Describing Cost / Price in English

Hi, everybody. I'm Esther. 

And in this video, we're going to talk about  how to describe the cost or price of something. 

Now, this is important to people  like me who like shopping, right. 

So, for example, I like  shopping especially for dresses/ 

So I might say the cost of  this dress is affordable. 

Okay. This dress is affordable. 

‘affordable’ means that this  dress is not too expensive. 

I have enough money and I can pay for this dress. I have enough money. 

I can buy this dress. So I would say this dress is affordable. 

I can also say this dress is inexpensive. We all know what expensive is but we say  

inexpensive so that's the opposite of expensive. ‘affordable’ and ‘inexpensive’  

have very similar meanings. Again, I have enough money to buy this. 

It's not too expensive. Then, we have ‘cheap’. 

This dress is cheap. Now, ‘cheap’ is similar, it means it's not  

expensive, but it's a little bit more negative. If you say that something is cheap, people may  

think that the quality is not very good. It's not very nice. 

Okay. Now, let's look at the opposite. 

The opposite of these words is ‘expensive’. This dress is expensive.

It costs a lot of money, and too much money maybe. I don't want to buy it. 

We can also say ‘overpriced’. This dress is overpriced. 

That means the price is too high. So, again, I don't want to buy this dress,  

it's too expensive and overpriced. Okay. 

Let's look at some more examples together. Let's look at some examples. 

The hat was affordable because it was on sale. The hat was affordable because it was on sale. 

Next. I wish this bag was more affordable. 

I wish this bag was more affordable. Next. 

This computer is surprisingly inexpensive. This computer is surprisingly inexpensive. 

Next. These shoes  

look beautiful, but they are too cheap. These shoes look beautiful, but they are  

too cheap. Next. 

That jacket is too expensive. That jacket is too expensive. 

Last. I cannot buy this overpriced bag. 

I cannot buy this overpriced bag. Okay, so in this video, we learned that  

when we want to describe the cost of something,  as not too expensive, we say ‘affordable’. 

Okay. Something is affordable if it's not too expensive. 

If I can buy it with the money I have. On the other hand, if something is not affordable, 

if the cost is very high, we  say ‘expensive’ or ‘overpriced’. 

For me, I think some brands like  H&M and Forever 21 are affordable. 

Some people don't think this way. They think it's cheap. 

Sometimes, yes, some of the items can be cheap. But for me, I like those brands  

because they are affordable. Another store that I like in Korea,  

it's called Zara or Jara in Korea as they say. They have some items that are affordable and  

some items that are very expensive. Too expensive for me to buy. 

Okay, well, that's what I  wanted to share in this video. 

Thanks for watching. Bye.