Learn 10 phrasal verbs for shopping
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| Hi, everybody. Welcome back to Top Words. My name is Alisha and today, we're going to talk about 10 Phrasal Verbs You Can Use When Shopping. Let's go. |
| "Sign up for." |
| Okay. The first phrasal verb for today is "sign up for." Sign up for. We usually hear this phrase at a department store or, maybe, a boutique shop. For example, the staff may ask you, "Would you like to sign up for our members' program?" or "Would you like to sign up for a point card?," or, "Would you like to sign up for a credit card?," for example. It's usually to become a member or to get some kind of card or to get points or coupons or something. You can sign up for a membership system. |
| "Ring up" |
| The next phrasal verb is "ring up." Ring up. You can also use "ring up" at a restaurant or bar. "Ring up" means to total, to combine all the prices of the items you would like to buy at the register. So, to total everything is to ring up your bill. Yeah, it's usually used in an expression like, "I can ring you up." So, to ring a person up means to total one person's bill, to total all of the items they are going to buy. So, "I'll ring you up at the cash register," or, "When you're ready, I'll ring you up over there," or, "We can ring up your items when you're ready," for example. Because it's usually from a staff person to a customer, it's usually going to be something like "I'll ring you up" or "We can ring up your total." It's usually going to be one of those two patterns. Listen for those. Ring up means total, to make the total for your bill. |
| "Try on." |
| The next expression is "try on." Try on. We use try on for clothes and shoes, anything we can put on our body. So, "Try on glasses." "Try on a watch." "Try on a hat." "Try on a shirt." "Try on a dress." "Try on shoes." "Try on a new pair of pants." Sure, all of these things we can try on. So, try on our bodies. So, to try something and try on. We've attached it to our bodies, we've put it on our bodies. It's just a test. We use "try," to try something. You'll always use this with clothes or accessories, anything you can put on your body. I just gave a lot of example sentences there. Staff might say, "Would you like to try it on?" or, "If you'd like to try it on, there's a fitting room over there," or, "Why don't you try it on?" for example. |
| "Shop around." |
| The next expression is "shop around." "Shop around." So, we have the word, "shop," of course, meaning to look with the intention of buying something, to shop. But, "around" means to go to more than one place. So, we use the expression, "shop around," typically, when there is some specific product we would like to buy and work, maybe, comparing prices or comparing features. These days, we can shop around quite easily on the Internet, checking different websites to compare prices and to compare products. But, you can also use "shop around" in a shopping mall, for example. So, "To shop around for new clothes," or, "To shop around for a camera I want." We use "shop around" to mean visiting many different shops to compare before buying something. To shop around. In a sentence, "I want to shop around for a new camera," or, "I'm shopping around for a new dress," or, "I'm shopping around for this pair of shoes that I've really been wanting to buy." |
| "Try out." |
| The next expression is "try out." "Try out." So, we talked about the phrasal verb, "try on." "Try on" means to put on clothes, to test out clothes, but "to try out" is something we use for a product like something we don't put on our bodies. So, for example, a new electronic device like a new phone or a new laptop, or, maybe, I don't know, GPS system or something you can manipulate, you can, maybe, test it but not by attaching it to your body necessarily, not like with clothes. So, it's usually some kind of machine or, maybe, it's some kind of item you can manipulate in some way. There's some kind of test you can do, some action you can take with this product. So, "To try out a new phone," "to try out a new knife," maybe, or, "to try out a new car," I suppose. With cars, however, there is a special phrasal verb. Well, it's not really a phrasal verb. We use the expression, "take a test drive," with cars. But, for other products like everyday gadgets, electronic items, we usually just say "try out." Try it out. So, some example sentences using try out, "Would you like to try out the new iPhone?" or, "I want to try out this new computer I saw," or, "Let's go try out that new virtual reality experience." |
| "Drive by." |
| Next expression is "drive by." Drive by. So, to drive, meaning drive a car, usually. We use the expression, "drive by," to mean make a short stop somewhere. So, we can say "run by" as well. But, "drive by" means, it's like the nuance of using a car is much stronger. If you're travelling by car, you can say "drive by" or "run by," if you like. But, we'll only use "drive by" if we are using a car or a truck, I suppose. So, drive by means make a quick stop at some place, like a shopping mall or the supermarket, for just a few minutes, maybe, to pick up a small item. So, it has the nuance of a very short visit somewhere for a very small purpose. So, for example, "I need to drive by the supermarket and get some milk," or, "Let's drive by the pharmacy and pick up my medicine," or, "Hey, can you drive by the pizza shop on the way home and get us some dinner?" So, a very short stop somewhere. Go somewhere, maybe, just grab something, just pick up something small and continue, "drive by." Please be careful. You may here the expression like "a drive-by shooting." This is different. A drive-by shooting, which is usually the expression it's used in, means from a car someone shoots a gun, totally different expression. It means, in that case, a gun is being shot from a car. The person driving the car, the car doesn't stop, but a shooting happens as the car is in motion. That's totally different from the phrasal verb, "drive by a location." When we use "drive by a location," it means to make a quick stop somewhere. You may hear the expression, especially in the news, "drive-by shooting," which means a shooting situation that happens from a moving vehicle. Very, very different idea, so please be careful there. |
| "Pay for." |
| All right. The next expression is "pay for," pay for something. So, to pay for something is to provide money in exchange for goods. So, "Please pay for this shirt," or, "How would you like to pay for this?" or, "You can pay for your items at the register." So, "pay for"--we just use "pay for" to make the items we are buying clear. So, to give an example, you can say, "Please pay over there," or, "I want to pay." We can make a very simple sentence with the verb, "pay." But, by using "pay for," we can be specific about the items we are buying. So, Instead of "I want to pay," we can say, "I want to pay for these items," or, "I want to pay for this thing," whatever. By using "for," we can be specific, "What would you like to pay for here?" So, "I want to pay for my lunch and her drinks," for example. Or, "I want to pay for everybody's drinks." This is very useful in those situations. If you say, "I want to pay," it's not so clear, especially in a group situation. If, however, you say, "I want to pay for something," you can make it very clear the items you would like to pay for, if that makes sense. |
| "Take off." |
| The next phrasal verb is "take off." "Take off." So, this is probably not a phrasal verb you will say or, I hope, you probably won't hear the phrasal verb, "take off," but it may be a phrasal verb you can think about, especially when you're trying on clothes or shoes, or accessories, or something. We use the verb "take off" to mean remove clothing. So, for example, if you're shoe shopping, you should take off your shoes and, maybe, take off your socks in some cases to try on shoes; or, take off a shirt to try on a different shirt, or take off your suit jackets to try on a winter coat, for example. So, "take off" means to remove clothing so that you can try on something else. So, again, you probably won't use this, I hope. You could use it as a suggestion to your friend, like, "Oh, you don't need to go to the fitting room. Just take off your jacket and try on this jacket here." You could use it in that situation, like, "Oh, just take off your shoes and try these on. It'll be really quick." You can use it, maybe, as a small suggestion, if you're shopping with a friend. But, otherwise, you might not use this so much verbally. You can think it, though. Like, "I should take off blah, blah, blah" to try on something else. |
| "Sell out." |
| The next expression is "sell out," to sell out of something, sell out of blah, blah, blah. So, "to sell out of" means to no longer have stock, to no longer have that product. So, if I go to a cake store to buy a cake and they say, "I'm very sorry, we are sold out," past tense, "of that cake," means no more cakes are available. There are zero cakes available at that store. I cannot buy it because they have already sold all of them. So, "sold out" means no more available, we cannot buy anymore. Everything has been sold. So, sell out, to sell out, past tense, sold out. You'll usually hear, "We've sold out." We've sold out of product. So, other sentences, "I'm so sorry. We've sold out of the new iPhone already," or, "I hope they don't sell out before we get there," or, "I went to the store but they said they were sold out of the product I wanted." |
| "Line up." |
| The next phrasal verb is "line up," line up, to line up means to make a line, usually in front of a store or, maybe, in a store. To make a line for a product or to make a line for, maybe, a restaurant, as well. "To line up" means to create a line of people who are waiting to buy a product. We don't say "to line," or, "please line," or, "please don't line." We always say, "please line up." In British English, you might hear the word "queue," as well, to queue for something. In that case, you can use the word, "to queue," without the word, "up." In American English, we don't really use the word, "queue"--I suppose you can, but it's more common in American English to use "line up." So, "Please line up." Or, you might hear "Make a line. Please make a line over there." But, in general, we say, like, "There are a lot of people lined up for that new restaurant," or, "Did you see all the people lined up for the new iPhone?" or, "I don't want to line up for lunch. Let's go to a different restaurant," for example. so, lining up is to make a line of people. Okay. |
| All right. Those are 10 phrasal verbs that you can use when you are shopping. I hope that that was useful for you. If you have any questions or comments, let us know in the comment section below this video. Thanks very much for watching this episode of Top Words and I will see you again soon. Bye! |
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