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Hello, lovely.
I'm Maria.
And my name is Rory.
We are the hosts of the IELTS Speaking for Success podcast.
The podcast 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 gorgeous grammar and fabulous vocabulary for a high score, benign score.
Well, here we are again, sitting here, waiting for things to happen.
Ah, sitting.
Shall we talk about sitting?
It's going to be another one of these topics.
Yes, in IELTS Speaking Part 1, they can ask you questions about sitting.
Rory, are you... Hello, Rory.
I'm sitting comfortably.
Are you?
It's about to get very uncomfortable because I don't know what I'm going to say about sitting.
People write to me like, Maria, is it a real IELTS speaking topic?
Yes, yeah.
Yes, it is.
In four months, they'll be asking you about, I don't know, breathing.
Lying down.
Lying down, yes.
Breathing.
Where do you prefer to lie down?
How deeply do you breathe?
If your breathing had a shape, what would that shape be?
Oh, man.
So we're going to be talking about sitting.
Where's your favorite place to sit?
I think that depends a lot on the weather.
If it's a good day, then outside on the decking and the sunshine is quite relaxing.
Otherwise, probably on the couch in the living room.
I can put my feet up there and read or work quite comfortably.
Do you like to sit on the sofa or on a chair?
Well, that really is dependent on the chair.
If it's one of those cheap sort of flimsy plastic ones, then it's probably not going to do my back any favors.
But if it's like a padded or a form-fitting chair or even a recliner, then I could probably spend hours on them.
The same goes for couches.
Do you always sit down for a long time?
Never really thought about it, to be honest.
I suppose I do, or at least I suppose I must do, since I either work from home or sit and observe at school, and my posture is terrible.
So that's a sign you've been sitting for far too long, isn't it?
Do you feel sleepy when you are sitting down?
Not usually, actually.
That's more of I'm lying down.
The only exception is on planes.
I just can't stay awake for more than a couple of hours when I'm on one, which is really uncomfortable, since you're usually sitting up as well.
Can you fall asleep while sitting on a chair?
Well, when I'm in a plane, I'm usually out for the count after the first few hours, otherwise not really.
If I'm lying down on a couch, then it's certainly possible, especially after a long day.
When you were a kid, did you usually sit on the floor?
It wasn't really a salient feature of my childhood, so I couldn't say for certain, to be honest.
I think we had enough chairs for everyone most of the time, but if the occasion called for it, then it would usually be the young people sitting on the floor.
If need be, yes.
Thank you.
In our super duper premium episodes.
This week we're going to be discussing fresh IELTS speaking, part two and three topics.
In part two, we're talking about a traditional product in your country.
And in part three we are talking about traditional products in general.
The link is in the description.
Do check it out.
Are you sitting on the floor now, Rory?
No, I'm sitting in a chair being asked ridiculous questions for a living.
Oh boy.
Yeah, I know, I know, Delysna.
It's quite like, come on, really?
Oh, man.
Okay.
Anyway, sitting.
So, we are going to be talking about where to sit, how to sit and use specific words.
Any other collocations that we usually use about, you know, sit, sit down.
Reclining, slouching, although you can stand up and slouch, can't you?
Okay, what does it mean, recline?
That's like to sit back.
Oh, actually, I suppose sit back is another one, isn't it?
It's like when you sit back comfortably.
So sit back when I crouch, you said, right?
Slouch.
Slouch.
Slouching is... It's nice to do with sitting.
It's more like a body posture, to be honest.
It's like when you have your shoulders forward like this and you.
It's not a good position to have.
You should always sit up straight, shoulders back. which is what I'm never doing.
I appreciate people are looking at this video, thinking why is he talking about having a good posture when he clearly doesn't have one?
But there we go.
Maria is showing us how to do it by putting a book on her head.
I would do that, but I'm currently using my books as a stand for my microphone.
So that is why I'm not doing this.
So, ideally, you should sit like this, right?
Because this is good for your posture.
Posture.
Posture.
Posture, yeah.
For the posture, because if you kind of slouch or if...
Like this.
Yeah, this is not good for your spine.
Yeah, for your back.
It's not good for anything.
It's like bad for your breathing and probably your body doesn't look very good after your spine's been crunched forward all the time.
Oh, Rory, do you know some people enjoy putting their legs like this?
Put your legs on the chair.
I guess so, or put your feet on the chair.
But really, you shouldn't do that.
It's probably not very good for you.
In the same way, some people sit with their foot tucked underneath them.
I do that sometimes.
But that's just called sitting with your foot tucked underneath you.
I don't think there's a very technical term for that.
So I usually sit with my foot tucked, you said, right?
Tucked under me or... Tucked under.
So you put your foot and then you tuck your foot under the other.
Well, no, you just tuck your foot under your behind.
Right, there we go.
And then where's your favorite place to sit?
I was going to say like I would like to sit in a bank surrounded by money, so I could take it all.
Oh, yeah.
So you can say that I prefer sitting outside in the sunshine or inside on the couch.
So couch is like a sofa in the living room.
And you can say I can put my feet up, put my feet up while sitting on the sofa.
Yeah.
And then, do you prefer to sit on the sofa or on a chair?
So, for the sofa, you can say like sofa or a couch, right?
But which vocabulary did you use about a chair?
Rory used band 9 vocabulary.
Well, I just... I basically said it depends on what kinds of things they are.
So, for example, I used Well, cheap is not a bad name, but flimsy just means that it moves like it's very flexible, too flexible, it feels like it's not very solid and plastic again, not bantam, but flimsy is good.
And then there was this expression it's not going to do my back any favors.
So if something doesn't do something any favors, it just means it's not good for it.
Then we talked about padded chairs or form-fitting chairs.
So a padded chair has padding, so it's comfortable.
And form-fitting means it fits the chair shape of your body.
I think you need to have a lot of money to afford one of those.
Um, and then i talked.
We talked about a recliner, but we've talked about reclining already and a recliner is just a chair that the back goes uh back, and the leg supports come up so you can lie back in them more comfortably.
Yeah, dear listener, so you see, here we do need to use specific vocabulary about a type of chair you prefer, right?
That's why, for example, you can go to a furniture store IKEA Find a chair you would like to have in the future, your ideal chair.
Read the description.
Write out maybe three or four words.
And Bob's your uncle.
You'll have specific vocabulary about a chair or a sofa that you prefer.
But now, Robbie, where are you sitting now?
Could you describe a chair?
I'm sitting in a very, very old leather chair, I guess.
Or at least it looks... Maybe it's faux leather, so that means it's not really real leather.
But it's very old because it's falling to pieces.
And the only reason I have it is because it's comfortable.
How would you describe my chair?
Let me show it to you.
Oh, it's an office chair.
Yeah.
Or a swivel chair.
It's like a...
You can spin around on it.
What does swivel?
Yes, you can.
So swivel.
You can call it a swivel.
Swivel chair.
You see?
Yeah.
This is what we want.
Tell the examiner about a specific chair or an armchair.
I should say I never actually really did answer that question though, because it was just like it depends.
What a silly question to ask.
Like, what if your choices are like a nice padded couch or a chair that's made of nails?
Like...
The choice is fairly obvious, but there's so many different kinds of chairs and couches.
Well, then you should speak about them.
Your favorite couch.
My favorite type of couch.
A topic that I have definitely given a great deal of consideration to.
Ah.
Then we can enjoy sitting down for a long time.
Some people prefer standing up for a long time, but maybe you are a person who enjoys sitting down for a long time.
You can be sitting down on the floor or on a table, on a desk.
More people should stand up.
I think actually, to be honest with you, I'm getting a standing desk.
I'm sick of sitting down.
But then, for example, you can say that it's really difficult for me to sit down for a long time.
And Rory, you talked about planes.
I think this is like a good strategy to talk about planes because yeah, like we have to sit on planes, on planes for a very long time.
And I can't stay awake.
I usually fall asleep very soon on planes.
It's a very uncomfortable experience.
I don't like it.
What's flying um the like sitting on a, on a in a plane for a really long time?
The train is much more relaxing.
There's less um well, there are fewer searches involved, i should say.
So sit on a train.
Sit on a plane.
But what about a chair?
Do I sit on a chair or I sit in a chair?
Both.
But sit on a sofa.
I don't really think it makes a huge difference, to be honest.
You definitely sit on a sofa, but you can sit on a chair or sit in a chair.
You sit on a chair when there's nothing around you, but some chairs have these armrests on them, so you're sitting in an enclosed space.
So that's probably the big difference.
But really, who has the time to think about that?
And how many possible things could be miscommunicated that way?
So don't worry too much about your prepositions there.
And then you can say if I'm lying down, so you don't like always sit, you can lie down.
So if I'm lying down, then it's much more comfortable, for example.
And then when you were a kid, you can say, I used to sit on the floor quite often.
And Rory said that it wasn't really a salient feature of my childhood.
Yeah.
What did you mean by salient?
I'm just being quite sarcastic.
It just means that it didn't stick out, to be honest with you.
Who remembers?
I would like someone to say in the comments if they do.
Who remembers sitting on the floor as a child compared to everything else that you did?
People remember climbing trees or falling over and breaking something.
You don't remember where you were sitting.
Yeah, so do you listen?
You can say, like, okay, or I just don't remember.
Shall we talk about grammar?
Yes, tell us.
The only thing I really wanted to draw attention to was when we were talking about do you always sit down for a long time?
And I said, I suppose I must do.
So again, just drawing like must for something that is definitely the case and do to emphasize the action instead of just saying or repeating the action again in the sentence.
Oh, the other thing for talking about, this isn't grammar, it's grammar and vocabulary.
Then we also had to put your feet up.
If you're asked about sitting, you can also say I like to sit down and put my feet up, which is like when you rest your feet by elevating them.
But you don't put your feet on the chair, you just put them on the table, right?
Yeah.
You can.
You can put them on the table.
Some people have footstools, which is very posh.
That's a place, that's a special stool for feet only.
Oh, yeah.
So you sit in a comfy armchair and then you have a footstool.
Nice.
It's very old fashioned, though.
So, dear listener, where's your favorite place to sit?
Maybe in front of the TV or in front of your laptop, listening and watching to our podcast?
And please feel free to share your sitting stories as a child.
I don't think there will be many, but I would be very interested to see that.
I think we've sat on this topic for long enough, don't you?
Yes.
The transcript you can find in the description, so do check it out.
And we'll see you next time.
Bye.
Bye.
Where's your favorite place to sit?
I think that depends a lot on the weather.
If it's a good day, then outside on the decking and the sunshine is quite relaxing.
Otherwise, probably on the couch in the living room.
I can put my feet up there and read or work quite comfortably.
Do you like to sit on the sofa or on a chair?
Well, that really is dependent on the chair.
If it's one of those cheap sort of flimsy plastic ones, then it's probably not going to do my back any favors.
But if it's like a padded or a form-fitting chair or even a recliner, then I could probably spend hours on them.
The same goes for couches.
Do you always sit down for a long time?
Never really thought about it, to be honest.
I suppose I do, or at least I suppose I must do, since I either work from home or sit and observe at school, and my posture is terrible.
So that's a sign you've been sitting for far too long, isn't it?
Do you feel sleepy when you are sitting down?
Not usually, actually.
That's more of I'm lying down.
The only exception is on planes.
I just can't stay awake for more than a couple of hours when I'm on one, which is really uncomfortable, since you're usually sitting up as well.
Can you fall asleep while sitting on a chair?
Well, when I'm in a plane, I'm usually out for the count after the first few hours, otherwise not really.
If I'm lying down on a couch, then it's certainly possible, especially after a long day.
When you were a kid, did you usually sit on the floor?
It wasn't really a salient feature of my childhood, so I couldn't say for certain, to be honest.
I think we had enough chairs for everyone most of the time, but if the occasion called for it, then it would usually be the young people sitting on the floor.
If need be, yes.
