Daily Life English: Around Town [Advanced Vocabulary Lesson]

You're invited to come with me around my  American town to run some errands. Errands  

are those necessary activities that you have  to do in daily life, such as go to the post  

office. So that's what you're invited to  do with me today and learn some real-life  

English along the way. Hi, I'm Vanessa from  speakenglishwithvanessa.com. And like always,  

I have created a free PDF worksheet with all  of today's important vocabulary, expressions,  

sample sentences, and you can answer Vanessa's  challenge question at the bottom of the free  

worksheet so that you never forget what  you've learned. You can click on the link  

in the description to download that free  worksheet today. All right, are you ready  

to get started with our first errand? Let's do  it. The first errand that we're going to run  

is dropping off some books that my kids no longer  read in our neighborhood's free book box. This is  

a pretty popular concept in the US where if you  have books that you don't want anymore or your  

kids don't want anymore, you can share them with  your neighbors. So that's what I'm going to do.

All right. I think today I'm not going to take  anything for me, but would you like to see what's  

going on inside the book box? There are books for  adults. These are the kids' books that I just put  

in there. Sometimes there's magazines, sometimes.  One time I even found some homemade vegetables  

in there. Home-grown vegetables. Pretty cool. All  right, let's go to the next errand. All right, our  

next errand. Hi everyone, is we are going to be  making some donations to the local charity shop,  

and these are items that my family doesn't use  anymore and other people might find them useful.

Our trash might be other people's treasure.  There is one item in our car that I don't know  

if they're going to accept. It is an old door.  So I'm going to ask the lady if that's something  

that they'll accept and we'll see what happens. So  if you want to know why we're giving away a door,  

it's because we bought a super cheap used door,  I think it was $8 from another thrift store,  

and my husband made it into a table, like a craft  play table for my kids. And they could draw on it,  

they could do crafts on it, and now we don't  need it anymore. So we took the table legs off  

of it and it's time to see if it can go back  into the world of donations. Let's find out.

Hey.

Hi.

All right. I have a couple of things,  

but I do have... I have a question.  Is something like this, this door.

Right.

Is that something that we can donate?  It's like one of those pocket doors.

I know if we don't, then  Habitat will. We can ask Eric.

Okay. That would be great. Save us a trip if  

possible. Thank you. Let's see. All  right, first thing is this old game.  

Second thing, a dartboard, another  game. Third thing is this little basket.

No, they send them all to Habitat.

Oh, okay. Well, I'll just go over there  then. Okay. Thank you. It's all right.  

And this is for children. I know you guys  don't take baby stuff, but kid stuff's okay?

Yeah.

Okay, cool. All right. One ... and...  Maybe this can be someone's treasure.

Here we go.

Okay. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Have a good day. All right, let's  go across the street and donate this  

door to the other charity that takes doors  apparently. Let's go. So I was wondering,  

a couple years ago, I got this  door here. Can I return it?

Yeah, yeah.

All right.

I mean, you can donate it back.

Yeah. Yeah. We have loved it and used it well.

Oh, nice.

It does have some markings on it.

That's okay.

We used it as a table.

Yeah, absolutely.

Okay, awesome. Thank you.

You got it. You have a wonderful day.

Thanks. You too. All right, our next errand  is to go to the bank and I need to deposit  

some checks that we were given. One of them is a  tax check. One of them is a check given to Dan,  

my husband, from his grandparents for  his birthday. It's kind of an American  

tradition. I don't know if it's a tradition,  but in my family, and in Dan's family,  

grandparents like to give their grandchildren  some money for their birthday. And the older  

generation will often use a check to do that.  So we have to deposit it in the bank and let's  

go. Let's see what happens. I'm going to use  the drive-thru to show you the true American  

experience. And I'm not exactly sure what's  going to happen, but let's just give it a shot.

All right, so  

park. There's this little cool tube. Here it  is. You take the tube out, it has a pen inside  

if you need to sign anything. I already signed  everything. I was prepared. So I'm just going to  

put my driver's license and the checks in here.  Close it up. Watch this magic. Are you ready? I  

push send carrier. Watch this tube up here. What?  As a kid, this is always the most exciting part  

about going to the bank, watching the tube get  sucked up into this area and go into the bank.

I used to actually work at the bank a long time  ago. It was a great job. And my bank that I worked  

at did not have this type of device. There was  only one drive-through lane. And if you go to the  

closest drive-through lane where this other car  is over here, there's just a door that opens in  

the wall and you put things directly in there and  the bank teller grabs it directly out. There's no  

cool tube, but I wanted to show you the tube. All  right, let's see if it's my turn to get serviced.

Hey, good morning.

Hi, good morning.

How are you?

Good, good. I'd just like to deposit those checks.

Yeah, sure. Do you want to in your checking?

That would be great. Thank you.

Success. She might ask because we have a couple  different checking accounts, she might ask me,  

which checking account do you want to get it  deposited into? I don't know, maybe she'll just  

guess and put it in one of them. Let's see. While  we're waiting for the checks to get deposited,  

I wanted to let you know that if you do live  in the US and you want to go to the bank,  

if you want to just deposit a check  or if you want to get some cash out,  

you don't need to go into the bank, you can  use the machine over here or you can just  

drive up like this. But if you want to open a  bank account, you have to go into the bank and  

you can just go into the bank and say, I'd like  to open a checking account, or I'd like to open  

a savings account or I'd like to open an account.  What's your recommendation? Something like this.

So if you want to open an account, you  need to go inside and don't worry if  

you can't understand everything they  say, because you can always ask, "Hey,  

can you say that a little slower or could you  repeat that please?" And from my experience,  

most people who work at the bank are  very nice. I used to work at the bank,  

but many people who work at the bank are  nice, so they'll be willing to help you.

All right, you're all set. Have a great day.

Okay, thank you. Here it comes. Are you  ready? All right, so let's see what I  

got. Did I get any treasure today? I got my  driver's license back and a receipt and the  

pen is still in there. Don't steal the pen.  I will just put it back. Click send carrier,  

which closes the door. Oh, dang it. I sent  the empty carrier. Run away. Run away.  

Oops. I guess you just put it in there and the  door automatically closes. Don't listen to me.

Okay, let's go to our next errand, which is if  I can move this, our next errand is to drop off  

something at the post office. Now, unfortunately,  I'm not going to be taking you into the post  

office with me, but we will drive up to the post  office and you'll see what happens. Let's go.

Our final errand is going to the post office.  Unfortunately, this is not one of my favorite  

errands, but the people who work here are  really nice. I'm going to be sending these  

little chocolate packages to some of my  team members who had birthdays recently.  

I like to try to send them local chocolate.  It's something I would love to receive for my  

birthday. So I'm sending this to them and I  need to go into the post office to do that,  

but I'm not going to take you with me.  Sorry about that. So you'll have to be  

satisfied with just this shot outside the  post office. And I'll see you after I go in.

All right, I just finished at the post  office and I sent those lovely gifts to  

two of my team members. Thank you so much for  joining me today to run some errands. Running  

errands isn't my favorite activity, but it's  certainly a necessary part of life. So I hope  

that you learned some useful English phrases  for daily life in today's lesson. Don't forget  

to download the free PDF worksheet for today's  lesson with all of the important expressions,  

vocabulary, definitions, sample sentences. And  you can answer Vanessa's challenge question at  

the bottom of the worksheet so that you  never forget what you've learned. And  

you can speak daily life English too. You  can click on the link in the description  

to download that free PDF worksheet today.  Well, thanks so much for learning English  

with me and I'll see you again next Friday for  a new lesson here on my YouTube channel. Bye.

But wait, do you want more? I recommend  watching this video next where you'll  

join me around town at the pharmacy.  There are some surprising items for  

sale at a pharmacy in the US. So  I'll see you there to find out.