Post office 邮局

    「Beginner」step1 ：初级入门

    A ： I‘d like to send this parcel to Australia.

    B ： Certainly. Could you put it on the scales， so I can check the
weight？

    A ：Sure. It‘s not very heavy.

    B ： That ‘s 850 grams. The cost depends on how you would like to
send it.

    A ： I see. What are the options？ I suppose airmail is faster and
more expensive than surface mail.

    B ： That ‘s right. Sending it by airmail will cost twelve dollars
and sending it by surface mail will cost eight dollars.

    A ： How long will it take to get there ？

    B ： Airmail should take four or five days and surface mail should
take about two weeks.

    A ： In that case ， I‘ll send it by airmail. I’d like to send it
as a registered parcel.

    B ： No problem. That ‘s one dollar extra.

    A ： Thanks very much. There‘s thirteen dollars.

    B ： There‘s your receipt. Goodbye.

    「Intermediate」step2 ：中级进阶

    A ： Post offices offer lots of services nowadays ， don‘t they？

    Years ago ， you only really used the post office to send mail， save
money ， and send or collect money.

    B ： Nowadays ， they offer so many services， you hardly know which
one to choose. Take mailing for example. Do you send something first class
or second class or do you use EMS ？

    A ： I save money in a post office saving account. There used to be
just one kind of account， but now there are several. They each have different
conditions and interest rates.

    B ： You can buy things at post office that were never sold there
before. You can buy sweets and chocolates ， newspapers ， birthday and
Christmas cards ………

    A ： Post offices are still the place to go to collect welfare benefits，
like unemployment benefit and child support benefit. The queues are very
long on the days when people collect those payments.

    B ： My son likes going to the main post office. They have a philately
counter where he can buy stamps for his collection.

    A ： Do you think that the service at post offices has improved ？

    B ： I think it ‘s better for some things， like sending and receiving
money ， but if you need to post something it sometimes takes longer than
it used to.

    A ： I like being able to buy newspapers and magazines at the post
office. It means that I don ‘t need to go to two places.