Daily Dose of English 160
Souvenirs
Daily Dose of English 160
Intermediate
Hey everyone! My name is Ben and you're listening to a Daily Dose of English. This is a short, simple podcast that you can listen to every day to improve your English. You can find the transcripts for all episodes and more on benslanguagelab.com. I'm glad you could make it today. In this episode, we're going to be talking about souvenirs. Souvenirs are fun. They're not that common of a word because they almost always show up on like a vacation or when you go on a trip or something like that. And a souvenir is something that you get or that you buy or find or whatever to remember an experience or to remember a trip. It's usually a physical object. Can it be non-physical? I think it's like always a physical object that represents in some way that place or whatever you did. And there's tons of different kinds of souvenirs, some that are very expensive, some that are very cheap, some that are free, plenty of different kinds of souvenirs, and I think we should talk about them. They are a very typical in tourist destinations. You can find souvenir shops all over the place if there's a lot of tourists in a city because they are very cheap to make and easy to sell, which means that they have very good margins. So a margin is basically how much you make on a sale. because let's say you're selling shot glasses. Little glasses to take shots in. They only hold a small amount of liquid, maybe an ounce, an ounce and a half, something like that. Two ounces, I think, is also standard. those are very cheap to make but then you can sell them for five or six dollars each because a tourist is only going to buy one and they want one that's cool and so you can end up making a very high profit margin which is that extra money that you did didn't cost you to buy right so If you're buying the shot glasses for a dollar each, then selling them for 4 profit margin, um, which is very good in a lot of retail. It's it's maybe it's, it's much, much less. And actually shot glasses are definitely a very common souvenir. Shot glasses are simple. They can have good designs on them. They're not too expensive, right? Even just paying five bucks for an expensive shot glass that says Las Vegas on it is pretty fine for a lot of tourists. It's a small price compared to a meal and it's a quick thing that you can just buy and put into any bag. You always have space for it. And so they're a very popular souvenir. And I know there's a lot of people who collect shot glasses from all over the world. If they ever go somewhere or a friend goes somewhere, they try to get a shot glass from that place so that they can, um, have a cool collection of different shot glasses from around the world. And that's actually what I think is a really cool way to collect souvenirs when you have a purpose for them and you want to do something or you use them to decorate something. Because it's also really easy just to get garbage that isn't very useful or doesn't have any purpose and just falls away, no. that just doesn't, what am I trying to say? That like it gets, you put it away somewhere and you never see it again. Like you forget about it, right? That's what I'm trying to say. And those are sort of sad souvenirs because they, you just spend money on them and you never see them again. Other really popular souvenirs are keychains, so something to put your keys on, or magnets. Magnets are pretty fun too because you can fill up your fridge or the front of your fridge with magnets or a wall or something like that. And those can often look really cool as well because they're visual and you can see different places you've been, remember them. Um, a lot of people, a lot of houses I've seen, um, have random magnets on them. And I think that's also sort of a cool story, right? Cause when you get a fridge, you're getting a very generic appliance. It's just exists to function, to, to keep your food cold, to keep your food frozen. And so adding a little bit of character to it is important, right? Adding some magnets or some, uh, Drawings on there or whatever is an important piece of a fridge because or else it's just kind of boring Well, maybe I don't have anything on my fridge, but I always like that that people do Other souvenirs can also be totally random, right? Some ones that I actually really like are coasters. So those are the little pads or things that you put under a drink at a restaurant. So if you order a beer or something, you'll get a coaster that you put your beer on top of so that it doesn't leave a stain on the table. These are more common in like fancier, not fancy, in the US at least, they're more common in Fancy is not the right word, but interesting bars, for example, or interesting pubs, because a lot of the regular bars will just use a napkin. But coasters are also really common in parts of Europe and places that wanna have a little more style, I guess. Yeah, more stylistic places have coasters, because they're cool. And so grabbing a coaster or two, because they're made of just thick paper, so grab a coaster or two from somewhere that you are visiting and bring them home. And then you can put coasters down for drinks that you have at home and remember that time you went to wherever, whatever it is. If you feel bad about it, you can also just ask. I'm sure that they'll be perfectly happy to give you a coaster or two. Those are the ones that I like. Other souvenirs can just be random stuff. If you find something that's cool, like a rock. like a menu you can also take as a souvenir, a map, right? A map of a city can be sort of fun. Even a little book or a random just thing that you see in a thrift shop can also be a great souvenir. On my desk here, I have a broken tile that I found like a week ago, a couple of weeks ago. I was, I didn't go very far, just a couple hours away. but I found this on the ground and I liked it. It looks cool and it's like broken. And so this is a little souvenir that I have. It's just a broken tile, but I don't know, it adds a little bit of color to my desk. And so things like that are also great souvenirs. There are many options. Some other fun souvenirs are actually money. So if you go to somewhere that has a different money than where you're from, taking back a coin or a bill or a couple bills that might look different can be fantastic souvenirs because they have a different, they look very visually unique since, for example, a shot glass you can find in any city. They're always going to exist. They might look different, they might say the city on them, but it's the same thing. And also people don't use shot glasses that often. But most people use money, right? Even if you use all digital, so card, you still know what your money looks like and you're surrounded by it, that's the money that you see and think of. And so then money that is different is very obvious, I guess you can say. It's very clear, oh, that is a different bill, that is a different country's money. And so they make a really cool souvenir because of that. Especially if they're colorful or have some sort of significant meaning, right? Some people even collect money that is not worth anything. So old money from countries that don't exist or currencies that don't exist or things like that, which I think is pretty cool. I've seen some people with pretty large currency collections from around the world and they usually get them as souvenirs when they travel. I have some bills from, some Mexican bills that I actually wanna frame. I wanna put into a frame and hang it up because I think they look really cool. I really like how Mexican money looks. It's fairly simple but also really beautiful. It has great colors. I'm playing with some right now which is what you might hear some crinkling. Is some some Mexican bills and they I don't know. They're just really cool. So Yeah, that's pretty much everything that I have to say about souvenirs There are tons of different kinds of souvenirs. And so I'd be really curious to know down in the comments Are you somebody that likes to have souvenirs of any kind? not even just ones that you buy but maybe that you find or have a unique souvenir, please let me know. Write a comment down below and tell me what you like to collect whenever you go somewhere, whether it's to a different country or just to a different part of your country or wherever it is. Are there things that you'd like to have because you think that it's just a cool little reminder of something? But that's everything for today. I hope that you enjoyed this episode and maybe learned a little something. And I will see you again tomorrow for another episode of A Daily Dose of English. I'll see you then. Have a good one. Bye!
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