This is an IELTS Energy Podcast, Episode 1586.
How should you pronounce croissant on IELTS speaking?
Welcome to the IELTS Energy Podcast from All Ears English downloaded more than 35 million times with examiner-trained IELTS whiz Aubrey Carter and Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer.
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Aubrey, do you like desserts or do you like sweet breakfasts like bread?
Yes.
I just made crepes this morning because I had bought strawberries and my kids weren't eating them.
I'm like, I know how to get my kids to eat strawberries.
I made crepes and had them with Nutella and strawberries.
That sounds amazing.
It was delicious.
What is your favorite food to order for breakfast in France?
My favorite was just to go into a bakery and get a pain au chocolat, which is like a chocolate croissant kind of a square one with chocolate in it.
We ate them almost every morning at a bakery.
Yeah, I love those.
Oh my gosh.
I think I gained 15 pounds when I studied abroad in Paris.
Not quite that much, but maybe eight pounds or something.
I don't doubt it.
I probably did too.
Everything's so delicious.
And you're traveling, so you want to treat yourself.
You don't want to limit.
It's all right.
Well, you said one key word in your answer and you said you like to order pan de chocolat, which was a chocolate croissant, right?
Yes, this is interesting.
How do you say croissant?
I say exactly, I say it that way.
Yeah, very Americanized.
It depends on where I am, right?
If I'm in French, like Montreal or Paris.
But in the States, we say croissant, we really Americanize it.
We touched briefly on this recently how to pronounce foreign language words on IELTS that have been adopted into English.
But we got a great question about this in YouTube.
So we wanted to dive deeper with some examples.
Yeah, a huge thank you to Mauro.
Mauro says, Hi, Lindsay and Aubrey.
What if you say a foreign word that's already been incorporated to English, like croissant or ramen, but you pronounce it like the French Japanese?
Will it lower your score?
Thank you for the great episode.
And this is really interesting.
So yeah, we talked about this recently and we share that these words can be pronounced either in the accent of the language of origin or with either kind of a UK accent or an American accent when they've been really adopted into English.
But as I said, you know, pain au chocolat.
It's really interesting how there are some words that if we fully pronounced it as if it were English, that word, if we said pain, oh chocolate, that would be crazy.
I bet there are people in the US.
There might be.
And I imagine the examiner would just be like OK, I don't think they would pull down your pronunciation score.
Because they know you don't speak French, right?
This is a French word and you're just doing your best.
But for a lot of words like croissant, for example, that works perfectly.
Croissant in French or croissant with like an American accent, both same score.
Exactly.
I love it.
And the only key, I mean, we want to make sure the examiner understands us.
So if we're pronouncing things with kind of let's say, for example, a Japanese accent, we do want to make sure that the examiner knows what word we're using.
Right.
That's what's key.
So you can say people's names, names of bands is what we were talking about last time and stay to the end.
We'll share that episode if you missed it when we talked about this a little bit.
But you do want to make sure that.
So if you're saying, for example, the name of a K-pop band or a band in Japanese and the examiner might not be familiar, you could just then say that's a K-pop band or a popular Japanese artist, something like that, so that they know that you just named a musician.
Yes.
Love that.
Supplement the information a little bit.
Make sure it's really clear.
So we have some examples today of words that come from other languages, but we obviously use them in English and what they are.
We'll go into how this might come into play on the test.
Exactly.
So first one, Aubrey, is where kids go when they're, what, five, six for school.
Exactly.
When they first start school, they go to kindergarten.
This word comes from German.
And so however you pronounce it, as long as the examiner understands what you're saying.
So your goal might be to say it the way English speakers say it, kindergarten.
But if you speak German and you say that word with more of a German accent, that's okay too, because the origin of that word was German.
Yes, love that.
So on speaking part one, you might get a question about childhood.
You might say I went to kindergarten when I was four years old, and that's where I made my first friends.
Or on part three, you may get a question about education.
You could say something like.
I believe kindergarten plays a crucial role in developing social skills at an early age.
Yes.
So that's the first word.
Cliché is another word that, of course, comes from French.
It sounds French to me.
Right.
And where might that come into play?
Yeah, maybe on IELTS part three, if you're asked about media, you could say something like some romantic movies rely on cliché storylines, which makes them predictable.
Or in part two, a movie you didn't like.
This may sound a bit cliche, but I really love a sunset walk along the beach with my partner.
Yeah, right.
This might sound cheesy or cliche, like this is what you assume everyone likes.
So this is actually pretty flexible the way we use cliche.
It's not always like an idiom that's overheard.
It's often like something that's a little more overused or the sort of that you assume that everybody would like.
Yeah.
And what about a coffee drink cliche?
Yeah, latte.
This comes from Italian.
So, for example, in part one, if you're asked about your daily routine, you could say I usually grab a latte on my way back to work.
I'm always bummed if I'm running late and don't have time.
Yeah.
Or on part two, you might say the cafe near my office makes the best vanilla latte.
Right.
Answering a question like a cafe you like.
Yeah.
And this word, it's a good example of you cannot just pronounce that word late.
It's spelled L-A-T-T-E because the examiner will not understand what you're saying.
And that is a word that exists in English.
So that's a pronunciation error.
In English, we pronounce this latte.
That's also how it's pronounced in Italian.
And so that's how you need to pronounce this word in order to make sure the examiner understands you.
Yeah, really important.
And then there's the word feng shui, which comes from Chinese.
Right.
So part one, you might be asked about home decoration.
You could say my aunt recently feng shuied her house, rearranging the furniture.
It looks amazing.
Or in part three, answering whether you think people, the way people decorate their homes, affects their mood or behavior.
You might say there's no doubt that the decor of a place can influence our mood.
Even our behavior.
For instance, many people follow Feng Shui, the traditional Chinese practice of arranging furniture and objects To create harmony and positive energy in a space Interesting.
Yes.
Right.
So that's something you would want to pronounce it that way, because if you and it is from how it's written, you might not know how to pronounce it.
Right.
But if you pronounce it differently because we pronounce it as closely to the original Chinese and English as we can with our American mouths the examiner might not understand what you mean.
Right.
Okay, number five would be macho.
Comes from Spanish.
You might get a question about gender roles on part three of speaking, right?
In some cultures, there's still pressure on men to appear macho.
Yeah, so you could use this word to describe this tendency that people sometimes have to seem manly or confident, right?
We use this word in English too, macho.
There's so many Spanish and French words in English.
I limited myself to just one for each, but there's so many words.
And as long as the examiner knows what you mean, you could pronounce it in Spanish or more with an English, American accent.
Okay, good to know.
Is there another place that might show up on the test?
Yeah, maybe on part two, if you're asked to describe a person, say he tries to act macho, but he's actually quite sensitive.
And then, of course, most people know that the word sushi comes from Japanese, right?
On part one, talking about food.
I didn't like sushi at first, but now I can't get enough of it.
And that's what most people feel about sushi.
I think so too, right?
Some people might have an aversion at first, and then they try it and they're like this is delicious.
Yeah.
Or part three, if you're asked about global trends.
Right, you could say sushi has become extremely popular worldwide over the past decade.
Yes.
Decades.
Mm hmm.
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All right.
So, Aubrey, do we have some examples here, some more examples?
Yes.
We're going to do a couple of sample answers here. a part one question and a part three question.
These words that have been adopted from other languages come up all over the IELTS speaking exam.
So you're going to hear a few of them here.
Lindsay, would you like to answer the part one question and then I'll do a part three?
All right, here we go.
You want to read the question for me?
Absolutely.
What do you do in your free time?
This may sound cliche, but there's nothing better than stopping by a little cafe or bakery to grab a fresh chocolate croissant and a latte.
If the barista can swirl the milk foam into a cool design, that's the cherry on top.
I love that so much.
Yeah.
Is that true for you, Lindsay?
I actually planned that answer for her.
It's very true for me.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I do.
I love the foam top.
Oh yeah.
The foam top.
I love going to cafes.
Um, and I know I've seen like in Ireland they'll do like the um the clover, the four-leaf clover, like all sorts of fun things.
Oh, that's impressive.
It's often just like a beautiful leaf, but sometimes it'll be something else that's so intricate.
It's like so artistic.
I'm always really impressed.
I don't know how they do it.
I'm very impressed too.
It's impressive.
It's I need to figure it out.
I want to do it on my own lattes at home.
All right.
Here's a part three question for you, Aubrey.
What is a trend you feel is becoming more popular worldwide?
The first thing that comes to mind is Japanese cuisine.
Sushi spots are ubiquitous in cities all over the world, which is a clear testament to how widespread the demand for it is.
I think people are drawn to it not only because it's super tasty, but for the most part it's healthy as well.
Not to mention how aesthetically pleasing it is.
That moment when a beautiful roll is placed in front of you, perfectly crafted with salmon cucumber, avocado and then plated beautifully with yummy sauce.
You can't beat that.
Yeah, it is interesting how popular sushi has become, probably in the last 20 years or so, something like that, right.
Yeah, it's everywhere now.
There's sushi spots on every corner here in the Phoenix area, probably Denver, too.
Yeah, there's there's a fair amount of them for sure.
You use some great vocabulary here, by the way.
Ubiquitous super sushi spots are ubiquitous all over the world.
Super tasty, you said, and aesthetically pleasing.
The pleating is aesthetically pleasing.
Yeah.
Yes.
If you find yourself about to say beautiful, especially for something like this, that is intentionally.
Almost there's like flourishes to make it more beautiful.
This is a band nine adjective to say it's aesthetically pleasing or just it's aesthetic.
And then, yeah, some of that other vocab, super tasty.
You can use slang even on speaking part three.
If you start talking about food you like and you want to describe it, that's still a great place for slang like this.
Love that.
Love that.
Really good stuff today.
So pronunciation, you have a little leeway, guys, in terms of choosing how to pronounce it.
But I think it's a key point what you said, Aubrey.
Let's make sure that if we pronounce it in a certain way, it can't be mistaken for another word like the latte late case right.
Exactly right.
That's where it's vital.
You want to make sure the examiner understands you.
Yes, that is huge.
That is how you get a high score on IELTS.
Yeah.
And then our recent episode where we talked about this just to share you could scroll up.
If you missed it was 1581.
Gravitate toward this band nine music vocabulary where we shared that musicians and band names you can definitely say in the language or accent the band would use, right.
The examples we gave were like Rammstein, a German band, or Edith Piaf.
You could definitely still say that with more of an American accent and say Edith Piaf.
Both are going to be counted as correct pronunciation.
Nice.
So most importantly, be understood by the examiner.
If you don't get past that step, you cannot get the score you want, right?
I think that's the key takeaway for today.
All right.
Very good stuff today, Aubrey.
You have a good rest of your day.
I'll see you soon.
You too.
See you next time.
Bye.
Thanks for listening to IELTS Energy.
Hit subscribe now, and don't forget to find your estimated band score at allearsenglishcom.
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