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've started this podcast to give you joy, happiness and super-duper vocabulary and grammar for your high IELTS score.
Oh, Rory, have you got much planned for your weekend?
Yeah, I'd like to visit my friends and go shopping and I'm going to do jujitsu.
Oh, and I'd like to go to the cinema as well, actually.
That's quite ambitious.
Yes.
Shall we talk about ambitions and dreams?
Let's talk about ambitions and dreams.
This is a fresh IELTS Speaking Part 1 topic.
ะะตะปะฐะน ัะฝะฐ!
Do you think you are an ambitious person?
I think I certainly used to be when I was younger.
I dreamed about publishing books and traveling the world and having an exciting life.
Now that I've achieved all of that though, I think I'm a more calm and centered person by and large.
What was your dream when you were a child?
Oh, to be an author.
And that came true a few years ago.
So that was a great feeling, having fulfilled that childhood ambition.
What's your main ambition in life now?
Well, until recently it was to be a husband and father, but I sort of had to shelve that on account of not having a partner to do any of that with.
So in the short term, immediate future, my plan is to pass my Delta course.
Delta 2 is like an advanced course for language teachers.
And in the long term, it's to own my own home.
What's your dream job?
Being a teacher.
So I've accomplished that particular life goal.
I always wanted to be one, and I was actually quite surprised at how easy it is to accomplish.
So now my career goal is to be well, it's being a good teacher and that's sort of an ongoing process.
Are you the kind of person who never gives up on your dreams?
I wouldn't say so, but I would say I like to take the scenic route in the course of achieving them.
I mean, it took me 20 years to publish my first book.
And it took me a little bit longer to become a teacher, although that was more about working up the courage to actually do it.
But yes, I didn't give up, but I did take a little bit of time.
Dear listener, we have our premium episodes for you, where Rory and I are discussing fresh IELTS speaking part two and three topics and questions.
This week on our premium, rory is gonna describe an occasion when he got incorrect information.
This is speaking part two and in speaking part three we're gonna discuss information in general.
The link is in the description.
Do check it out and sign up for our super quality premium episodes alright.
Promise?
Hey, Rory, thank you very much for your answers.
That's okay.
Were they suitably ambitious?
They were.
Yay.
You used ambitious vocabulary.
Oh, I did?
Like what?
Like we're going to tell you now, dear listener.
So first of all, ambitious person.
So if you're ambitious, it's positive.
So you want to be successful in life, right?
So I am an ambitious person.
I want to do this and that.
And I want like 50% million followers on our YouTube.
Yeah.
And Rory told us, I used to be when I was younger.
So I used to be ambitious when I was younger.
Our favorite used to, but Rory isn't ambitious anymore.
Maybe a little bit, but he was really ambitious when he was younger.
I was extremely ambitious.
Maria knows this for a fact, because when she worked with me, I was ridiculous, right?
Oh yeah, you were just, you were a machine.
He was going, dear listener, you know, like doing stuff.
Appearing on bus shelters.
I used to dream of publishing books.
So I'm dreaming of doing something.
It's not like when you sleep and you see dreams.
No, I want to do it.
So, I'm dreaming of doing something or I dream of doing something.
Rory here used to dream of publishing books and now I've achieved all of that, right?
Oh, and also traveling the world.
Having an exciting life.
Yeah, so Rory now has achieved everything.
Just about everything.
He's published books.
Three, four books.
I keep forgetting.
Four?
Well, four officially.
Five or six.
Look, some things have been published.
That's the most important thing.
So he's published books, he's traveled the world, he's eaten dog dear listener, I know it's our Rory and he's having an exciting life somewhere in the middle of Scotland.
Hey, how exciting is that?
It is very exciting oh yeah, yeah exciting scottish rural life.
It's not rural, it's seaside life.
Now, oh okay seaside rural, coastal life ooh, coastal life, coastal living, even though there's a giant construction site right outside my home right now, which is not so great, but Oh, poor Scottish Rory.
So, yeah, you can say I've achieved all that or I haven't achieved something yet, right?
And you can say my biggest dream is to become, I don't know, what?
A film director.
My biggest dream is to become, or I dream of becoming, a film director.
So you said that my dream came true, right?
So, dear listener, you can say that all my dreams came true, or i want this dream to come true.
Can you say like my dream was fulfilled, for example Yes, or has been fulfilled?
I was just thinking, though.
I mean, I'm older than a lot of people who are going to take IELTS, and probably they're doing it in order to move abroad or to pass some sort of entrance exam for university.
Ooh, did you catch that?
Future perfect.
My dream will have been fulfilled once I pass IELTS in the future.
Or by this time next year, my dream will have been fulfilled.
Or I hope my dream will be fulfilled or achieved or realized.
Okay, next year.
Just put a little bit of extra pressure on the examiner and be like yes, my dreams are in your hands, Mr Examiner, or Mrs Examiner.
And just look at the exam and like, hmm, no, okay.
Yes, fulfill my dreams, please.
And if you fulfill your dream, this is a great feeling.
And Roy told us, like, my dream to become an author became true in the past.
So, came true in the past.
That was a great feeling having fulfilled that childhood ambition.
Having fulfilled.
So it came true and then Rory like fulfilled it.
So in the past, so perfect.
Is it?
Oh, what's that called?
That's got a special name.
It's a present participle clause having fulfilled, right?
You are kind of, you're risking it.
Mr. Duncan.
Good.
Done.
Done.
Done.
It is.
It's a present participle clause.
I'm right.
Having fulfilled that dream, blah, blah, blah.
Yeah, right?
Come on.
Okay, okay.
Well, I'll tell what you said.
If you want to know more about this kind of thing, sign up for classes with me.
The link is in the description below.
So you can say, that was a great feeling having fulfilled this dream.
Even if you didn't fulfill anything, you can just use it to show off this nice structure.
If our listener has a dream, is it to pass IELTS or to take IELTS?
Oh, yeah, because in some languages they're the same thing, aren't they?
Like Russian, right?
To pass and to take an exam are the same.
So to pass an exam is to succeed in getting the score that's required.
But to take the exam is just to... be in the process of writing the exam.
So about IELTS, I say I've got a dream to pass IELTS.
I've got a dream to get a high score.
Or a dream of passing IELTS.
Right.
A dream of getting a high score.
My main ambition in life is to pass IELTS, for example.
Or you can say like my burning ambition, my kind of like, it's burning inside me, fire.
So my burning ambition is to buy a house or to own my own home, like rory told us to own, to have my own home.
Home you mean house, a flat, or just home in general.
Oh, just a home in general.
I don't really care where I live right now as long as it belongs to me.
Although, what I said was a little bit clunky.
I said to own my own home.
Probably I should have said to have my own home.
It's not a huge disaster, it's just a bit of a weird thing to say.
On the subject of having things nicely balanced, I hope that you all paid attention to whereas I've written out yes, dream of publishing books, traveling the world and having an exciting life.
So all of these end in ing, because of, what's it called?
Gerund.
It's also parallelism.
Oh!
Yes.
Which you need to be able to do in order to get a band 9.
And parallelism is just balancing up all the verb forms in a sentence.
Yeah, and they should be the same, right?
Yes.
Yeah, could you give us another example?
Well, I've managed to succeed in publishing a book, traveling the world, and hosting a podcast.
There.
So all of our forms are aligned.
Yeah.
Okay.
What did you mean when you said I sort of had to shelve that plan?
So you had a plan and then you had to shelve it, like shelve?
Like the books behind me.
Yeah.
So your plan is actually like the books.
You have it, but you're not using it or you're not...
You don't have it right now in use.
So you shelve it.
You put it on there to wait.
Okay, so you can say I had to shelve my plan and maybe like I'm working on it.
So in the near future, my big goal is to do this.
So in the near future, my big goal, my big ambition or my burning ambition is to do something.
And in the long term, dear listener, in the long term, like in the next 5 years, 10 years, I want to achieve this right.
Or my main ambition, my big, my great ambition or my lifelong ambition, you can say, yeah?
My lifelong ambition is to...
Be a yoga instructor.
God, could you imagine?
I did yoga yesterday and it was... It was a very intense experience.
It always is.
Because I am not flexible.
They always say like, oh, you know, just appreciate this feeling.
And everything.
I'm just sitting there like, yes, this feeling is called pain.
I would like to avoid it.
Obviously, I appreciate that is not the yoga experience that they want you to have.
They want you to be in touch with your body and oh boy, was I in touch with it.
Well Rory, you should embrace pain.
You see, they say like, if you feel pain, you just like let it just go through, you embrace it.
You know like breathe in, breathe out, feel it and yeah, it just goes away.
I'll remind you of that the next time you complain to me about how difficult this job is.
You just have to embrace the pain.
Yes.
I've accomplished that particular life mission.
So my dream job could be your life mission.
So Rory has become a teacher, a good teacher.
So I've accomplished that.
Yes.
Or you can say I haven't accomplished it yet.
I haven't achieved it yet.
And my career goal is to be a good teacher, is to be a yoga instructor, is to pass IELTS, move abroad.
Oh, I was just going to say about the collocation.
It's usually accomplish a mission.
And also you've used the verb to reach.
So you reached that life mission.
I didn't.
Did I reach the mission?
I reached a goal.
You reached a goal.
Oh.
You reached a goal or an objective.
And you can say, like, I've always wanted to become a yoga instructor.
And it was quite easy for me to reach.
So in your dream job, you can look for something you are good at.
Work that helps people.
And supportive conditions.
So you can say, okay, my dream job involves supporting conditions.
For example, engaging work, supportive colleagues, like a fair pay.
And also work that fits my personal life, my personal, I don't know. achievements or feelings.
They say that these are three most important things in a dream job.
Rory, would you agree?
So work you are good at, work that helps people and supportive conditions.
I would love to believe it's that simple.
And certainly these three things are easy to remember and they have a lot of impact.
So because I can't think of any alternatives, yes, let's go with that.
And you can also say that the key to a good job, to my dream job, is to get good at something, at something that helps people, for example.
Or you can say like, oh, I'm still developing my passion.
I'm still figuring it out.
I'm working on it.
I'm working on it.
Like I'm developing my passion.
Is it a phrasal verb?
Oh, it's a phrasal verb.
Because there is a course for that.
I'm going to need to, we should have like the phrasal verbs course on the coffee cup.
And then I can just bring it up and be like, yep, you can find it here.
But since I don't have that, successwithielts.com forward slash podcourses.
The link is in the description below.
So if you listen to our course on phrasal verbs, you're going to achieve phrasal verb success beyond your wildest dreams, dear listener.
Beyond even what you wanted to, because there are over 300 apparently going to buy you.
Yeah, so beyond my wildest dreams.
So if you achieve something beyond my wildest dreams, so you achieve it like whoa, like really achieve it.
We can give up on our dreams.
So I want to become a yoga instructor, and then I go, ah, no, it's too difficult.
Just, yeah, so you can give up on your dreams.
And you can say, no, I never give up on my dreams.
I'd say that I prefer to take the scenic route to achieve my dreams.
Rory?
Over to you, a scenic route.
So, the scenic route is actually something from driving.
It's where you take a very long path to get to a destination, because the long path shows different scenes and nice places.
However, it can also be used to describe doing things in your life.
So if you say I'm taking the scenic route to achieving my dreams, it just means taking a very long time to get there and probably having a little bit of fun along the way.
So in my case, I took the scenic route towards becoming a teacher, because I traveled all over the world and did lots and lots of different things before actually biting the bullet and doing the job and getting the qualification.
Because I was busy, and I didn't want my entire life to be about my career.
Bite the bullet.
Yes, bite the bullet.
That's an idiom.
I believe we're working on a course to do with that.
At some point.
So I had to bite the bullet.
I had to do this.
Yeah, I had to kind of face it and do it.
Yes.
You can say it took me the better part of 20 years to publish one book.
So it took me a lot of time to publish a book, but you can say it in a more sophisticated way for a high school.
So it took me the better part of 20 years or 10 years to publish my first book.
Which sounds like a long time, but I would like to point out I started writing this book when I was in high school.
A long time ago.
Let's not dwell too much on how long it's been since I was in school.
And you can say that I had to work up the courage to actually do it.
So it was difficult for me.
I had to work up the courage.
So I had to kind of like gather, gain, kind of collect this courage, work up the courage and do it.
Roy, are you ready for a joke?
It's a rhetorical question.
Yes, actually, yes.
I've had my... Oh, okay.
Right.
I've had my coffee.
I'm ready.
People will see that I'm much more chipper today than I normally am.
So dear listener, a joke, a joke.
I dreamt of writing The Hobbit the other night.
I think I was talking in my sleep.
The Hobbit.
The Hobbit.
The Hobbit is The Hobbit, yeah?
Who wrote The Hobbit?
Who's the author of The Hobbit, Rory?
J.R.R.
Tolkien.
Yes, yes.
Talking, talking.
Talking sounds like talking, to talk.
I was talking, blah, blah, blah, in my sleep.
Sounds like talking.
Uh-huh.
Oh, come on.
This is a good one.
It's a good one.
Come on.
Thank you for listening.
I've changed my mind.
My lifelong ambition is actually to survive Maria's humor.
Bye!
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It's very useful and will help you become familiar with phrasal verbs.
Do you think you are an ambitious person?
I think I certainly used to be when I was younger.
I dreamed about publishing books and traveling the world and having an exciting life.
Now that I've achieved all of that though, I think I'm a more calm and centered person by and large.
What was your dream when you were a child?
Oh, to be an author.
And that came true a few years ago.
So that was a great feeling, having fulfilled that childhood ambition.
What's your main ambition in life now?
Well, until recently it was to be a husband and father, but I sort of had to shelve that on account of not having a partner to do any of that with.
So in the short term, immediate future, my plan is to pass my Delta course.
Delta 2 is like an advanced course for language teachers.
And in the long term, it's to own my own home.
What's your dream job?
Being a teacher.
So I've accomplished that particular life goal.
I always wanted to be one, and I was actually quite surprised at how easy it is to accomplish.
So now my career goal is to be well, it's being a good teacher and that's sort of an ongoing process.
Are you the kind of person who never gives up on your dreams?
I wouldn't say so, but I would say I like to take the scenic route in the course of achieving them.
I mean, it took me 20 years to publish my first book.
And it took me a little bit longer to become a teacher, although that was more about working up the courage to actually do it.
But yes, I didn't give up, but I did take a little bit of time.
