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This is an All Ears English Podcast, Episode 17: How to Get a Bargain on ‘Black Friday.’

Welcome to the All Ears English Podcast, where you’ll finally get real, native English conversation. Now here are your hosts, Lindsay McMahon, the ‘English Adventurer’ and Gabby Wallace, the ‘Language Angel’, coming to you from Boston, Massachusetts, USA.

In today’s special bonus episode, we’re gonna (going to) talk about how to shop American style on ‘Black Friday’ and share some tips for how you can get a bargain. So let’s get your ears into English!

Hey Lindsay, how’s it going?

Hey Gabby. How are ya’ (you) today?

I’m doing great. Thanks for asking.

Good.

So today is known as ‘Black Friday.’ Yes! It’s a big day in the US.

It is a big day. It’s the day after Thanksgiving, so Thanksgiving is always on a Thursday.

Right.

The last Thursday in November. The date can change, but it’s always the last Thursday and then ‘Black Friday’ is the day after.

Yes. And it’s- at that point, everyone is in a turkey coma.

Yeah. That’s right.

What’s a turkey coma?

Um, turkey has that chemical in it, uh… Both: Tryptophan. Yeah.

Just makes you tired and um, not only that, but people tend to eat too much on Thanksgiving.

Oh my gosh.

And I know like a lot of my friends will go to Thanksgiving with their family and then with their friends and they’ll eat several times, so.

We eat so much, it’s crazy.

So then we have to shop it off on ‘Black Friday.’ Right. Of course. Of course.

So yeah, have you ever done – like gone shopping, done ‘Black Friday’?

Have you ever gone out for bargains?

Yeah, I actually don’t do ‘Black Friday.’ Actually I hate shopping.

Oh no!

Yes.

I’m looking forward to ‘Black Friday’ because I wanna buy some new clothes and maybe some electronics, maybe even like some little gifts for people. Not anything too extravagant, but uh, I would like to get out there and just like, I don’t know.

It, it’s almost like a celebration in a weird way. It’s like all these people trying to get deals and I don’t know it’s like a festival of shopping. I kind of get excited.

Yeah. It is – it’s fun ‘cause you get into the Christmas spirit and it’s kind of – the, the sort of official start of the holiday season. I think of it that way.

Yeah. Absolutely. I think that’s when stores put up a lot of Christmas decorations. Um, and that’s when people really start shopping for Christmas gifts.

Definitely. So how good are the deals that you usually get on ‘Black Friday’? What are we talking about here in terms of discounts?

I mean it can range depending on the store. Like I know a lot of people like to go to outlets. Like here outside of Boston, we have the Wrentham Outlets, which are really popular. And it’s funny because it’s like this crazy um, event where they open the stores at midnight. As soon as it’s like 12:01…

Even at the outlets, they do that?

Yeah.

Oh, I didn’t know that.

So people drive out there, like right after Thanksgiving dinner, which is weird, but they go out that night because the traffic and the lines are so long.

Oh my god!

So they just stay up all night and then when the doors open, there they are. They’re the first ones in line right.

Oh, that sounds like death to me.

It’s- I mean it’s intense. It’s intense.

Yeah.

But it’s kind of like fun, just doing that.

Cool. Have you done that yourself before?

No. I have friends who have gone, but I’ve always stayed home.

Yeah.

Like I’ll wait till the next day.

Yeah.

I like my sleep.

For sure. For sure.

My beauty sleep. Um, but yeah, I mean there’s a lot of places that you can go. You could go to outlets. You could go to shopping malls.

Yeah.

You can go online.

Yeah and you’ll probably also see people lining up outside of like the Apple store, I would imagine.

Yeah.

Or Best Buy or any of these sort of electronic shops.

Well, I think the best strategy is to plan ahead by going online and looking up the best deals for your city the stores that, you know, you might wanna go to, the items that you might wanna buy and I mean, that’s – one way of shopping is going in person, but there’s another way, just shopping online.

Like there’s a lot of shopping deals online.

Right.

You know, you don’t even have to go to the store.

Right. And isn’t that usually called like ‘Cyber Monday’ or something?

Oh!

Like don’t they start the deals on the Monday following um… Right.

Yeah. I think so. ‘Black Friday.’ So, so that’s when the deals usually come around, but I think it’s a worldwide thing. I don’t think that’s just in the US.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So it’s a, it’s a time when a lot of people get Christmas gifts.

Yes.

And that’s one thing, you know, I wanted to ask you about like, I mean, Christmas gifts. Like who do you buy for?

Great question.

Right.

So – no I tend to just buy for my immediate family actually and really close friends. Like I don’t just sort of – I don’t know. It’s a personal choice, but I feel like – I don’t know. For me it’s more about spending time with people.

Yeah

Rather than just getting gifts because sometimes for me it can just be sort 87 of meaningless when I’m just spending money on people. I don’t know.

What about you? What do you do?

Same. I mean for close friends, family, um, you know, sometimes like for co-workers, you know, just bringing like a little snack into work would be appropriate.

Yeah, snacks are a good way to go.

Yeah. I mean for friends and family, you might get something that you know that person likes or, you know, maybe like a sweater, or hat, gloves, scarf, like typical winter presents are always great. Um.

Do you give gift certificates? What’s your thought on gift certificates?

Oh! I think gift certificates are great, but they are kind of impersonal.

A little impersonal.

But then if you know that your best friend really wants a gift certificate then why not. I mean that’s great.

Right. And if you know exactly, like, what they would want a gift certificate for then that could be personal because then you’re saying, “Here I know you love this store. I know you love this restaurant and this kind of food and I want to give you money instead of assuming I know what you want exactly there.”

Yeah. Yeah.

So it can actually be good, I think.

So it can be a little awkward though because you don’t know if the other person is going to get you a present.

Yeah, that’s awkward.

Like I mean with your family and your close friends, it’s fine, you know, but if there’s like more of a, an acquaintance or, you know, someone you work with, maybe you share an office or something it’s kinda like ‘Are you gonna get me something.

Should I give you something?’

Yeah.

So it’s kinda like that.

There’s always those like two weeks where you’re tip-toeing around and a little bit concerned, like who’s gonna get you a gift and what are you gonna have and ugh, yeah. It’s awkward.

Yeah. But I think it’s nice just to err on the side of caution, um, by, you know, getting a little something if you’re, if you’re worried about it.

Yeah. Cool. Well. So this has been fun.

Yeah!

Any other thoughts on ‘Black Friday’ on how people can take advantage and…?

Just make a strategy. Like don’t just go wandering around the mall because it’s pretty intense. There’s a lot of people, a lot of crowds out there. So know what you want, maybe make a list before you go.

Right. I mean. And I remember hearing on the news last year, two years ago that people actually got trampled in Wal-Mart. So be careful when you go into these big stores. Like know where you’re going and don’t get lost in the crowd and…

Man! But yeah, but have fun. Get some friends together and maybe go as, you know, like a fun shopping event together.

Yeah. If you can enjoy it, have a good time.

Yeah. All right we’ll see you guys uh, next week when we talk about um, people are, you know, buying bikes, uh, selling their cars, so… Why are Americans buying bikes and selling cars?

Cool. Yeah, we’ll see you on Monday.

All right.

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