Errands are those necessary activities that you have to do in daily life, such as go to the post office.

So that's what you're invited to do with me today and learn some real life English along the way.

Hi, I'm Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com and like always, I have created a free PDF worksheet with all of today's important vocabulary, expressions, sample sentences, and you can answer Vanessa's challenge question at the bottom of the free worksheet so that you never forget what you've learned.

You can click on the link in the description to download that free worksheet today.

All right, are you ready to get started with our first errand?

Let's do it.

The first errand that we're going to run is dropping off some books that my kids no longer read in our neighborhood's free book box.

This is a pretty popular concept in the U.S. where if you have books that you don't want anymore or your kids don't want anymore, you can share them with your neighbors.

So that's what I'm going to do.

All right.

I think today I'm not going to take anything for me, but would you like to see what's going on inside the book box?

There are books for adults.

These are the kids books that I just put in there.

Sometimes there's magazines.

One time I even found some homemade vegetables in there, homegrown vegetables.

Pretty cool.

All right, let's go to the next errand.

All right, our next errand.

Hi, everyone.

We are going to be making some donations to the local charity shop, and these are items that my family doesn't use anymore and other people might find them useful.

Our trash might be other people's treasure.

There is one item in our car that I don't know if they're going to accept.

It is an old door.

So I'm going to ask the lady if that's something that they'll accept and we'll see what happens.

So if you want to know why we're giving away a door, it's because we bought a super cheap used door.

I think it was $8 from another thrift store, and my husband made it into a table, like a craft play table for my kids, and they could draw on it.

They could do crafts on it, and now we don't need it anymore.

So we took the table legs off of it, and it's time to see if it can go back into the world of donations.

Let's find out.

Hey.

All right.

I have a couple of things, but I do have, I have a question.

Is something like this, this door, is that something that we can donate?

It's like one of those pocket doors.

I know if we don't, then Habitat will, but I can ask Eric.

Okay, that would be great.

Save us a trip if possible.

Thank you.

Let's see.

All right.

First thing is this old game.

Second thing, a dart board, another game.

Third thing is this little basket.

No, they send them all to Habitat.

Oh, okay.

Well, I'll just go over there then.

Okay.

Okay.

Thank you.

It's all right.

And this is for children.

I know you guys don't take baby stuff, but no, we do.

Kid stuff's okay?

Yeah.

Okay, cool.

All right.

A one million.

Maybe there's going to be some later.

There we go.

Okay, thank you so much.

Have a good day.

All right.

Let's go across the street and donate this door to the other charity that takes doors, apparently.

Let's go.

So I was wondering, a couple of years ago, a couple of years ago, I got this door here.

Can I return it?

Yeah.

All right.

We have loved it and used it well.

Oh, nice.

It does have some markings on it.

That's okay.

We used it as a table.

Yeah, absolutely.

Okay.

Awesome.

Thank you.

You got it.

You have a wonderful day.

Thanks.

You too.

All right.

Our next errand is to go to the bank and I need to deposit some checks that we were given.

One of them's a tax check.

One of them is a check given to Dan, my husband, from his grandparents for his birthday.

It's kind of an American tradition.

I don't know if it's a tradition, but in my family and in Dan's family, grandparents like to give their grandchildren some money for their birthday and the older generation will often use a check to do that.

So we have to deposit it in the bank and let's go.

Let's see what happens.

I'm going to use the drive-thru to show you the true American experience and I'm not exactly sure what's going to happen, but let's just give it a shot.

All right.

So park.

There's this little cool tube.

Here it is.

You take the tube out.

It has a pen inside.

If you need to sign anything, I already signed everything.

I was prepared.

So I'm just going to put my driver's license and the checks in here.

Close it up.

Watch this magic.

Are you ready?

I push send carrier.

Watch this tube up here.

As a kid, this is always the most exciting part about going to the bank.

Watching the tube get sucked up into this area and go into the bank.

I used to actually work at the bank a long time ago.

It was a great job.

And my bank that I worked at did not have this type of device.

There was only one drive-thru lane.

And if you go to the closest drive-thru lane, where this other car is over here, there's just a door that opens in the wall and you put things in there and the bank teller grabs it directly out.

There's no cool tube, but I wanted to show you the tube.

All right.

Let's see if it's my turn to get serviced.

Hi, good morning.

Good.

Good.

I just like to deposit those checks.

That would be great.

Thank you.

Success.

She might ask because we have a couple of different checking accounts.

She might ask me which checking account do you want to get it deposited into?

I don't know.

Maybe she'll just guess and put it in one of them.

Let's see.

While we're waiting for the checks to get deposited, I wanted to let you know that if you do live in the U.S. and you want to go to the bank, if you want to just deposit a check or if you want to get some cash out, you don't need to go into the bank.

You can use the machine over here or you can just drive up like this.

But if you want to open a bank account, you have to go into the bank and you can just go into the bank and say, I'd like to open a checking account, or I'd like to open a savings account, or I'd like to open an account.

What's your recommendation?

Something like this.

So if you want to open an account, you need to go inside and don't worry if you can't understand everything they say, because you can always ask, Hey, can you say that a little slower?

Or could you repeat that please?

And from my experience, most people who work at the bank are very nice.

I used to work at the bank, but many people who work at the bank are nice, so they'll be willing to help you.

Okay.

Thank you.

Here it comes.

Are you ready?

All right.

So let's see what I got.

Did I get any treasure today?

I got my driver's license back and a receipt and the pen is still in there.

Don't steal the pen.

I will just put it back.

Click send carrier, which closes the door.

Oh, dang it.

I sent the empty carrier.

Run away.

Run away.

Oops.

I guess you just put it in there and the door automatically closes.

Don't listen to me.

Okay.

Let's go to our next errand, which is, if I can move this, our next errand is to drop off something at the post office.

Now, unfortunately, I'm not going to be taking you into the post office with me, but we will drive up to the post office and you'll see what happens.

Let's go.

Our final errand is going to the post office.

Unfortunately, this is not one of my favorite errands, but the people who work here are really nice.

I'm going to be sending these little chocolate packages to some of my team members who had birthdays recently.

I like to try to send them local chocolate.

It's something I would love to receive for my birthday.

So I'm sending this to them and I need to go into the post office to do that, but I'm not going to take you with me.

Sorry about that.

So you'll have to be satisfied with just this shot outside the post office and I'll see you after I go in.

All right.

I just finished at the post office and I sent those lovely gifts to two of my team members.

Thank you so much for joining me today to run some errands.

Running errands isn't my favorite activity, but it's certainly a necessary part of life.

So I hope that you learned some useful English phrases for daily life in today's lesson.

Don't forget to download the free PDF worksheet for today's lesson with all of the important expressions, vocabulary, definitions, sample sentences, and you can answer Vanessa's challenge question at the bottom of the worksheet so that you never forget what you've learned and you can speak daily life English too.

You can click on the link in the description to download that free PDF worksheet today.

Well, thanks so much for learning English with me and I'll see you again next Friday for a new lesson here on my YouTube channel.

Bye.

But wait, do you want more?

I recommend watching this video next where you will join me around town at the pharmacy.

There are some surprising items for sale at a pharmacy in the US, so I'll see you there to find out.