Hello, lovely.
I'm Mariam.
And 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 started this podcast to show you how a super native speaker would answer some of the most common IELTS speaking questions.
I ask Rory these questions and he gives answers using vocabulary and gorgeous grammar for a high score.
A band-aid score!
Rory, we don't seem to have any jokes and coincidences now.
No, it's sad.
But you know what's not sad?
I've just moved house, so let's talk about my new house.
Yay!
Yes, we're gonna talk about the area where Rory lives in, because in Speaking Part 1 they can ask you questions about your neighbourhood or the area where you live in.
Rory, where are you living now?
I live in a, well, now I live in a three bedroom apartment with a pair of colleagues.
It's great.
It's kind of central actually, or at least I think so.
What's your address and the flat number?
I'm not telling you that.
What's your passport number?
Nope.
Okay, right.
Confidential, off record.
Do you like the area where you live in?
Well, I like it.
My friend said it's like the boondocks.
I wish there were more shops nearby, I guess, but that's what the subway is for, so it's not so bad.
What do you like most about your area?
It's well, it's mostly quiet and there's a lot of greenery around um, and i have a balcony this time so i can actually like stand outside and see the trees, which is good, and the transport links are quite well developed as well, so i can get around a bit more easily than before.
What do you dislike about your area?
It's mostly quiet, I suppose.
There's a children's play park outside, which can get pretty loud.
And despite the fact I have a balcony, it probably needs to be renovated.
So there are some small dislikes, but nothing major, to be honest with you.
What have been some changes in your area?
Well, I'm not sure about this exact place because I just moved here, but if we talk about the area in general, people say that the immigrant population is growing.
But I guess you could say that about a lot of Moscow.
And some of the roads seem to have been resurfaced as well.
But those are the only big changes that I notice.
Everything seems to remain the same.
What can be improved in your area?
We could get rid of the play park outside of my apartment.
That would be nice.
But actually, I'd like to see a greater range of shops nearby.
Even though I can get there by the metro.
It would just be nicer to be able to walk outside and go to a shop.
Although obviously this place is more of a residential area than a place for shopping sprees.
And it would be nicer if I had a gym closer to where I live as well.
Or a cheaper gym anyway, at the very least.
What facilities are there in your area?
Well, like I said, they're at the gym, but it's very expensive, so I don't go there.
I go to ones further away and a little bit cheaper.
It's almost exactly the same, though.
I don't know why it's so expensive.
And there are a few shops for some foodstuffs and some parks.
I suppose maybe if I poke around a bit more, I can find some new stuff.
Do you know any famous people in your area?
Not really, but then it's not like this place is a very well-off area or anything, so I doubt there are any famous people living here.
Do you intend to stay in this area in the future?
Well, I'll stay here for the foreseeable future.
Or at least, sorry, for the rest of the year.
And then I'll move back to Scotland.
When will it happen?
In your twilight years?
No, not in my twilight years.
Next year.
Not this year.
Next year.
Are you joking?
Are you moving from Moscow to Scotland next year?
Next year.
Oh my god.
Wow.
Happy people in Scotland, you will have Rory, and Moscow will lose Rory.
They're very thrilled about that, but we'll see.
Rory, thank you very much for your answers.
Shall we talk about some of this gorgeous grammar and vocabulary?
Gorgeous grammar and vocabulary, yes.
Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum.
Thank you.
Right.
So when you say where you live, you can say I live in a three-room apartment or a three-bedroom flat right, or a two-bedroom flat.
I live in a two-room flat.
That's a very nice phrase.
Rory, you said that it's boondocks.
It's like boondocks.
What is this?
Yeah, the boondocks is actually an American term, but my friend's American, so it's okay for her to say it.
And it's apparently a place where there's it's a rough area that's quite isolated.
So this is how she referred to where I live.
But I don't think it's very rough or isolated.
It just doesn't have that many shops.
Yes.
And shops, gyms, we call them facilities or we can call them amenities or amenities.
Right.
And when the examiner asks you, what do you dislike about the area where you live in?
You can say, oh, I wish there were more shops.
I wish there were.
It means like there aren't enough shops.
I wish there were more shops.
I wish there was a gym, a cheaper gym.
Then Rory mentioned that he has a lot of greenery.
So greenery, trees, bushes.
What else do you have?
Green children?
Maybe if they're in the trees, but they haven't migrated that far yet.
No, it's mostly about the trees, to be honest, just now.
Although there are lots of bushes that are in the gardens elsewhere.
Yeah, then about the changes you can say.
It would be nice if I had right, the second conditional right.
Or it would be nice if there were more shops.
You said something about well-developed transport links, right?
That's a good collocation.
Yeah.
Transport links is just talking about, like the roads and the well, any anything to do with it.
The subway, for example, is quite close by.
There are roads everywhere.
So the transport links are very well developed.
You can get anywhere.
It's great.
Speaking about the changes in your neighborhood, Rory said that the roads have been resurfaced.
Yeah.
Wow.
Roads have been resurfaced.
Yeah, so when the...
When the top of the road is damaged from having too many cars on it, then when you repair it with more concrete, more cement, more tarmac, then this is called resurfacing.
Or we can say I believe that the roads should be resurfaced Yes, and they have been, so that's good.
Or the shops should be renovated, for example Yes, or they should just be built around here, if you ask me, You have some small dislikes about your neighborhood.
So Rory is quite happy with the place where he lives in.
So this is the residential area.
Residential area, like sleeping districts where people just live, they don't work there.
Yeah, basically it's just places where people live.
It's funny though, because this particular residential area only seems to be places where people live.
There don't seem to be that many shops around and usually there are at least some shops nearby.
And it's not like a well-off area.
Well-off like a rich area.
Yeah, if something or someone is well off, then it's got a lot of people living there with lots of money, I suppose.
You've used a nice phrasal verb.
Poke around a bit more.
Poke around.
Yeah, so if you poke around, it's like saying that you explore not very methodically, you just have a look randomly.
Could you give us an example with poke around?
Well, I hope to poke around a little bit more in my neighbourhood in the future just to explore and see what it's like.
Yeah, yeah.
Or I wish there were more shops nearby so I could pop into a shop to do some groceries.
Yeah, pop into a shop, poke around.
These are quite high-level phrasal verbs, dear listener, so yeah.
They are.
You can use them.
So here the questions are about your neighborhood, but also some questions could be about your neighbors.
Rory, tell us the difference, neighborhood and neighbors.
Yeah, neighborhood is the area, neighbors are the people who live near you.
I have quite nice neighbors.
Who are they?
Well, if we talk about my neighbors in the flat, they're my flatmates and they're my colleagues, so they're very nice.
But do you actually know your neighbors?
The people who live in the apartment next to me?
No, I don't.
I've not met them yet.
Yet.
That's the key word.
Do they listen to IELTS Speaking for Success podcast?
I think that will be the second question I ask after, what are your names?
What's your name?
Do you listen to IELTS Speaking for Success podcast?
Yes, dear listener, if you haven't converted all your friends and all the people around you, all your family, to listening to IELTS Speaking for Success podcast, it's high time you started doing that.
Yay!
Dear listeners, Rory is still eating.
I think he hasn't been eating the whole day, and now he's just stuffing his face with food.
I haven't eaten since two o'clock.
It's been a long day, all right?
So um Yes Rory, could you say goodbye nicely?
Yes, goodbye everybody.
Thank you very much for listening for your time and we'll see you next time.
Bye bye Rory, where are you living now?
I live in a, well, now I live in a three bedroom apartment with a pair of colleagues.
It's great.
It's kind of central actually, or at least I think so.
What's your address and the flat number?
I'm not telling you that.
What's your passport number?
Nope.
Okay, right.
Confidential, off record.
Do you like the area where you live in?
Well, I like it.
My friend said it's like the boondocks.
I wish there were more shops nearby, I guess, but that's what the subway is for, so it's not so bad.
What do you like most about your area?
It's mostly quiet and there's a lot of greenery around.
And I have a balcony this time, so I can actually stand outside and see the trees, which is good.
And the transport links are quite well developed as well, so I can get around a bit more easily than before.
What do you dislike about your area?
It's mostly quiet, I suppose.
There's a children's play park outside, which can get pretty loud.
And despite the fact I have a balcony, it probably needs to be renovated.
So there are some small dislikes, but nothing major, to be honest with you.
What have been some changes in your area?
Well, I'm not sure about this exact place because I just moved here, but if we talk about the area in general, people say that the immigrant population is growing.
But I guess you could say that about a lot of Moscow.
And some of the roads seem to have been resurfaced as well.
But those are the only big changes that I notice.
Everything seems to remain the same.
What can be improved in your area?
We could get rid of the play park outside of my apartment.
That would be nice.
But actually, I'd like to see a greater range of shops nearby.
Even though I can get there by the metro.
It would just be nicer to be able to walk outside and go to a shop.
Although obviously this place is more of a residential area than a place for shopping sprees.
And it would be nicer if I had a gym closer to where I live as well.
Or a cheaper gym anyway, at the very least.
What facilities are there in your area?
Well, like I say, they're at the gym, but it's very expensive, so I don't go there.
I go to ones further away and a little bit cheaper.
It's almost exactly the same, though.
I don't know why it's so expensive.
And there are a few shops for some foodstuffs and some parks.
I suppose maybe if I poke around a bit more, I can find some new stuff.
Do you know any famous people in your area?
Not really, but then it's not like this place is a very well-off area or anything, so I doubt there are any famous people living here.
Do you intend to stay in this area in the future?
Well, I'll stay here for the foreseeable future.
Or at least, sorry, for the rest of the year.
And then I'll move back to Scotland.
