Hello, lovely.
I'm Maria.
And my name is Rory.
We're the hosts of the IELTS Speaking for Success podcast, a 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 gorgeous grammar and super-duper vocabulary for your English life and for your high IELTS score.
A band's ninth score, perhaps.
Yippee!
Roy, what are you looking at?
Oh, sorry, I'm just staring off into space.
Space?
Do you see the sky and the stars?
Yeah, the view from the studio is very pretty.
It's not pretty.
The sky is overcast.
And it's raining.
Shall we talk about the sky?
Shall we talk about space and the sky?
And stars.
Yes.
Because, yes, this topic is back, dear listener, into IELTS Speaking.
And in Speaking Part 1, they can ask you questions about the sky and stars.
Before we continue with the episode, we'd like to make an announcement.
We have a lot of people messaging us on social media asking whether Masha or myself will do online classes or not.
Well, unfortunately, we don't do online classes yet because we're both lazy.
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By the way, italki, how do you spell it?
Oh, Christ.
I-T-A-L-K-I.
Yay.
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Thank you.
Let's talk about the sky and stars.
Do you like to watch the sky?
Not as much as I used to.
There's a lot of light pollution in my hometown, and in Moscow as a matter of fact.
But when I do go home and there's a clear night on the beach, it's fun to have a glance upwards.
What's the sky like at night in your hometown?
Oh, like I said, there's a lot of light pollution.
In the more built-up areas though, you can get a good view of the starscape, the further away you are, like in the village where I live, for example.
Can you see the moon and stars where you live?
Well, you can in Dundee.
You can even make out the constellations in the Northern Hemisphere if you look hard enough, and everything comes into focus.
The moon is also quite bright most of the time, unless there's lots of cloud cover.
This is less so in Moscow.
You can only usually see the brightest stars in the sky, if ever.
Do you like to watch stars?
I liked it more when I was a child.
Now my feet and eyes are sort of more rooted on terra firma.
I think I should probably start doing it again and try and recapture the magic, actually.
Have you ever taken a course about stars?
Not an official one, but I remember my dad telling me how to locate various constellations like Orion's Belt and the nearby nebula.
Is it important to study stars?
Well, probably not as much as it used to be for the bulk of people.
I suppose if you're an astronomer or an astrologist or an astrophysicist, then it's probably important.
Everything else people can find out on the internet now.
What's your favourite star?
I used to like looking up to find Orion's Belt, which is actually three stars.
It's just for fun, though.
And it's interesting how they line up like that from our perspective.
I think further out in the universe, they aren't actually arranged in a straight line that way.
Thank you, Rory, for your starry answers.
Hopefully I was giving a starring performance.
Yeah, we'll give you five stars for all of these answers.
Yeah, so the topic is the sky and stars.
So stars, not like TV stars or celebrities, but stars in the sky.
And here you should use topic-specific vocabulary.
For example...
Talking about the sky, we say there's lots of light pollution.
Light pollution.
It's not heavy pollution.
Light meaning like light.
Oh, I can't see.
It's dark.
So you can't see, usually you can't see stars in big cities because of light pollution.
Rory, wake up.
And you can see this.
There's sort of like a glow that gets caught in the clouds, and if that's happening, then you can tell there's light pollution.
Right.
But sometimes it's fun to cast a glance upwards.
Yes, that just means to look upwards for a short period of time.
To cast a glance.
Okay, so you can say like, oh, to look at the sky.
But to be super cool and Rory-level native speaker-like, it's fun to cast a glance upwards.
Educated native speaker.
Oh, sorry.
Allegedly.
Allegedly, allegedly.
Are you sir already?
Allegedly.
Should I call you sir?
Rory Fergus Duncan.
Good Duncan.
I remember your name and you never remember mine.
I have two names.
Well, three.
Three.
I don't know your orchestra.
Oh, there we go.
So you don't know my name, right?
Is that what you're saying?
When's my birthday?
He doesn't know when my birthday is.
That's it.
You don't even know my name.
I'm sorry.
He doesn't care about me anymore.
You don't even know my name.
You never even came to my birthday party.
I was in Pettigorsk.
Don't start this over and over again.
I'm going to your farewell party.
Right, we're talking about sky and stars, by the way, dear listener.
Hello, welcome back to our podcast.
So to cast a glance, a glance is like a quick look.
To give a glance or to be super cool, you say cast a glance upwards, Rory.
Well, if you cast something, it's slightly longer than just like looking.
So these two things are in opposition to each other.
And upwards, up into the sky we go.
The view of the starscape.
Yeah.
Beautiful.
So you have a landscape how things look on the land and you have a starscape how things look in the sky.
How logical is that, isn't it?
Starscape.
I wonder if you have a seascape as well.
Yeah, seascape.
Do you have a seascape?
Absolutely.
That's great.
Seascape.
Yeah, I have a seascape.
Seascape.
Yeah.
So, the word for you, dear listener, to talk about stars is constellations.
Repeat after me.
Constellations.
What are they, these constellations?
Constellations are patterns of stars in the night sky.
Yeah.
So, for example, an example of a constellation could be this small bear and a big bear.
No?
Do you mean Ursa Major and Ursa Minor?
No.
Yeah, I would call them the bears.
Yes, I know.
I've seen star maps in Russian and I love the names.
It's like small bear and big bear.
Yeah, so, like, a group of stars, specific group of stars with fancy names.
Yeah, constellations.
And you can say, like, you can even make out the constellations in the Northern Hemisphere.
Ooh.
Make out constellations, like see the constellations in the sky.
Yeah. well it's you have to it's not like see though make to make something out is to focus on it and work out where the pattern is it's not like you can because i look at you and i can see you yeah but if there was a fog i'd have to make you out because it's difficult to see you at first Yeah, yeah.
And because of this light pollution, because of all the lights we have in major cities, it's difficult sometimes to make out the stars.
Can you say make out the stars?
Yeah.
Like, what are they, you know?
Is there a sky up there?
No.
Light pollution.
We say the moon, the sun, the moon, and actually the sun is a star.
It is.
Yes.
Hello, George, if you're listening to this episode.
I've learned it from you, George.
Hello from my student, George, listening to this episode.
You didn't know the sun was a star.
I didn't think about it.
Maybe i knew it, but i just forgot it.
I'm like shark holmes.
Well, the funny thing is, the moon is also a moon.
But there's lots of different moons in the solar system, so we should probably have a moon is also a moon.
What do you mean?
But the thing is also, the moon is the only moon that's called moon.
All of the other moons in the solar system have names, except for ours.
I thought there's only one moon.
No, there are many moons.
Saturn has like 26 of them or something.
You didn't know that other planets have moons?
There are many moons.
Mars has two.
Moons?
Yes.
Really?
Oh, I like Sherlock Holmes.
What?
Listen, I'm not into space.
I don't care how many moons there are in the universe and, well, you know.
You just have to care about the runs in the solar system.
Okay okay, i brush up my astronomy, all right.
Do you know what the names of the moons are around mars?
No, i know mars, i know jupiter, i know venice.
Jupiter's got like 30 moons as well, Really.
Yes.
Wow.
Listen, did you know that?
Okay, right.
Did you not know that?
I don't.
So.
Thank you very much for educating me.
Cloud cover.
That's a nice one.
There's a lot of cloud cover.
There is, especially on a day like today when the sky is only grey because it's covered in clouds.
If something is covered in clouds, then there is lots of cloud cover.
Or you can say the sky is overcast.
Or it's cloudy.
Yeah.
The brightest stars in the sky.
The brightest stars in the sky.
Twinkle, twinkle little star.
Can we talk about the next phrase?
No.
Rory uses a lot of Latin words because Rory is an educated person, native speaker.
That's why he's supposed to use the latin in his ielts speaking.
That's why he goes like no, my feet.
And robbie speaks like this no, my feet and eyes are more rooted.
I don't talk like that.
No, no, no.
Rory is speaking like that.
Okay.
Now my feet and eyes are more rooted on terra firma.
Terra firma.
Terra firma is just a way of talking.
It means solid ground.
Firma.
Okay, terra firma.
It means solid ground.
Latin.
Yes.
It's like Alma Mater.
Although, to be honest with you, you probably have the same words in Russian as well.
Terra Firma.
Well, you might have similar words to describe the same idea.
Solid ground is.
It can be a physical place, so it's like where you stand, the ground is unshakable.
But it can also describe you know where the, where the geography is known, or where the geography is clear, or it can just mean it can be like in philosophy.
Your argument is unshakable as well.
So the whole idea is that you're not looking into space where things are less clear.
You're looking at things closer to you, closer to home that you understand more easily.
And this is what I do with my time now because I'm not a child anymore.
I have things to do like pay taxes or avoid paying taxes.
Yeah, Rory is a serious man now, and his feet and eyes are more rooted on terra firma.
We can locate various constellations and features like Orion's belt.
Hmm, the nearby nebula.
These are all topic-specific vocabulary about stars.
Super specific and super topical.
So Orion's belt is a line of three stars in the night sky and a nebula is a giant cloud of gas and dust and debris.
It's not like a cloud in the night sky.
The nebula are actually like bigger than the solar system.
They're huge.
That's why you can see them from space.
You can see them from Earth.
If you look very carefully, I think it's between the second and third star, just down in Orion's belt.
You see the nebula.
So Orion's belt, nebula and also the Milky Way.
We can talk about the Milky Way.
Well, we're in the Milky Way, but you won't see the Milky Way in Russia.
You'll only see the Milky Way in the Southern Hemisphere.
At least those are the only places that I've seen it being in the Southern Hemisphere.
Rory then mentioned all the names for people who are into astronomy.
Astronomer, astrologist, astrophysicist.
Beautiful.
Wait, what?
You said three A's.
Astronomer, astrologist and astrophysicist.
I did.
I thought you described astrologist as a scientist there though.
Sorry, I wasn't listening.
Please don't describe them as scientists.
Astronomy could be a science.
They're quacks. astronomers and astrophysicists or scientists, astrologists just make up nonsense.
Yeah, astrologists talk about horoscopes.
Nonsense.
Yeah.
What's your sign?
It doesn't matter because it's not real.
So I'm a Taurus.
Rory, what do you call the activity of looking at the stars?
Stargazing.
Yeah, stargazing is popular in my country, and I'm an avid stargazer.
Sorry, guys.
Look at the stars.
I'm not.
My friend Lee is.
He bought a massive telescope so he could look at the stars.
We can talk about telescope.
We can say we appreciate the beauty of the sky.
And magical stars.
Glittering stars, by the way.
They glitter.
Or glimmering.
Glimmering stars, like shiny.
You can also say all these myriads of stars.
Myriads of stars in this universe.
This is starting to sound like a poetry class.
Yes, Shakespeare.
Is it?
Well, poetry.
You said poetry, I say Shakespeare.
I thought you were talking about the way that... We're doing associations now.
Oh, cool.
Roy says poetry, I say Shakespeare.
Then he goes.
With what?
Sonnets.
Yeah, although sonnets are a specific kind of poem, aren't they?
They are.
So, dear listener, we've given you pretty much topical vocabulary, topic-specific vocabulary about sky and stars.
But if you are not into space, like me...
You can say, I'm not into sky.
I'm not into stars.
Right, so what else can I say if I don't like the sky and stars?
If I don't care?
It's not my thing.
Yeah, it's not my thing.
I'm not a great fan of stargazing.
Stargazing is not really my thing, But if it were, Then you could give a made up answer.
Yeah, but it's good to use some of these nice words like starscape and constellations.
And it's difficult to make out stars in my city.
I wish I could be an astronomer and go into space.
Astronomer doesn't go into space, though.
Astronomer?
Astronauts go into space.
Oh, astronaut.
But I can be an astronomer and go into space, right?
Technically.
I don't think so.
I think astronomers... For example, you can be a teacher and go into space.
I was going to say, you can be a dog walker and go into space.
You could be a dog and go into space.
I don't think astronomy is served by going into space.
I think most of their work takes place on the ground.
Ah, right.
So astronomer looks into the telescope.
Yeah, most of the people that are astronauts are actually, I think they're military personnel or they're engineers, because they go up to install the hardware that does all of the work for them.
Right.
Maybe there are some biologists that study the effects on plant life and things like that.
But I think most of them, you know, they're not astronomers.
I don't think there's much to be gained in astronomy by going into space, which is ironic.
You would think there would be, but I don't think so.
Maybe I'm wrong.
If you're an astronomer and you're listening, then feel free to correct me.
But I don't think so.
I think they build all of their telescopes on the ground.
Space travel is really expensive and astronomy departments don't have much money.
Really?
Yeah, they're not very well funded.
What about Elon Musk?
Elon Musk is an entrepreneur.
He can go into space.
If you could send something into space, what would it be?
What thing?
No, that's littering.
An object.
I wouldn't send anything.
That's just trash.
No, we've already cluttered up this planet and now you want to start littering all over the place in space.
We just sent, for example, an episode of our podcast or our podcast on phrasal verbs into space.
Our podcast is probably already broadcast into space.
Really?
For aliens to listen to?
No, no, no.
Are they... Aliens, hello!
We have phrasal verbs for you.
Yay!
The Earth sends out radio transmissions every day.
I'm pretty sure that our podcast is sent out this way as well.
Into the space?
I'm sure that radio transmissions... We're big.
Wow.
It's not just us.
It's all other radio transmissions on the planet.
Can you imagine in five years we're going to be sitting on Mars in a Mars hotel?
Now we are broadcasting live from Mars Rory Hotel.
Martian speaking.
Hopefully they have a better time of it than we did.
Oh, God.
Martian speaking, yes.
So Mars and an adjective is going to be Martian.
And my name is Maria, so you can also call me Marsha, which I don't like, but you can.
Have a go.
So Martian.
So hopefully what we've given you is a lot of vocabulary to help you reach for the stars.
So dear listener, remember that you are a star.
And you are an IELTS star now because you're listening to us.
Twinkle, twinkle little star.
Shall we record the next episode?
Bye!
Let's talk about the sky and stars.
Do you like to watch the sky?
Not as much as I used to.
There's a lot of light pollution in my hometown, and in Moscow as a matter of fact.
But when I do go home and there's a clear night on the beach, it's fun to have a glance upwards.
What's the sky like at night in your hometown?
Oh, like I said, there's a lot of light pollution.
In the more built-up areas though, you can get a good view of the starscape, the further away you are, like in the village where I live, for example.
Can you see the moon and stars where you live?
Well, you can in Dundee.
You can even make out the constellations in the Northern Hemisphere if you look hard enough, and everything comes into focus.
The moon is also quite bright most of the time, unless there's lots of cloud cover.
This is less so in Moscow.
You can only usually see the brightest stars in the sky, if ever.
Do you like to watch stars?
I liked it more when I was a child.
Now my feet and eyes are sort of more rooted on terra firma.
I think I should probably start doing it again and try and recapture the magic, actually.
Have you ever taken a course about stars?
Not an official one, but I remember my dad telling me how to locate various constellations like Orion's Belt and the nearby nebula.
Is it important to study stars?
Well, probably not as much as it used to be for the bulk of people.
I suppose if you're an astronomer or an astrologist or an astrophysicist, then it's probably important.
Everything else people can find out on the internet now.
What's your favourite star?
I used to like looking up to find Orion's Belt, which is actually three stars.
It's just for fun, though.
And it's interesting how they line up like that from our perspective.
I think further out in the universe, they aren't actually arranged in a straight line that way.
