Hello lovely, I'm Maria.
And my name is Rory and we are 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 Super Gorgeous Grandma and Vocabulary for your high IELTS
School.
Your bad 9th score.
Oh Rory, look at you in your podcast room.
I like the new background.
Well, I'm glad you do.
Things are beginning to feel a little bit crowded in here.
That's fitting because you're going to talk about crowded places today.
Yeah, you're doing a crowded place.
And Maria has made a pun because fitting means that it's not too tight.
But of course, if it's crowded, then it will be.
Look at me.
I'm explaining the joke.
I know look at shoes of fitting, like suitable or right for a particular situation or occasion.
For example, we can say that it's fitting that we should say something.
Talk about crowded places and use an idiom about fitting.
Yeah, and also kind of like fitting or we use it about clothes, right?
Like all like, oh, look at you and your suit or t-shirt.
It's fitting.
Yeah, kind of like suits you.
Are you excited to talk about crowded places?
Always.
Talk about.
No.
Let's talk about crowded places.
How do you feel when you are in crowded places?
Well, assuming things are calm and people are pushing and shoving to get in and I've
got elbow room, then it's not so bad.
But if there's lots of people rammed into one space, then I can't stand it and I'd
like to leave as soon as possible.
I would say about claustrophobia, exactly, but it's just not something that I'm a big fan
of.
When was the last time you were in a crowded place?
Oh, wow.
I'd really have to think about that.
It must have been the last time that I flew out of Paris and everybody was kind of crammed
into this boarding gate area and there wasn't much wiggle room to be honest with you, so
that wasn't a very pleasant experience.
However, that'll teach me for flying right in here.
What places do you think are often crowded?
Well, you mean aside from boarding gates?
I suppose popular markets like the ones in Istanbul are pretty jam-packed, to be honest.
And then in large cities, lots of pubs and clubs, especially as the weekend approaches
because I suppose everybody just wants to unwind and relax at that point, don't they?
How often do you go to crowded places?
Well, rarely, I'd say, and there are only about 5 million people in my country, and I
mean outside of the major cities were pretty spread out over a wide area, so there aren't
many opportunities to go to crowded places.
I think the only exception is when I go to big events like parties or nights out, but
that's hardly ever.
Do you like crowded places?
Well, like I said before, it really depends on the context and the atmosphere to be honest
with you.
I mean, if everyone's relaxed and chilled out, then I'm quite happy to rub along with
all the people around me.
However, if we're packed in there like sardines, and people are starting to get antsy and
behaving in a way that's like that, then I'm not going to be terribly thrilled to be there.
So like I say, it depends.
Dear listener, we have our premium episodes for you where Rory and I are discussing speaking
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We use fresh IOTs speaking topics.
This way, on our premium, we are in speaking part 2 describing at time when people near you
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Hey, crowded places.
So a crowded place is a place full of people.
We say a crowd of people, right?
And about our feelings, how do you feel in a crowded place?
Well, you can feel claustrophobic, but not everybody does and claustrophobic is like a
really specific fear.
You can say I feel claustrophobic or I have claustrophobia.
So you are afraid of too many people.
And if I'm rammed into a crowded space, I'm rammed into a space.
Yeah, if everyone is rammed in together, then it's all tightly packed and they've been
almost pushed in by the people who are in charge, so that makes it a bit difficult.
So you can say I feel nervous when I'm rammed into a crowded space, crowded or cramped.
Okay?
Cramped, space or a cramped room, like not having enough space.
Okay, so it's not about a crowd, but like a small space with no room, like not enough
space to move.
For example, like a cramped room or a cramped house, okay?
And also Rory, you said like an elbow room.
Yes.
You know, our elbows, yeah, about parts of our arms, elbows.
So there is no elbow room.
Yeah, it occurred to me mostly because I've been teaching idioms recently.
And so this one is just sticking in my head.
I wanted to mention to have elbow room or to have no elbow room.
And that's just meaning not enough room to move.
So if you imagine people are around you, you cannot even move your elbows like this.
So you can say I feel really anxious or nervous if there is no elbow room.
In a crowded place, people usually push and what else do they do?
If I call a cat, I think so.
Yeah, it's a fixed phrase.
Pushing and shoving in the cramped space.
So people are pushing and shoving.
They are pushing you, right?
And they are shoving you.
Is shoving the same as pushing?
I feel like shoving is the much more deliberate and violent act that happens.
Yeah, but this is what happens when you are surrounded by people.
They push you around.
Yeah, so you feel anxious and nervous.
Here, you can use the past continuous when I was boarding my last flight or when I was
dancing somewhere in a club, right?
Or when I was having a drink in a bar, I was pretty crowded.
And Rory used it like everyone was crammed into this boarding gate or everyone was crammed
into a club.
Can you say that?
Yeah, if you're crammed and then there's not much space to move.
I'm running out of ways to describe crowded places, to be honest with you.
So for example, imagine a car, a car, and eight children were crammed into the back of
the car.
Okay?
The guy is quite small and eight kids were crammed.
Yeah, inter.
What else can you say?
Can you say I was crammed against the door?
For example, I don't know if you could say I was crammed against the door because usually
it crammed into is the callication.
So you might say I was crouched into the door or I was, what was the word against?
Crashed against the door?
Yeah, crushed against the door, crushed against the wall.
So there was so many people I was crushed against the door?
Yeah, well, I mean, it not why not, but why would you be in that situation?
Or for example, you can say that the room was full or the room was packed.
Like packed with people, the room was crowded, packed, and I was crammed into the
room, crammed into the room?
Yeah, crammed in with other people.
Mm-hmm.
Like when everyone is going in and I was crammed into the club or I was crammed into the
bar, right?
Like everybody, like I was entering the bar and I was like, oh, together with the crowd,
yeah?
Craming into the boarding gate or into a bar, into a concert hall.
Another phrase is a lot of wiggle room or not a lot of wiggle room, wiggle, wiggle.
I'm not going to wiggle.
I am going to wiggle on camera, but like wiggling would be like moving around like that,
like a, like a worm.
And you cannot wiggle or I could not wiggle in the boarding gate area because there were
so many people.
Like to have a wiggle room, not just to have wiggle room.
No, I took a run.
I think it's just wiggle room.
Get some wiggle room or if it's in a specific place then the wiggle room was no, not even
then you wouldn't use it.
Mm-hmm.
So it's just wiggle room or some wiggle room.
It's kind of like freedom to move around, right?
So in a crowd it's placed, there is no wiggle room.
There's no elbow room.
Some places could be really crowded or could be packed or could be full of people, right?
Rory talked about boarding gates.
Like at the airboards, whoo, like crowds of people, also markets or shops like the ones
in Istanbul, the ones meaning markets or shops.
So these places usually have a lot of people or crowds of people.
Also there is a shopping centers, airports, tourist attractions, okay?
You can also give some examples like Tokyo, Times Square and Rory, do you know which city
is the busiest city in the world?
I hope you have a big one.
So New York, because that's the city of the number of sticks.
No, no, no.
The busiest city of the world is Mexico City.
Really?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, Mexico City.
How many people live there then?
A lot.
Crowds of people.
You can also say that large cities can get really busy, busy, like meaning like full of
people, right?
Like markets are quite busy, right?
Or shopping centers could get quite busy, yeah could get quite crowded.
And Rory also told us like large cities seem quite full, okay?
Again, like packed, full crowded.
Unwind is a nice one.
Yes.
What do people do there?
They unwind.
They relax, they chill out.
Chill out.
Unwind, not unwind.
No, because wind is aโฆ
The wind blows.
Here we use unwind in the meaning of relax.
How often?
Rarely.
So kind of not often, okay?
Like hardly ever.
I hardly ever go to crowded places or I rarely go to crowded places.
And come on, I can Scotland.
How many people live there?
5 million.
Only just over 5 million.
Soon one neighborhood in Moscow, okay?
Not much.
Well, no, that's not true.
Not many people, but much going on.
And you said that's like people are spread out.
Yeah, so that's like the opposite of crowded together, I suppose.
If you're spread, if you're crowded together, then you're packed into one type, please.
But if you're spread out, then you're all over the place.
Here, you can start with like I said before.
So you refer back to your previous answers, like I said before, it depends onโฆ
The people, it depends on the crowd.
Yeah?
If it's a happy crowd, I enjoy crowded places.
So it depends on the atmosphere, yeah, it depends on the crowd itself, yeah?
And then like if, if people, if everyone is chilled out, if they're relaxed, happy, happy,
happy, happy, happy, happy, happy.
So if the moods of the crowd is happy, happy, happy, I'm quite happy to be there.
And Rory used a phrase of verb, band 9, phrase of verb, to rub along with others.
When you rub along with others, you can work or live together.
Well, you work and live together well, yeah.
Which is funny, because you think like rubbing with people would not be a very satisfying
experience.
But of course, if it's a nice atmosphere, then it's fine.
For example, my flatmate and I rub along together well, like rub, rub my hands, so rub
along, okay, together, yeah?
So I'm quite happy to rub along with others, and it's nice because like we talk about
crowds, and in a crowd, you kind of rub along with other people.
Literally, you kind of touch other people, because there's no elbow room, there's no wiggle room.
Rory used a nice idiom about sadins.
They are kind of fish.
A very tiny fish.
You know, we have tuna, we have sadins.
And usually it's a tin of sadins, you know, like this kind of a box, you make a tuna
salad, so tuna is in a tin, and like sadins are often in a tin.
So imagine all these sadins are packed in there.
So if we are packed in like sadins, yeah, not really nice.
Could you give us another example with sadins?
Well, if you're on a bus, and there's lots of people, then you could be packed in together
like sadins, or if you've ever been to Tokyo, and you've been on the public transport
there, then people are often packed in like sadins, because they're just like right up against
each other, not able to move.
In fact, I think they have people to pack them in like that, because there are just so many,
and it's just impossible to do it any other way.
People could get NC.
NC.
Yes.
So irritated and agitated.
Not like sadins.
Sadins are usually kind of like, hey, no problem.
You're gonna eat us.
Okay, we're happy.
So NC.
NC is informal, usually in American English, very nervous or worried, unpleasantly excited.
Okay.
It's kind of like children started to get NC, yeah, or I sometimes get NC about like job interviews.
So yeah, not really nice.
Also, we can say some place is jam packed.
Roy, what is like a jammed or jammed or jammed?
Well, you're jammed into a place, but you're jam packed into a place, or a place is jam
packed.
But all of these are just different ways of describing all of these people together
in one place and the difficulty with moving because everyone is so close together.
Like a traffic jam, a very similar imagery.
Yeah, for example, popular markets are usually jam packed.
Okay, or I was in a concert and I was jammed.
I was jammed.
Well, you could say the concert was jammed or the movement of the people was jammed because
there's just so many of them that they cannot move.
Right, deal with that.
Tell us about your feelings in a crowded place in the comments, okay?
Is your city crowded, like which places are usually crowded and how do you feel in a crowded
place?
Just knowing the comments, okay?
Don't get your brain crowded.
But do crowd our comments and our Instagram messages with the answers to our reflection
activity, which is to summarize.
So how would you summarize in one sentence my feelings about crowded places?
They're pretty negative, I think.
But what phrases could you use from the days video to describe them?
We go, we go, we go.
I think it's in the song somewhere.
We go, we go.
It is.
But let's not dwell on that too much.
So let me say, we go, we go, we go.
Okay, let's wiggle.
We go on to the next episode.
Bye.
Bye.
We go, we go.
How do you feel when you are in crowded places?
Well, assuming things are calm and people are pushing and shoving to get in and I've got
elbow room, then it's not so bad.
But if there's lots of people rammed into one space, then I can't stand it and I'd
like to leave as soon as possible.
I would say about claustrophobia, exactly, but it's just not something that I'm a big
fan of.
When was the last time you were in a crowded place?
Oh, wow.
I'd really have to think about that.
It must have been the last time that I flew out of Paris and everybody was kind of crammed
into this boarding gate area and there wasn't much wiggle room to be honest with you.
So that wasn't a very pleasant experience.
However, that'll teach me for flying right in here.
What places do you think are often crowded?
Well, you mean aside from boarding gates, I suppose popular markets like the ones in Istanbul
are pretty jam-packed to be honest.
And then in large cities, lots of pubs and clubs, especially as the weekend approaches
because I suppose everybody just wants to unwind and relax at that point, don't they?
How often do you go to crowded places?
Well, rarely I'd say, and there are only about 5 million people in my country and I mean,
outside of the major cities were pretty spread out over a wide area.
So there aren't many opportunities to go to crowded places.
I think the only exception is when I go to big events like parties or nights out, but
that's hardly ever.
Do you like crowded places?
Well, like I said before, it really depends on the context and the atmosphere to be honest
with you.
I mean, if everyone's relaxed and chilled out, then I'm quite happy to rub along with
all the people around me.
However, if we're packed in there like sardines and people are starting to get antsy and
behaving in a way like that, then I'm not going to be terribly thrilled to be there.
So like I said, it depends.
