Let's learn English at Niagara Falls.

(cheerful music)

Hi, Bob the Canadian here.

Welcome to this English lesson

where I'm going to teach you a few words and phrases

about tourism and travel,

and I'm going to do it while I show you

some of the city of Niagara Falls

and the waterfall that is also called Niagara Falls.

If this is your first time here, though,

don't forget to click that red subscribe button,

and gave me a thumbs up

if this video helps you learn

just a little bit more English.

I should get out of the way, shouldn't I,

so you can actually see Niagara Falls.

(waterfall roaring)

So just a couple of things about Niagara Falls

before we get started.

There are actually two falls at Niagara Falls.

There is the Horseshoe Falls,

which is on the Canadian side of the border,

and if I actually turn way over there,

you will see the American Falls,

which is on the American side of the Niagara River.

So again, the river that is flowing over the falls

is called the Niagara River.

This is the Horseshoe Falls.

I'll give you a little bit better view.

And the falls way over there is called the American Falls.

(waterfalls roaring)

So let's talk a little bit about tourism and tourists

and what it means when a place is a tourist area,

or what touristy means.

A tourist is simply someone who visits places

that are cool to visit.

There are not a lot of tourists here today.

If you look behind me, you will see one or two tourists.

Tourists usually come from other countries,

but you can be a tourist in your own country as well.

Tourism refers to the entire industry,

all of the businesses that are involved

in helping tourists find places to stay places to eat,

and of course, all of the places that you can see.

When we say that something is a tourist area,

for instance,

this area in Niagara Falls is considered a tourist area,

what we mean by that is that many people visit this area.

Niagara Falls is a huge tourist attraction.

A tourist attraction is similar to a tourist area,

but it simply includes the word attraction

because people really want to come here.

People are attracted here.

And then lastly, we have a word, touristy.

This is a word that people like I, like me use

when we talk about tourist areas.

We'll say, "Oh, Niagara Falls is becoming really touristy.

It's so touristy in Niagara Falls."

And what we mean by that

is that there's a lot of tourists there.

Sometimes when we say it, we're not being kind.

I like coming to Niagara Falls in the winter

when there are less tourists,

because sometimes it's just too touristy here for me.

A very common activity when you are a tourist

is that you might go sightseeing.

There are many sights to see when you are a tourist,

and you might go sightseeing in order to see all of them.

If you look down behind me,

you will see that there are people on a boat.

They are currently sightseeing.

They are here because they want to see the falls up close,

so they are seeing the sights.

They are sightseeing.

So last year I came to Niagara Falls with a friend of mine

and we went on the boat down there

to see the falls up close,

and that was the highlight of my trip.

When something is a highlight,

it means it is the part that you enjoyed the most

when you were on a trip.

So sometimes when you get back from a trip,

people will say, "What was the highlight of your trip?"

And what they mean is, what was your favorite part?

(waterfalls roaring)

So you might be wondering why I'm not wearing a mask

while I'm here in Niagara Falls.

Well, all of the videotaping I am doing, I am doing outdoors

and I am being as safe as I possibly can.

I am staying as far away from people as I can,

and I don't plan on going into any buildings.

If I did, I would need to wear a mask.

If you are a tourist visiting a large tourist attraction,

there will probably be a hotel district.

A hotel district is simply the area

where you will find most of the hotels,

because as a tourist, you will need accommodations.

Accommodations is just a general term that we use

to refer to the places you stay

when you're visiting somewhere.

You could stay in a hotel,

which is a large building with many floors and many rooms,

with the doors on the inside.

You might stay at a motel,

which is a smaller place with one or two floors

and the doors on the outside.

You might stay at an Airbnb,

which is when you simply rent a room or an apartment

or a house from someone else,

or you might stay at a bed and breakfast.

A bed and breakfast is when you pay someone

to sleep in one of their bedrooms

and they give you breakfast the next day, before you leave.

Here I can show you a quick example.

This is a hotel.

It has many rooms and many floors

and the doors are on the inside.

This is a motel.

A motel has one or two floors

and the door to your room is on the outside.

So, motel.

Hotel.

So behind me, you can see some hotels.

If you were to get a room on this side of the hotel,

we would say that you have a room with a view.

A room with a view is a room at a hotel

that has a clear view from the windows

of whatever you came to see in that tourist area.

When you go on a trip,

you might go on little tours while you are on that trip.

A tour is where you go around

and you see all of the important tourist attractions

while you are visiting.

You can go on a self-guided tour.

A self-guided tour is a tour that you give yourself.

Usually before you do this, you will buy a guidebook,

and the guidebook will show you all of the places

that you should really see

when you're visiting that city or that tourist attraction.

You might go on a guided tour.

You might go on a tour where there is a tourist guide.

A tourist guide is someone who knows the area well

and takes people either on a walking tour of the area

and shows them all of the tourist attractions

or all of the sites,

or you might go on a bus tour.

I did want to show you a bus tour today,

but there are no bus tours in Niagara Falls right now

because of COVID.

But a bus tour is where you get on a bus

and the bus drives you to different tourist attractions,

and you usually have a tourist guide

who tells you about all of the places

you are visiting along the way.

If you go on a guided tour,

you will probably have an itinerary.

An itinerary is basically a list of all the things

that you are going to do that day.

Usually when you go on a trip and you buy a package

that includes several tours during the trip,

you will have an itinerary for each day

so that you know what places you will be visiting.

Cities like Niagara Falls

that have a lot of tourists visit every year

will have an area that's called an entertainment district.

An entertainment district is an area

where people generally go at night

after they've spent the day looking at the falls

and other tourist attractions.

The entertainment district has things like a wax museum.

There are bars and restaurants here.

There's just a lot to do here at night

when you're visiting this city.

So this tower behind me is called the Skylon Tower,

and it's one of the tourist attractions

here in Niagara Falls.

It is in what we would call the entertainment district.

You can go to the top of that tower

and then you can see all of Niagara Falls,

the city and the actual waterfalls,

really, really well from up there.

So I am gonna start wearing my mask, though, in this area.

There's not a lot more people here,

but it's just a little harder to keep my distance.

I wore my mask with airplanes on it for this video,

because I thought, since it was about tourism and travel,

it would be a good mask to wear.

And of course there are many souvenir shops.

A souvenir is something small that you buy

to help you remember the trip later.

In Niagara Falls, there are many, many souvenir shops

where you can buy souvenirs.

So there are a few phrases you might hear

if you ever go on a tour.

Your tour guide might tell you,

"Tomorrow we are leaving bright and early."

That means that you are probably leaving

at six or seven a.m.

Your tour guide will tell you the actual time,

but bright and early or first thing in the morning

means that you are doing something the next day,

and it's going to be really, really early.

You might also be told to travel light.

This simply means don't bring a lot of things along.

If you are going on a walking tour or a bus tour,

you probably don't want to bring

more than just a small backpack.

So if someone tells you that you need to travel light,

maybe your tour guide says,

"I'm picking you up. first thing in the morning.

Make sure that you travel light,"

it means don't bring a lot of things along.

If you go on something like a bus tour,

you might be told quite often

to watch your step as you get on and off the bus.

This simply means that you should be careful

because you might be stepping up into the bus

or down off the bus,

and it might feel a little bit funny and you might trip,

so you might be told to watch your step.

And at the end of a long day, your tour guide might say,

"I think we're going to call it a day."

When you say you are going to call it a day,

it simply means that the day is over.

It means that you are deciding to not see anything else,

and you'll probably go back to your accommodations,

either your hotel, your Airbnb,

or maybe you're staying at a nice motel.

Well, hey, thank you so much for spending some time with me

here in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada.

I hope you learned just a little bit more English

in this lesson.

If you did, please give me a thumbs up.

And if you're new here,

don't forget to click that red subscribe button below.

And if you have a little bit more time, why don't you stick around and watch another video?