Hello, lovely.
I'm Maria.
And my name is Rory.
And we are the hosts of the IELTS Speaking for Success podcast, the podcast that aims to help you improve your listening skills as well as your speaking skills along the way.
We've started this podcast to give you gorgeous grammar and super vocabulary for your high IELTS goal.
Your band, nine score.
You're looking very glamorous today, like a real celebrity.
Thank you, Rory.
I am a celebrity.
I feel like a celebrity.
Well, that's fortunate because today we are going to talk about celebrities.
Who is your favorite celebrity in your country?
I've never really thought about it, to be honest with you, since I don't particularly follow them.
If I'm pushed on it, maybe James McAvoy, but I don't even know if he lives in my country anymore.
He played Professor X in the latter X-Men movies.
Do you want to be a celebrity?
Oh, I think I'd sooner die, to be honest with you.
Fame and fortune don't really seem to bring people much in the way of happiness or good living.
Very few celebrities seem to be well-grounded people or have a good relationship with reality.
So I think I would rather be reasonably well-known for doing the right things rather than just famous for anything and have all of this money and power.
That doesn't actually improve my life in any way.
Do you read news about celebrities?
Outside of glancing at the occasional article and headline in the passing, no.
I mean, I'd rather build up my life than focus on the trivialities of someone else's.
Have you ever met celebrities or pop stars?
I have indeed.
I have met several comedians and journalists and singers.
And I managed to get completely starstruck each time.
So it's not really something that you get used to, I'm afraid.
I even have some autographed material from them which make for interesting keepsakes.
I'm not sure they're worth much but it's interesting to have.
Do you believe that the news stories about famous people are true?
I guess that depends on what is being covered and the publications covering it when you think about it.
I mean, for example, let's say it's someone's birthday in a reputable broadsheet.
Then I think the facts are pretty much beyond dispute there.
Whereas if it's some kind of salacious gossip in some kind of tabloid, then I think nothing gets further from established truth than that.
And I'm not going to invest much faith or interest in it.
Dear listener, we have our super premium episodes for you where Rory and I are discussing speaking, part 2 and 3.
This week on our premium, Rory is describing an interesting conversation he had with an old person.
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Hey, dear listener, this is your time to tell a story how you met Beyonce.
Or how I met Leonardo DiCaprio or Messi.
You can just lie, dear listener.
And the examiners gonna be like, whoa, whoa, you really met Beyonce?
Whoa.
Yeah, Rory didn't say anything like this.
Well, okay.
I said what their jobs were.
I'm not going to go around name dropping.
That's not how things work.
Name dropping, by the way, is when you mention the names of famous people in conversation in order to garner attention.
You should know who is famous in your country.
For example, Rory here mentioned James McAvoy and he's a Scottish actor.
Okay, he was.
He starred in x-men and also this movie split.
But I don't know if James McAvoy is actually a celebrity in my country anymore.
He's a celebrity from my country, but I think he actually lives in in the States or somewhere in the UK.
Yeah, Google says like in the States or in the UK, but he grew up in Scotland, okay?
Yeah.
But he's famous in your country, so it's okay.
So you should kind of Give some names.
Okay, so who is famous?
Maybe like a writer, Beyonce, Paul McCartney, I don't know.
Messi is famous everywhere.
And a good way to start it, you can say, oh, I've never really thought about this.
I've never thought about this.
Who is famous in my country?
Me?
Me?
Rory?
Well, it's not something I spend a great deal of time thinking about.
And you could tell that to the examiner and they would probably understand, because not everybody is interested in celebrities and following them.
Speaking of which, if you follow the celebrities, it doesn't mean you're physically like.
They are walking and you are walking behind them.
It just means that you follow the news about them and their lives.
Do you want to be a celebrity or do you want to be famous?
And Rory told us I'd sooner die.
So I would sooner die.
Death is better than being a celebrity for Rory.
You could say this to anything.
If someone said, would you like to do blah, blah, blah?
And if you really don't want to do it, then you just say, I think I'd sooner die.
Yeah, for example, Rory, would you like to be a singer?
I think I'd sooner die because that would well, and I would die if I did it because I would die of embarrassment.
So there we go.
It's good grammar though.
For example, I think, present simple, I'd, I would, and sooner for the comparative.
And then the whole thing, I think I'd sooner die for the pronunciation.
So it's pretty good.
It's a good phrase to use, even though it's a bit dark.
Yeah, and you can say, for example, like, do you want to be a writer?
I'd sooner die.
I'd rather be a singer.
So I would rather be a singer.
Again, like, I prefer to be a singer.
So I'd rather be famous or famous.
I'd rather die.
I'd rather be a teacher.
I'd rather be a doctor.
This is a nice one.
And I'd rather be well-known for the right reasons.
So well-known, famous, for the right reasons.
What did you mean for the right reasons?
Well, well-known is not the same as being famous.
It's like in the celebrity way, well-known is just like people know who you are.
Being some I don't know notorious person who does all of these horrible things or behaves in a certain way.
I don't really approve of that.
So I don't just want to be a celebrity for the sake of being a celebrity.
Like, being famous is the main focus.
It's more about a few.
Well, a large number of people know who you are, but they know you for doing one specific thing very well, or a few things that are really good.
Yeah.
And usually we say like well-known musicians, writers, poets, well-known podcasters.
Very few famous people seemed to be attached to reality.
So to be attached to reality.
Yes.
If you're attached to reality.
It means that you have a realistic understanding of how the world works and the problems that affect most people and how their lives operate.
Whereas if you're not attached to reality, then you might think that you are the most important person in the universe and everybody should drop everything just to please you.
Fame and fortune is kind of like idiomatic, right?
What do you call it?
A binomial?
Like fish and chips?
Or M&M's?
Yeah, fame and fortune.
Like, he went to London to seek fame and fortune.
His dreams were of fame and fortune.
I'm dreaming of fame and fortune.
How else can I use fame and fortune?
Well, fame and fortune don't seem to make people particularly happy.
I glance at occasional articles.
So when you glance at something, you just like quickly, you look at something quickly.
And Rory doesn't follow any celebrities.
He just like glances at the occasional article.
So he just picks up a newspaper.
And he's like, oh, okay, okay.
So he just glances at some articles about celebrities.
He's like, I'm not into it, okay?
And I can read some headlines here.
So headline is the title of an article.
So you don't read the whole article.
You just, okay, I glance at some headlines about celebrities.
And again, I'd rather focus on something else.
Remember, like we used it like I'd rather be well known for another thing.
Right.
Or I'd rather be well known for something.
Here we use it.
I'd rather focus on building up my life instead of reading books.
About somebody else's life.
Oh, not just somebody else's life.
Come on.
I used a really good word there.
Even I remember it.
Oh, yes, you did.
You did like trivialities of someone else's else's life.
So trivialities are extremely small and unimportant details.
So, for example, if it's like if a celebrity gets a new pair of shoes and they're photographed with those and it tells you all about the shoes and how much they cost and the color, and I'm already falling asleep.
It's boring.
It's not interesting for me.
So it's trivial.
Other people have different opinions, but this is mine.
Don't bother me with trivialities.
Nah.
Unimportant details.
So, a good sentence to use.
I'd rather focus on building up my life instead of reading about the trivialities of someone else's.
We can call them celebrities, famous people, pop stars.
And if the examiner asks you, have you ever met a celebrity?
Oh, come on, dear listener, just lie.
Say that, oh, once I met Paul McCartney in a store.
