I’m opening a store...,

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Silverobama

Key Member
Joined
Aug 8, 2010
Member Type
Student or Learner
Native Language
Chinese
Home Country
China
Current Location
China
Someone asked me what I do for a living and I said:

I’m opening a store in the neighborhood.

More context: Not far from where I live, in the local community, I have a shop selling all kinds of things, snacks, daily necessities, beverage, cigarettes, etc.

Is my sentence natural?
 
Do you already have a general store in your local neighbourhood and you're planning to open another one in the local area of the person who asked you about your job?
 
"General store" is a new term to me. It's called a "grocery shop" where I come from. In Australia, it's called a "grocery store/grocer", while they call it a "dairy" in New Zealand.
 
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BrE doesn't have just one single term for such a shop. If they're relatively small and on a corner, they're a "corner shop". Some people use "convenience store", which is something of a BrE/AmE hybrid - BrE doesn't use "store" on its own; we use "shop", but for some reason when it's combined with "convenience", we adopt "store" instead. No one's ever called it a "convenience shop"! You'll hear "grocery shop/store", "little shop", "[the company name]" and probably several others.

@Silverobama If you already run that shop, saying "I'm opening a store in the neighbourhood" makes no sense. That works only if you're in the process of setting up the store but it hasn't yet opened.
 
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