Name: Learn English Vocabulary: Shopping at the Supermarket
Uploaded: 2025-07-21T18:52:59.000Z
Duration: 14 min 4 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

In today's video, we're going to go to the supermarket, and I'm going to walk you and talk you through all the vocabulary and all the expressions you're going to need to use in the supermarket.

We're going to begin with paying and the basic things you need to know about a supermarket.

Then we're going to look at the different departments inside a supermarket, and then I'll give you some good expressions if you want to ask questions, if you want to find things in the supermarket, and who to ask, how to ask, etc.

When you go into a supermarket, you get all your groceries.

Now, a lot of people think groceries is only food.

Groceries includes anything that you buy in the market.

It could be cleaning supplies, it could be food, it could be cooking supplies, etc.

Lots of different things you can buy in the supermarket.

All of these together, all of the things you put in your shopping cart are groceries and you take them home.

So, you have all your groceries, you go up to the cashier to pay, okay?

The cashier will punch everything in on the cash register, and in some places, especially like in Canada, we still use this, and in England, instead of cash register, they say the till.

Now, in some places, the till is just the actual cash drawer inside the machine.

For some places, it's the entire cash register, okay?

So, this area where you're paying and you're putting all your things through, this is called the checkout.

In a supermarket, you go to the checkout area.

That's the place where you pay and get all your things bagged.

The regular one where you can just line up and get all your groceries, or the self-checkout.

Self-checkout, there's machines that you basically put everything through yourself.

So, every item, every product that you buy has a little barcode.

All those black lines with the numbers underneath them, that's called a barcode.

So, they have a scanner, so you scan the barcode, the machine reads it, and starts putting down the prices of everything to add up later.

If you go to the express checkout, that's usually if you only have 10 items or fewer.

Some places, 12 items, some places, 8 items.

But again, you have a limit of how many actual products you can use.

Now, if you go to the express checkout with a full basket or a full shopping cart full of products, they will either tell you to leave or the people behind you will get very, very angry with you because they want to go quickly.

If you have many things, go to the regular checkout or the self-checkout.

So, how are you going to carry all your products around, all your groceries?

You can use a shopping cart, like a big basket on wheels.

In England, they still call it a trolley or they call it a trolley, I shouldn't say still.

Or you can just get a basket and just carry things yourself.

Generally, some people bring their own little case on wheels, but you have to be careful that they can see what's inside of it, so be careful about that.

So, they might think you're trying to steal stuff.

Now, when you walk into a supermarket, make sure you look for the flyer.

It's usually near the entrance and it has all the specials, everything that's on sale or everything that's, like, two-for-one, etc.

Now, a coupon is basically a little percentage or a little money amount that you can take off a product.

So, certain products will have, like, a 25-cent coupon.

You bring the coupon to the checkout and the cashier will take it out...

Sometimes you'll go to a supermarket and you'll go to the checkout and a person bought a whole bunch of stuff, and then from the wallet, he or she takes out, like, a stack of coupons.

And then the cashier has to start counting them and it's really a pain, so go to a different checkout if that happens to you.

Now, so now you know how to go and buy stuff.

Okay, so now we're going to go shopping, and I'm going to walk you through a supermarket and tell you all the lovely things you can buy there.

So, first of all, you'll notice that there are a lot of different departments in a supermarket.

Now, for some of you, this might seem a little bit strange because maybe in the country you come from, you can't buy everything in one place.

But if you come to Canada or the US, and I'm guessing in England as well, our supermarkets are...

They're very, very, very big and they have everything.

You can even buy tools in some of them, like screwdrivers and hammers, and in some of them you can even buy clothes.

But even in a supermarket, you can buy all of these things.

So, let's walk through the different departments of the supermarket.

You can buy meat at a supermarket, and the person who will prepare the meat and serve you the meat that you ask for is called the butcher.

Now, again, a lot of people still go to an actual butcher shop.

There are many stores that sell only meat.

You can go there or you can go to the butcher inside the supermarket.

You can go to a fish shop or you can go to a supermarket and buy fish there, and the person selling it or preparing the fish for you is called a fishmonger.

Some people don't like this word, monger, but that's what a person who sells you fish is called, a fishmonger.

Now, a lot of people don't realize that this is not pronounced produce.

Produce, with the stress on the first syllable, is fruits and vegetables.

Then, let me stick to food, I'll come back a bit.

The bakery, that's where you buy your bread, and bagels, and cookies, and whatever other baked goods you liked.

And of course, the person there is the baker.

Then you have your dairy section, milks, cheeses, all the things that come from milk.

I'm not actually sure if I'm spelling this correctly, but a delicatessen, we just generally say deli.

This place will serve you processed cheese, for example, sliced cheese and cold cuts.

Cold cuts, these are processed meats that are then cut, like they're packaged and then sliced.

So, salami, or prosciutto, or pastrami, or bologna, or ham, these are all cold cuts, and you can buy these at the deli.

And you can buy olives, and other side dishes, and appetizers, etc.

If you want to buy plants, if you want to buy soil to grow your own plants at home, or you can just a flower shop.