Hello, testing, testing.
We are recording.
Hello, lovely.
I'm Maria.
And my name is Rory.
And we are the hosts of the IELTS Speaking for Success podcast.
Still the podcast that aims to help you improve your speaking skills and 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 Rory score?
Is it your band 9 score?
Band 9 score.
Fab.
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In this week's premium, we're gonna talk about a cake, a special cake Rory received.
Yum, yum, yum.
And in Speaking Part 3, we're gonna be talking about sweet things, cakes, and food in general.
It's a bit crazy these days, Rory.
Are we staying?
Are we continuing with this podcast?
We are keeping calm and we are carrying on despite everything that is happening in the world.
Yes, everything okay in podcast land.
Everything is fine with our podcast and we keep doing things.
We keep making silly, stupid jokes for you to laugh about.
So...
We are here for you.
We are staying, okay?
Hopefully, you are all happy about that.
Rory, what are you looking at?
Oh, sorry.
I was distracted.
I'm looking at birthday presents for my friend John.
It's his birthday soon.
And we got him this amazing cake last year, so I'm trying to get him something even better.
Mmm, cake.
Shall we talk about cakes and sweets?
Why not?
It's part of the coincidence.
It's a coincidence on this podcast.
Oh, this was a horrible coincidence.
Well, you gave me... I only had a week to think of the coincidence, so deal with it.
Rory, let's talk about sweets and cakes.
Do you like to eat sweets?
Well, yes, even though I know they're bad for me.
I sometimes have sugar cravings.
Actually, I increasingly have them these days, and they're very hard to ignore.
So in short, yes, I do.
Do you like cakes?
Absolutely.
My sweet tooth extends to all things with sugar.
Although I can't stand cakes with fruit in them for some reason.
I think there's something about the texture of dried fruit that I just don't like.
But in general, yes, I do like cakes.
Do you like sweets more now compared to when you were a child?
Well, I think I liked them more when I was younger, since I wasn't aware of how bad they are for me and people in general.
So it was kind of like an unadulterated joy to eat them all the time.
And now it's more like a guilty pleasure because you know you're enjoying it.
But of course, you shouldn't be because it's bad for you.
Have you ever tried to make sweets or cakes?
I did when I was a child, though I was never really any good at baking or confecting, if you will.
I always preferred the eating over the making.
Do you eat cakes or sweets after your meals?
Sometimes, if it's a large event like a wedding, then you're usually obligated to order something more for dessert.
Other than that, it doesn't happen very often.
Actually I wonder if this is a thing that's just with Scottish people, because it doesn't seem to happen in many other countries that you have like desserts after big meals.
So that's the thing.
What sweets are popular in your country?
Oh, I think just about anything you care to name, really.
We've got Scottish Tablet and Toffee, which are quite popular though it's hard to say how much more than regular mass-produced sweets from America.
They are like Mars Bars or Snickers, for example.
So, um...
Those are the ones that are from our country and they're popular, but how popular, I don't know.
Rory, thank you so much for your sweet answers.
They were so sweet.
Oh, God, that was a terrible pun.
You said my coincidences were bad.
Yes, the coincidence to this episode was really bad.
Oh, Rory, where are you looking at?
Or what are you looking at?
Oh, it's a birthday cake for my friend.
Let's talk about cakes.
Well, do you know what, though?
It is a coincidence.
It's still a coincidence because soon it will be John's birthday.
You know John.
And we did get him a cake.
Hello, John, if you're listening, I'm talking about your cake.
It was the best cake in the world.
It was the most expensive cake in the world as well because it had to have vegan ingredients in it.
And you try making a cake out of coconut milk.
It is ridiculously expensive.
I think it was something like 5000 rubles.
I don't know, but it was a lot.
A vegan cake.
Yes, and John, you should know about the price of your cake, okay?
So you can appreciate it.
John, now you know that your cake was ridiculously expensive and you didn't even eat it.
So you know how cheap your friends are.
That they discuss the price of your cake on this podcast.
Okay.
Anyway.
Yeah, let's take a look at the Ansys and the Lexis.
We recorded an episode about sweets and cakes before.
So make sure that you go... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Somewhere like ages ago.
It was a very long time ago.
Anyway, dear listeners, go to our archivecom, go back maybe one year back and find an episode about cakes and sweets, because now it's back.
And in speaking part one you can be asked questions about sweets and cakes, because this is a fresh IELTS speaking part one topic.
Okay.
So, first of all, sweets.
Sweets the same as candies.
Things that are sweet with lots of sugar in them.
Yeah, sweets, right?
And usually plural.
So, I enjoy sweets.
It's like everything that is sweet.
Also, you can say chocolates.
Chocolates, that's again, chocolate...
Candies, chocolate bars, everything that is with chocolate, you can call them chocolates.
And then cake, we have a cake, it's like a birthday cake.
And it's interesting that sometimes I can just say, I don't like cake.
Like without any articles, right?
Is it true?
Yeah, because you're talking about, well, in general.
Like, I like cake, I don't like cake.
I don't like this cake, or I don't like cake with dried fruit.
But then I'm specifying with different information, so I don't need the article either.
And you said that you sometimes have sugar cravings.
Yes.
Oh, sugar cravings.
I think we talked about this before, but maybe it was for something different.
That's just when you really, really want sugar.
Yeah.
So you eat lots of it.
So every week I have sugar cravings on a Friday.
So I buy lots of chocolate and I'm now sitting in my room surrounded by chocolate.
Yeah, it's like when you want it really badly, like you're at home, and then suddenly like you feel this McDonald's craving.
That's all you need to have McDonald's now, and nothing can replace this craving, this McDonald's wish that you want to have.
So yeah.
What other cravings can we have?
I think the other ones are like for cigarettes when people are smoking or trying to give up smoking.
Yeah.
So usually something like, which is not healthy.
Yeah.
You can't say, oh, I have this vegetable cravings.
All right.
And then if you enjoy different sweets, you can say I've got a sweet tooth.
Yeah.
Yes, absolutely.
So sugar cravings are these specific times when you want lots of sugar.
And having a sweet tooth means that you just like sugary things in general.
Yeah, you can say sugary things.
So I love sugar.
I love sugary things.
Do you know that sugar is like the only thing in your diet that you 100% do not need?
You could live without it for your whole life.
Well, pretty much everything has sugar.
All right.
Even bread has sugar.
Ketchup has sugar.
Did you know about that?
Freaking ketchup.
Anyway, then you can say, OK, I've got a sweet tooth.
I love sugary things.
If you don't like sugar, you go, I can't stand cakes anymore.
I can't stand sweets.
Yes.
So usually when it's the action, it's like I can't stand eating or I can't stand doing something.
So I can't stand plus I-N-G.
But here it's just I can't stand and the word.
Or the noun in this case.
I can't stand cakes.
I can't stand sweets.
I can't stand stupid people.
Yeah, in that episode we recorded a long time ago about cakes, we discussed different types of cakes and names.
So make sure you listen to that.
So just go back.
In the app that you are using.
Just go back a couple of years and then find the episode.
Listen to it.
And you can say, for example, I can't stand blah, blah cakes.
I can't stand cupcakes.
I can't stand cakes with fruit in it, but yes, we were talking about the texture, which is just how something feels on your tongue.
Well actually no, the texture is how something feels, but in the context of food, the texture is how something feels on your tongue.
So if you Google I can't stand cakes you'll have something interesting.
I can't stand birthday cake.
What kind of monster wrote that?
I don't know.
Yeah, and then you can explain why you don't like this or that particular cake because of the texture, because of the I don't know, because it's sour, because of the taste, because of the shape, because of the price, you know, yeah.
Rovi tell us what is an unadulterated joy.
Unadulterated just means pure, it means it's not got anything extra unadulterated Yeah, it's not got anything added to it.
What kind of word is that?
Unadulterated.
Well, usually actually it's funny we're talking about cakes, because if you adulterate a product, it means that you add something.
So hundreds of years ago, People used to make bread, and they would adulterate bread with sawdust from where they were cutting down trees.
So there would be wood in your bread.
It wasn't there because it was good for people.
It was there just because it added more volume to the bread.
So that's what something is if it's adulterated.
If it's unadulterated, then it means it's pure.
It's not got anything bad for you in it.
So unadulterated joy just means it's like pure joy.
There's nothing affecting the joy.
Oh, this is so strange.
So it doesn't... It has nothing to do with adult.
No.
So it doesn't mean that okay, this joy I can have only if I'm an adult, because it has this adult word in it.
Yeah, just because it's adult, no.
Ruining your relationship.
It's nothing to do with being an adult.
It's to do with like destroying the principle of something.
Wow.
So it's like hospitable people.
It doesn't mean that it means something about hospitable, hospitable people, like friendly people.
All right.
Okay, interesting.
And then we have a guilty pleasure.
So eating sweets could be a guilty pleasure.
Yeah, so that's like something that you enjoy even though you know you shouldn't.
So I'm trying to think of another example.
What's something that you enjoy?
Drinking whiskey.
Drinking whiskey.
No, that's something that's always good.
No negative consequences.
No, that's like that's being an alcoholic.
That's not a guilty pleasure.
That's like something seriously wrong with you.
Maybe having McDonald's once in a while, you know, could be my guilty pleasure.
That's a guilty pleasure.
But if you have McDonald's every day, then you have like chronic problems in your life, probably.
Yes.
Yes, it's like my guilty pleasure.
Or watching Netflix, for example.
Why is that a guilty pleasure?
There's lots of cool stuff on Netflix.
No, if you kind of watch it once in a while and it's something special to you like, oh yes, it's my guilty pleasure.
So if it is a guilty pleasure, do you feel guilty about it or you don't?
No, it's more to do with you don't talk about it publicly.
Ah, okay, it's a secret.
Something that you don't tell everybody about.
Yeah, like watching trashy television.
If you're a very sophisticated person is a guilty pleasure.
It is a guilty pleasure.
I don't do this, but I know people who do and they're very embarrassed about it.
Interesting.
So you can say like, oh, eating sweets is my guilty pleasure.
Right.
Then we can talk about baking and making cakes or sweets.
And you've used the word confecting.
Yeah.
Because the word is confectionery.
So confectionery is the art of making confections, which means that food rich in sugar confections all the food which is rich in sugar.
Confectionery is the art.
Perfect.
So confecting is the verb.
Here, actually, to be honest with you, it's almost never used.
So it's like a super bad nine word because usually people confect the truth or confect lies.
And that's all to do with like trying to get away with being a criminal or something like that.
So nowadays it's got very different meanings to what it used to have, which was talking about making sweets.
But I just used it because we were talking about sweets and it was fun.
But what about this confectionery?
Can you say like oh, I'm not into confectionery, or I don't like confectionery?
Well, you could say that it's very unusual, though you might just say like I'm not into sweet things, for example.
Yeah, because it's a bit strange if you say this confectionery thing.
Well, it used to be.
I mean, you used to see it a lot in supermarkets.
I don't know if you do anymore, because almost no one uses complex words to describe things, which is a bit sad.
And then when the examiner asks you about making sweets or cakes, you can say I prefer the eating over the making.
Yes.
So you can use that for anything, though.
I prefer something over something else.
I prefer watching sport over playing it.
I prefer...
I don't know, sleeping in bed over making the bed.
Hmm.
Yeah, and then when the examiner asks you about eating cakes or sweets after your meals, so after your meals, meaning after dinner breakfast lunch, we can talk about desserts.
Oh, I think the episode we recorded about sweet things was about desserts.
Yeah.
Ah, nice.
So, I prefer to order something for dessert.
Double S. Yeah, dessert.
Or you may say that I prefer fruit for dessert.
Because something sweet that you eat after your meal, that means dessert, right?
Yeah.
And then popular sweets in your country.
It's better if you know some names and types of the sweets.
So Rory told us about Scottish tablets and toffee.
So I'm googling Scottish tablet.
Tablets like computer, like a laptop, yeah, kind of thing.
Tablet.
Scottish tablet.
Ooh.
Well, no.
I mean, a tablet is... Oh, we've talked about this before, haven't we?
It's... I think so.
Yeah, yeah.
It's just like... It's just pure sugar.
If you imagine...
Sugar in a bar and nothing else.
Not even chocolate.
That's what tablet is.
It sounds really bad, and it is, but it's very nice from time to time.
To have pure sugar in your mouth.
Yum, yum, yum.
Yeah, so in your country, you must have some traditional sweets, cakes, desserts.
So make sure you know the names.
What's the traditional thing in Russia?
Honey cake.
We have honey cake, medevik.
Do we not get that in any other?
Oh, yeah, medevik, yeah.
Yeah, but it's kind of like they say it's special.
Then we have something like chocolate-covered milk-based souffle.
Oh, wow.
That sounds like really hard to make.
So, and then we have all these classic Russian candies.
We just call them classic Russian candies.
These little things, you know, little sweets of all different kinds.
So, yeah.
Yep, stuff like that.
Oh, pancakes.
We have pancakes.
Traditionally Russian.
So do listen and make sure that you do know some fancy names.
If you don't know, then you can talk about mass-produced sweets from the States.
Mass-produced sweets from the States.
Sneakers Buzz.
We call them Buzz.
What else do we have?
MM's.
Oh yeah, oh my gosh.
The way that Russian people talk about MM's is amazing, because you say MM's, you say MM's, you say MM's, but people in the UK and America just say MM's, MMs.
No, that's boring.
What did I say before?
You said M&Ms.
M&Ms.
Yeah.
Oh, come on, listen.
You must have fallen asleep already.
Right, so if you want to know more about sugar, again, listen to our episode on desserts or on cake.
Please just find them somewhere in the archive of our episodes, like maybe one year ago, two years ago.
Take a look.
And also there is a good film, which is called That Film About Sugar.
It's an Australian film.
Watch it.
It's really cool.
And it does give you a lot of vocabulary about health, about sugar.
And you can enjoy Australian accent.
And this is cool for your writing.
Not the accent, but the vocabulary.
Because some essays in IELTS are about health, about... fast food and unhealthy healthy food.
So you kill two birds with one sugary fat stone.
So yeah.
Dear listener, thank you very much.
Check out our premium episodes and the link is in the description.
Bye.
Do you like to eat sweets?
Well yes, even though i know they're bad for me.
I sometimes have sugar cravings actually, i increasingly have them these days and they're very hard to ignore.
So, in short yes, i do.
Do you like cakes?
Absolutely.
My sweet tooth extends to all things with sugar.
Although I can't stand cakes with fruit in them for some reason.
I think there's something about the texture of dried fruit that I just don't like.
But in general, yes, I do like cakes.
Do you like sweets more now compared to when you were a child?
Well, I think I liked them more when I was younger, since I wasn't aware of how bad they are for me and people in general.
So it was kind of like an unadulterated joy to eat them all the time.
And now it's more like a guilty pleasure because you know you're enjoying it.
But of course, you shouldn't be because it's bad for you.
Have you ever tried to make sweets or cakes?
I did when I was a child, though I was never really any good at baking or confecting, if you will.
I always preferred the eating over the making.
Do you eat cakes or sweets after your meals?
Sometimes.
If it's a large event like a wedding, then you're usually obligated to order something more for dessert.
Other than that, it doesn't happen very often.
Actually I wonder if this is a thing that's just with Scottish people, because it doesn't seem to happen in many other countries that you have desserts after big meals.
So that's the thing.
What sweets are popular in your country?
Oh, I think just about anything you care to name, really.
We've got Scottish Tablet and Toffee, which are quite popular though it's hard to say how much more than regular mass-produced sweets from America.
They are like Mars Bars or Snickers, for example.
So, um...
Those are the ones that are from our country and they're popular, but how popular, I don't know.
