美語咖啡屋第4課聲音 Y: 各位聽眾好。我是楊晨，歡迎您到美語咖啡屋。在今天的節目中...。 哎，我們的另外一位節目主持人,Jody, 還沒來哪。Oh, Jody... 別擔心，別擔心， 她來了...。
( Door closing. Bags rustling.)
J: Yang Chen, I'm so sorry I'm late. Has the program started yet?
Y: 當然已經開始啦。
J: Oh, I'm so sorry everyone. Hello everyone! Welcome to American Cafe. My apologies.
Y: 你怎麼今天遲到了?
J: Just go ahead without me. I'm going to get my bags...
(Sound of rustling bags.)
Y: Jody 你幹嗎呢? 能不能集中點精神？ ... 啊?! 你竟然去逛街去了？
J: Shopping? No, no, no. I was not shopping.
Y: 那這些購物袋是怎麼回事兒呢？
J: What bags? Oh, these bags? Right, You see, Yang Chen, I was doing research.
Y: 作研究, 做什麼研究啊？
J: Research on ... buying and selling.
Y: 啊哈，作市場調查。那還不是和逛街差不多。
J: Okay, I may have done a little shopping. But I just wanted to get in the mood. Because I thought shopping is such a popular pastime for Americans, we could do a show on shopping. What do you think?
Y: 我知道美國人，特別是女士們週末喜歡逛街。我也很喜歡啊。你下次再作市場調查可要叫我和你一快去啊。
J: Oh, absolutely! Actually for today's show I thought we could talk about a special type of store that I've always wanted to know more about, a consignment store!
Y: Consignment store? 哎, 咱倆那天在Dupont Circle路過的那家店就是一家consignment store,對不對？
J: The one and the same! It's called Secondi Consignment Store. And when I went back, I spoke with Molly, an employee there, who helped me understand exactly how a consignment store operates.
Y: 我們來聽聽Molly怎麼解釋consignment store是什麼意思。
實錄1 Molly: A consignment store is a store where people own the items that the store sells for them on their behalf. The original owner of the items is only paid once the items are sold on the store.
Y: 這種商店在中文裏應該叫寄售商店。
J: Let's listen to Molly again as she talks more about how a consignment store operates.
實錄2 Molly: The consigner comes in. One of the managers goes through the items and tells the consigner "Yes, we can sell it" or "No, we can't." "Here's what we think we can sell it for" pricewise. And then the consigner gets 50 percent of that price.
Y: Molly 剛才提到的"consigner"... right?
J: Consigner. Correct.
Y: ... 就是委託他們出售商品的客戶。一般來說，客戶拿東西到她們商店來，有一位專門負責收購的經理決定哪些她們能賣出去，哪些她們不願意賣。然後和客戶商訂價錢，商店會得到售價的50%。
J: Wow, Yang Chen, you summed that up really well. A consigner is the person who brings the clothes in that they want the store, the consignment store, to sell for them. So a consignment is just like being a distributor. You know, a slang word for distributor is "middle man." And you say "middle man" even if it's a woman.
Y: 呣, 在中文裏呢, "middle man"應該就是"中間人" 或者"經紀人"的意思。
J: Oh, hey, Yang Chen, also at Secondi they have a great system that keeps the inventory fresh.
Y: 這家商店，就是Secondi這家商店，那麼他們怎麼避免貨品的積壓呢？我們再讓Molly解釋一下。
實錄3 Molly: After the first month the clothing goes down 20 %, and after the second month it goes down 40%, and after the third month if it's still here, the contract that we have with the consigner is just that we can donate it automatically for them.
Y: 噢，原來她們的貨物第一月沒賣出去就降價20%，兩個月賣不出去就降40%，三個月還賣不出去就要捐出去了。聽 Molly 怎麼一說，如果我們每天去這家商店，那每天都能看到她們的貨架上有新的東西。
J: Oh, they have some really great items there. Some were way out of my price range. Too expensive!
Y: 我知道，你說的 "well out of my price range"就是對我來說價錢太貴了，買不起。
J: But look at my new jeans! $28 and they still had the tag on them!
Y: 才28美元？太值了！好了，各位聽眾，您今天了解了美國的consignment store，不知道您有什麼感想呢？我覺得，我真是一種很不錯的消費方法，以低於零售商店的價格買到名牌衣服。這簡直就是每個女士的夢想。哎，Jody， 咱們現在就去吧！
J: Thanks for tuning to American Cafe. Come on, Yang Chen, lets go!
Y: 謝謝您收聽美語咖啡屋，我們下次再見。
