Hello, lovely.
I'm Maria.
And my name is Rory, and we're the hosts 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 super native speaker would answer some of the most common IELTS speaking questions, using super grammar and high-level vocabulary for a high score.
Ben 9 score.
Maria, you've had a haircut and it's looking lovely.
Yes, but you can't buy my affection like that, Rory.
Oh, that's a shame.
But on the plus side, today we're going to talk about buying things.
Yes, in Speaking Part 1, the examiner can ask you questions about buying things and shopping.
Rory, do you often buy things?
I suppose I do my food shopping on a weekly basis, but major purchases are like once or twice a year.
I'll save up a lot of money and I'll buy a lot of things from Amazon when I go home.
Do you enjoy buying things?
The shopping experience, I don't know.
I'm not really one for window shopping or just buying things for the sake of it, to be honest.
I like to... think about what I'm going to buy, go in, buy it, and then leave.
I'm quite a straightforward person like that.
If you're someone that likes to go shopping, I'm probably the worst person to do this with.
A typical man.
Thank you.
Do you enjoy buying expensive things?
They have some kind of utility, like a new laptop or phone, but not for the sake of it.
If I'm going to buy an expensive thing, it's got to be more of an asset than a liability.
Do you compare the price in different shops before you buy something?
I used to, but now I don't have so much time when I go shopping.
So what I'll normally do is buy more expensive things online.
And I think Amazon has this function where you can... like just automatically do price comparisons.
But if not, then it's easy enough to open up multiple tabs on your internet browser and just compare prices this way.
So yes, I do compare the prices for different things, but not in different shops.
Do you usually search for bargains?
Not really.
When it comes to food shopping, I usually I'm quite set in my ways, so I won't normally look for any bargains.
I suppose the only thing that I might look for bargains with is if I've got sort of bigger purchases, then you sort of look for the best deal that's available.
But it's not my normal practice when I go shopping.
When do you go to get a low price?
Well, for food, supermarkets always have the best deals.
They have buy one, get one free, or they've got special discounts, for example.
And that's the best place for me, I think.
I imagine there are other places you could shop online, but I don't really like online shopping for food.
What things do you buy online?
Electronics or experiences or supplements for working out and going to the gym.
I'll sometimes buy... services like, well, I suppose I wanted to go shooting once.
So you could purchase a voucher online to do that.
I think I did the same thing for when I was learning how to fly too.
You were learning how to fly?
I was going to.
I bought, sorry, I was arranging this before the crisis happened and everything shut down.
So I still have to, well, I still have to do this, but maybe sometime this year.
Not soon though.
Yeah, but fly with what?
With wings?
With a glider.
Oh, that's nice.
It's always something I wanted to do.
Just the one time I wanted to be able to say that I'd learned how to fly.
Rory's gonna learn how to fly.
Fingers crossed.
How lovely is that?
What was the last thing you bought?
Well, apart from the food shop and I do that every Friday I think the last major thing I bought was perfume for my mum.
It was for her birthday.
What about for yourself?
What did you wear for yourself?
Nothing really.
Outside of supplements and food, to be honest, I'm quite a low maintenance person.
I don't make major purchases that often.
I think the most expensive thing I bought recently, apart from the supplements, was probably a bottle of wine.
That was a nice bottle of wine, though.
It was like a thousand rubles.
I've got a taste for expensive wine.
Nice.
Okay.
Rory, thank you very much for your answers.
Now, dear listeners, when we talk about shopping, we can say we do the shopping, right?
Or we go shopping.
Or I can say I go to the shops. right?
Yes.
Or Rory, you said I do my food shopping.
Yes, you can also do a food shop as well, which is like when you shop for food.
So lots of different ways to say this.
Yeah, you can say, for example, shop for food or shop around.
If you're shopping around, so you go to different shops.
Yes.
Or you can say, oh, I'm happy to hit the shops.
You know, hit the shops.
Maybe.
I'm definitely not happy to hit the shops.
Yes, because Rory just goes in, buys what he wants and leaves, that's all.
But girls, if any shopaholics listening, so we enjoy shopping around.
We're always happy to hit the shops.
When you buy food, you can say you buy the groceries, right?
Absolutely.
So it could be, well, groceries aren't just the food that you buy every week.
There are also things like maybe you buy cleaning products, for example, or you buy toiletries like deodorant.
And a grocery store.
You go to a grocery store to get your groceries.
Yes.
We can also go to stores, malls, like local fishmongers, by the way, right, to get fish.
Or you can go to your local butchers to get meat.
Rory, you've mentioned window shopping.
What kind of shopping is window shopping for windows?
Well, it can mean that you go shopping for windows, but most of the time it actually means that you just look around to shop and you look at things that you want to buy, but you don't actually buy them.
Yeah, you just kind of shop around.
Yeah, it's like shopping around.
Look at things.
So you don't do window shopping.
No, no.
We can buy things online, right?
Or we can buy things in retail outlets, right?
Or offline shops, or chain stores, but also they're called brick and mortar, right?
Yes, any physical shop is called a brick-and-mortar store.
Yeah, but do people use it?
It's long.
Not heard it in a very long time.
You might see it on government reports, but I've not heard that expression.
Talking about online shopping.
Rory, you said that you can open different tabs right in your internet browser.
Yeah.
It's like opening another window, but they're all connected.
I suppose is the best way to explain that.
There's probably a much better way to explain it, but I'm not really very good with technology, so someone else will have to explain that for me.
Yeah, not being good at technology.
Rory buys electronics online and experiences like shooting and flying right.
And supplements.
Did you mention supplements for what?
For your gym thing?
Yeah, okay.
So I like protein and creatine and all protein bars as well, actually.
Although I've not bought those in a while.
Do you eat this white powder in crazy cans?
Yeah, but except it's not white just now.
It's pink because it's strawberry flavored.
That was the only flavor they could deliver to the house.
Why do you do this?
I think it's really unhealthy.
No, no, it's good for you.
It just helps you build muscle mass, I suppose, or maintain it in my case, because I don't eat so much.
When we go shopping, we might want to look for bargains.
What's a bargain?
Bargain is just like a really good deal.
So if you can get something, if you can get twice as much of something for half the price, then that's a bargain.
Yeah.
Well, usually.
But also we can bargain ourselves, right?
So I'm good at bargaining and I'm good at bargaining.
I'm not so good at bargaining because I usually just go to shops with fixed prices.
So there's not much opportunity to bargain.
Ah, okay.
Yeah, but I go to the market sometimes, so I usually bargain.
So that's when you negotiate the price, right?
So the shop assistant says, right, it costs $100.
But you say, no, $20.
$20.
And then you bargain.
I'd never do this.
But that's because I'm absolutely terrified of Russian markets.
So maybe this is my problem.
Oh, yeah, I do that.
Yeah.
You look like you would drive a hard bargain.
Absolutely.
Yes.
Yes.
And shop assistants, they look at me and say, oh, no, we have a problem.
Yeah, so you can go bargain hunting, right?
Go bargain hunting or search for bargains, look for bargains, right?
You can also like a snap up a bargain, right?
How would you use this in a sentence?
You've just described all the ways that you could say that, I think.
I can't think of any more.
If you snapped up a bargain, for example, I want a new laptop and I go to the market.
I went to this market and I snapped up a bargain.
Yeah, I can't think of any other ways to describe it.
I think that's the best way.
Yeah.
Rumi, you mentioned assets than a liability.
So it's more than an asset than liability.
Oh, there's so many business terms.
So I'm gonna make a really, really big oversimplification here.
So any business buffs, please don't yell at me.
But an asset is something that you buy that generates value.
Whereas a liability is something that you buy and it just creates more cost for you.
So, for example, I would invest a lot of money in buying a laptop and that's something that I can use for work, for entertainment, and it just helps me work and make money.
But buying something like a really expensive shirt, for example yeah it looks good and maybe it would look nice in job interviews and things but it's not something that's going to help create more value for me.
It's just there to make me look good and I have to pay money to look after it and things like this.
So it's not really helpful in that sense.
So you never shop until you drop, Rory?
No, I always shop until I have everything I want and then I go home.
Yeah, but girls, we girls shop until we drop.
Basically, you shop so much that you can't walk anymore.
I don't know how you do this.
Oh yeah, you should try it out.
No, no, no, no, no, no.
After flying.
We can also be on a tight budget.
So if you talk about shopping, I'm on a tight budget, so I don't shop around regularly.
Mm-hmm.
And we do price comparison, right?
So Rory does price comparison online.
Sometimes, yeah.
It's not very often, though.
I usually have an idea of what I want, then I can just get it.
It's okay.
Rory, but if you had so much money that you don't know where to put it, what would you buy?
Therapy.
Okay, wow, that's a nice question.
No, what the hell would I buy?
I don't know.
I don't know what... Like, I have everything I want, really.
Well...
Well, I want to buy Maria Money Can't Buy, and therefore I will have to work on it.
Dear listener, thank you very much for listening.
This is all from us today.
We hope that you've enjoyed this episode and you've learned something new.
Now you can listen to Rory's answers again, and this time notice all the grammar and vocabulary he's just used.
We'll see you next time.
Bye!
Bye!
Rory, do you often buy things?
I suppose I do my food shopping on a weekly basis, but major purchases are like once or twice a year.
I'll save up a lot of money and I'll buy a lot of things from Amazon when I go home.
Do you enjoy buying things?
The shopping experience, I don't know.
I'm not really one for window shopping or just buying things for the sake of it, to be honest.
I like to... think about what I'm going to buy, go in, buy it and then leave.
I'm quite a straightforward person like that.
If you're someone that likes to go shopping, I'm probably the worst person to do this with.
A typical man.
Thank you.
Do you enjoy buying expensive things?
If they have some kind of utility like a new laptop or phone, but not for the sake of it.
If I'm going to buy an expensive thing, it's got to be more of an asset than a liability.
Do you compare the price in different shops before you buy something?
I used to, but now I don't have so much time when I go shopping.
So what I'll normally do is buy more expensive things online.
And I think Amazon has this function where you can like just automatically do price comparisons.
But um, if not, then it's easy enough to open up multiple tabs on your internet browser and just compare prices this way.
Um so yes, i do compare the prices for different things, but not in different shops.
Do you usually search for bargains?
Not really.
When it comes to food shopping, I usually I'm quite set in my ways, so I won't normally look for any bargains.
I suppose the only thing that I might look for bargains with is if i've got sort of bigger purchases, then you sort of look for the best deal that's available.
But um not, it's not the my normal practice when i go shopping.
When do you go to get a low price?
Um Well, for food, like supermarkets always have the best deals.
They have like buy one, get one free, or they've got special discounts, for example.
And that's the best place for me, I think.
I imagine there are other places you could shop online, but I don't really like online shopping for food.
What things do you buy online?
Electronics or experiences or supplements for working out and going to the gym.
I'll sometimes buy services like Well, I suppose I wanted to go shooting once, so you could purchase a voucher online to do that.
I think I did the same thing for when I was learning how to fly, too.
You were learning how to fly?
I was going to.
I bought, sorry, I was arranging this before the crisis happened and everything shut down.
So I still have to, well, I still have to do this, but maybe sometime this year.
Not soon though.
Yeah, but fly with what?
With wings?
With a glider.
Oh, that's nice.
It's always something I wanted to do.
Just the one time I wanted to be able to say that I'd learned how to fly.
Rory's going to learn how to fly.
Fingers crossed.
How lovely is that?
What was the last thing you bought?
Well, apart from the food shop and I do that every Friday I think the last major thing I bought was perfume for my mum.
It was for her birthday.
No, what about for yourself?
What did you wear for yourself?
Nothing really.
Outside of supplements and food, to be honest, I'm quite a low maintenance person.
I don't make major purchases that often.
I think the most expensive thing I bought recently, apart from the supplements, was probably a bottle of wine.
That was a nice bottle of wine though.
It was like a thousand rubles.
I've got a taste for expensive wine.
