This is an All Ears English podcast, hair raising and spine chilling vocabulary.
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With your American hosts Aubrey Carter, the IELTS whiz, and former IELTS examiner Jessica Beck, coming to you from Arizona and Portland Oregon, USA.
Halloween is over, but you can still learn some scary awesome vocabulary.
Today, learn five high-level phrases that mean scary to electrify your spoken English.
Hey, Aubrey, how are you?
I'm great, Jessica.
Welcome to the Allers English Podcast.
I love having you on here. love coming over here.
I'm always just stuck over there in the IELTS world and I love coming on all ears English.
But I have a question for you.
How often do you describe scary things?
Oh, all the time.
This is not just something for Halloween, right?
Yeah.
I'm constantly watching scary movies all year, first of all.
And then just like scary things happen all the time to parents.
I lose my children like at least once a week.
It's scary.
It's so true though.
Yeah, especially parents have a lot of cause to use today's vocabulary.
Hearing...
James talk about how he's so excited to jump off the highest like things at the ski resort.
It's terrifying.
It's it's blood curdling.
Just imagining him flying in the air like that.
But yeah, the point is, guys, that we could use scary vocabulary year round.
So that's why today we're bringing you a very special episode, an episode of IELTS Energy.
Yes, IELTS.
Jessica and I recorded this episode over on IELTS Energy, but it had so much great vocabulary for saying scary in way more interesting ways.
So we want to share it with you here today.
So listen up, guys.
Take notes.
And we will be back after the episode to tell you our favorite vocabulary phrase from the episode.
Awesome.
Hey, Aubrey.
How you doing?
Excellent.
Happy Halloween, Jess.
I love Halloween so much.
Happy Halloween.
Me too, because all of October we have all the permission to watch every scary movie, every blood chilling, spine tingling story.
We can consume all of them.
Absolutely.
My daughter's been watching Stranger Things for the second time.
And I saw that they put all the Jordan Peele movies on.
I think it's Netflix.
I saw them, Get Out and Us and all of those.
I'm like, yay, Halloween.
So good.
I want to recommend a classic Halloween film for you guys because James and I just rewatched it.
But I promise you we will get to some amazing vocabulary and show you how to use these terms.
On IELTS.
They are all band nine phrases.
But quickly, I want to make a movie recommendation.
The Lost Boys.
It's from 1983.
And James and I just watched it a couple days ago.
And it's a It's a classic.
It could not be more 1980s.
That's so true.
But Kiefer Sutherland is so sexy in that.
He is.
Oh, my goodness.
Vampire Kiefer Sutherland.
Amazing.
Yeah.
He's basically playing the same character as in Stand By Me, just as a vampire.
But it's the same older brother scary dude.
But both the Corys are in it.
Corey Haim and Corey Feldman.
And that was the first movie they were both in together.
They were these like teen pop icons of the 80s.
Yes.
Anyway, so good, that would be a good.
I need to re-watch that one this halloween season.
So good, it's so good.
Um guys, you know what?
We have not done a vocabulary episode for a little while.
We have been focusing on speaking and writing and reading, um.
So the last vocab episode guys, scroll up.
It's episode 1313.
Use this less common academic ielts vocabulary.
So if you missed that, definitely scroll up so you can see that one.
We taught you eight phrases directly from our Three Keys IELTS course that are all high scoring, amazing vocab phrases.
So go back and listen to 1313.
Use this less common academic IELTS vocab and make sure to hit follow right now, so you don't miss any of these amazing episodes.
Yes.
If you missed that one, you're probably missing a lot.
So if you hit follow, episodes will drop right into your queue.
So you make sure don't miss any of them.
Always great IELTS tips, strategies, and amazing vocabulary on all of our episodes.
All right.
Awesome.
So let's get into these four phrases we have for you in the spirit of Halloween, because today is Halloween.
Happy Halloween, Aubrey.
Yes.
Awesome.
And this is really fun.
We have vocabulary.
All of these words we're going to share mean scary or are scary as slang, but you can use them all over the IELTS exam for lots of different answers.
You don't have to be telling a scary story.
We're going to show you how you can fit them in as band nine vocabulary for lots of different questions.
Exactly.
So the first, um, the first word is scary.
Now, How do we make this high scoring?
We can use this as an adverb.
This is a very slangy use of scary that other students will not use.
And it is perfect for part one and part two.
So we can use it just to describe something that is surprisingly great.
Like that movie was scary good or even a meal like that was scary.
Scary delicious.
Or maybe if the price is surprisingly high.
Right.
You could say it's scary expensive.
There's no way I could afford that.
Yes, absolutely.
Right.
Scary fast.
I'm scary tired.
Whatever you want to say just to just to emphasize how much it is.
Just like we say super or way or totally.
Scary is another one we use this way in a very slang way just to emphasize.
So you can plug this in in part one to get that slang, to get that variety of vocabulary you need.
Exactly.
I love it.
Guys, you cannot learn these lessons anywhere else.
Like that's really how you sound like a native speaker on IELTS and hit that informal range that the examiner needs to hear in speaking part one at least.
Now these other three you could use literally anywhere, like they're high level because they're a little bit less common and they're just amazing vocabulary.
So here's the first phrase blood curdling.
So it just means super scary, terrifying.
Now how can we use blood curdling on ielts?
Yeah, so Often this is collocated with the sound of a scream, like a really loud, scary scream in a horror movie.
We'd call it a blood-curdling scream.
But we also just use this to exaggerate.
So what if you're asked about your favorite book or how much you like to read?
You might say something like I always get books from the library, but a friend was telling me she thinks libraries are going to close down now that people use audiobooks so much.
That is a blood-curdling thought because I love going to the library and yeah, that's a genuine like sentence, at least for the two of us um, because we do love so much language and books and reading.
But that is a blood-curdling thought like that is a terrifying it.
It makes my, it makes my insides feel terrible, right that that might happen.
So that's an appropriate use, Exactly.
It's just a great way to exaggerate.
So think about all of the different.
If you're asked about a restaurant what you like to do with friends anytime you just want to say that something was a terrible thought, or just to exaggerate how terrible it was, use this word blood curdling.
All right.
So the next phrase, spine chilling.
So I
Just a side note, guys these three terms we're teaching you blood curdling, spine chilling, and the next one, which will be hair raising all three of these are hyphenated, okay.
So the first one, blood hyphen curdling, and then this one, spine hyphen chilling.
So guys, just think about the meaning of these words.
Your spine chilling, it's like, you know, you feel like frozen in terror. is what it means.
So how can we use spine chilling on IELTS?
Yeah, I imagine on part three you're asked a question about maybe children with technology.
You know how much you think they should use them, or if time should be limited, you could say something like I imagine a future with zombie hordes who only play video games and never learned to interact with other children.
That is a pretty spine chilling thought for the future.
Let's hope it doesn't come to fruition.
I think it already has.
My kids get so tuned into their screens.
And then when I'm like, hey, time to go outside and play.
They become like evil zombies that are like scratching and they're just so angry and unreasonable.
It's awful. one is so easy to apply anytime guys you find a thought a person an experience a story any an opinion anytime you find those things super super scary you can say this you know it fits anything that is that really scares you um okay now the last one hair raising okay like you can these are easy to remember because they come with images hair raising think of cartoons when people are really scared or surprised and their hair stands up on end you know that's what it is all right so i think this is a great one for ielts speaking part two if you're describing a scary experience um so here's an example i had a hair raising experience at a theme park last year i was on a ferris wheel and apparently something broke because it stopped and we were trapped at the top for three hours oh my gosh that's worst case scenario yeah that is the stuff of nightmares i'm always worried about being on a ferris wheel or a roller coaster and it breaks and i fall or just you're stuck on there it's so terrible okay because you just said such a great phrase i want to add a bonus phrase on before we finish up today You said the stuff of nightmares.
We can also use the stuff of dreams.
Again, like if you're describing anything that could be nightmarish or the opposite of that it could be a beautiful dream.
Maybe you're at a museum and you see beautiful artwork and you're like, it was the stuff of dreams.
I'm not lying.
It was so beautiful.
Or here, right?
Maybe I'm describing a scary movie I watched yesterday.
That was like a Guillermo del Toro movie with like super crazy monsters.
And I can be like, those monsters are the stuff of nightmares.
So yeah, I think that phrase is very native and easy to use.
I love that.
And I you have to think about all the things that are negative, that we don't like, that we will absolutely exaggerate, right?
If I had to wait in line for an hour, I might just be like, it was the stuff of nightmares.
Share how my kids were bored.
It was awful, right?
You then get to give all these fun details about why it was not fun and absolutely use one of today's adjectives to describe it and exaggerate.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Um, and last thing today guys, if you think that IELTS is the stuff of nightmares, if you're having a hair raising time trying to study for your exam um, don't stay lost.
Don't stay just doing this on your own guys.
You can join us in three keys.
IELTS go to allearsenglish.com slash K E Y S. Um, There's a live community.
You can interact with other students, ask teachers questions at any time.
You're feeling scared or unsure.
You can talk to us.
You're supported every step of the way.
So go to allearsenglish.com slash K-E-Y-S.
Awesome, Jessica and everybody out there.
Happy Halloween or All Hallows Eve or Day of the Dead, whatever you celebrate and have a fun time.
Happy Halloween.
All right, bye.
Bye-bye.
All right, Jessica, what do you think?
What is your favorite from that episode?
Well, I actually used it in the beginning of the episode.
So that proves that it's my favorite.
I like blood curdling.
It's like the scariest phrase.
It's so full of imagery.
And that's why it's hard to forget.
You know, like this is a very strong phrase.
So hopefully it's easy for you guys to remember and use.
Yes, I love how we always provide sample sentences.
Maybe they were specifically for IELTS, but everything you say on IELTS is also for real life, too.
So this vocabulary is so useful for you guys.
It's really going to make your adjectives more interesting because we exaggerate all the time.
We use these fun adjectives to talk about anything that's a little bit scary.
Totally, totally.
Remember guys, that in order to score highly on IELTS, Students have to have a high level of fluent English, right?
That is our job on IELTS Energy is to encourage high level fluent English.
At the end of the day, that's our plan, right?
So just because you're not studying for the test, it doesn't mean that this podcast isn't useful.
Exactly, right?
We teach listening speaking reading, writing skills, but also grammar pronunciation and awesome, impressive vocabulary.
So guys, wherever you're listening right now, search IELTS Energy and hit follow.
Jessica and I are over there.
Two new episodes every week.
It's so much fun.
So fun.
So fun.
All right, guys.
Search IELTS Energy, hit follow, and we'll see you there.
Awesome.
Bye.
Bye.
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