Shopping Phrases and Idioms

Shopping Idioms and Phrases

Here are some useful phrases you can use for shopping:

• What size do you wear? 
• Do you have these shoes in size 6?
• What size are you?
• What color would you like?
• Where is the changing room?
• How would you like to pay?
• Can I pay by credit card?
• Can I pay in cash?
• Buy 2 get 1 free.
• No refund. = No compensation (money given back) for returned goods.
• That’s a rip-off! = something is overpaid or of poor quality.
• I need every color in the rainbow. = similar item in different colors.

Idioms related to SHOPPING:

• Shop around: to visit a number of shops selling similar articles in order to compare the prices.

– You can usually save money by shopping around.

• Shop till you drop: to go shopping for a very long time, until you are exhausted.

– If you go to London with Ashley, you’ll shop till you drop, so take comfortable shoes!

• Shopping spree: to enjoy a lively outing, usually with much spending of money.

   – Demi is planning to go on a shopping spree as soon as she gets her bonus.

• Window shopping: to look at things in shop windows, without actually purchasing anything.

– I haven’t been paid yet,  so I can only go window shopping.

Some generic phrases you can use when bargaining:

• Is that your best price?
• Can you lower the price?
• Can you make it lower?
• That’s too expensive! How about $ …?
• Is there any discount?
• Can I get a discount?
• How much is this and this (pointing at the items) altogether?

Here are some examples how you handle a situation when you don’t get a good deal:

1. Well, I was just going  to look around. I wasn’t sure I’d be buying today. If only it was $10 less … (said in a hesitant, undecided voice).

2. I’m still looking around. I think I might be able to find it at a better price. Thanks for your time.

Cold vs Flu Symptoms

Wet season has arrived here in Indonesia. Unfortunately, it has also brought with it various germs (very small living things that cause disease). Many of us are now suffering from colds and, if we are really unlucky, flu (a very bad cold, but with pains and a hot body). If you have caught a cold (got a cold) or come down with (started suffering from) the flu, you will probably want to tell someone about how bad you feel.

If you think flu is the same as cold, then you got it all wrong all this time. A cold is a milder respiratory illness than the flu. While cold symptoms can make you feel bad for a few days, flu symptoms can make you feel quite ill for a few days to weeks. The flu can also result in serious health problems such as pneumonia and hospitalizations.

If you have cought a flu, you might tell a good friend, who will be kind to you, or even a doctor if you are really poorly (ill). Here is a selection of words and phrases that you can use to describe your symptoms (physical feelings that show you have a particular illness).

Let’s start with the NOSE.
• runny nose (liquid coming out of it all the time). A cold with a runny nose is often described as a streaming cold.
• bunged up or blocked up (you cannot breathe through it)
• blow your nose (to clear your nose by forcing air through it into a piece of soft paper).

THROAT
• sore throat (a hurting back part of the mouth).
• cough (have air come out of your throat with a loud sound).
• hacking cough (a loud cough; sounds as if it hurts).

HEAD
• headache (pain in your head).
• splitting headache (a painful headache).

BODY
• body aches (hurts continuously).
• fever or temperature. If you have a fever/temperature, your body – especially your head – is hotter than usual.
• raging fever (your body is very much hotter than usual).

Eventually, the cold or flu will go away and you may say “got over it” or “got better”. When you are feeling 80 % better, you might describe yourself as “over the worst”. If you are completely better, you may say you have “recovered”. If you have recovered very successfully and are now feeling completely healthy, you may say you have “bounced back”.