IELTS Speaking for Success - 📱 Apps (Part 1) + Transcript

Episode Date: April 7, 2025

Get access to our episode archive: https://www.patreon.com/ieltssfs What kind of apps do you spend money on? What apps don't you use anymore? What apps do you still use? What kind of apps have you downloaded on your phone? Tune in and have a great day! - Book a class with Rory here: https://successwithielts.com/rory Our course on Phrasal Verbs: https://successwithielts.com/podcourses Transcript: https://successwithielts.com/s12e01 Find an IELTS Speaking Partner: https://links.successwithielts.com/ieltspartner Our social media: https://linktr.ee/successwithielts © 2025 Podcourses Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, lovely. I'm Maria. And my name is Rory, and we are the host of the AILT Speaking for Success podcast. The podcast names 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 your high IELD score. Your band-ninth score. Rory, pay attention. Oh, sorry, Maria. There's this new app on my phone, and it's actually quite distracting. Oh, app.

Shall we talk about applications, apps, delusina? Yes. Yay, applications. What kind of apps do you spend money on? Well, none of them. I think I pay an annual or monthly subscription fee for some banking apps I use, but that's negligible. For the rest, they're all free, and rightly so. I don't see why I should have to pay for apps that are riddled with adverse.

What apps don't you use anymore? I think I stopped using a few financial ones after I closed my accounts, and I don't think I'd be caught dead using one of the gaming ones. They seem like a complete waste of time. What applications do you still use? Oh, wow, it would be easier to say what I don't use, to be honest. I use a whole load for social media and social networking, and then they're the ones that manage my calendar as well, so I don't forget things.

Not only is it about my social life, though, my work's also on there. I use different apps to publish things from time to time, like on Instagram. And before I put them out there, I create them on an app called Canva as well. What kind of apps have you downloaded on your phone? Recently, nothing very exciting. I had to get hold of a taxi app the other day because it was impossible to just flag one down in the city center. But aside from that, I usually stick to the ones I've had for years. Not very interesting.

As you know, we now release all of our premium content for free, and it's available for one month. After one month, it goes into our super secret archive. To sign up for the archive, click the link in the description below. See you soon. Hey! So do you listen. Apps or applications. Okay?

You can say I use different apps. Eps. applications, all right? We are talking about applications on your iPhone or Android apps that you use, download, pay for, or use them for free. But an app is something that you download, right, Rory, so you download an app and you use it on your phone, usually. Well, most of the time, yes, but you also have apps which are pre-installed or pre-downloaded

onto your phone, like a voice recording app, for example, which can be very useful for recording yourself when you are preparing for part two of the exam. I'm just suggesting that. Yeah, true. You can say that I pay for certain apps, or I spend my money on gaming apps, for example, applications, or I pay an annual subscription fee.

Many apps, for many apps, you have to subscribe, You have to subscribe to our podcast. It's not an app, but you have to subscribe to apps or if you want to use them on a monthly basis. Yeah, and a good deal is to subscribe for a year. So you pay an annual subscription fee. So for a year. Annual means for a year. Or you pay every month.

This means that I pay a monthly subscription fee. Or I pay every month. I pay every year. For some banking apps, for example. There are like banking apps, you download an app for your bank. Really, you pay for your banking app? I pay something like 10 pence a month for some things, but it's not a lot, to be honest. I think it's just a...

Wow, it's supposed to be for free. Banking, wow, interesting. Yeah, deal with, I. You can say that I pay for some fitness apps, some... education apps, lifestyle apps. So you can just not mention a name, but say that, okay, I have entertainment apps, like music applications, Spotify, for example, right?

Or I pay for some business apps, food and drinks applications, news applications, game applications, travel applications. Delivery applications? Yeah. Okay. So social media applications. So just naming them in general. I have some education applications, which are paid for.

Well, you could name some specific ones. For example, Canva is a well-known, I suppose, digital editing app and content creation app. Thank you, Canva for sponsoring this podcast. Some apps are riddled with adverts. But that just means they're full of them. Yeah. And most apps are for free. but there are adverts

advertisements, ads, pop-up ads so riddled with to be full of something could you use it in another sentence Rory well on-demand television and television in general I think is riddled with ads you see them all the time now and sometimes you go to websites and those are riddled with pop-up ads our website only has one pop-up ad

for classes with me subscribe today If I say that my essay is riddled with mistakes, what does it mean? It means it's full of mistakes. And that's a good point actually, because when something is riddled with something, it means it almost always in a negative way. I've never heard it used to talk about something positive. Oh, I don't like these apps which are riddled with adverts, so I pay for applications. And usually if you pay for an app, you use it without any adverts, ads advertisements. I stopped using something. So stopped doing something. I stopped using a few financial applications. I closed my accounts.

And I stopped using some gaming applications, some game apps. Because they're a waste of time. A complete waste of time, dear listener. Yeah. In my opinion. Yeah, that's true. Oh yeah, once I downloaded this game and I became So crazy about it, Rory. I started buying the diamonds for me to move forward.

Really? Is that how that works? It's just, yeah. Yeah, yeah. You get into it and then kind of like the game doesn't allow you to move forward. So you can't finish a level or something without the diamonds or without some special coins. And you start buying them to kind of to move or to play further. Maria has fallen into the trap of, it's like cheap dopamine. A victim of marketing. Mm-hmm. Yeah, but the app for the game is so well structured just to kind of make you want to give them your money, DeLisa.

Dangerous stuff for me, so I don't, I've deleted everything after spending. Very, very sensible. A ridiculous amount of money and time. It's crazy. I still use banking apps. I still use social media, social networking applications. And these are, you know, and Instagram, Facebook, you know, your local messenger, for example, WhatsApp Telegram or your local messenger that you use.

Also, taxi apps, yeah, your local taxi apps. And you can say that I still use a whole load of different applications, so a bunch of them, a lot of them. And I use some applications to manage my calendar. So for work, for my private life. And Rory, you know, I've Googled the most popular apps in 2025. And you mentioned Canva. Oh God, here's a dangerous thing to be talking about.

No, no, you mentioned the Canva, so it's one of the most popular application for editing purposes, like photos, video editing. Also, Audible. Audioble is super popular for audiobooks, podcasts and stories. Audible, dating apps, you know. Bumble dating apps are pretty popular. Still in 2025. Also, there's this app All Trails, Hike and Bike and One.

Do you know about this app, All Trails? I have never heard of that before in my life. Elevate, actually I've used Elevate is an app to train. your brain and vocabulary memory and there are some math puzzles due this brain training games it's pretty good yeah fun so elevate also please sponsor our podcast it's as if you know like we're cheap roy i'm selling us to audible to conva to elevate what's going on well we've not done a very good job of it we're doing it now we have it secured a deal this is why this is why we cannot have nice things Maria. Oh yeah like smart gym app for example for home workouts. Delis

maybe you do some weight lifting and you have this smart gym app. So these are some of the most popular apps. You download apps on your phone. So you can say that recently I've downloaded a taxi app or a dating app. But what happens if you delete the app? from your phone. You just remove it, delete it. Get rid of it. Get rid of it. Yeah. You can say, like, I've downloaded, present perfect, and recently I've deleted it. I've got rid of this app. You can also say, I had to get hold of a taxi app. So I downloaded it or to get hold of. In this context, it means download. So I usually stick to the ones I've, had for years. So present perfect. I have had lots of apps for a long time or I had them

installed. So pre-installed apps and I usually stick to the ones I have. I don't usually download anything new. And the listener, I've googled some apps to try in 2025. Six best apps to try out. Interesting. All of them sponsoring us. So the second one is called Awesome Habits. Roy, have you ever heard of this app? Awesome Habits. No.

It's an app to track your habits. It's actually pretty, it's in the trend, you know, all this habit trackers. You track your habits. Also some Endel is an audio app that creates personalized

soundscapes. too much your activities. Ooh. Yeah, for a cool stuffer, the second one, the next one is bubble up, bubble up. An app that provides a new way to save, organize or share your digital life. Interesting. So these are the trends, dear listener, no dating apps for some reason. So we're about time management, calendars.

Rory, how many apps do you have on your phone if we come? That's a very good question. I don't know how I would find that out. Ah, here we go, apps. Yeah, do you also count. It doesn't tell me how many I have, but many. Ahem, is the answer. Because there are, like, strange apps that you're kind of like setting apps, I think.

But could you count the main ones that you kind of usually use? Oh, that's easy. My calendar app, my email app, and like five social media apps that I use all the time. So that's seven, basically. The other ones I use intermittently, so that's almost never, or not very often. Oh, I have about 50. That you use frequently. Wow, yeah, pretty much like all the banking, food apps, shop apps, taxi, all this Google stuff, presentations, you know, like Gmail.

Have you no shame? So many apps. Listener IOT's apps, okay? Okay, IEL's apps are fine. How many apps do you have, DeLisner, okay? Go to your phone and count. And now, Rory's vocabulary show. Yep, it's the part of the quiz where I Ask Maria questions

about the different kinds of grammar and vocabulary that I've used. So, I talked about how some of the apps I use are full of adverts, but I didn't say full of adverts. What did I say? Apps are riddled with adverts. And then I talked about how I don't need to be spending time doing or playing with gaming apps. They're not worth it. But I didn't say that.

I called them something else. They're a complete waste of time. Yay. And now a grammar question. Oh yes. What did I use to emphasize the fact that I don't use. apps for social life only but for other things too. You got really emotional Rory and you used inversion and you said not only is it about my social life but it's

also about my work. Yaddea listener use it very careful it's an emotional structure and you should use it only once okay but once is enough. Speaking of things I only used once and reacting emotional Emotionally, I did something at the start of my answer to the fourth and final question with my intonation. Yeah, you kind of ask a question, like, recently? Nothing very exciting. Because the question is with present perfect. So it's about, like, recently, not so long ago, this week.

So, like, what apps have you downloaded? Like, recently? Well, nothing much. Amazing, Maria. 100%. Yay! Thank you very much for listening and we'll get back to you in our next episode.

Bye. What kind of apps do you spend money on? Well, none of them. I think I pay an annual or monthly subscription fee for some banking apps I use, but that's negligible. For the rest, they're all free. And rightly so.

I don't see why I should have to pay for apps that are riddled with adverts. What apps don't you use anymore? I think I stopped using a few financial ones after I closed my accounts, and I don't think I'd be caught dead using one of the gaming ones. They seem like a complete waste of time. What applications do you still use? Oh, wow, it would be easier to say what I don't use, to be honest. I use a whole load for social media and social networking,

and then they're the ones that manage my calendar as well, so I don't forget things. Not only is it about my social life, though, my work's also on there. I use different apps to publish things from time to time, like on Instagram, and before I put them out there, I create them on an app called Canva as well. What kind of apps have you downloaded on your phone? Recently. Nothing very exciting. I had to get hold of a taxi app the other day because it was impossible, to just flag one down in the city centre.

But aside from that, I usually stick to the ones I've had for years. Not very interesting.