Guides by Topic: Logistics of Everyday Life
At the Pharmacy (Intermediate)
Practice on Your Own
Imagine you are visiting a country where the language you are learning is spoken. You get sick a week after your arrival. You decide to visit the pharmacy to get medicine to alleviate your problem.
- Practice words for being sick, pharmacy, doctor, parts of the body, symptoms, medicine, and days.
- Practice saying “I am in pain,” “my stomach hurts,” “I am vomiting,” and “I have no appetite,” among other health‐related vocabulary.
- Practice words for various diseases in the language you are learning, especially diseases that are prevalent in the country/ies where the language is spoken.
- Be prepared to tell your conversation partner and fellow students the part(s) of the body that is/are hurting, how you are feeling and what you think you might be suffering from.
- Practice for a conversation with a pharmacist. Write out a list of questions that the pharmacist will ask you, such as how long you have been in the host country, what kind of food you have eaten and the kind of water you have been drinking, how long you have been feeling the way you are and what part(s) of the body is/are hurting. Also make a list of your responses to these questions.
Practice in Conversation Session
- Be prepared to tell your conversation partner and fellow students words for various diseases and body parts in the language you are learning. Also explain what you do when you are sick.
- Your conversation partner may ask you to relate an experience of what you did when you got sick in the past, what symptom(s) you had, what part(s) of the body hurt, where you went for help and what medicine you took to feel better.
- If you have not learned the past tense yet, you can talk about your experience in the present tense.
- Be prepared to role play situations in which your conversation partner plays the role of a pharmacist and you are the patient. After greeting the pharmacist in a culturally appropriate way, tell them that you need help. As you role play the conversation, let the person ask you questions and respond appropriately. At the end, let the person tell you that you have food poisoning based on the pain and the symptoms you have described. You are given medication and told how much it costs and how often to take it each day. You are also told to see a doctor if the pain persists. You thank the pharmacist and pay for your medication in the country’s currency.
- Switch roles. Now you are the pharmacist and your role play partner is the patient.
- After the role plays, discuss real experiences that you and your conversation partner and fellow students may have gone through either at home or outside the country. Discuss the difficulties you may have experienced in getting treatment and how you overcame them. Use the language you are learning to talk about these experiences and see how well you are doing in the language.
- If you have not learned the past tense yet, you can talk about these experiences in the present tense.