make a dollar, so if you insert a five-dollar bill, how many quarters will the machine dispense?

Can you do the math?

But what if there isn't a change machine around? What can you ask someone?

It isn't always appropriate to go up to a stranger and ask for change,

but you could go up to someone who's working at a cash register.

Here are some useful ways to ask for change:

Okay. How about asking for smaller bills.

You only have a twenty-dollar bill, for example, and you need smaller bills like ones and fives.

Or maybe you need two tens.

What can you ask? This kind of situation might happen at the cash register.

In the U.S, we also have rolls of quarters.

So at the bank, you can give a ten-dollar bill and ask for a roll of quarters.

Many drivers keep quarters in their car to feed the parking meters.

If you get asked for change or if someone asks you to break a large bill and you can't, just say something like this:

By the way, do you carry a lot of cash on you?

I bet some of you are already making payments with your smartphones.

Let me know in the comments.

And by the way, while we're talking about money, have you seen my grandmother’s coin collection?

It has some interesting pieces.

If you'd like to see U.S. and foreign currency AND practice intonation patterns, click on the link to that lesson.

That’s all for now. If you found this helpful, then please like this video and perhaps you could share it with someone else learning English.

As always, thanks for watching and happy studies!