IELTS Speaking for Success - 🐒 Animals (S01E08) + Transcript

Episode Date: December 20, 2019

In the 8th episode of our podcast, Maria and Rory talk about animals - allergenic and hypoallergenic, wild and domesticated, dogs and cats, sharks and alligators. As a bonus, Rory shares a secret that will help you survive swimming with sharks in the wild without a cage.  Tune in to find out what it is and don’t forget to rate and subscribe to never miss an episode!  - IELTS Speaking for Success PREMIUM: https://linktr.ee/sfspremium Find an IELTS Speaking Partner: https://links.successwithielts.com/ieltspartner Transcript: https://successwithielts.com/s01e08 Our social media: https://linktr.ee/successwithielts © 2019 Success with IELTS Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello everyone, I'm Maria. And I'm Rory, and we are the hosts of the AILT 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 native English speaker would answer some of the most common AILD speaking questions. I ask Rory some of these questions, and Rory gives answers using vocabulary and grammar for a high score, Band 9 score. Today's topic is animals. Roy, are you ready to talk about animals? I've been hunting for answers to your questions. Ha ha, it's a joke again. Hunting for answers. Do you like animals? I love animals, particularly mammals. I really, because they're the closest to us,

relatively speaking, I think they're quite cool. Roy, what's your favorite animal? Oh, I'm definitely a dog person. I really love dogs. Just, in general and of course they're domesticated animals so you can always keep them quite close to you and that's really good as well. What wild animal do you like the most? I love big cats in particular tigers. They really stand out with this colour scheme on their fur and then of course they also portray the sense of majesty and power as well when they're moving. It's really interesting to watch. Have you ever seen any wild animals before? Yes actually. I'm I used to teach in a school in Africa, which was quite close to a riverbed, and so sometimes crocodiles would just wander into the school grounds, which was always very exciting.

Crocodiles at schools? Yes, absolutely. Have you ever pet a crocodile? No, I don't think you'd ever want to do anything like that. Would you like to do that? If it was a domesticated crocodile, then maybe. Could a crocodile be domesticated? I think you could maybe domesticate just about any animal.

Rory, do you like to go to the zoo? I used to like going to the zoo more as a child. I think we still have that sense of wonder when we're children, whereas now it's kind of a double-edged sword because you can see the animals, which is great, but you are also quite sad because they're in captivity and that's also quite sad. But what's the alternative?

If they're in the wild, then they don't have this protection. Are people in your country fond of animals? Oh yes, definitely. The United Kingdom has this reputation as being a nation of animal lovers. There's lots of different bodies which are dedicated to the protection of animals and helping them when they're sick, like the RSPCA and the RSPB. It's definitely accurate to say that people are fond of animals there. Have you ever kept a pet?

I haven't personally, by... myself, no, because I work a lot and I'm kind of allergic as well, so I'd need to find something that's almost hypoallergenic really. But when I was younger and I lived with my parents, then yes, we kept pets. Why do some people keep pets at home? Oh, lots of different reasons, really. I think one of the main reasons is because they're cute. Of course, all of these domesticated animals look lovely. But in addition to that, they have some utility as well. Like dogs, for example, are kept as guard dogs to protect your property.

But it's not always about defense. People also keep cats and even goldfish for therapeutic purposes, for example. So there's lots of different reasons, really. I think those are the main ones, though. Thank you very much, Rory, for your lovely answers. That's okay? Ontario, the wait is over.

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Conditions apply. Now, dear listeners, let's dive in precise words and grammar Rory has just used. Roy, you've used mammals to refer to animals. Mammals, what are they? Yeah, mammals are like a class of animal that feed milk to their babies when they are young. So... Are people mammals? Yes, people are mammals. Yeah, we spell this word M-A-D-M-A-L-S.

Right, mammals. You've mentioned that you are a dog person. I'm a dog person. Oh, good. All the good people are. Or you can be a cat person. I'm more like a cat person. You are? I thought you just said you were a dog person. No, no, no, no, no, you are a dog person. I'm a cat person. Oh, really? Oh, well, no one's perfect. You said that dogs can be domesticated. Yes. Domesticated. What does it mean?

Yeah, domesticated is, well, one way of understanding is this saying that they can be kept as pets, but cows and farm animals are also domesticated. So it means that they have this relationship with human beings, which is quite closer, sorry, quite a lot closer than with wild animals, for example. We have wild animals and we have domesticated animals. Yeah. We can also use it as a verb to domesticate an animal. For example, we were cracking jokes about, oh, can you domesticate a crocodile? Mm-hmm. Well, no, can you domesticate a tiger?

Well, maybe. There are some people who keep tigers as pets. Oh, yeah, okay. It is crazy, though, yes. And crocodiles in the bathtub. But we can domesticate cats, dogs. Yes. If their relationship is close, you could say.

It's domesticated. Your favourite wild animal is a tiger and you said tigers stand out with their colours. Stand out is a phrasal verb. What does it mean? Well, in this particular sense, stand out means it's easily noticed. So if you look at tigers they have this orange, black and white color scheme. It stands out. You can see it very easily. Can people stand out from a crowd? Yes, they can. And in fact that's a good expression in general, isn't it?

But to stand out from the crowd has less to do with how you look and more to do with how you behave, probably. Yeah, I can say that, oh, I don't want to stand out. I don't want to stand out from the crowd. Although, thinking about it, your dress sense can make you stand out too, actually, if we think about fashion. So, yeah, why not? Yeah. You've used a nice grammar structure. I used to teach in Africa.

Used to teach. So you were talking about the past. So you used to teach, so you taught in Africa, but now you're teaching in Moscow. Yes. Right? So something about the past. So I used to teach in Africa. Could you give me another example? I used to work on a marine research project in Fiji. We were swimming with sharks there, actually. Another wild animal. Wow. So without any protection, just you swam with sharks?

Well, I just had to swim faster than the people with me. So that would be seen. Were there any crocodiles there? No crocodiles there, no. Oh, domesticated crocodiles? They're just swimming around you. Oh. Rory, you've used some word like double age words? Yeah, a double-edged sword. That's something... Sword? Yeah. Sood like a what?

Like, well, the thing you kill people with. But it's an expression in English as well. So it can mean a situation which has equally positive and negative effects on a situation. Give us an example. Well, we talked about zoos being a double-edged sword because, of course, you can see the animals there, but it's sad because they're in captivity. They're being kept in the zoo. Maybe another double-edged sword.

Well, if we talk about winter, there's lots of snow, it's really nice, but at the same time, it's cold and a bit miserable. So it's a double-edged soul. Wow, this is so cold, dear listeners. Maybe even more specifically, you can talk about it in this situation, but you could also talk about it in the sense of maybe something that you use, which has positive and negative effects. When we talk about animals, we say that some animals,

are in captivity. In captivity, meaning in the zoo. Yes, right? Other animals are in the wild. Yes. Right. You've mentioned that the UK has a lot of bodies dedicated to animal protection.

Bodies, meaning what? Bodies is another way of saying organizations, for example, or societies, groups of people. So, again, when you run out of words, if you've used the word like groups or organizations, then you can talk about bodies as well. Bodies, yeah, we're not talking about people, yeah, so organizations, bodies.

Bodies dedicated to animal protection? Absolutely, always dedicated to. When you talked about dogs, you said that dogs could be guard dogs. Guard? Guard dogs, they protect your property, always. So you can have guard dogs. You can also have lap dogs, which are dogs, which are designed to keep people comfortable and entertained.

They're not so good. Lap, like small dogs, you put them on your lap. Yeah. They're not so good for protecting your property, though. Oh, yeah. When you talked about pets, you said that you can keep a goldfish, and it's therapeutic. Therapeutic, like from therapy. Yeah.

It's like another way of saying it makes you feel better, although a therapeutic is, again, much more specific, and it almost has, like, psychological meanings as well. For example, I can say yoga is therapeutic? Maybe for you, but it just makes me feel pain. Oh, right. Maybe you should do more yoga. Oh, no. Less, please.

Dear Listen, if you talk about dogs or cats, you can also say that I'm allergic to dogs, or I'm allergic to cats. And some dogs are hyper-allerge-word? What did you say? Hypoallergenic. Aligenic. Hyper-elogenic is one word.

Yes, hyperalogenic. It means that they don't activate your... allergies. Yeah, like I'm allergic to cats, but this cat is hypologetic. Exactly. So I don't have any allergies. And how can I use this word? I'm allergic to something. Yes, always allergic to. So I can say I'm allergic to cats or I have an allergy to cats, for example. Or I have allergies. Yes. Rory, thank you very much for your answers and precise words. That's okay. Thank you very much. Dear listeners, now you can listen to Rory's answers again and this time, notice all the precise vocabulary adjectives grammar structures for high school.

Do you like animals? I love animals, particularly mammals. I really, because they're the closest to us, relatively speaking, I think they're quite cool. Rory, what's your favorite animal? Oh, I'm definitely a dog person. I really love dogs, just in general. And of course, they're domesticated animals, so you can always keep them quite close to you, and that's really good as well. What wild animal do you like the most? I love big cats, in particular tigers. They really stand out with this colour scheme on their fur, and then, of course, they also portray the sense of majesty and power as well when they're moving.

It's really interesting to watch. Have you ever seen any wild animals before? Yes, actually. I used to teach in a school in Africa, which was a... quite close to a riverbed and so sometimes crocodiles would just wander into the school grounds which was always very exciting crocodiles at schools yes absolutely oh have you ever pet a crocodile um no i don't think you'd ever want to do anything like that would you like to do that if it was a domesticated crocodile then maybe could a crocodile be domesticated um i think you could maybe

domesticate just about any animal roe do you like to go to the zoo um um I used to like going to the zoo more as a child. I think we still have that sense of wonder when we're children, whereas now it's kind of a double-edged sword because you can see the animals, which is great, but you are also quite sad because they're in captivity, and that's also quite sad. But what's the alternative?

If they're in the wild, then they don't have this protection. Are people in your country fond of animals? Oh yes, definitely. Kingdom has this reputation as being a nation of animal lovers. There's lots of different bodies which are dedicated to the protection of animals and helping them when they're sick, like the RSPCA and the RSPB. It's definitely accurate to say that people are fond of animals there. Have you ever kept a pet? I haven't personally, by myself, no, because I work a lot and I'm kind of allergic as well, so I'd need to find something that's almost hypoallergenic, really.

But when I was younger and I lived with my parents, then yes, we kept pets. Why do some people keep pets at home? Lots of different reasons, really. I think one of the main reasons is because they're cute. Of course, all of these domesticated animals look lovely. But in addition to that, they have some utility as well. Like dogs, for example, are kept as guard dogs to protect your property. but it's not always about defence. People also keep cats and even goldfish for therapeutic purposes, for example.

So there's lots of different reasons, really. I think those are the main ones, though. Lovely people of the world, thank you very much for listening. We hope you enjoyed hearing our comments about animals. We hope you'll join us again soon. Bye-bye. Bye!