Free English Lesson! Topic: Conveniences! 🍕🚖📷 (Lesson Only)

Welcome to this English lesson about conveniences. In this

lesson, I'm going to talk about all of the things that make

life just a little bit nicer. I'm going to talk about all of

the little inventions and techniques and things that can

happen in the world that make life a little easier. That make

life a little bit more convenient. I thought as I was

making this lesson, maybe I could even do a lesson someday

on inconveniences. I'm not sure there are enough of them. I'm

sure there are. But let's stay focused. This English lesson

today will be about conveniences. So the first

convenience I have is the washing machine and possibly

the dryer. Now, I do wanna say one thing about this lesson. I

recognize that things are different in different parts of

the world and when you go back in time, things were different

as well. I think that uh the washing machine is a relatively

new invention this century. Um and it has very much made it

easier to wash clothes and if you have a dryer as well, it

makes it easier to dry clothes. In English, we that we're going

to do the laundry at least in Canada. So, when we have a lot

of dirty clothes in the hamper, we take them to the washing

machine and we use the washing machine to do the laundry. Um

we use it to wash our clothes and then we use the dryer to

dry them. We actually, I think, I've mentioned this in past

lessons, we don't have a dryer. We do have a washing machine

but we usually hang our clothes on a drying rack outside so

that they can dry naturally. It's a little cheaper than

running a dryer but I know many people who live in a small

apartment, they might do their laundry and then hang it up in

their apartment or they might have a dryer as well. And if

you don't have a washing machine or dryer, you might go

to the laundromat. That's a place where you can go to wash

your clothes. Contact lenses. So, contact lenses, I don't

wear them but I hear they are very very convenient. Um they

are one of modern conveniences in life. A modern convenience

is something that's been invented in the last fifty or

100 years. Um many people who wear glasses love wearing

contacts instead. Notice I call them contacts. That's kind of

the short way to refer to them in English. So Jen wears

contacts. I could also say Jen wears contact lenses. And some

of my kids wear contacts as well. They wear contact lenses.

The thing that's inconvenient about contact lenses that is

that you have to take them out and put them back in every

evening and every morning at least that's what I understand.

I don't actually wear them so I don't know. I think yes they

they take them out at night and they put them back in in the

morning. Online learning. So, online learning is definitely a

convenience. It's definitely something that makes life a

little easier. Now, for kids and for myself as a teacher, I

prefer in-person learning but for many of you, you are doing

some online learning right now. You are learning using the

internet. You're either watching this on your phone or

on your computer and so, in some ways, you are doing some

online learning right now. It's very convenient that I can do

an English lesson this morning and people from all over the

world um can watch it. Um it's very convenient. Um many many

years ago this would not have been possible. It would have

been impossible. But certainly the internet makes things a lot

more convenient. Running water. So running water is anytime you

have water that just comes out of the tap or the faucet when

you turn it on. Um if you think back in time and there are some

parts in the world of the world still where there is no running

water. Um but I know that uh one of the teachers I taught

with they didn't have I think they had running water in the

kitchen but they still had an outhouse when they had to go to

the bathroom. So in the middle of the Canadian winter when he

was a kid he had to go out of the house if he had to go to

the bathroom. So running water is certainly very very

convenient. And in addition to that having hot water in the

house. Having a hot water heater is very very convenient

as well. Pizza delivery. So this is the one thing that I do

not have where I live. When I lived in the city I actually

really enjoyed pizza delivery. I enjoyed the fact that you

could just make a phone call and a person would show up at

your door within 30 minutes with hot pizza. That was very

very convenient for me when I was a university student. I

really enjoyed the fact that um and it wasn't very expensive.

So I could make a phone call and for a few dollars a person

would bring a pizza to my door. Um and if you're having a party

you can order a stack of pizzas like this. This person is

bringing a whole bunch of pizzas but pizza delivery is

certainly uh one of the modern conveniences in some larger

cities in the world. And then we have this new delivery

service in North America, parts of Europe and other places in

the world called Uber Eats or Skip the Dishes. I think

there's something called DoorDash. There's a number of

different names for it but basically, they will bring you

food from any restaurant. It costs quite a bit of money but

if you for instance, we're stuck at home for a long time

and there was a lockdown, it was possible that you could

still get Uber Eats, okay? Or skip the dishes. You might have

been able to get food delivered to your house. I have never

used Uber Eats or skip the dishes. I have never had food

delivered. Um I think I've too cheap. I think I would rather

just go get the food myself or make the food myself at home. I

have done this though. Curbside pickup is a new modern

convenience. It's when you order things in advance from a

store or restaurant. Either you make a phone call or you order

it using an app and then they say your order will be ready

for curbside pickup at 930 and then you go to the store and

they bring the items to your car or they bring the groceries

to your car depending on what you ordered. I have used

curbside pickup quite a bit during the pandemic. When

stores were closed in this part of Ontario, Canada, most stores

and restaurants still offered curbside pickup. So, you could

drive your car up to the store or restaurant and a person

would come out and bring you your food. It was very, very

convenient. Out of season fruit and vegetables. So, I think

you'll understand this one uh once I explain it. In Canada,

we can buy a lot of different fruits and vegetables out of

season. We can buy strawberries in the middle of the winter.

That means that we can't grow strawberries in Canada. In the

winter. We have a lot of strawberries in June and July

but when the winter comes, all of our strawberries come from

California or Florida. So, it's very and very convenient to be

able to buy out of season fruit and vegetables and then we have

things like bananas which I love. We wouldn't call it an

out of season fruit but we would definitely say um it's an

imported fruit. So, it's really nice and very convenient to be

able to eat different fruits and vegetables from around the

world um and to eat them during the winter season when we can't

grow them ourselves. Let's see here. Fast food. So, as I

mentioned in the description, not all of the conveniences are

necessarily good. Fast food is very convenient. If you don't

have a lunch, you can quickly go to a fast food restaurant

and get something to eat um but it isn't necessarily healthy.

So, something can be convenient but also be unhealthy. So, um I

have to admit that I am guilty of buying fast food every once

in a while. There is something Convenient about you give your

order or you place your order and within minutes you have

food to eat. So fast food definitely a modern

convenience. Frozen food. So in our grocery stores there is a

section called the frozen food section. And in the frozen food

section you can buy frozen vegetables um and things that

are probably healthy for you. But you can also buy frozen

meals. You can buy frozen pizza. You can buy what's

called a TV dinner which is a meal in a tray that you just

microwave. Uh and frozen food, they're kind of like pre-made

meals and then they're frozen and this is another example of

something that maybe isn't healthy for you. Frozen food

often uh has a lot of salt in it and maybe isn't the best

thing to eat. At least not on a daily basis. Coffee makers. So

coffee makers have evolved over time and now we have coffee

makers where you simply put in a little pod of coffee and you

push a button and it brews a cup of coffee for you very

quickly. Even older coffee makers were very convenient but

certainly the newest coffee makers are super convenient. Um

you can also say they're very handy. Handy is another way to

say that something is convenient. Uh but certainly uh

a coffee maker. We sometimes just call it a Keurig because

that's one of the companies that makes this type of coffee

maker. Um I actually have a Keurig but mostly I just use it

for hot water to make tea. I used to use it to make coffee

and it was very convenient but now I just use it to make tea.

And then of course the microwave is super convenient.

If you take food to work that you would want that you would

like to heat up. It can be very handy to have a microwave at

work. You put your food in. Um you punch in 1 minute and you

hit start and then when it goes ding it's done. Um so yeah um

we we have a funny uh uh phrase in English. Sometimes we say,

I'm just gonna nuke it for a bit and I know that sounds like

nuclear like nuclear bomb but we sometimes in informal

English or slaying will say, um oh, I brought uh a couple hot

dogs to work. I'm just gonna nuke it. I'm gonna nuke them

for a sec which means you're going to put them in the

microwave. That might be regional. I'm not sure if

that's just this part of Canada. Uh but but it is a

funny thing to say, I think. There are a lot of different

appliances that are very convenient. I don't want this

to be a lesson about appliances but things like blenders and

mixers and bread machines are all very convenient. In fact,

the kitchen is a place where you will find a lot of modern

conveniences. You will find a lot of things that have been

invented to make life easier. In fact, just having our new

oven, we can tell it to turn on at a certain time of day. Um

all of those little things are very cool, very handy, and

very, very convenient. So, appliance large and small.

Bottled water. So again, not all of these conveniences are

actually good. Um if you drink bottled water every day, all

day and you don't recycle the bottle, then that's not a good

convenience. But it certainly is very convenient to be able

to buy bottled water when you are thirsty. If you go on a

trip or if you are out and about, out and about, you might

be thirsty, maybe you forgot to bring some water. It's very

convenient to be able to buy some bottled water. But please

drink bottled water when you need to um and please recycle

the bottles. Please don't throw them in the ditch. When I go

for a walk in the morning, there's often uh empty water

bottles in the ditch. So, please recycle. The drive

through. So, that is not how you spell the word through in

normal English. The THRU spelling almost only shows up

in drive through, okay? It's a short form. I always think they

didn't have enough money to put all the letters the sign. Um

but a drive thru is certainly uh very convenient. There are

many people in North America that go through the drive

through sometimes once a day. I don't go through it once a day.

Um and it's a way to buy food, to buy coffee, to buy something

to drink um without having to get out of your car. So if you

don't want to get out of the car, um I know it sounds kinda

lazy, doesn't it? You go through the drive-thru, you

drive up, you order something when you get to the drive-thru

window, uh you pay and give you your food and your drinks. So,

the drive thru is certainly very, very convenient. This is

one of my favorite conveniences and that is GPS. The global

positioning system is amazing to me. Uh a few weeks ago, Jen

and I had to drive to another city. We had to go to a city

that we had never been to before. And it was very nice to

have GPS. I used my phone because my phone has GPS on it.

Uh and I simply punched in the address of where we needed to

go and the GPS app just told us how to get there. So, very,

very handy, very, very convenient. Um I think from the

question before, um I think it was from Yarrowslav. This might

be my favorite modern convenience. It's GPS. I love

GPS. So handy when you're going somewhere where you have never

been before. Self-driving cars. So, a self-driving car, this is

a convenience that doesn't really exist yet. Well, it kind

of exists but they're testing it a lot, right? Um so, the

self-driving car is a car that doesn't need a driver. Someday,

when I'm old, I think I am going to really, really like

self-driving cars. Just the fact that if Jen and I wanted

to go to see a movie and if I was 75 years old and if my

eyesight wasn't good and if I didn't like driving anymore, it

would be so nice to just jump in a self-driving car and have

the car take us to the movie theater. So, that would

certainly be very, very cool. The snooze button. So, I'm not

sure if you like the snooze button. Uh for those of you

that are wondering what a snooze button is, if you set

your alarm and your alarm goes off, you can hit the snooze

button and you can sleep for another six or seven or ten

minutes. So, the snooze button is something I use every

morning once. Usually, I push the snooze button once and I

sleep for another six or 7 minutes and then my alarm goes

off again. Um so definitely the snooze button is another um

modern convenience in the world today. So very very handy but

it can also be a little bit dangerous. If you push the

snooze button too many times, you might end up being late for

work which isn't fun. The remote control, when I was a

kid, the TV didn't have a remote control. So, who do you

Think um was the remote control. The children were the

remote control. So my dad would say can you turn the TV up? Can

you turn the TV down? So make it louder or quieter. Can you

change it to channel two? Can you change it to channel seven?

And as kids we would run up and we would change the channel. Um

but certainly the remote control when it was invented is

a very very cool thing to have. Um when I am feeling lazy and

sitting in front of the TV um I Very much like the fact that I

have a remote control to turn up the volume or to turn down

the volume and to change the channels. Bank machine. In

Canada we call this an ATM or a bank machine. Uh ATM is short

for automatic teller machine. The bank machine is very very

handy. But I use it less and less. Because I hardly ever

need money anymore. I just use my card or my phone to pay for

stuff. So I think the bank machine when I was sixteen or

seventeen the bank started to put in bank machines and it was

very very convenient. I could deposit my paycheck after work

I could take money out on the weekend that was actually a bad

thing because sometimes I spent too much money on the weekend.

Sometimes when something's convenient it also allows you

to behave differently. And I certainly spent a lot more

money because there were bank machines and it was so easy. It

was so convenient to just go get more money out. And then

online banking is certainly very very convenient. Very very

handy. Most of the time I would say 90% of the banking that I

do I do online. I use online banking almost all the time.

Even for our flower business. Everything has become digital.

It's very rare for us to actually go to the bank to do

some banking. We just do it online. Very very easy. Very

very convenient. And then WiFi. Um maybe second only to GPS.

No, maybe this one should be first. I don't even think about

WiFi anymore but it is incredibly convenient. In fact,

I was in a park the other day and there was free WiFi in the

park. Like, I was outside. I actually thought that was a

little bit silly but at the same time, I found it kinda

handy and kinda convenient but WiFi, the ability to use your

computer, the ability to use your phone without plugging

into a wall without having to connect a wire to it so that

you can be on the internet. So, WiFi certainly is very

convenient, very handy, um very, very helpful. So, public

transit, anything that you pay to ride on or in is considered

public transit. Okay, that's not totally true. Buses, uh

streetcars, the subway, the metro, those are all considered

public transit and they are very convenient. When I lived

in Quebec City, I took the bus every I found it to be very,

very convenient. The reason I corrected myself is because

taxis and Uber are not considered public transit.

They're considered private transit. I'm not sure if that's

actually a phrase but anyways, public transit is usually run

by the government. In Canada, we have something called a

convenience store. So, we actually took the word

convenience and we, that's what we call our corner stores, our

small stores that you find in every town um and in your you

might call it a dairy or a corner store um but we call

them convenience stores. In fact, you can see it right

there. Avondale food stores, convenience with low prices.

They do have, it is convenient. You can just run in and buy

something quick. Although, if you need something like milk,

it's usually more expensive. The smartphone, I'm not gonna

spend it too much time on this one but the smartphone has

certainly made all of our lives more convenient. Um and

especially for me, the ability to communicate with people. I

find that very, very convenient. Garage door opener.

I do not have a garage door opener. My mom has a garage

door opener. When she comes home in her car, she pushes a

button on the remote control and her garage door opens and

she drives her car straight into her garage. She pushes the

button again and the door closes. Very, very convenient.

I wish I had a garage door opener but we don't actually

park our vehicles in the garage anyways. We, our garage is full

of stuff. We kind of use the garage um we do a lot of

seeding in the garage for the farm. So, it's a little bit

full. Air conditioning. So, uh the last few days here in

Ontario, Canada, it has been over thirty degrees. Uh there

has been a heat warning every day because it's very, very

humid. So, I am happy that we have air conditioning.

Definitely, it's very, very convenient uh to have air

conditioning. It just keeps your house cool and it makes it

a lot easier to get things done in the house. So, I put

rechargeable and then in brackets, anything. Anything

that you own that you can recharge instead of buying

batteries for it, I find very, very convenient. You might have

a rechargeable um you might have a rechargeable shaver like

what you have here. Um you might have um a rechargeable

toothbrush if you have a um uh an electric toothbrush. There

are so many things in the world now that you can just plug in

and charge and then you can use it again without having to buy

batteries. When I was a kid, I had a little pocket radio and I

was always bugging my parents to buy me a new battery. Um I

wish that it had been rechargeable. That would have

been really cool. So, anything that is rechargeable is very,

very convenient. And then cordless is kind of another way

to talk about rechargeable. So, we would call this a cordless

drill. You could also call it a rechargeable drill but it's far

more common to call it a cordless drill. Um there are so

many things now that are cordless, cordless drill. I

have a cordless saw. Um I have a what do I have? Other thing.

Oh, I have a cordless weed eater. So, it's like it's what

you use to trim um along buildings after you mow the

lawn. So, anything that's cordless, I find very, very

convenient. And then 24 hour in brackets, anything. Anything

that's available 24 hours a day. So, here I have the 24/7

emergency plumber. It's very convenient to have a store that

is open 24 hours a day. Our grocery store in our town is

open 24 hours a day it's very very convenient so you can go

and get something in the middle of the night when we were

younger and when our kids were babies sometimes you would need

something um maybe the baby wasn't sleeping um and you

needed to run to the grocery store we would have to wait

till the next day but now we have a 24 hour uh there's a lot

of things now that are open twenty-four hours. 24 hour

pharmacies are very handy. If you need uh some medicine or

something like that. The dishwasher, so we're talking

about uh some larger appliances. As you know, we

don't have a dishwasher. We do the dishes by hand. We wash all

of the plates and cups in the sink and we dry them by hand as

well but some people love having a dishwasher. One of the

reasons we don't have a dishwasher is because there's

too many people here. Uh we would need to do two loads of

dishes a day. It's easier, I think, just to wash them by

hand. The refrigerator, of course, very, very handy. Um

They used to, a long time ago, I live on a river and they used

to cut blocks of ice out of the river and when my parents moved

here, there was an ice building where they would store blocks

of ice and then, they would sell them during the summer um

but that all ended with the invention of the refrigerator,

a very cool, modern convenience. I see Judith

talking about how I say garage. Yes, I don't say garage.

Garage, garage, garage. I say garage. I think my American

friends say garage in Michigan but I say garage. Laptop, the

laptop uh as a computer, very convenient, rechargeable,

cordless. You can use it anywhere. If there's WiFi, you

don't have to plug it in and the battery life is now

amazing. My work laptop, the battery lasts all day. I know

that might seem normal to you but ten or years ago,

batteries, the laptops would be dead after an hour or two. So,

I'm very happy that now, my current laptop is very, it's

very convenient as a teacher. Uber or a taxi. So, Uber is

kind of like a private taxi. If you own a car, you can become

an Uber driver and people can pay you to get a ride. Um a

taxi is usually yellow and it's operated by a taxi company but

they do the same thing. If you need to go You can call an

Uber, you can call a taxi, they come and pick you up, they

bring you to your destination, and then you pay them. So, very

convenient. I think they will be replaced by robot cars

though. If not, that might have already started already. The

digital camera. So, my very first camera when I was eleven

or 12 years old, it was a film camera. So, I could take twelve

or twenty-four pictures um and then I had to pay to get the

photos developed. I had to go to a a photo store or a

Photoshop um and I had to pay someone to develop them and

then you would pick them up a few days later. So, it is very

convenient to have a digital camera. One, it does not cost

any money to take pictures. You can take a thousand pictures

and it doesn't cost anything. Uh two, you don't have to wait

to see the picture. You can go, you can literally see the

picture on the back of the camera as soon as you take the

picture. So, digital cameras super, super Convenient. Online

shopping, I will be honest. I didn't do a lot of online

shopping before the pandemic but now, I have become quite

happy with online shopping. It's very convenient to just go

online, pick the things you need, and click add to cart,

and then click check out, pay for the order, and then, in a

day or two, it arrives on your doorstep. So, certainly, online

shopping,

Online shopping is very, very convenient. Apple pay, tap, I

don't know what you call it in your country but the ability to

pay for something, I, all I need to do is tap my phone or

my card at the checkout and I have paid for my groceries. The

ability to pay for things quickly with your bank card or

your phone is very, very convenient. Um it can also be a

little bit, it can be a bad convenience in a way because

I think it's resulted in me eating more um chocolate bars

from the vending machine at school because I can just buy

something with my uh bank card or my phone. Instead of uh

having to rummage around in my pocket to see if I have money.

I can just buy things whenever I want but certainly um how we

pay for things has become a lot more convenient lately. Email

is very very convenient. I know it's not as popular as it used

to be. I know that um people text now, sorry, and people

tend to message via Instagram or Facebook messaging or

WhatsApp or any of the other big uh WeChat if you're in that

part of the world but Email for me is still a very convenient

way to communicate. I really, really like it. Electricity,

I'm gonna end on electricity because to me, almost all of

the major conveniences in the world, all of the things that I

find very convenient usually rely on electricity. So,

smartphones, GPS, um almost everything in my list almost

probably in some way relies on electricity. So, yeah, I'm just

looking over. Electricity is very, very convenient. If you

did watch the video that I did with Lucy on her channel,

English with Lucy, I talked about how here we call it

hydro. Which is kind of a unique thing in Canada. Um so,

I would say, you know, I pay a lot for hydro. The hydro bill

came in the mail. Um I'm glad the hydro didn't go out

yesterday. Um uh did I use a lot of hydro last month. That's

very Canadian but generally um we could also use electricity

as a word to describe it if we want to. Anyways, electricity

is probably the biggest and coolest and best convenience of

them all.