The IKEA Business Network is now open for small businesses andentrepreneurs.
Join for free today to get access to interior design services to help you make the most of yourworkspace, employ well-being benefits to help you and your peoplegrow, and amazing discounts ontravel,insurance, and IKEApurchases,deliveries, andmore.
Take your small business to the next level when you sign up for the IKEA Business Network for free today by searching IKEA BusinessNetwork.
Hello,lovely. I'mMaria.
And my name isRory. And we are the hosts of the IELTS Picking for SuccessPodcast.
The podcast that aims to help you improve your pickingskills, as well as your listening skills along theway.
We've started this podcast to give you gorgeous grandma and super vocabulary for your high-eiledschool.
Your band ninescore.Rory, you soundterrible.
Do you have acold?No, I have allergies because the flowers are in bloomhere.
Oh,flowers! Alleges toflowers!
You're allergic toflowers.
Ooh! Let's talk aboutflowers!
Flower!Power!Oh. Flowerpower!
Move yourfeet. This is the song for you fortoday.
Flowerpower! And my nose and my immunesystem.
Flowerpower! Do you listen toIELTS?
Toflowers! Topollen! We call itpollen.
Youknow, flowers have this little thingy that goes up your nose and yougo,ah!
Likethis.So,pollen. I'm allergic topollen.
And also Rory said that flowers are inbloom.
Flowersbloom. So we see flowerseverywhere.
They'rehappy. And everybody isallergic.
My nose is nothappy. Let's talk aboutflowers.
What flowers do youlike?
The ones I'm not allergicto?
Imean, from a safedistance, I like allflowers.
Especially if they're in thewild.
I think it really brightens thingsup.
What's your favoriteflower?
I'm not sure I have a favorite one to behonest.
I like tulips just because of the shape of the petals and the simplestem.
They have differentcolors, but I'm not crazy about them oranything.
How's it any flowers that have special meaning in yourcountry?
Er, we have a...thistle is the national flower ofScotland, so that appears on a lot of emblombs andhair-oldry.
Aside fromthat, I'm not reallysure.
PerhapsHeather? There's a sort of shrub that grows in theHighlands, but I couldn't tell you anything in depth aboutit.
Have you planted anyflowers?
Er,well, I'm growing a bonsai tree from the seeds Igot.
Does thatcount? It took ages to get them to grow and its constant care andmaintenance.
Have you sent flowers to otherpeople?
Well, not for a longtime.
I think the last time it was the flowers I said to my cousin Hildo on her 90thbirthday, that's not something I make a habit out of since flowers aredying.
And there are many people really like having dying things in theirhouses.
Till listennow, we discussed the topic of flowers back in2021.
So could you please listen to our first episode aboutflowers?
We also give you good grammar and vocabularythere.
And listen to thisepisode.
Yes, you'll also hear Maria calling me a plantkiller.
It's veryunkind.Flower!
Flower,flower,power, move yourfeet.
So I'm allergic to flowers or I'm not allergic toflowers.
If you haveallergies, we sayallergies, but half-charallergies, you say I haveallergies, I'm allergic to lots offlowers.
And if you haveallergies, you can say I like flowers from a safedistance.
So not close tome. If flowers are faraway, I likethem.
But if they are tooclose, then I have allergies and I'm not very happy withthem.
I like flowers if they are in thewild.
So animals are in thewild, flowers are in thewild.
They are not in ashop, but in aforest, on afield.
And Rory tells us that flowers brighten thingsup.
They make our lives morebright.
Okay,brighter. So they brighten thingsup.
You should be ready to answer what your favorite floweris.
So Rory told us abouttulips.
You can googletulips. But you can also say somethinglike...
Daffodils,roses.Daffodils.
Lillies,lavender. This is beautiful flower that has thissmell.
You can saydaisies. So just go to Google images and type in flower kinds and choose maybe three interesting names offlowers.
I would go fordaisies, lilies andlavender.
Daffodils are alsonice.
But don't say roses are my favoriteflowers.
And roses arelike... Not because it's a usualword.
Everybody knows arose, but kindof...
Forexample, a death a deal is already an interesting word or coronationsdelisuna.
Pinkcoronations. You should googleit.
So just remembertwo, three interesting names offlowers.
Okay, to impress the examiner with yourvocabulary.
Tulips have nicepetals.
So a petal is a part of aflower.
So this is a petal and a flower also has astem.
This likestick. Stick is called astem.
So the petals open to attract the insects and the stem supports theflower.
Yeah. And where are tulips popular in whichcountry?
Well, I think they're populareverywhere, but you hear about them inHolland.
Yeah, theNetherlands,delisuna.
Oh, like fields and fields oftulips.
There's a very interesting story aboutthat, Ithink.
A long time ago about 300 years orsomething.
Tulip bulbs were really popular and they were traded as stock on the Dutch stockexchange.
And they crashed the entire economy because people became over invested in it and flooded themarket.
It'samazing. They almost destroyed theireconomy.
Oh,wow. And youknow, the Netherlands have the oldest botanicalgarden.
Where the first tulips wereplanted.
Back in1593,delisuna.
Okay, they have black tulips like white tulips tulips of allcolors.
Black tulips are quitecool.
Yeah, they are quitecool.
Delisuna, you should also know what flowers have special meaning in yourcountry.
So Rory told us about the national flower ofScotland, which is asisal.
This is a flower of the national flower ofScotland.
Yeah, so this is theiremblem.
So the flower appears on differentemblems.
Okay, and then Rory said somethinghere.
Hair oldry isthis. These are the symbols associated with different clans and noble houses in mycountry.
And in any country that has thesethings.
Okay, so this is not only aboutScotland.
No,no, it could be about England or any other country that's likethis.
Possibly France may beSwitzerland,Norway,Sweden, other countries with a royal family or some kind of royalconnection.
Yeah,Delisuna, you need to have a king or a queen'skings.
So, hair oldry is very difficult topronounce.
Hair oldry is about the history of thefamilies.
So this emblem with this flower belonged to thisking.
Okay, this flower appears on emblems and hairoldry.
And then Rory mentions another one which isheather.
Heather. Like I'm going this flower because I don't remember what it lookslike.
And you should also googleheather.
I think it's a kind of small bush or shrub that's quite common in hills and mycountry.
I think it'spurple.Nice.
So it's a sort ofshrub. A shrub like abush.
Yeah, grows in thehighlands, in themountains, inScotland.
Hey,Delisuna. So you should know what's the meaning of this special flower in yourcountry.
We plantflowers, we grow flowers and Rory told us about this bonsai tree hehas.
So he got seeds from somewhere and now he is growing a bonsaitree.
Beautiful. And this bonsai tree is in apot,right?
Itis,yes, or in a bowl to be moreprecise.
But thereare, I justdiscovered, the bonsai tree is not just onething.
I was given manyseeds, so there are many tiny bonsai trees growing in my pot orbowl.
But I don't think a bonsai tree is aflower.
I just wanted to talk about how the bonsaitree, but how I haveone.
It'sokay, you can talk about theplants.
Okay, they won't beflowers, butplants.
But it's a good time to ask this rhetoricalquestion.
Does thatcount?Meaning, does that mean the same thing as aflower?
And it gave me a chance to use words connected to plants like grow and general words like care and maintenance forplants.
And it took me ages because bonsai trees take forever togrow.
Yeah, because now I'm googling what flowers can be grown at home in pots and the names of the flowers are justcrazy.
Like one of themis, Chris and themums.
How do you saythis? Chris and the mums are quite popular inJapan, Ithink.
Say itagain. Chris and themums.
Chris and themums. Yousee, they listento, they are just difficult topronounce.
Soyeah, you can say likeroses.
Yeah, defadeals. I grow defadeals.
Okay, I growdaisies.Alright, because like an other pot flowers and you can saythat,well, it takes ages to get them togrow, to get my flowers to grow and they need constantcare.
So I have to care about them all the time and they needmaintenance.
So our flowers needmaintenance.
We need to take care ofthem.
We need to maintain them and waterthem.
We waterflowers. We sometimes send flowers to other people or we giveflowers.
Or kind of like we send flowers as agift.
So we give flowers on differentoccasions.
And Rory said that the last time I sent flowers to people was a long timeago.
Or not for a longtime. It's not something I make a habit outof.
So I don't make a habit out of sending peopleflowers.
And then the idea that well flowers are kind ofdead.
And it's not a nice thing to have some dying things in yourhouse.
Now Idisagree. Flowers arecool.
They arealive. Flowers aredying.
Unless they are connected to theplant.
Imean, even to theground, tosoil.
Well,yes, you've got to put the plant in soiltoo.
So noflowers, if you have them just in a vase with water and nothing connected tothem, they willdie.
And that will not be verypretty.
You want a plant to live and thrive and grow and notdie.
Yeah, do asthem. So you can say that now I'm against growingflowers.
But if you growflowers, you can grow them so they are kind of connected to thesoil.
So it'sokay.Yeah, that'sfine.
Okay,okay.Yeah, you can listen to our episode aboutplants.
We also talk about growingplants, Rory being a plantkiller,murderer.
My bonsai trees arethriving.
Thank you verymuch. Infact, I have threeplants.
All of them are doing verywell.
Who, how long have you hadthem?
Aweek? That is notimportant.
I have had themalive. I've kept themalive.
Oh, yousee,Daly, he says that he has threeplants, but he has just had them for aweek.
So we'll wait andsee,okay?
I don'tknow. I could have had them for muchlonger.
Three monthslater,Rory, how many plants do youhave?
Zero. My life's adead. I have onedead.
Twoalive.Okay.Yeah, we need to see pictures of your bonsaitree.
That seemsinteresting.
Okay.So,Daly,Sam, thank you very much forlistening.
Have you chosen the two or three interesting words aboutflowers?
Haveyou? Thank you very much forlistening.
And we'll see you in our nextepisode.
Bye.Bye.Bye. What flowers do youlike?
I have the ones I'm not allergicto.
Imean, from a safedistance, I like allflowers, especially if they're in thewild.
I think it really brightens thingsup.
What's your favoriteflower?
I'm not sure I have a favoriteone, to behonest.
I like tulips just because of the shape of the petals and the simplestem.
They have differentcolors, but I'm not crazy about them oranything.
How's it any flowers that have special meaning in yourcountry?
We have a thistle as the national flower ofScotland, so that appears on a lot of embloms andheraldry.
Aside fromthat, I'm not reallysure.
PerhapsHeather, there's a sort of shrub that grows in theHighlands, but I couldn't tell you anything in depth aboutit.
Have you planted anyflowers?
Well, I'm growing a bonsai tree from the seeds Igot.
Does thatcount? It took ages to get them to grow and its constant care andmaintenance.
Have you sent flowers to otherpeople?
Well, not for a longtime.
