Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Grocery shopping in a foreign language

I accidentally bought a wrong item at the grocery store a few days ago (conditioner instead of shampoo - same brand, same color and I was in a hurry - but it got me thinking.  How would our local Kroger store look to someone visiting in our country or newly moved here and speaking no English. Setting aside the challenge of dealing with a different currency, how would you know what to buy.  Some things are easy, even though there are many brands you can usually recognize canned or frozen vegetables by the picture on the package, and of course fresh produce and meat and fish would be no problem.  Actually, now that I think about it so many things on the grocery aisles come wrapped in packaging with pictures that it might not be too hard after all until you get to things like shampoo and conditioner. Ok, suddenly I don't feel so sorry for these imaginary visitors.

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