Hello, lovely people of the world.
I'm Maria.
And my name is Rory.
And welcome to episode two of season two of the IELTS Speaking for Success podcast, the podcast that aims to help you improve your speaking skills, as well as your listening skills, along the way.
We started this podcast to give you a look at how a native super English speaker would answer some of the most common IELTS speaking questions.
I ask Rory questions and he gives answers using good grammar and gorgeous vocabulary for a high score.
Rory, are you ready to rock and roll?
It smells like victory.
Oh, Rory is cracking a joke again.
We're going to talk about perfume today.
Because in IELTS speaking section, they can ask you questions about perfume or aftershave.
Okay, so Rory, the first question for you is, do you wear perfume or aftershave?
I do indeed.
In addition to my regular deodorant, I also wear body spray by Hugo Boss, actually.
It's quite distinctive, I think.
What kind of perfume do you like?
Well, it's like I said, the Hugo Boss one, the original one, it's kind of a, I don't know, sort of a yellow color.
It's my favorite aftershave.
But I branched out recently into buying their blue one.
I think it's called Infinity.
It's got a sharper scent, but it's just as good.
As for perfume, I really don't like perfume.
That's more for girls, in my opinion.
Would you ever buy an expensive bottle of perfume or aftershave?
Actually, I think the aftershave that I buy now is kind of expensive.
It's not the most expensive thing.
It's maybe 5,000 rubles for a bottle.
It is kind of expensive, I think in Russia especially.
But like I say...
It's nowhere near as expensive as, oh, I don't know, I think Clinique's quite an expensive brand.
Chanel.
Chanel is quite expensive as well, although I think Chanel is more for ladies.
So yes, I would buy an expensive bottle like the one I buy now, but not too expensive.
Do you think people spend too much money on perfume these days?
Well, if being in the crowds on the metro is anything to go by, then people probably don't spend enough on deodorant and perfume.
It kind of smells bad sometimes.
But seriously, though, um...
I'm not actually sure.
I think maybe people could they spend more on superficial things like perfume and makeup, when maybe they could spend it more on self-improvement.
But that's just my surface impression.
I'm not sure entirely.
Do you give perfume as a gift?
Yes, I do.
Every birthday and Christmas, my mum gets a bottle of Coco Chanel, mademoiselle.
That's her favourite kind, so that's what she gets from me.
Other than that, I don't think I've given it to anyone else.
I think it could send the wrong message.
Yeah, come on, lads.
Put something on.
Yeah, it's almost like you're saying you kind of smell.
Could you maybe improve it?
It's like giving a bar of soap.
Come on, wash yourself up.
Even if you spent a lot of money, it might give the wrong impression.
So no, not for me.
For no one other than my mum.
Have you received perfume as a gift?
I give it to myself every year because that's how long it seems to last.
But no one else has actually given me perfume recently as a gift.
I tend to get things like books, for example.
But would you like to receive perfume as a gift?
Oh, um...
Well, if it was a kind I liked, then yes.
Although some people aren't very good at picking out things that I like in the sense of like fashion and things like that.
So if they knew me, then yes.
But if they don't know me so well, then probably not.
Yeah, they can give you Givenchy and you would be like, oh, what is that?
I prefer Hickey Boss.
I don't know what that is.
So, yeah, I would be a bit confused.
Unless it did smell nice.
Rory, thank you very much for your answers.
That's okay.
So Rory, when we talk about perfume, we can also say aftershave, we can say body spray deodorant, cologne.
What's going on here?
I'm just really confused.
I think native speakers or most native speakers would be confused as well.
Because we all use these words like they mean the same thing.
So it's okay.
About a man.
What does a man usually, usually use?
Well, usually a man will wear cologne, aftershave, or body spray.
Usually.
And a nice lady, or maybe not a nice lady, Probably perfume.
Those are the two basic distinctions.
Right, so ladies, you're going to be talking about perfume and an expensive bottle of perfume.
And gentlemen, you're going to be saying... Cologne or aftershave or body spray.
Right, and gentlemen, aftershave, it doesn't mean you put it on after you shave, right, Rory?
Well, it does, actually.
For aftershave, usually...
Like you say, you put it on after you shave, but it's designed to close any injuries you get if you do a very bad job of shaving, so you're not bleeding constantly.
I think most people are quite good at shaving now, but they still use aftershave because of the smell, for example.
So it still has a purpose.
Yeah, but then another meaning of aftershave would be like perfume.
For women, yes.
For women.
Yeah, yeah, for women, perfume.
But for a man, you can say, oh, I'm gonna get some Hugo Boss aftershave, meaning perfume.
Yeah.
This is what, like, it's confusing.
Um, is it?
Once you know the differences.
It's not confusing, so it's fine.
All right.
And so we have body spray.
And how is body spray different from perfume or aftershave?
Body spray is for your body, whereas aftershave usually goes around your neck and shoulders area.
But again, people tend to use them interchangeably.
Would you put body spray into your armpits?
Oh no, that's where deodorant comes in, definitely.
Deodorant, right.
When we talk about different smells, you've said that you prefer a sharper scent.
Mm-hmm.
Scent, how do you spell it?
S-C-E-N-T.
Correct.
So a sharper scent?
Sharper as a knife?
Kind of.
It's just a way of describing a smell, really.
And smells are notoriously quite difficult to describe.
But when I say it's a sharp scent, it sort of stands out more.
It makes more of an impact than something softer, for example.
We can say like a sharp scent or a strong scent.
If it's not strong, we can say faint.
Yes.
So I prefer like faint scents.
Can you say I prefer faint smells.
It's got a different meaning when we're talking about perfume.
So usually when we talk about perfume or aftershave or cologne, we're talking about pleasant smells that people put on themselves.
If we talk about just smells, it usually means something kind of bad or something extremely strong so that people will notice it.
So we should use like a scent or fragrances yes, fragrance is a good word.
We can also say woody, like wood, woody fragrances.
Or fruity yes right, smoky also some sophisticated fragrances.
Yeah, if you want to describe the difference between something that people use less often, maybe because it's more expensive or classier, then sophisticated is quite a good one.
Yeah, we can have like a mainstream sense of For everyone and sophisticated.
Yes.
Some special stuff.
Do you wear sophisticated perfumes?
Absolutely, yes.
Yes, absolutely.
I do, yes.
Which costs a fortune.
We can say that we wear perfume.
Yes.
And also what other verbs can you use with perfume?
Well, there are phrasal verbs like put on or dab on, for example.
Dab.
Dab on.
D-A-B.
Yeah.
Could you use it in a sentence?
Well, people who don't use sprays dab on their perfume because they're making physical contact with the skin as opposed to just spraying on.
Yeah, dab it on your wrists or behind your ears.
Ladies usually we do like wrists, neck, behind our ears, also hair maybe.
I've heard some people do this.
For me, it's just the neck, but I get why people do it.
When you talked about smells, again, you said that it smells bad, right?
Why can't I say it smells badly?
Yeah, usually people think adverbs follow these verbs all the time.
And usually that's true.
But when we have verbs like from the senses, like smell see taste yeah, then we have to use just an adjective afterwards instead of an adverb.
So it smells good, it smells bad.
Yep, it looks good, it looks bad.
It tastes nice.
Yeah.
Perfume, yum, yum, yum.
Okay.
You mentioned a nice expression, my surface impression.
My surface impression, surface?
Yeah.
So this is just the idea that you get about something just by looking at it.
You don't explore the idea very deeply or you don't check any deeper.
It's just what you see based on the first thing you see.
Could you give us a sentence?
Surface impressions can be misleading.
There we go.
Answering the question about the cost of perfume, you said, I prefer expensive perfume.
Sorry, aftershave.
Any synonyms to this expensive?
Shh.
Expensive?
Oh, pricey, for example.
It's, well, quite costly is very formal.
So I think pricey and expensive are your best options.
But you said it's nowhere near as expensive as...
Yeah, it's a good construction, isn't it?
Yeah, it is.
So nowhere near as expensive.
As the most expensive is like saying something is the price is much lower than something that's of a much higher quality and therefore more expensive.
Could I say, it costs a num and a leg?
Or would it be like... You can say that.
It's something you don't hear many native speakers saying these days.
But it's an idiom.
It is an idiom, yeah.
Why not?
Would it sound natural, do you think?
It would depend on the stress that you put on it.
If you stress the whole idiom, every part of it, then it's not going to sound.
It wouldn't cost an arm and a leg.
Yeah.
I've just used a nice idiom.
No, no, we don't do that.
You have used it.
It's just the pronunciation's a bit strange.
Dear listeners, now you can listen to Rory's answers again and notice very nice words and grammar structures he's used.
Okay, so Rory, the first question for you is, do you wear perfume or aftershave?
I do indeed.
In addition to my regular deodorant, I also wear body spray by Hugo Boss, actually.
It's quite distinctive, I think.
What kind of perfume do you like?
Um well, it's like I said, um the Hugo boss one, the original one.
It's kind of a I don't know sort of a yellow color.
Um, it's my favorite, um, aftershave.
Um, but I branched out recently into buying their blue one.
I think it's called infinity.
It's got a sharper scent, but it's just as good.
As for perfume, I really don't like perfume.
That's more for girls, in my opinion.
Would you ever buy an expensive bottle of perfume or aftershave?
Actually, I think the aftershave that I buy now is kind of expensive.
It's not the most expensive thing.
It's maybe 5,000 rubles for a bottle.
It is kind of expensive, I think in Russia especially.
But like I say...
It's nowhere near as expensive as, oh, I don't know.
I think Clinique's quite an expensive brand.
Chanel is quite expensive as well.
Although I think Chanel is more for ladies.
So yes, I would buy an expensive bottle like the one I buy now, but not too expensive.
Do you think people spend too much money on perfume these days?
Well, if being in the crowds on the metro is anything to go by, then people probably don't spend enough on deodorant and perfume.
It kind of smells bad sometimes.
But seriously, though...
I'm not actually sure.
I think maybe people could they spend more on superficial things like perfume and makeup, when maybe they could spend it more on self-improvement.
But that's just my surface impression.
I'm not sure entirely.
Do you give perfume as a gift?
Yes, I do.
Every birthday and Christmas, my mum gets a bottle of Coco Chanel, mademoiselle.
That's her favourite kind, so that's what she gets from me.
Other than that, I don't think I've given it to anyone else.
I think it could send the wrong message.
Yeah, come on, lads.
Put something on.
Yeah, it's almost like you're saying you kind of smell.
Could you maybe improve it?
It's like giving a bar of soap.
Yeah.
Come on, wash yourself up.
Even if you spent a lot of money, it might give the wrong impression.
So no, not for me.
For no one other than my mom.
Have you received perfume as a gift?
I give it to myself every year because that's how long it seems to last.
But no one else has actually given me perfume recently as a gift.
I tend to get things like books, for example.
But would you like to receive perfume as a gift?
Oh, um...
Well, if it was a kind I liked, then yes.
Although some people aren't very good at picking out things that I like in the sense of like fashion and things like that.
So if they knew me, then yes.
But if they don't know me so well, then probably not.
Yeah, they can give you Givenchy and you would be like, oh, what is that?
I prefer Hickey Boss.
I don't know what that is.
So yeah, I would be a bit confused.
Unless it did smell nice.
Rory, thank you very much for your answers.
That's okay.
Thank you very much for listening.
And we'll see you again next time.
But before you go, don't forget to like, share and subscribe.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
Take care.
See ya.
