Hello and welcome to English as a second language
podcast number 32 Welcome to English as a second
language podcast number 32 I'm dr. Jeff McQuillen
coming to you from Los Angeles, California and
the Center for Educational Development. Visit
our website at www .eslpod .com to learn more
about this podcast. Today's topic is the post
office, going to mail or send letters. I'm going
to talk about my experience yesterday at the
post office and then as usual we'll come back
and talk about it. Now let's get started. For
me, things never go very smoothly at the local
post office. I've learned that if you want to
mail a letter, you'll have no problems. But if
things get more complicated than that, well,
watch out. Yesterday, I went there to mail a
small package and to pick up a book of stamps.
I waited my turn in line and when I get up to
the window, the clerk asks me, what can I do
for you? Well, I said, I need a book. No, make
that a roll of stamps. And I need to send this
package priority to San Francisco. You want insurance
with that? He asked me. Um, I don't know. What
do you recommend? Well, he said, you can send
it priority with tracking if you want to see
when it gets there, or you can send it insured
if the contents are valuable, or you can do both.
Okay, I'll take the insurance. Then step aside
to fill out the insurance form, he said, and
bring it back up to me. when you're finished.
With that, I was waved aside to fill out my form.
Next in line, the clerk called. When I finished
filling out the form, I waited patiently until
the gentleman being waited on was finished in
front of me, and then stepped back up to the
window. Sorry, the clerk said. I'm on break now.
She can help you at the next window. Maybe it
would be quicker just to drive my package to
San Francisco. In talking about my trip to the
post office, I said that things never go very
smoothly. To go smoothly means to take place
without problems. How did your visit to the doctor
go today? Oh, it went smoothly, meaning I didn't
have any problems. Everything was done correctly
and so forth. I said that if you want to mail
a letter at my post office, you'll have no problems.
To mail a letter, of course, means to send a
letter. But if things get more complicated, I
said, well, then watch out. Watch out is an expression
meaning be careful. Here it means be careful
or be warned. Watch out can also mean the same
as look out, meaning there may be something that
is going to hit you. If you are standing near
a golf course and someone says watch out, you
should probably protect yourself. But here it
means just to be careful. In going to the post
office, I said I wanted to pick up a book of
stamps. There are two terms we use in talking
about stamps. One is book of stamps and the other
is a roll of stamps. A book of stamps comes in
a very small little book, if you will, of usually
20 stamps. A roll of stamps has 100 stamps in
it. I said I wanted to send a package priority.
A package, of course, is anything that's bigger
than a letter. A box or anything bigger than
a letter we would say is a package. I said I
wanted to send the package priority. There are
different ways you can send a letter or a package
in the U .S. postal service. You can send it
regular mail, what we sometimes call first class
mail. That's your regular mail, nothing special
about it. You can also send it priority. To send
a package priority means that it will get there
a little faster, usually in two to three days.
You can also send a letter or a package express.
To send something express means it should get
there the next day or at most at the very most
two days. I was sending my package priority to
San Francisco. The clerk asked me if I wanted
insurance. To insure a letter or a package means
that Just like any insurance, you pay extra and
if they lose the package, then you can claim
your insurance on it. To claim means to ask for
the money that they're supposed to pay you if
they lose it. I was given the option by the clerk
of sending it priority with tracking. to track
a package means Comes from the expression to
keep track to keep track of something means to
To follow it to make sure that you know where
it is and so when you send a letter or package
priority or express You often get a tracking
number and you can take that number Go to the
internet and put it into a website and it will
tell you where your package is now So if I was
sending a package say from Los Angeles to New
York City It might stop in Las Vegas and then
maybe Chicago before finally making it to New
York City The tracking number I could look up
on the website and it would tell me where it
was I could also, according to the clerk, ensure
my package if the contents were valuable. The
contents means, of course, what's inside the
package, the contents of something. The clerk
asked me to step aside to fill out the form.
When someone says step aside, they mean move
one way or another to move from in front of the
other person. Step aside often is used if you
want to get someone out of your way, for example.
Please step aside means please move from the
front to the side. Related to the term step aside
is the expression wave aside. I said that I was
waved aside to fill out my form. To wave means
to take your hand and move it in the air, usually
to say hello or say goodbye to someone. I waved
goodbye to my friend as he got on the train.
To wave aside means to use your hand to tell
someone to move aside, to step aside. after waving
me aside called next in line. When you are waiting
at the post office or any government building
or you're at a store where you have to wait in
line to return perhaps something you bought,
the clerk working there will call people by the
expression next or simply next in line. meaning
the next person who is in the line to be waited
on. I said that I was waiting patiently until
the gentleman being waited on in front of me
was finished. This expression gentleman is still
used in English to mean the man. The woman standing
next to me The gentleman standing next to me
it means the same thing It's a little more formal
than saying just man the gentleman. It's usually
something of a term of respect for someone else
I Then after waiting for the gentleman stepped
back up to the window To step back up means to
go back to where you were Usually we step up
to something when we mean that we are coming
to the front of a line and ready to be waited
on. I stepped up to the counter to buy an airline
ticket. Means I walked up, I moved up to the
place where the tickets were being sold. That
is to step up. Unfortunately told me that he
was on break now to be on break means to take
a 15 maybe 20 minute break so that you don't
work Usually every four hours or so if you're
working in a eight hour day Every well, maybe
every two or three hours people in American offices
and workplaces, take a break, a 15, 10 or 15,
maybe a 20 minute break where they don't work.
They go get a cup of coffee, they go smoke a
cigarette, et cetera. To be on break means that
you're not working right now. We also use that
expression on break in the university between
classes. For example, at Christmas time in December,
schools have a break. They're on break, meaning
they're not studying, they're not working. That's
going to do it for today's English as a Second
Language podcast. I want to thank you for listening
and urge you, encourage you to email us at eslpod
at esl... Thank you again for listening. We'll
see you next time on English as a Second Language
Podcast.