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 develop your speaking skills, as well as your listening skills along the way.
We started this podcast to give you a look at how a super native speaker would answer some of the most common IELTS speaking questions using gorgeous grammar and juicy vocabulary for a super high score.
Bad 9 score.
Ruri, I've been following you on social media pretty much every day now.
And I see that you're having an event on Instagram about your book.
Yeah, it's on Sunday from 5 to 6 in the evening, Moscow time.
But Maria, the fact that you're following me so much on social media, all of the stalking, is actually making my skin crawl.
Oh, that's exciting because we're going to be talking about insects today.
It's interesting, not exciting.
For me, it's exciting.
It's exciting for me.
Oh, speaking about social media, you can creep on us on social media.
Check out our Instagram and Telegram, Success with IELTS.
You can help us decide on different topics, which we can include in our next episodes.
Right, Rory?
Yeah.
Do you like insects?
Not as much as when I was younger, but I'm still quite into looking at bugs whenever I come across them.
I always think they're really interesting to see.
What's your favorite insect?
I don't know if I have a favorite insect.
I have a favorite kind of insect.
It's mostly the eusocial ones like ants and bees.
I really like the idea that they can all work together in one big super organism.
It's like a real contrast to individual human beings working together.
Of course, they're not really intelligent.
It's just emergent behavior, but it's still fascinating.
It's so cool what you can observe them doing.
What insects do you dislike?
Um, oh, things like mosquitoes and horse flies.
Any biting insect, really.
I also used to have arachnophobia, but I got over it after living in a house that was infested with spiders.
Oh, but I suppose arachnids don't count, since they have eight legs and aren't six-legged like insects are.
What kinds of insects make some people scared?
I think anything so large you can see their legs moving.
For some reason it triggers this primal fear in a lot of people.
My cousin used to say it looked really unnatural when she saw spiders moving with all their legs.
And I think that's what a lot of other people think about insects, especially the big ones.
Yeah, some people think that insects are disgusting.
And what kind of sound do you make when you see something disgusting?
Like, eee, yuck.
Do you say yuck?
I don't say yuck.
I just usually scream really loudly.
I'm not very manly at all.
How do you scream yuck?
Yeah, I'm not very manly when it comes to dealing with insects.
But I'm usually quite calm.
It's usually just the ones that I dislike that bother me.
Every other one is fine.
Do you think insects are useful?
Well, I think most people see them as pests, but I'm pretty sure they can be used as a food source, and some people farm insects and harvest what they produce, like bees, for example.
One of the weirdest things I've seen people doing with insects is some people used ant heads as sutures.
So I think they can definitely be useful.
Maybe not all the time, but they can be.
Have you ever eaten insects?
Yes.
Which ones?
Cockroaches?
I ate a scorpion.
Oh, a scorpion, the whole thing?
Yeah.
How was it?
It was crunchy.
Crispy, crunchy, crunchy.
Yeah, it's not something that I would encourage a lot of people to do.
Not because it's...
I don't know.
Not because it's dangerous, but just because it's a bit boring, to be honest with you.
Certainly, it's not what I expected it to be.
And if you're thinking about doing it, thinking it's going to be a thrill ride, then I have some disappointing news.
Are there many different insects in the place where you live?
I hope not because I live in an apartment in a pretty well-developed city.
I think there's not so much biodiversity in Moscow or any city in Scotland, to be honest.
Maybe outside in the countryside, but I've not been out recently enough to say for sure.
What was the last insect you saw?
Oh, it was a fly.
It was buzzing around my kitchen.
I have to leave the windows open sometimes to let the air in because it's really hot right now.
So sometimes flies or wasps wander in and I have to chase them out.
Rory, thank you very much for your answers.
Right, shall we go over the vocabulary you've just used?
Why not?
When we talk about insects, you should know the specific names, right?
For example, you've mentioned ants, bees, what else, Rory?
Mosquitoes.
I think we talked about wasps and flies and scorpions.
Yeah, so it's probably important to know not the name of the species, but at least the name of the group of animals that you're talking about.
Yeah, we also have horseflies, dragonflies, ladybirds or grasshoppers.
So could you just google it and find out the name of your favorite insect or the name of your least favorite insect?
I think for these things in particular, if these are part one questions, then it's just general topics.
So we're not expecting a great deal of... insect vocabulary for them.
But if you can at least look up the names of the common types of insects, then that'll be helpful.
Yeah, but yeah, these were speaking part one questions.
But anyway, you can say something.
Oh, I enjoy grasshoppers and ladybirds.
Why do you enjoy grasshoppers?
I like grasshoppers.
Why?
I enjoy watching them hopping, you know hop-hop, and they're kind of different colors and they're quite nice.
Maybe when I was a child I used to, you know, catch grasshoppers.
Okay, get back to the vocabulary.
Right, what's next?
So, instead of saying I'm into bugs, you can mention specific names of bugs.
You've mentioned spiders, Rory, and you've used pretty much very specific words for spiders.
Yes.
What were they?
I said spiders are arachnids.
It's really important to point out, though, that arachnids are not insects.
Insects have six legs, but arachnids have eight, I'm pretty sure.
Yeah, you can go all biology here.
Yeah, arachnids.
And the fear of spiders... Is arachnophobia.
I don't know what the fear of insects is, though.
Insectophobia?
Bugophobia.
When you talked about ants and bees, you said that they are eurosocial?
Eusocial.
Eusocial.
Yes, so we can say, for example, eusocial systems of arms, right?
Yes.
What does it mean?
So eusocial is.
It describes insects or creatures in general that work together in things like hives and nests as part of one big superorganism.
So a superorganism has different parts but different functions are distributed amongst them.
So, for example, if we look at ants, there's the queen and she does all of the reproducing and all of the reproductive functions of well, the ant nest, I suppose.
And then there are the soldiers, which do all of the work with defence and defensive work.
And then you have the workers which do all of the building and construction work.
Yeah.
And talking about bees, bees have hives.
Yes.
Right?
And ants have like hills, ant hills.
Ah.
Right.
Pests, right?
Some of the insects are seen as pests.
Yes.
What are pests?
So, there's a couple of things for pests.
A pest in general can be something annoying.
So, a person can be a pest, for example.
You're not a pest, Maria.
You're not a pest.
I might be.
A little bit of a pest.
When we talk about insects.
Pests are animals or insects which annoy people or that are destructive to crops or livestock.
So, for example, you might have insects which eat plants that people need to eat also.
So these are pests as well.
When you talked about horrible spiders, you mentioned this fear.
Spiders could trigger this.
What?
What kind of fear?
Primal fear.
Primal.
Did I say primal?
Is that what I even said?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Primal fear.
It's basically our, what?
These fears that are deep inside us.
Yeah.
So it's like something that's not part of the modern world.
It's something that's been with people for millions of years, before we had technology and the ability to understand that spiders aren't evil.
We always feared them beforehand.
Yeah, and some insects could trigger this fear.
Trigger, so basically be a reason for this, right?
Yeah, activate the fear.
Activate the fear, right.
Insects could be a food source, right?
Or some people farm insects.
And you said insects could be used as a surgeon.
What sutures?
Stitches.
They can be used as sutures, which are kind of stitched. that holds a wound closed.
So I think it's in Kenya.
I need to check that.
I'm sure it's somewhere in Africa.
The ants' jaws are so big that they use them to close wounds that people have.
Yeah, so you can actually go and Google it.
Searchers.
Searchers.
So ants bite, right?
And, for example, a wasp can sting.
Yes.
Right?
Sting.
That's the verb.
And flies, they buzz around.
Buzz.
Mm-hmm.
What's that buzzing noise?
What else can buzz?
Can people buzz?
They can make a buzzing sound if they're strange.
What else can buzz?
Oh, well, I suppose your phone buzzes when it vibrates.
Strange thing or you said one of the weirdest things, right?
So, weird is basically strange.
Yeah.
Weird.
Are you weird?
Uh-huh.
Well, are we not all a bit weird?
We are all a bit weird.
When I asked you about eating insects, you said, oh, I've eaten a scorpio.
It was crunchy and crispy, right?
So something crunchy, like a biscuit could be crunchy, right?
Yeah, although don't eat a biscuit while you're listening to this podcast episode.
Yum, yum yum.
Actually, dear listeners, did you know that there are many restaurants all over the world which serve different kind of bugs insects, for example, in the states, there are so many restaurants where you can eat insects or, for example, in Brussels, you can get a mealworm burger.
Oh my god, really.
Yeah yeah, yeah.
There are plenty of restaurants and they say that well, there are some edible insects edible well, you can eat them.
And actually, edible insects contain high-quality protein and vitamins, as well as minerals.
So, Rory, shall we book a table in one of the restaurants?
Is there one in Moscow?
Yum, yum, yum.
Oh, I'm not sure.
I would do that.
Yeah, let's do that.
Let's check it out.
Dear listeners, what about you?
Would you like to go to some restaurants to have some bugs on your plate?
A mealworm burger.
Rory, at the beginning of the podcast, we mentioned crawl, this verb.
So, what does it mean if something crawls? on your arm?
It's... I don't even know how to describe it.
It's like the sensation that there's something on you that has multiple legs, basically.
So your skin can crawl.
If your skin crawls, then you feel a bit creeped out.
Or an ant can crawl up my arm.
Yeah.
And we have a verb creep.
So it's creepy, we can say as an adjective.
It's scary, right?
Or you can creep on us on social media, right?
What does it mean?
And when you creep on someone, it's like stalking someone.
It's so strange though because people, it's like a really serious thing.
It's a serious problem and people like come up with these really funny words to describe it.
Yeah, so stalk, creep.
So yeah, feel free to creep on us on our social media.
And also on our Patreon.
You can creep on us on our Patreon.
You can become our supporters.
And a big thank you to our supporters who are already supporting us.
Stories with Rory will be exclusively on our Patreon.
So check it out.
Rory, do you like insects?
Not as much as when I was younger, but I'm still quite into looking at bugs whenever I come across them.
I always think they're really interesting to see.
What's your favorite insect?
I don't know if I have a favorite insect.
I have a favorite kind of insect.
It's mostly the eusocial ones like ants and bees.
I really like the idea that they can all work together in one big super organism.
It's like a real contrast to individual human beings working together.
Of course, they're not really intelligent.
It's just emergent behavior, but it's still fascinating.
It's so cool what you can observe them doing.
What insects do you dislike?
Um, oh, things like mosquitoes and horseflies.
Any biting insect, really.
I also used to have arachnophobia, but I got over it after living in a house that was infested with spiders.
Oh, but I suppose arachnids don't count, since they have eight legs and aren't six-legged like insects are.
What kinds of insects make some people scared?
I think anything so large you can see their legs moving.
For some reason, it triggers this primal fear in a lot of people.
My cousin used to say it looked really unnatural when she saw spiders moving with all their legs.
And I think that's what a lot of other people think about insects, especially the big ones.
Yeah, some people think that insects are disgusting.
And what kind of sound do you make when you see something disgusting?
Like, eee, yuck.
Do you say yuck?
I don't say yuck.
I just usually scream really loudly.
I'm not very manly at all.
How do you scream yuck?
Yeah, I'm not very manly when it comes to dealing with insects.
But I'm usually quite calm.
It's usually just the ones that I dislike that bother me.
Every other one is fine.
Do you think insects are useful?
Well, I think most people see them as pests, but I'm pretty sure they can be used as a food source, and some people farm insects and harvest what they produce, like bees, for example.
One of the weirdest things I've seen people doing with insects is some people used ant heads as sutures.
So I think they can definitely be useful.
Maybe not all the time, but they can be.
Have you ever eaten insects?
Yes.
Which ones?
Cockroaches?
I ate a scorpion.
Oh, scorpion, the whole thing?
Yeah.
How was it? it was crunchy crunchy crunchy yeah it's not something that i would encourage a lot of people to do not because it's um i don't know not because it's dangerous but just because it's a bit um It's a bit boring, to be honest with you.
Certainly, it's not what I expected it to be.
And if you're thinking about doing it, thinking it's going to be a thrill ride, then I have some disappointing news.
Are there many different insects in the place where you live?
I hope not, because I live in an apartment in a pretty well-developed city.
I think there's not so much biodiversity in Moscow or any city in Scotland, to be honest.
Maybe outside in the countryside, but I've not been out recently enough to say for sure.
What was the last insect you saw?
Oh, it was a fly.
It was buzzing around my kitchen.
I have to leave the windows open sometimes to let the air in because it's really hot right now.
So sometimes flies or wasps wander in and I have to chase them out.
Thank you very much for listening.
Stay bugs and pests free.
Don't let the bed bugs bite.
Bye.
Bye.
