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 happiness joy, gorgeous grammar and super vocabulary for your high IELTS score.
Your bad night's gone.
Rory, are you paying attention?
Rory!
Rory!
Oh, sorry, Maria.
I was just staring off into space there, wasn't I?
Mmm, space, you said.
Let's talk about space.
Hey, yes, dear listener, in IELTS Speaking Part 1, they can ask you questions about space and stars.
And it's a comeback.
We used to have this topic, I think, about two years ago.
And we recorded an episode about that.
So this is like version two of this topic.
Make sure you listen to both of them.
And you are a star.
Are we talking to the people watching?
Are you talking to me?
I can't see because I've only got this one camera.
Rory, you are also a star.
Oh, thank you.
And I'm a star.
A modest one.
Let's talk about stars and outer space.
Do you enjoy looking at the stars?
When I get the chance, I do.
And it's not just the stars either.
It's the planets and the nebulae.
I used to love and I still do sitting on the decking at three o'clock in the morning on a Saturday just watching them for ages.
Have you ever learned about outer space and stars?
Well, we had a few inputs in school, but most of what I know about celestial events and heavenly bodies I've read or watched for myself.
I don't think primary or even secondary school children probably need to learn that much about coronal mass ejection or star formation.
So it's really something that you have to pursue for yourself outside of the basics, like what the order of the planets is in the solar system, for example.
Are you interested in films about outer space and stars?
Oh, absolutely.
I love hard and soft science fiction.
So anything about extraterrestrials and space travel is right up my avenue.
I really like the plots of films like Arrival and Contact, but I also like the mindless fun of Starship Troopers as well.
Can you see many stars at night where you live?
Well, the light pollution here is quite low.
So you don't just see stars and constellations.
You can see planets like Mars.
And if you move further out of the village where there's almost no people, then you can even see things like the Orion Nebula, for example.
I can't think of anything else that you could see, but they're all up there twinkling away.
So that's great.
Would you ever like to go into space?
But with the current level of technology, probably not.
I mean, if we had a space elevator or a skyhook, for example, to make it safer, then I would absolutely be down for that.
But I'm not strapping myself to the top of a rocket filled with fuel and setting it on fire to get there.
It just seems really dangerous.
What would you do if you had a chance to go into space?
Well, it would be cool to see the Earth from orbit and just see what everything looks like.
I'd also really like to do the space, not the.
I doubt I'd make the astronaut fitness requirements, though.
We have our super premium episodes for you with speaking part 2 and 3, with new, super new IELTS speaking topics.
This week, Rory is describing a historical period he'd like to know more about.
And speaking of part three, we're gonna discuss history in general.
The links are in the description.
Do check them out, okay?
Houston, Houston, did he use all gorgeous vocabulary?
Uh-huh.
What about grammar?
Uh-huh, the second conditional?
Okay, okay.
So, look at the stars.
Rory used...
To gaze at the stars or stargazing?
I enjoy stargazing.
Like I enjoy looking at the star.
Rory, are you a stargazer?
I'm an opportunistic stargazer, so whenever the opportunity presents itself, then I will do that.
But I'm not an amateur or a professional astronomer with a telescope.
So if you enjoy looking at the stars, you can say, oh, I enjoy going out to stargaze.
So to stargaze.
I enjoy stargazing.
I'm not a stargazer.
Gazer, like, I don't like looking at the stars.
Roy did use a very specific word about this, you know, a cloud of gas and dust in space.
What was it?
Nebula.
Nebula.
Nebula.
Oh, the nebula, yeah.
Well, nebulae, nebula.
They're, oh, everybody thinks they're giant clouds of gas.
But it's not just that.
There are collections of material that are spread out across a really large area of space.
It's easy to say that they're just gas, but it's not that simple.
There are things inside Nebula, for example.
But people think, oh, it's like a cloud.
There shouldn't be anything solid inside of it.
But there are.
You can also say, I enjoy looking at myriads of stars.
Myriads, like lots of stars, like countless.
You count stars, you can't count them.
Countless stars and nebula nebula like, is one in this plural right.
So if we talk about many lots, you say nebula.
You said that you had some inputs at school about space and stars.
So inputs, obviously lessons.
Yeah.
But a good one, yeah, like input sessions, like they put stuff in you, right?
Or maybe just they want to put stuff in you, but it doesn't stay in or it doesn't go in.
It's just, you know, yeah.
So inputs at school about stars and space.
And also, which events celestial?
Yes, so like, well, celestial events or celestial bodies, it really doesn't matter.
But they're things that happen in space.
So we talk about celestial, then it's something happening in outer space, beyond the Earth.
The moon is a celestial body.
Yes.
A heavenly body.
And then you can say that, oh yes, I did study astronomy at school, or I had some inputs on stars and space.
And also I remember something about coronal mass ejections and star formations.
That's not from school.
That's just something I read about or watched videos about.
So a coronal mass ejection is just... It's like, oh God.
If you're an astronomer, please don't get angry with me, but it's when a lot of hot stuff comes out of the sun and is fired into space.
That's what it is.
A lot of hot stuff.
Hot stuff.
Oh, it's hot.
Plasma.
Plasma.
Okay.
I would call it plasma.
I mean, probably there are astronomers right now that are like, oh my God, this person's an idiot.
But that's basically what it is.
It's when stuff is fired out of the sun into space.
Sometimes it hits the earth and you can see it in things that look like the Northern Lights, for example, or it can cause power outages, if it's really really strong.
Ready, listen.
So, this answer is your chance to show off your space vocabulary.
Oh, yeah, I remember learning.
So, I remember learning, right, about meteors and comets at school.
Also, you can say about...
I remember learning about the solar system.
Rory loves hard and soft science fiction.
Hard and soft.
Yes, but hard science fiction is just a way of saying it's more realistic compared to soft science fiction, which is when you can just make up the rules for how things work.
Really the way that we understand physics now.
You shouldn't be able to travel faster than the speed of light.
So if you have spaceships in your movie that are traveling faster than light, then that's soft science fiction.
If the spaceships in your movie are not doing that, then that's harder science fiction, for example.
So arrival and contact focus on things like radio waves and the difficulties of communicating with aliens.
So that's quite realistic because they wouldn't just show up starting to speak English.
Whereas if you watch Star Trek and all the aliens are speaking English because of the universal translator, that is soft science fiction.
And in Starship Troopers, just the idea that alien insects construct their own spaceships.
Yeah, it's very soft science fiction. extraterrestrial life extraterrestrial so life from outer space so be careful with pronunciations extraterrestrial right how do you say it robbie extraterrestrial I'll just say aliens it's hard enough to say that and also like the I was just thinking about when I learned the Russian word for aliens as well it's also difficult to say so just say aliens So if you enjoy space, you can say, oh, this is right up my street.
This is right up my street.
Rory changed street into avenue.
But it's the same thing.
Yeah.
So this is right up my avenue.
Is this an idiom, Rory?
Yes.
Yes, it is.
Idiomatic language.
For a high score.
If I don't like space, if I don't like this topic, what do I say?
It's not up my street.
It's not my thing.
Yeah, just it's not my thing.
It's not really up my street at all.
But I suppose you wouldn't really say that.
You'd be more likely to say it's not my thing, the light pollution.
So if there is a lot of light in your city, you can say whoa, so i've got a lot of light pollution, so i can't see any stars.
Rory told us that the light pollution is low, so He actually can see the stars and constellations.
Mm-hmm.
Constellations are just the imaginary shapes that people make by drawing imaginary lines in the sky.
The way that stars are placed is not organized that way.
It's just how they happen to look for human beings who are trying to find patterns and things that don't necessarily have one.
Or if you believe in astrology, then they control your destiny and what kind of food you like.
Yeah, and there are different kinds of constellations.
And you can say, oh, I can spot different constellations from where I live.
And I know the names of constellations.
Also, I can see planets like Mars.
Planets are without stars.
Article right, no articles mars.
I suppose it will depend on what you're talking about.
The names of the um, the names of the planets do not have articles yes, but if we are talking about the word planet, then you can say the planet mars, and also you can spot, you can spot Mars, spot like notice.
Or you said like nebula again, but Orion.
You said the Orion nebula, the Milky Way, But that's because well, if we talk about the Orion Nebula, it's being used as an adjective there.
It's a specific nebula with a specific name to describe it.
And you usually see stars on a clear sky, so a clear sky.
But if you don't have any clear skies, then you can say the sky is usually hazy or the sky is overcast like cloudy.
So I don't see many stars.
What is twinkling away?
Twinkle, twinkle little star.
It's actually, the reason that stars twinkle is quite complicated.
But the first thing to talk about is twinkling.
So twinkling is when you see it's not like constantly on, it's kind of going.
It's intense and it's not so intense and it's back to intense again.
But the reason that stars twinkle, oh, strap yourselves in folks.
So the reason that stars twinkle is because of, first of all, Stars are not solid things.
They move around and change and they have hot spots and cool spots and that will affect the intensity of the light.
But the other thing that affects the intensity of the light is you've got your star here and you're watching all the way over here.
And in the middle there's all kinds of stuff, including something called the Oort Cloud, which is a giant cloud of comets and debris from the beginning of the solar system that the light has to travel through.
And then there's all the nebulas and gases in between the stars that the light has to travel through as well on its way to your eye.
Houston, Houston, we have a problem.
We have a problem.
It's Rory.
He's...
We should shut him up.
No, this is cool.
This is why the stars twinkle.
Everybody thinks it's just one thing, but it's a whole process.
And when you think about the distance that light has to travel and what it has to go through in order for you to be able to see it and appreciate it thousands, maybe millions of years after you've seen it is or sorry, after it's been emitted is amazing.
How can people not find that fascinating?
You're rude.
How are you?
Are you okay?
Is it boring for you?
Is it boring or is it interesting?
It is interesting.
It's interesting.
This is how the mechanics of the universe work.
It's cool.
You don't look very convinced.
Oh, I'm very convinced.
I really enjoyed your explanation.
I took notes.
I wrote it down.
Fine, fine.
What's the next piece of grammar and vocabulary that we need to talk about?
I'm sure that will be much more interesting.
And you complained about the level of technology.
So you're saying that you wouldn't go into space now because the technology is, you know like It's.
Just I'm not strapping myself to a fuel tank.
That is basically what we do.
We blow up fuel in order to get into orbit.
There are much more efficient ways of getting people into space than doing that.
Yeah, like a space elevator.
Roy is going to wait till they invent a space elevator.
Elevator like lift.
Well, they don't need to invent it.
They just need to build it.
Ah, a building, just up to space.
Okay, so Rory is going to open the door, go inside the lift and it's like whoo, like a lift in a building.
And it goes right up there to Mars.
Well, not necessarily to Mars.
You'd probably only need it to get into space and then from there you could go to Mars and then hook up with another space elevator there.
And what did you mean by a skyhook?
So kind of like...
Okay, I'm just looking at a diagram for a skyhook now.
And this is really difficult to explain in like a minute.
But basically what a skyhook is, is it picks things up from the atmosphere and moves them around.
And as the earth is moving, then it travels that way and then pops you back down.
But it could still be used to get into orbit, I suppose.
You just like swing it up the way.
And then you'd have to make sure that you had something to stop you from floating away because of the momentum.
Anyway look, the point is that there are much safer ways to travel through space and to move things around that do not involve blowing up rocket fuel.
So use your imaginations, people.
The examiner asks you, what would you do?
So that's the second conditional.
So if I could go into space, I'd, I would do something.
And Rory told us that...
It would be cool, it would be cool to see the Earth from orbit.
Orbit, like, not like orbit, like chewing gum, orbit, shouldn't be the orbit, from the orbit.
Well, from the orbit of Earth.
But if you're already there in orbit above Earth, then you don't need it.
Like, it's clear that you're in orbit of Earth.
Where else would you be in orbit of?
And we say the Earth, right?
So it would be cool to see the Earth, not Earth.
The Earth.
Well, you can say both.
It would be cool to see the Earth or it would be cool to see Earth from orbit.
It doesn't make a difference.
There's only... Well, I suppose Earth without the article would be our planet.
The Earth would be what you're looking down at.
But they're both meaning the same thing.
The thing you can see from space.
I'd love to do a spacewalk.
A spacewalk, like when you go out there from the spacecraft and you just like walk on the moon or you just like walk out in the space.
Well, a spacewalk is when you like, let's say, the hatch opens and you float out through and you're walking in space.
Floating Rory.
Can you imagine this, like, floating Rory?
Scotland, freedom in a spacewalk, everybody!
That would be nice.
I'd love to be an astronaut.
So we say astronaut, right?
So people who go into space in a shuttle or in a spacecraft, in a space vehicle.
But Rory doubts that he'll meet the astronaut fitness requirements.
You should be fit to go into space.
Maybe not for Rory.
If you were a planet, Rory, which planet would you be?
I don't know, what planet would you be?
Oh, I'd be Saturn, because I love the rings and I actually saw Saturn at the observatory.
Near Baikal Lake was this huge telescope and I looked and I saw this planet, like with these eyes.
It was amazing.
It was, I think, one of the most breathtaking experiences in my life when I saw this little like a jewel, like amazing planet.
It was unbelievable and I was deeply touched by Saturn's rings.
Jupiter also has rings, and so does Uranus and Neptune, I think.
They're very small, but they're there.
I know lots about space.
I'm not apologizing for it.
Thank you very much, dear listener, dear viewer, our favorite fan for listening, for watching.
Please write in the comments.
What do you reckon?
Like, what do you think about this space stars?
Are you a star person?
Well, of course you are a star.
Are you into this or not really?
Which planet would you like to be?
Would you like to go out there and be floating in the outer space like Rory or not?
Please let us know.
Love, kisses and take care.
And watch the stars.
Bye.
Houston.
Houston.
We're done.
We're done.
Okay.
Everything's fine.
Yeah.
Bye.
Do you enjoy looking at the stars?
When I get the chance, I do.
And it's not just the stars either.
It's the planets and the nebulae.
I used to love and I still do sitting on the decking at three o'clock in the morning on a Saturday just watching them for ages.
Have you ever learned about outer space and stars?
Well, we had a few inputs in school, but most of what I know about well celestial events and heavenly bodies, I've read or watched for myself.
So I think primary or even secondary school children probably need to learn that much about coronal mass ejection or star formation.
So it's really something that you have to pursue for yourself outside of the basics, like you know what the order of the planets is in the solar system, for example.
Are you interested in films about outer space and stars?
Oh, absolutely.
I love hard and soft science fiction.
So anything about extraterrestrials and space travel is right up my avenue.
I really like the plots of films like Arrival and Contact, but I also like the mindless fun of Starship Troopers as well.
Can you see many stars at night where you live?
Well, the light pollution here is quite low.
So you don't just see stars and constellations.
You can see planets like Mars.
And if you move further out of the village where there's almost no people, then you can even see things like the Orion Nebula, for example.
I can't think of anything else that you could see, but they're all up there twinkling away.
So that's great.
Would you ever like to go into space?
But with the current level of technology, probably not.
I mean, if we had a space elevator or a skyhook, for example, to make it safer, then I would absolutely be down for that.
But I'm not strapping myself to the top of a rocket filled with fuel and setting it on fire to get there.
It just seems really dangerous.
What would you do if you had a chance to go into space?
Well, it would be cool to see the Earth from orbit and just see what everything looks like.
I'd also really like to do the space, not the.
I doubt I'd make the astronaut fitness requirements, though.
