Daily Dose of English 68
Giving Gifts
Daily Dose of English 68
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 really glad you could make it today. In this episode, we're going to be talking about giving gifts. when you or somebody else chooses to buy a gift or a present or something for someone and give it to them. Gift giving. Giving gifts is quite nice, so is receiving gifts for a lot of people, but it's also quite difficult, or it can be, depending on the person. And I want to talk a little bit about when we give gifts, why we give gifts, how I like to give gifts, and any tips that I might have, because I know it's a common thing for people to struggle with. A lot of people that I know or have seen on the internet or whatever, it's very common to say, oh, I'm not very good at getting gifts or the opposite. I love getting gifts. I feel like I'm a good gift giver. And I'm sure that you know someone in your life who never really knows what to get as a gift or the opposite. There's somebody in your life who you never know what to get for them. And so we'll talk a little bit about that. Anyways, gift giving is very common in the US and there are a few different times of the year where it's most common. The first things that come to mind are Christmas and a birthday. So Christmas in December is probably the biggest gift-giving holiday that we have, where the assumption is that you will be getting and receiving lots of gifts on Christmas. Not just one thing, two things, but at least a couple things from different people, different family. And that's a very common thing for most of the United States. And if you don't celebrate Christmas, it's very, if somebody doesn't celebrate Christmas, it's very likely that they celebrate something similar around that time. There's a couple of different holidays, depending on people's backgrounds or traditions or whatever. But very common, there's gifts at the end of the year. And for most of the US, it is Christmas. And so that's probably the biggest gift giving time. And the next one that comes to mind is a birthday. So when you have your birthday, when you turn a year older, especially when you're younger, you almost always get gifts, right? Parents will pretty much always get their kids a couple of toys, a couple of gifts when they're young for their birthday. And if you have a birthday party, people are going to bring things as a gift. The older you get, the fewer gifts you just get in general because you kind of end up with so much stuff that you don't really need more gifts. And if you do, it's like one specific thing or it's kind of expensive or something like that. And well, those are still gifts. I mean, it's not like you don't get any gifts, but they're less common. A lot of people, when they turn like, I don't know, 28, for example, they don't even have a party. They'll just be like, yeah, I'm 28 now. I guess I'll go out with my friends. We'll have some drinks. They'll pay for me. That's it. That's my entire birthday. And then maybe their parents or their significant other will get them something as a gift. And so that's a relatively common experience all the way from your like late 20s up into the rest of your life. You don't really have big birthday parties anymore. And so there's fewer gifts. But gifts can also happen at other times of the year. For example, I think of Valentine's Day, which is February 14th. That's a pretty popular time to get somebody a gift. It's usually a smaller gift, and it's usually only between partners or romantic partners. You're getting something for your partner as a gift on Valentine's Day. Sometimes it's as small as chocolates and a card, or it can be like an actual full gift that they've been wanting. Off the top of my head, I can't think of any other specific holidays we have for gift giving. I'm sure there are, and I'm sure that other families have different times where they always give people gifts or their friends gifts or whatever. But those are the main ones that I think of. And so, when you give a gift and you get a gift, there's a couple of things that you have to do. And the first step is to figure out what you wanna get somebody. And this is usually the hardest step. because especially when somebody is a little bit older and they have a job and they have income, they make money from their work, they don't really need gifts. Like if somebody needs something or they really want something, they can probably buy it. Or it's something that's really, really expensive and then you probably don't want to get them it as a gift because that would be really expensive. And so you kind of end up in this weird place where Gift giving has less purpose in terms of like actual value. Cause like if you buy a kid a toy, they can't buy toys cause they don't have money and they love toys. And so it's a perfect match, right? You can give a kid a toy that they couldn't have before and you now are awesome. But with an adult who's in their like forties, they don't really need anything else. And if they do, they'll probably just buy it when they're at the store and during the week. Or like I said, it's something that they want that's really expensive and then it wouldn't, it'd be a weird gift because you're getting them something that's very expensive. And usually don't want things to be too expensive as a gift or else it feels weird to get. All right, if somebody buys you, I don't know, like a $10,000 necklace, you'd be like, that's too much money. I don't want your $10,000, that's really weird. Because it's just strange. Maybe that's just me, but it's weird. And so you have to figure out what you want to get somebody. And a couple of, I guess, go-to tips are to get somebody something that they won't get for themselves, either because they're stubborn or they don't know about it, or to get them something that they don't have access to for whatever reason. A common example is like something you can only buy in other countries. And so let's say you're going to visit I don't know, some other country. Switzerland, sure, random country. Let's say you go to Switzerland and you see some cool stuff there that you can't get in your home country and so you buy a couple of them to give out as gifts either when you get home or when their birthday comes up or whatever. And so that can be really fun gift ideas, something that they have out of their reach, but not necessarily out of their budget. A great example is like food things or little useful stuff that is just made far away from where they live. The first thought I had is like a salsa or a sauce that maybe they really like or that you really like, but you can only get from like one shop that's around the corner from you. Getting them that thing is pretty inexpensive, right? You're not going to spend a ton of money, but it's not something that they would ever have gotten for themselves because they don't know it exists. And this made me immediately think of a topping that is made here, fairly close to my apartment. And that would be a fun gift because you just can't find that anywhere else and it's freaking delicious. Another good idea, a way to come up with ideas is, oh wait, what was the other one I said? Oh, something they wouldn't get for themselves. Something that they're either too stubborn to get or they don't, Yeah, usually that's the biggest thing. They're too stubborn, which means they don't want to do it, even though they need it. So for example, I can't really think of anything right now, but this, oh, things that would fall under this category are things that are a little bit dumb, but that they kind of want. So for example, a stuffed animal or like a fun key chain that you put your keys on. Those can be fun gifts because they might not want to spend their money on it, but they do want that thing. And so that can be a fun way to do it. Or if they have a really, really old something like a water bottle that's like broken and beat up and they go, no, it still works. It still works. But you constantly hear them complain about it and it falls over all the time. You might want to buy them a new water bottle because that's a very useful thing that they might be being stubborn about. There's other things you can do as gifts, obviously. There's tons and tons of options, but those are some ones that I often think about when I'm trying to buy a gift for somebody. I see that I'm running out of time on this episode, so I'm going to kind of speed it up here because I don't want to go too long. But the last thing that I recommend if you're having trouble buying gifts is to listen to what people say. And whenever, during the entire year, you come up with an idea for a gift for them, write it down or add it to a list somewhere so that when it comes time to get them a gift, you have some ideas ready to go. The second step of getting a gift is buying the gift. And that's pretty straightforward. You have to go to the place that has it and then buy it. And then the last step, or not the last step, the second to last step is preparing it. Maybe you wrap it. That's when you put it in some decorative paper or a nice bag or something like that. So you wrap the gift and then you have to give the gift to them. And that can often be the most rewarding part because you like to see how they open it and how they like it and what they feel or when they use it or whatever it is. And so following a nice process like that, giving somebody a nice gift that you thought about rather than just something like really stupid that they don't really want or care about or something that is too easy to get and they already have or whatever. And if you give them a good gift and you give it to them in a nice way, it can be a very rewarding overall experience. Okay. I think that's enough for today. I've spoken enough and I don't really want to go on too much longer, especially cause it's really hot here and I feel like I'm kind of melting. Um, but anyways, I hope that you enjoyed this episode of a daily dose of English and I hope to see you again tomorrow for the next episode. I'll see you then. Have a good one. Bye.
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