Hello lovely, I'm Maria.
I'm my name is Rory and we are the hosts of the IELTS Speaking for Success podcast.
The podcast aims to help you improve your speaking skills as well as your listening skills
along the way.
We've started this podcast to give you gorgeous grammar and fabulous vocabulary.
For your high IELTS score, which score, Rory?
Your band nine score.
What are you doing?
I'm wrapping a gift for a friend.
Oh, shall we talk about gifts?
Yes, you'll listen to what a coincidence!
Coincidence again on this podcast.
Gifts is a recent speaking but one topic we've talked about it before but oh well, IELTS
people have run out of topics.
That's why gifts presents again.
But this time we have a video on YouTube.
If you check it out, what's the best gift you've ever received?
I can't choose from my phone and my laptop, really.
Mostly because they both saved my bacon during the pandemic.
Although if I have to make a choice, then probably my laptop.
My phone could maybe have held out a little bit longer but the laptop, the old laptop,
was falling to pieces.
So this new one that I got was pretty essential for this period of time even though we weren't
preparing for it.
Do you like to give expensive gifts?
No, not really.
And I don't really like getting them.
I don't think the amount of money that you spend on a gift makes it more valuable or
less valuable for the person getting it.
It should surely be more about the connection between you and the other person.
Also, there is a cost of living crisis in this country and I am very cheap.
How often do by gifts for other people?
Not as often as you might think to be honest with you.
I just do my close friends and family Christmas and unbars days and that's about it really.
Sometimes not even then because I don't believe in filling people's lives so it's meaningless
stuff just because usually there has to be an explicit purpose behind it.
My close friends and family know that I love them though.
I just don't express this with gifts.
Have you ever given handmade gifts to others?
Not since I was at school I think.
I was used to make things for our parents all the time then.
Aside from that, I can't really recall.
Sorry.
Have you ever received a gift you didn't like?
Constantly, which is why I don't like getting gifts from people that aren't close to
me.
I think most recent example is somebody got me a bottle of sparkling wine from a birthday
and I really appreciate the sentiment behind that.
However, there is no way that I'm drinking something that isn't either champagne or
bourbon because those are the only things that I drink and can drink really.
Thank you, Rory.
We have our premium episodes for you where Rory and I are discussing fresh speaking
part 2 and 3 topics.
This week on our premium we have crazy topics.
In speaking part 2 we are discussing a science subject.
Okay.
And in speaking part 3 we are discussing science in general.
This is a new speaking part 2 topic about science in speaking 2 and 3.
The link is in the description.
Do check it out.
Okay.
First of all, to give gifts or what we give gifts we get gifts.
He gave me a present, okay?
So I got this present from him and also I got this for my birthday or on my birthday.
Well, it depends.
If we're talking about the reason why something happened then I got this for my birthday.
But if it's when it happened then I got this on my birthday.
Okay.
So if for example you give me this on my birthday so the 6th of May is my birthday.
So you give this to me on the 6th of May and I said I got it on my birthday, yeah?
Yeah.
If someone asks when did you get it?
But I also can say like, okay I got it on the 1st of March.
I got it on the 3rd of March.
But it's a present for my birthday.
It's a present for Christmas.
It's a present for the 8th of March, yeah?
For the 8th of March.
Oh, for Women's Day, right?
Yes.
And we spend money on presents, okay people?
On presents.
Spend something on an expensive gift or present.
Rory was very boring with his 1st answer.
Oh, thank you.
Okay, the best gift you've ever got and Rory said like, form left or what?
Come on.
Can't you see like, oh I once I got a helicopter or I got a trip to Cuba or you can say I got
a car or a flat or once I got a cottage for my birthday like a cottage.
Come on Dielis, it doesn't matter but just be unique, you know?
Just have fun.
You do not have to be unique, you have to have high level grammar and vocabulary for a
high score and I still think there was some pretty good grammar and vocabulary.
Shall we focus on the grammar and vocabulary?
Yes, go ahead.
Fine.
They both saved my bacon.
So if you're bacon is saved, it just means it's like a way of saying they saved my life
or they saved the day or they improved the situation when something happened.
So here they saved my bacon in the pandemic.
I got a phone for my birthday and it saved my bacon.
It was a Christmas present actually.
It was a Christmas present and it saved my bacon.
And then Dielis and I Rory has used the third conditional.
Whoa!
The third conditional in speaking part one.
The third conditional we talk about the past, we imagine things, they didn't happen.
So if and then in the past.
So Rory told us about this time he got this presents in the past.
So I think my phone would have held longer if I had needed it.
You're so close, my phone would have held out longer which just means it would have lasted
longer and not fallen apart.
Whoa!
So if I had needed it in the past, finished, okay?
But Rory didn't need his phone.
If I had needed it, it would have lasted longer or it would have held out longer, okay?
But it didn't.
If it's difficult for you to forget about it, because usually we don't use the third
conditional in speaking part one.
No, no.
If it's difficult for you, then think of your own sentence and send it to me on Instagram
or write it in the comments and I will correct it for you.
And then you will have one ready.
There we go.
Rory doesn't like feeling people's lives with meaningless stuff.
Meaningless stuff?
Stuff that doesn't have any meaning.
For example, you get like, I'm trying to think I've purged my life of all of the stuff
that doesn't mean anything.
I think one time somebody got me a shot glass for a while, I'm very nice, but it wasn't
from anywhere.
It was just a shot glass and it was like, thank you for this.
I don't take shots.
So I don't know what I was supposed to do with that.
And we say, feel people's lives.
So if you buy meaningless stuff, stuff people don't need, you feel their lives with meaningless
stuff.
You can also say, I don't do birthdays.
I don't do birthdays like I don't celebrate birthdays.
I give presents only to close family.
So my parents, my brothers, my sisters, like close family.
Handmade gifts.
Handmade, you'll make some with your hands and you say you make gifts, you make presents.
Yes, and you can do that.
I could ask they couldn't remember the last time that I did it to be honest with you.
And here Rory said, I used to make gifts at school or we used to make things for our parents.
So we used to not anymore.
And then I honestly can't recall.
I can't recall.
I can't remember.
And it's okay if you can't remember, just say it.
Well, honestly, I can't recall doing it.
I can't recall doing it in the past.
Constantly.
Like all the time.
Constantly is a good synonym for like all the time very often.
And we usually get gifts we don't like from people who are not our close family.
For people who aren't close to me.
So funny about sparkling wine.
What did you do with it?
I have regifted it.
Which is a terrible thing to say.
But you know, I don't know what else I was supposed to do because I'm not going to drink
it.
If you regift, then you give the gift to somebody else.
But I can't drink it.
It was such a strange thing to get me because anybody who knows me well knows that I only
drink two things these days.
And that's it.
Some people who watch this podcast will know that it's like champagne or bourbon and that's
it.
So where this sparkling wine came from, I have no idea.
It's nice though.
And I did say a very good phrase.
I appreciated the sentiment, which is I appreciate the idea behind it.
You know, obviously this person wanted to celebrate my birthday.
And so this is what they did.
And that is a good thing.
But the gift itself was not appropriate for me.
But these are two separate things.
So you can like one without liking the other.
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Do you like to give expensive gifts?
No, not really.
And I don't really like getting them.
I don't think the amount of money that you spend on a gift
makes it more valuable or less valuable for the person getting it.
It should surely be more about the connection between you and the other person.
Also, there is a cost of living crisis in this country.
And I am very cheap.
How often do you buy gifts for other people?
Not as often as you might think to be honest with you.
I just do my close friends and family Christmas and unbourstees.
And that's about it, really.
Sometimes not even then, because I don't believe in filling people's lives.
So it's meaningless stuff just because usually there has to be an explicit purpose behind it.
My close friends and family know that I love them.
I just don't express this with gifts.
Have you ever given handmade gifts to others?
Not since I was at school, I think.
I used to make things for our parents all the time then.
Aside from that, I can't really recall.
Sorry.
Have you ever received a gift you didn't like?
Constantly, which is why I don't like getting gifts from people that aren't close to me.
I think most recent example is somebody got me a bottle of sparkling wine from my birthday.
And I really appreciate the sentiment behind that.
However, there is no way that I'm drinking something that isn't either champagne or bourbon
because those are the only things that I drink and can drink, really.
