Free English Class! Topic: Storage 🗃️📦🧰 (Lesson Only)

Well hello and welcome to this English lesson about storage.

You might think this is a strange topic but as I thought

about a lesson idea one of the ideas on my list was to talk

about storage. We all own a lot of things. As you go through

life you accumulate things. You buy things. By the way

accumulate means you get more and more. Um and you need to

put all of those things somewhere. Whether it's knives

and forks and kitchen. Whether it's a camera that you just

bought. Uh whether it's something like the laptop that

you take back and forth to work. It's nice to have a place

to store things. So then in English storage is the word we

use to talk about the places we put things when we want to be

organized. In fact I like the phrase in your house.

Everything should have a home. Your cups should have a home.

Uh your computer should have a home. If everything has a home

in your home if there's store Storage for everything your

house is very very organized. So once again welcome to this

english lesson about storage. So the idea for this lesson

started when I was looking for my suit jacket in my closet. A

closet is a small little it's not really a room. It's a space

in a room or in a hallway with a door usually where you can

store things usually clothing. Although we do have a closet

where we just store boxes of old clothes and boxes of things

we don't use anymore. But generally a bed closet is used

to store clothing. So I have my suit jackets in there. My blue

shirts hang in my closet as well. After we do laundry we

put clothes on hangers and put them in the closet. So on coat

hangers. Uh closets are really really nice because you can put

all your stuff in there and close the doors and then

everything is neat and tidy. Now you heard me say bedroom

closet. That's how we describe closets. We put the word in

front if we want to say where it is. So bedroom closet,

upstairs hallway closet, downstairs closet, back room

closet, living room closet, whenever you talk about a

closet, you just put the room name in front and that's where

that closet is. Shelf, probably the next most common way place

to store things would be a shelf. Um there are things like

bookshelves. There are just normal shelves where you put a

variety of things. But you probably in your house have a

few shelves. Notice the plural. We lose the F and add a V. Uh a

shelf is a nice place to put things. If you want to be able

to see them still. Uh I have a shelf in my old Studio where I

have all my camera gear. When I need a camera I go to that

shelf and grab one. So it's nice to have a shelf for that

and we used to have shelves in our kitchen. But we we replace

them with cupboards. Drawer. So the next most common place to

store things would be in a drawer. Notice how I'm

pronouncing this word drawer. It's kind of a weird sound

isn't it? Drawer. It looks like drawer. But a drawer is someone

who draws. Oh my friend's a good drawer. But this is a

Drawer. This is a drawer. I've said it enough times now I

think. A drawer pulls out. You can open a drawer and close a

drawer. Um and again when you're referring to a drawer

you can mention the room as well. It's in one of the

kitchen drawers. Uh it's in one of the drawers in your dresser

in the bedroom. So you can kind of mention where it is.

But a drawer's handy. You can put small things in. This looks

like a drawer in a teacher's desk. Desks also have drawers.

Because it has a lot of pens and sharpies and elastics. It

definitely looks like the drawer in my desk at school.

And then we have of course the cupboard. Another strange

pronunciation. Um it's cupboard. In our kitchen we

have kitchen cupboards. So we keep our plates. We keep food

in our cupboards. Um when the cupboards are bare it means

there's no food in the cupboard. But definitely a

cupboard is a nice place. You have a door. You open the

cupboard. You put things in the cupboard. When you come home

from getting groceries. You put the groceries away in the

cupboard. So we go to the grocery store. We buy

groceries. We come home. We unpack the bags. And we put

groceries away. We put the groceries in the cupboard. Um

nice handy. Usually drawers and cupboards go together. You can

see there are cupboards on the bottom and there's a row of

drawers here. So kitchen cupboards and kitchen drawers.

And then there's another word cabinet. And we use this word

kind of interchangeably with cupboard. So I can say I keep

my food in my kitchen cabinets. Or I keep my food in my kitchen

cupboards. Cabinets are it's I guess a little more formal way

to say it. Sometimes people will put some cabinets in their

garage to store things. Uh but cupboards are usually the I

think that's the more common way to refer to them. You know

we have law of cupboard space in our kitchen. That means we

have lots of cupboards to put things in. We have lots of

kitchen cabinets. Cubbyhole. So this might be one of the first

ones that you might not know. A cubby hole is a small square

storage area. Probably the most common place where you'll see a

cubby hole is at a school especially for younger

children. When kids are six or seven or eight in their

classroom they might have a cubby hole where they can keep

their stuff. So a cubby hole to it's usually square. It could

be round but most furniture is square. And it's a little place

where you put things like backpacks or bags. Um there was

a gym I used to go to where when I went to the gym I had a

little cubby hole I could put my stuff in. Uh the gym I go to

now though I have a locker and I'll talk about lockers in a

bit. But a cubby hole just a small little area where you can

store your belongings. That's how we refer to the things you

own. Uh when you go somewhere You might go to a variety of

different places. Where you might find a cubby hole. So

when you store paper or when you store folders or when you

store important documents you will probably put them in a

file cabinet. I actually have one right there. I can't show

you because it's a mess. As I talk about storage and

organization. The room behind me is always neat and tidy. So

this is usually neat and tidy behind me. But the rest of the

room behind the camera is a bit of a mess. I need to store

things better but I do have a file cabinet. It's a place

where when you get important things in the mail if you need

to keep them you put them in the file cabinet. Yesterday I

renewed the license plates for my vehicles. And so I printed

out the renewal and stored one copy in the glove compartment

of our vehicle and one in my file cabinet. By the way I

didn't put glove compartment. On the list of storage. I

should have done that. File cabinet. Great place to store

paper. You'll probably see a lot of these in an office

building. And then locker I mentioned this briefly earlier.

Sometimes when you go to a gym you will get changed in a

change room and you will put your stuff in a locker. A

locker is usually a steel cabinet. It's usually made out

of metal. It usually locks hence the name locker. It

usually locks and your belongings are then secure when

you go to work out. They're also very popular in schools in

North America particularly at a high school. A high school will

often have lockers in the hallway. And a student will be

given a locker at the beginning of the year. Your locker number

ninety-three they'll say. And then you will have a place to

put your backpack and your textbooks and your computer

laptop. Uh and then you can put a combination lock on it. So a

locker another really nice place to store things. And then

we have something in North America. I'm not sure if

everyone has this in the world. But it's called a storage

locker. Or self storage. Um North Americans some of them

have so much stuff. It doesn't all fit In their house. This is

kind of a weird thing about North America. So some people

not everyone but some people will rent a storage locker or

they'll rent a locker at a self-storage facility and

they'll keep some of their things in a locker. Uh if

you've ever watched the show Storage Wars that's when

someone doesn't pay for their locker and so then the company

auctions off their stuff. Look it up if you haven't seen it.

It's a interesting peek into North American life. And of

course a lot of people have a garage as part of their house.

You can see in the bottom photo this is a garage door. And

often people will put shelves in their garage. Or other

things. So that they can store stuff. So here you see they

have a lot of containers. They've put their things in

containers and put them on shelves. So our garage as well

has a large shelf in it. And we store many many things in our

garage. It's just a great place to store things. Basement So a

lot of North American houses have what's called a basement.

This is the area of the house which is below ground. So we go

down our basement stairs and we have a basement. North

Americans don't often live in their basements. They might

have a living room. They might have one or two bedrooms down

there. But they might also have a large area like this. Let me

make this a bit bigger for you. So we as well have an area in

our basement where It's not for living. It's for storage. You

can see these people have built a lot of shelves in their

basement. Often you will keep camping gear in your basement

like tents. You might keep your Christmas tree in your basement

if you have a fake Christmas tree and all of your Christmas

decorations. Uh you usually buy a lot of boxes and containers

and I'll talk about those in a bit. Uh but many people will

have a storage area in their basement. Uh and they will

store a lot of things down there. We do that. Definitely.

Our Christmas tree is in our basement right now on a shelf.

Um and people sometimes will have a small shed in their

yard. So they'll either buy a shed. A shed is a small

building. Specifically for storage. Or people might build

a shed. The interesting thing in Canada is you can build a

shed that's 10 feet by 10 feet and you don't need a building

permit. You don't need permission from the government.

But a shed again is a small building and people will keep

their lawn mower, their garden tools and those types of things

in it. It's a great place to store things that you need to

use when you do yard work. When you are gardening it's nice to

have a shed with all your gardening tools in it. In fact

some people call it a garden shed. Let's talk about the

things you can store stuff in. This might go a little quicker.

Sorry if I talk too fast. I'll try to talk my normal speed.

The simplest place to store something is in a box. We order

things from Amazon. Those things come in boxes. And we

keep the boxes because the cardboard box this is a

cardboard it's really handy for storing things. I like to have

boxes to put things in. In fact beside my file cabinet is a

stack of boxes with stuff in them. So the most basic thing

to store things in would be a box. And here we have a storage

box. I just wanted to highlight that sometimes we add the word

storage to things to indicate what it's for. This box is

handy because it has a lid. In English when we say something's

handy it means it's very very useful. So definitely Box and

Storage Box are two common things that people use to store

things. And then if you have valuable things like if you

have jewelry by the way this is the North American spelling of

jewelry. So there might be an extra L and E if you are

learning British English. But often people will have a

jewelry box. And they'll keep their rings, their bracelets,

they'll keep their necklaces. By the way if you're wondering

what happened you can see I'm a little bit scratched up here. I

was working in the field and there were a lot of thistles.

Thistles are a of plant with prickly things on it and my

arms got scratched up a little bit. So now I have a burn

that's healing and my arms are scratching up. Sorry this has

nothing to do with the lesson. Let me continue. A jewelry box

is handy for storing earrings, rings, bracelets, necklaces I

think I've mentioned most of the things that you would store

in a jewelry box. And usually people will keep this in their

bedroom. Because one of the first things you might do in

the morning is put on your jewelry and you might take it

off at the end of the day. In our kitchen we have a lot of

containers. Now there's a few different words for these

containers. You can just say food container. Uh at the end

of a meal we put our leftovers in a food container. You can

call it a plastic container. Some people refer to all of

this as Tupperware. Tupperware is a brand name of containers

you can buy to use in the kitchen. Um and some people

have started to call them Ziploc containers. Remember a

Ziploc bag if you squeeze it it closes. But Ziploc also makes

containers and people have started to call them that. So

container, food container, storage container, Tupperware,

Ziploc, whatever you want to call it. The things you use to

store food. And we also have what's called a crate. Excuse

me. A crate. Oh let me make that a bit smaller. A crate is

usually usually open on the top although the one pictured it

does have a lid. Um this is a variety of crates. They can be

made out of wood. They can be made out of plastic. Uh and

they're used to not just store things but to ship things. So

when a company builds something they'll put it in a crate. And

they'll send it on a truck or a boat in the crate. Now when a

crate gets to its destination people often use the crate to

store things. It's a handy little I guess it's kind of a

box. We have you see this black one here. In Canada this is

called a milk crate because milk comes in bags in Canada so

they put the bags in the crate but there are really handy

thing to have. We use a lot of them on the flower farm.

Anyways these are crates. Uh just handy little things. I

guess you could say boxes that are used to move things. And

then we have basket. So a basket is a little different

than a box or crate. A basket often if you pour water in a

basket it would run out. So a basket has some airflow. We use

baskets at the grocery store. So these are baskets you would

grab if you're buying groceries. Uh we also use them

to store laundry. That's a laundry basket way on the other

side. Uh baskets can be made out of plastic or they might be

woven out of different kinds of material. And then we have of

course the bag. Now their a bag can be a nap sack. A bag can be

like this one that you would carry It's kind of something

with handles that you can put things in. It's not exactly for

storage although it can be. I mean I have bags that I put

cameras in. I have a camera bag. So you can have a bag

that's used for storage. I usually keep my camera in a

camera bag. In our garage we have a few hooks. In the barn

we have hooks by our front door we have hooks. Hooks are

anything that you can hang something on. When I come home

I have hooks over there and I can hang my coat on a hook. In

the garage we have hooks and we can hang garden tools on the

hooks. Hooks are nice. Um and you always hang something on a

hook. That's the verb you use in English. So the other day

when I came home I was wearing my jacket. I took off my jacket

and I hung my jacket up on a hook. Um in the winter when I

get home next winter when I come home I will hang my coat

up everyday on a hook. And this is the picture I wanted to show

you. This isn't my actual bottle. Sometimes people use a

bottle to store things. When I was a kid I didn't have a piggy

bank. I had a bottle just like this one. I got it to from some

Italian friends who used them to make they would make wine

and this would be their wine bottle and they gave me an

empty bottle once and then I used that bottle to keep all of

my money in. So if I got a quarter from my grandma or if I

found a dime in the street whenever I found coins I would

put them in my bottle. So this was kind of my piggy bank when

I was a kid. This is how I stored money. But yes people

use bottles to store all kinds of things. And then there's

barrels. So barrels typically used probably the most popular

thing is for wine. Wine is often aged in barrels. Uh

barrels are used to make whiskey and all different kinds

of alcoholic beverages. Um even up to a while ago I think you

could buy pickles in a barrel. Pickles are cucumbers that are

in a like a salt brine solution but a barrel is definitely

looks like this. There are plastic barrels as well. We buy

certain things for the farm in barrels. Uh usually a barrel is

if you put it on its side you can roll it. Sorry I'm knocking

my mic here. But a barrel is another cool place to store.

Usually liquids I think. Although pickles I guess

pickles are in saltwater so or brine. A toolbox if you are

someone who likes to fix things you will probably have tools.

The best place to keep your tools is in a toolbox. The

worst place to keep your tools is the last place you use them.

I'm guilty of leaving my tools in the last place where I use

them. Sometimes I forget to bring them back to the toolbox

where I forget to put them in the toolbox or hang them on the

hooks that we have. We have hooks as well for different

tools. But a toolbox is a small box made out of metal or

plastic and it's a great place to store your hammer, your

screwdrivers, your wrenches, and all the other tools that

you use. So a mailbox isn't really a storage area. But at

my place of work I have a mailbox. And I actually use it

to store things a little bit. Sometimes I put things in my

mailbox just so that I know where they are. Um we don't use

our mailboxes as much anymore because we use email a lot

more. So we have these little storage. You can almost call

them cubby holes but we have these little mailbox slots at

our school and I sometimes I keep some paperwork in there so

that I know where it is. So we're going to talk a little

bit about a trunk and I think the next phrase is trunk, the

trunk, let me make these bigger. trunk, trunk. So this

is a trunk. We might also call this a chest. I'll talk about a

chest in a minute. Some people will have a trunk and they'll

store old clothing in there. Some people will keep their

winter clothes in a trunk during the summer. So they'll

put their winter coat and their hat and mittens in a trunk

because they don't need it for a few months. Um so they might

have a large trunk somewhere and they put things in there.

Um often people will have a trunk in their attic or in

their basement. I'll talk about attics in a bit. Um but a trunk

is a place where can keep things. I think it's very

common in Canada to put all your winter clothes in a trunk.

Uh and then take them out in the late fall when it gets cold

again. And then trunk of a car. We don't call this a boot in

Canada. We call this the trunk. Um you don't really store

things in the trunk. But I thought because I'm talking

about trunks. I should talk about trunks. A trunk is a

little storage area in a car. And I should have mentioned

glove box or glove compartment as well. That's a small storage

area inside the car. Where you can keep things Like gloves if

you wanted to but I don't actually know that many people

that keep gloves in their glove box. It's kind of a funny

thing. But yes that is a trunk. So chest. There's not a whole

lot of difference between a trunk and a chest. Although I

would not call this a trunk because it has legs on it. I

know that's kind of weird. Maybe that's just me. I would

call this a trunk. And because this has legs I would call it a

chest. So maybe that's the Difference but a chest again is

a large wooden or plastic or metal box where you can store

things. Now there's a unique kind of chest or trunk called a

foot locker. This is a common thing for people to have at the

end of their bed. Not everyone but a foot locker is kind of a

nice lockable case I guess or chest. I'm just going to call

it a foot locker. This is a foot locker. I'll just call it

that. Um when I went to university a lot of students

had foot lockers in the room. Because you shared the room

with another person. You had a roommate. And you might have a

few things that you wanted to keep secure or safe. And so you

might have a foot locker that you could lock and then your

roommate couldn't pry and look at all of your stuff when you

were gone. I never had a foot locker at university but then I

didn't really have much of anything at university. I just

had my books in my brain. A pallet. This is also called a

skid. A pallet is something that they use in factories.

When they build things they put them on pallets and then they

put the pallets on trucks using forklifts. A pallet is designed

so the forklift can lift it. Um but often pallets can be used

as well to store things. We store things on pallets in our

shed. On our farm we have pallets. We store hay on

pallets. So there's airflow. At some places they store things

on pallets because they need to be able to move them easily. So

a pallet or what can also be called a skid. Uh looks like

this. Uh I think pallet is the more common word and it's a

great place to store things.

And then we have of course the shipping container. I think

everyone has seen one of these. A shipping container is a large

metal box but it's definitely bigger than a box. A shipping

container is used to ship things. But people have started

to use shipping containers to store things. In our area

sometimes instead of building a shed people will buy an old

shipping container and a truck will bring it to their place

and then they will put it backyard and they will store

things in it. In fact it became a bit of a problem so in my

area I'm pretty sure there's a law now that you can't buy

shipping containers and use them to store things. I'll have

to double check that but people were getting very upset because

there were so many shipping containers. But definitely used

to ship things and also where you can store things. So I

mentioned earlier that I store my camera in a camera case. You

can also call it a camera bag. In fact that's what I think I

called it earlier. When I go somewhere I take my camera bag

and it has my camera in it. But I also store my camera in my

camera bag. So the camera I'm using now when I'm done this

live stream I will put it back in my camera case. I keep it in

my camera bag or camera case during the week. So that in I

don't want it to you know I don't want someone to knock it

over or accidentally touch the lens. So I want to keep it safe

so I store it in my camera case. Notice camera bag and

camera case are interchangeable all. Then we have what's called

a bin, a standard bin looks like this. You can't quite see

it but above the recycle symbol. There's actually it

says rubber made on it. Rubber made makes a lot of bins. Um

this wasn't the type of rubber made bin I meant though but a

bin is a place where usually it's open on the top and you

can throw things in. You might have a trash bin. You might

have a recycle bin. You might just have a bin. You know grab

that bin and fill it up with some newspapers It's just a

handy container that you can use to store things. Uh let's

see here. Dresser. So in the bedroom of most houses you'll

have a dresser. The dresser will have drawers in it. So in

our bedroom we have two dressers. Um Jen uses one and I

use the other. And this is where we keep our clothes.

After we wash our clothes. And after we hang our clothes up to

dry. We don't use a dryer. We hang our clothes up to dry.

Then we fold our clothes and we put them in our dresser

drawers. Um dresser drawer That's hard to say isn't it?

This dresser has drawers. I put my clothes in my dresser

drawers. There you go. Try saying that five times. Some

people have a walk-in closet. If you have lots of money or if

you were lucky enough to buy a house with walk-in closet, I

think they're really really nice. A walk-in closet is

similar to a closet but it's so big that you can walk into it,

okay? So, when you have a walk-in closet, it means that

you can walk in and you can look at all your clothing. I

wish I had a walk-in closet sometimes but I don't. I'm sure

some of you have walk-in closets but I do not. And

walk-in closet. Uh I have a nightstand. I keep my Fitbit

and my wedding ring in the drawer of my nightstand. So

when I go to sleep at night I take off my wedding ring and my

Fitbit. By the way this is a fitness tracker called a Fitbit

and I put them in a drawer in my nightstand. It's a nice

place to store them during the night. Um because then I know

exactly where they are the next morning. A window sill. So some

people store things on a window sill. So here you can see they

have some plants there and a few tiny tiny gourds or mini

pumpkins. Um We sometimes store our mail on our window sill.

When we get the mail we bring it home and we put it on our

window sill and we might open it later. When we get magazines

we store magazines on our window sill in our kitchen. So

that if I'm eating a snack I can grab a magazine to read.

But a window sill is a little ledge in front of a window. And

sometimes the ledge is big enough that you can store

things on it. So that is a window sill. And of course a

desk usually you have desk drawers. You might store things

on your desk. Uh but you might also store things in the

drawers. My desk drawers have paper for my printer. So when I

need paper I open one of the drawers. Um when I order new

paper I put it in one of my desk drawers and that is where

I store my paper. So if the printer ran out of paper and

Jen needed paper she would say where do you store your paper?

And I would say it's in the desk drawer. And then she would

grab some paper. Put it in the printer. A wallet is a great

place to store things. I don't think my wallet is right you

know it's way over there. Um but a wallet is a place where

you store money. Where you store credit cards where you

store debit cards. Which is a card connected to your bank

account. Um and a wallet is not just for men. Women can have

wallets as well. This is definitely a man's wallet. It's

a you know a might call it a bill fold as well. But I call

it a wallet. Um like Jen has a wallet and I have a wallet.

It's a gender neutral term for something you use to store

money. ID cards credit cards and those types of things. You

might have a purse. Now, I had to ask Jen and my daughter what

the difference was between a purse and a handbag. They said

that a purse is usually smaller and has a strap so you can hang

it from your shoulder. Whereas a handbag can be a little

bigger and usually just has handles on top. So once again,

I'm not an expert. I don't own a purse or a handbag but a

purse think is usually a bit smaller and has a strap and a

handbag is usually a bit bigger and has handles. Earlier I

mentioned the word attic. So an attic is usually sorry not

usually. An attic is something some people in North America

have. Usually in an older house. And it's a room way at

the top. And usually the ceiling is the actual inside of

the roof. So you can see in this one too. Uh the attic

space is not a space where people live. Um often times

it's not heated in the winter. But an attic is a large storage

area for some people. So they might store things in the

attic. And fact the same way we store things in our basement.

Some people store the same things in their attic. We don't

have an attic. This house was built in 1981 and that is

considered a more modern home design even though that's like

over 40 years ago. Um and they didn't build attics anymore.

They started to put more insulation in houses. So the

attic space or an attic as a room kind of disappeared in

North America, especially in the northern parts of North

America. Some people still have attics though. They are a nice

place to store things. And then I put this as the last slide

because I thought this was funny. These aren't my children

but my kids as they grew up when they were little. They

would store a lot of things on the floor. If you walked in

their room you wouldn't be able to walk because all their toys

would be on the floor. It's not a good place to store things.

Especially if You're a dad and if you have to go and talk to a

child at night because they're crying and you're trying to

walk across the room in the dark you often step on things.

So don't store things on the floor. Uh but I'm sure if you

have children or if you have friends with children you'll

recognize that kids often will store things on the floor. Not

the best place to store things.