Topical Vocabulary. Kinds of clothes: a coat, a costume(for women), a shirt, a blouse, a cardigan, a sweater, a skirt, a suit(for men)

Departments: footwear, millinery, knitted goods, leather goods, textiles, hosiery, haberdashery, cosmetics, stationery.

Kinds of clothes: a coat, a costume(for women), a shirt, a blouse, a cardigan, a sweater, a skirt, a suit(for men), trousers, shorts, a pull-over, a dressing gown, a jersey, jeans, corduroy trousers (corduroys)

Articles of clothing: socks, stockings, a scarf, a muffler, a kerchief, gloves, mittens, a tie, a handkerchief, tights, pyjamas, a nightgown, underwear (undies)

Parts of clothes: a collar, a sleeve, a belt

Footwear: slippers, sandals, sport shoes, walking shoes, court shoes, rubber boots, training boots (trainers)

Textiles: silk, cotton, velvet, wollen cloth

Jewellery: a ring, a bracelet, ear-rings, a chain, a brooch, a necklace

Cereals: buckwheat, rice

Meat: beef, pork, mutton, chicken, goose, duck, tinned meat

Fish: herring, sprats, smoked fish, tinned fish

Dairy products: cream, sour cream, cottage cheese

Confectionery: biscuits, cakes, chocolate, pastry

Vegetables: onions, a turnip, a melon, a water-melon, a cauliflower, a lettuce, radishes,

a parsley, a celery

Text 1

When you want to buy something, you must go to the shop where it is sold. In the shop-window, you see what is sold in the shop. Sugar, tea, coffee, salt, pepper, ham, bacon, and so on are sold at the grocer’s. You can buy bread at the baker’s, meat at the butcher’s. You go to the greengrocer’s for vegetables and fruit. Cakes and sweets are sold at the confectioner’s. If you want to buy clothes, you go to the men’s and boy’s or ladies’ and girls ‘outfitters. Clothes bought in a shop are ready-made. To buy ready-made suits is considerably cheaper than to have them made to measure. If you cannot find clothes that are the right size, you can go to a tailor’s shop. Clothes made to measure, are called tailor-made clothes.

We buy boots and shoes at the footwear shop. To buy jewellery and silver and golden watches we go to the jeweller’s. Books are sold at the bookseller’s. A salesman or a salesgirl stands behind the counter. A cashier sits at the cash desk. Customers come up to the counter. We ask the salesman: «How much is this?» or «What is the price of that?» He tells us the price and gives us the bill. The salesgirl weighs the goods which we want to buy on the scales and tells us the price. At the cash desk, we give the bill and the money to the cashier, who gives us a check and our change. The salesgirl wraps the goods up and gives them to us. We put them into our shopping bag. Some shops have many departments. We can buy everything we need there. These shops are called department stores. In some shops there are no shop assistants but only cashiers. The customers choose the goods they want and pay at the cash desk. These are called supermarkets or self-service shops.

Text 2

When we want to buy something, we go to a shop. There are many kinds of shops in every town or city, but most of them have afood supermarket, a department store, men's and women's clothing stores, a grocery, a bakery and a butchery.

I like to do my shopping at big department stores and supermarkets.

They sell various goods under one roof and this is very convenient. A department store, for example, true to its name, is composed of many departments: ready-made clothes, fabrics, shoes, sports goods, toys, china and glass, electric appliances, cosmetics, linen, curtains, cameras, records, etc. You can buy everything you like there.

There are also escalators in big stores which take customers to different floors. The things for sale are on the counters so that they can be easily seen. In the women's clothing department you can find dresses, costumes, blouses, skirts, coats, beautiful underwear and many other things. In the men's clothing department you can choose suits, trousers, overcoats, ties, etc. In the knitwear department one can buy sweaters, cardigans, short-sleeved and long-sleeved pullovers, woollen jackets. In the perfumery they sell face cream and powder, lipstick, lotions and shampoos.

In a food supermarket we can also buy many different things at once: sausages, fish, sugar, macaroni, flour, cereals, tea. At the butcher's there is a wide choice of meat and poultry. At the bakery you buy brown and white bread, rolls, biscuits. Another shop we frequently go to is the greengrocery which is stocked by cabbage, potatoes, onions, cucumbers, carrots, beetroots, green peas and what not. Everything is sold here ready-weighed and packed. If you call round at a dairy you can buy milk, cream, cheese, butter and many other products.

The methods of shopping may vary. It may be a self-service shop where the customer goes from counter to counter selecting and putting into a basket what he wishes to buy. Then he takes the basket to the check-out counter, where the prices of the purchases are added up. If it is not a self-service shop, and most small shops are not, the shop-assistant helps the customer in finding what he wants. You pay money to the cashier and he gives you back the change.