A2 English Listening Practice - Clothes and Fashion

[0:00]Hey everybody, welcome to this A2 English Listening Practice video! You can use this video to practice your listening and comprehension as I speak. You ready? So today, I'm going to talk about clothes and fashion. This is a topic that I don't really like that much, but it's an important one. Everybody wears clothes, and everybody has some kind of fashion, or lack of fashion. I might be one of those people that lacks fashion, but we'll get into that in a minute. First, let's talk about when we first develop our own fashion sense and take it seriously. For me, this was around the time when I was in middle school. Middle school is when I started paying attention to what kind of clothes I was wearing: what brands, what styles, and what colors. One of the first phases that I went through was the one where I wore really baggy clothes. "Baggy" clothes are clothes that are too big for you, and they come down lower than normal clothes. My shirts were too long, and my pants weren't pulled up high enough. It wasn't a good phase for me. I'm sure many of you can remember going through something like this when you were young. If we look back at our middle school pictures, some of us would be horrified. So, once I got into high school, my style changed because I started playing more basketball. Thus, I started buying all kinds of Air Jordan's, Nike's and other brands of basketball shoes. I used to match the color of my shoes with the color of my shirts. I was super color-coordinated. Then, after that, I ditched the basketball phase, and I started wearing more casual clothes. And then finally, by the time I started college, I'd stopped caring so much about what clothes I wore. Nowadays, I'm the least stylish person you'll meet. I wear what's comfortable, and I don't have many clothes. So, now let's talk about some of the popular clothing stores that are out there. Back when I was 17, I got my first job at a clothing store called Hollister. Some of you might know this store, actually. It was really popular back in my high school days, but I don't know how popular it is now. Now, when I go shopping, I either go to stores like H&M, or I go to department stores like JC Penny. Department stores are really big stores that sell all kinds of clothes, jewelry, electronics, and other things from many different brands. I like these stores, because they have a huge selection of clothes. Some of the most popular athletic clothing stores in the U.S. include Nike, Footlocker, and DICK's Sporting Goods. For women, Forever 21, Zara, and Abercrombie & Fitch are some of the popular stores. Do you have these stores in your country? In the U.S., most popular clothing stores are found in shopping malls. Here, we just call them "malls". You can find malls everywhere in the U.S. I think most of them are indoor malls, but there are plenty of outdoor malls too. I'm not a big fan of malls, but there are definitely times when I need to go there to buy something. And during the Christmas season, I have to spend much more time at the mall buying presents for everyone. Okay, that's all for today. Leave a comment and tell me what your favorite clothing store is. I'll see you next time!