Describe a shopping center you often go to.
You should say:
where the shopping center is
how often you go there
what it looks like
This topic is quite difficult for me to speak about. It depends on which bit of the subject is most important. You see, for me, ‘shopping center’ implies a big commercial area like a mall with lots of chain stores and possibly out of town. In fact, there is one outside Sheffield – the city where I live – it’s called ‘Meadow hall’ – but people locally refer to it as ‘Meadow-hell’ because it is vast and soulless. Some people love it because there is a huge selection of branded shops, but personally, I hate going there. I don’t really enjoy going shopping for the sake of it, and for me, the center lacks character. Therefore, if you want me to speak on the topic of a shopping center that ‘I often go to’ it would never be a large mall or retail center as such, it would be quite, quite different.
这个话题对我来说很难讲。这取决于主题的哪一部分最重要。你看，对我来说，“购物中心”意味着一个大的商业区，就像一个购物中心，有很多连锁店，可能在城外。事实上，在谢菲尔德(我居住的城市)外就有一个这样的地方，它被称为“草地大厅”，但当地人称它为“草地地狱”，因为它广袤无垠，没有灵魂。有些人喜欢那里，因为那里有很多名牌商店，但就我个人而言，我讨厌去那里。我并不喜欢为了购物而购物，对我来说，购物中心缺乏个性。因此，如果你想让我谈论一个购物中心的话题，我经常去的购物中心永远不会是一个大型购物中心或零售中心，它会非常非常不同。
I’m therefore going to tell you about a different sort of shopping center that I go to often. I will interpret ‘shopping center’ as the place at which I do most of my shopping, and hope that that will be good enough for you! I will tell you where it is, how often I go there and why. I’ll try to convey something of its characteristics and explain why I end up nipping over there several times a week.
因此，我将告诉你我经常去的另一种购物中心。我将把“购物中心”解释为我大部分时间都在那里购物的地方，希望这对你来说足够好!我会告诉你它在哪里，我多久去一次，为什么去。我将试着传达它的一些特性，并解释为什么我最后每周都要去那里几次。
The shopping center is about 2 miles up the road from where I live. I could walk there, but when I go I’m usually heading there to do a big food shop and other errands, so I tend to take the car, or sometimes I’ll walk up and catch a bus back. The shops are in a sort of village at the edge of the city of Sheffield, it’s called Fuelwood. I go at least once a week to do my food shop at the local co-op mini-supermarket store, and I also visit the post office at the same time. However, there are other little shops there too – a newsagent; a florist; a greengrocer who sells high-quality fruit and veg and a really good hardware store for household storage and cleaning items. These are all quite handy, so sometimes I’ll just nip over to buy something specific like new batteries for a clock or bin-bags if I’ve let myself run out – I can be there and back in 20 minutes if I take the car. I probably end up going to the shopping area twice a week on average.
购物中心离我住的地方大约两英里。我可以步行到那里，但当我去的时候，我通常去那里做一个大的食品商店和其他的差事，所以我倾向于开车，或者有时我会走过去赶上公共汽车回来。这些商店坐落在谢菲尔德市边缘的一个村庄里，叫做柴木。我每周至少去一次当地的合作社迷你超市的食品店，同时也会去邮局。然而，那里也有其他的小商店——报刊亭;一个花店;一个卖高质量水果和蔬菜的蔬菜水果商，还有一个很好的家庭储藏和清洁用品的五金店。这些东西都很方便，所以有时候我会赶紧去买一些特别的东西，比如给闹钟用的新电池，或者如果我把车用完的话，我可以在20分钟内赶到，然后开车回去。我可能最终平均每周去两次购物区。
Why do I go? Because it’s near; the shops cater for almost all of my general needs; and because it’s local to me the staff know me. Sometimes they’ll have a chat in the post-office when I go to send a parcel and in the co-op the woman always gives me a double discount if she can (I have some special loyalty cards but I don’t always remember to have them with me so she gives me the benefit of the doubt). I also think that because most of the people who work in the shops own them (they are all small businesses) you get better service. The proprietors care very much about their customers, and they appreciate you coming back as a regular. It is a much friendlier and more personal experience than I’d get at a big anonymous out of town mall. Also, if I’m honest, because there aren’t that many shops were I go, I probably save quite bit of money. There is no temptation to impulse buy anything extravagant, or to sit down and have a cup of coffee every few yards either!
我为什么要去?因为它的附近;这些商店几乎满足了我所有的一般需要;因为它对我来说是本地的，所以员工们都认识我。有时他们会有一个聊天在邮局当我去发送一个包裹和合作社的女人总是给了我一个双折扣如果她能(我有一些特殊的忠诚卡但是我不记得他们跟我所以她给了我是无辜的)。我还认为，因为大多数在商店工作的人都拥有它们(他们都是小型企业)，你会得到更好的服务。业主非常关心他们的客户，他们很感激你作为常客回来。这是一种比我在小镇外的大型匿名购物中心得到的更友好、更私人的体验。另外，如果我诚实的话，因为我去的商店不多，我可能会省下不少钱。没有冲动去买任何奢侈的东西，或者每隔几码坐下来喝杯咖啡!
Sometimes I need things that I can’t get locally, like clothes or perhaps electrical items, and then I do have to grit my teeth and go into town, or head to the out of town mall – although I also do some of that kind of shopping on the internet these days. Anything to avoid the retail nightmare of Meadow hall – perhaps I’m just too old for that these days!
有时我需要的东西我不能在本地,像衣服或电器,然后咬着牙关我有进入城镇,或者头出城购物中心——尽管我也做一些购物在互联网上的这些天。任何东西都可以避免草地大厅的零售噩梦——也许我年纪太大了，不适合那样做!
