IELTS Speaking for Success - 🏢 Buildings (Part 1) + Transcript

Episode Date: March 4, 2026

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We'd love to talk, business. Hello, lovely. I'm Maria. And my name is Rory. I'm the host of the AILT Speaking for Success podcast. The podcast is the name is 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-Ild school. Your band nine score. Oh, sorry, Rory, I'm late. I had a problem with my apartment.

They just don't make buildings like they used to, do they? Buildings, you said. Did you say buildings? Yes, I did. Shall we talk about buildings? Hmm? Oh, let's talk about buildings. What a topic, dear listener, buildings in AIL speaking part one.

Wow. Not water, not jeans, not ice cream, but buildings. Hmm. Do you want to live in a tall building? Well, I think that depends on exactly how many stories it is, to be honest. If it's like a high rise with dozens of buildings. floors, then that would be too much for me. But if it's just three or four floors, it's a lot more manageable. Is there a building that you'd like to visit? Not desperately, though if I get the chance,

I'd love to see Bledon Palace near Oxford. I think it's an old royal residence that's a kind of museum now, and people say it has amazing architecture. Do you take photos of buildings? Not really, no, unless it's a really famous or unusual one, like the Birch Khalifa. It's that sail-shaped building in the Middle East. Sometimes I take photographs of the graffiti or displays on the facades of different buildings, but that's more about the art than the architecture, I think. Are there tall buildings near your home? Well, if you mean something like the Empire State Building, then definitely not.

I think the tallest thing might be an old factory chimney or an old office block that has six or seven floors. But that's about it. It's a very flat place. 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. So, dear listener, buildings. Mm-hmm.

Right. Okay. It's just buildings like houses, you know, blocks of flats, skyscrapers. Is a monument a building? I think it could be, although that's one with a very specific purpose, which is like to commemorate something. Usually when we think about buildings, it's buildings that have purpose like people live in it, for example. Yeah, if you check it up in a Cambridge on like,

dictionary, my favorite dictionary, a building is a structure with walls and a roof. For example, a house or a factory. But you can talk again about museums, blocks of flats, houses, like usual houses, factories, office buildings, historic buildings we have, like museums, arts galleries. And what do we call a tall building? So it could be a high-rise or maybe a sky-house. Yeah. So a skyscraper is a tall, a very tall building, or you can say high-rise buildings. So if you have tall buildings where you live, you can say, I have some skyscrapers, I have some high-rise buildings near my house. Another interesting word is story. When we talk about buildings, we talk about how tall they are and how many stories they have. So the level of ability. If my house has, for example, three floors, three levels, I say it's a three-story house.

And Rory, why is it confusing, this story word? Well, it probably sounds similar to story like something you tell people, but here it's got a different spelling, and it's used to describe just the number of floors or levels in a house. Yeah, we usually say, oh, that's a good story. Ah, Rory's story. Rory tell us a story. But here, story, S-T-O-R-E-Y, it means a level of building.

So you can say, I live in a five-story house. If your house has three stories, three floors, can I say I have three floors in my house? Or it's a three-floor house. You could say one or the other, there are three floors. Just we know what the number of floors is, either way. Yeah, there are many floors in this building. It's very tall.

What you should definitely not say is it's a three-floors house. So we don't need the extra S when we talk about an adjective. Three-floor house. And you can say, I want to live in a house with 10 stories or 10 floors. Or I want to live in a skyscraper. Or I wouldn't like to live in a high-rise building. because, you know, they say it's not good for your health, for your blood pressure, and if you live on the first, second, third floor, it's okay,

but higher than the fifth floor is not very good. Have you heard anything like this, really? I don't know, I'm just thinking for myself. I would prefer to live in something that's closer to the ground, but that's more about convenience than anything else. I'd prefer to live closer to the ground. Yeah, what about you, dear listener? Do you care for the view in a skyscraper or would you like to be closer to the ground when you feel the earth?

A building you'd like to visit could be a museum, the British Museum, the Louvre in Paris, in Paris, or perhaps a famous skyscraper, some iconic building. Rory tells us If I get the chance I'd love to see Blu Blu Blu So something Palace near Oxford Blenham Palace

It's not difficult to see Blenem Palace Why is it special It's not It's just a very pretty building And I couldn't think of anywhere else I wanted to go I've seen everything

I want to see Maria Really? I'm an old man now Yeah so if you Google this Blah Blah Palace Yeah you'll see just a nice palace, Boulogelan palace near Oxford.

How English is that? Well, the name sounds German, so maybe it's not so English. Yeah, but some famous buildings that you could want to visit, the Eiffel Tower, the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy, Burjuj Khalifa.

How did you pronounce this name? Burj Khalif in Dubai? I think it's Burj Khalifa or Burjaliah. I don't know. So that's why I said it's that sail-shaped building in the Middle East, because if you don't know how to say the name of a specific place, you can always say it's this and describe what it looks like. Which is a good strategy to have in real life,

but it's also handy for exams, because maybe you'll forget a word, but you can describe the word to the examiner, and that's okay. Yeah, de Lisner, or just Google the name of the place you'd like to go to. Okay? A tower, a museum, learn this name, and then off you go. Or for example, this Sydney Opera House in Sydney,

like an iconic building. Coliseum in Rome is also a building. The Taj Mahal, Big Ben, by the way. But you can't visit Big Ben, can you? No, no, no, you can go. I don't know. I think you can. It's part of a tour of parliament.

Maybe. I don't know. Let's check and see. Like the White House. In Barcelona, there are different. buildings like La Pedrera. Well, apparently you can. Yeah. There are guided tours that climb the 334 steps to the area where the clock is.

Very important to point out, Big Ben is the name of the bell. Elizabeth Tower is the name of the building. Yeah, and also, de Lisztain, if you want to visit a bridge, it's also a building, a bridge. So like London Millennium Bridge, for example, or the Tower Bridge, And then you say, yeah, it's a palace or it's a museum, it's a bridge, it has amazing architecture, or it's stunning, like wow, you know, you look at this building and you say, wow, this means it's stunning, it has amazing architecture, it's iconic, like very famous, it's elegant, for example, or it's historic. So when we talk about buildings and history, we say historic, buildings, not historical. No, historic. We take photos of buildings.

So you can say, I usually take photos of buildings, or I don't. I prefer taking selfies. And if a building is famous or unusual, and then you can make some examples, Rory talked about Bush Khalifa, which is sail-shaped. That just means it looks like part of a... boat. I can't think of another way to describe it. It's got a weird shape. It looks like a boat or it's sail shaped. And I take photographs. I take photos of the graffiti, of the design, of colors on the facades. So the facade of a building is the front of a building. So if we have an attractive

building, usually the front of a building what you see on the wall outside is beautiful. So, facade. You can say like, oh, this building has an elegant 18th century facade. Or you could just use it to talk about the outside of the building. I have some tall buildings near my house. I have some high-rise apartment blocks. So, like, buildings where people usually live are called apartment blocks. You might have some skyscrapers, but actually, dear listener, usually we don't, right, if you don't live right in the center.

Yeah, usually you live in a very flat place or relatively flat compared to the rest of the city. Well, if you have like an apartment block which has, let's say, 30 floors, is it a high-rise building? 30, 35 floors? I would consider that a high-rise building. How high does something have to be to be considered that? I don't know. Because I'm thinking a skyscraper. Okay, if we Google what a skyscraper is.

A skyscraper, dear listener. A very tall building, okay? So it's a very tall building. I want helpful. How tall? Very tall. Oh, well, that clears it up. Yeah, so, de listen, usually kind of you have, like,

you don't live among the skyscrapers. So you say, no. it's a flat place. So if you don't have tall buildings, it's flat. No mountains, everything's flats. I have usual apartment blocks, old office blocks with six or seven floors, or maybe even like a 20, 25 floors, not really tall. Don't say high. The building is high. No, the building is tall or high-rise buildings. What's the different? between something that's tall and something that's high? The difference is collocations.

But you know what? According to the Cambridge Online Dictionary, you can say a high building. You can, yeah. You can? A high building, a tall building? When I talk about things that are high, there, or how high something is,

it's not attached to the ground. Whereas if things are tall, then they are attached to the ground. Well, for example, if you are a tall person, then you're standing up. And if it's a tall building, the building is also attached to the ground. But if we talk about how high the building is, then we're talking about a reference point which is not attached to the ground.

It's just a point in the air. The same thing for talking about a plane. A plane is not tall in the sky. It's high in the sky. Yeah, but more commonly we would say a tall building, right? One of these things emphasizes the connection from the bottom of something to the top, and the other one is referring to a reference point in the... above the ground. It's very fun, isn't it? Oh, all these ideas about grammar and vocabulary.

And speaking of grammar, I hope you noticed that I was doing different things with conditional or similar structures in my answers. For example, when Maria asked, do you want to live in a high-rise building? I used a conditional. I said, if it's this, then no. But if it's this, then yes. So we can use a conditional this way. Also, if the examiner asks you about something you would like to do or would like to visit, you can say, if I get the chance, which is good, and then I'd love to see or I'd love to do whatever the action is. Then, in a third question, Maria asked, do you take photos of buildings? And I said, unless it's a really famous building. which is a different way of talking about conditionals.

Usually we use if, but we can also use unless to talk about the exception to the rule. And then in the last one, Maria asked, are there any tall buildings near your home? And instead of saying it depends, I said, if you mean this, then no. Lots of vocabulary and grammar to consider. Yay, awesome. And now we're ready for a joke. We are. Just don't ask me which conditionals those things are, because I still have no one. idea. Right. So the joke is, what's the tallest building in the world? The library. It has the most stories. Rory, could you explain the joke? No, we're done. Goodbye. So a library has books and in books

there are stories that people read. But story also means the number of floors that a building has. so it's a play on words with different meanings. Yes, you're listening, and you can crack this joke in the test, you know. The examiner asks you, oh, like, do you want to live in a tall building? And you say, not really. And you know what? What's the tallest building in the world to examine? Do you know?

The library. It has the most stories. And then the examiner kicks you out of the exam and fails you. They give you, like, minus one. Yeah, like a library has a lot of stories in books, right? and it is the tallest because it has a lot of stories like flaws. Okay. Right, I'll listen.

Ha-ha. Right. It's important to understand stupid jokes because Rory's culture has this idea of dead jokes, like stupid jokes, not dead, like life and death, but dead. Like, mom and dad. So it's like a typical dead. joke. But Maria thought it was funny, so there we go. All right. But now you know, like a story and a story. Two meanings. Almost the same word. Thank you very much for listening. We'll get back to you in our

new episode. All right. Stay with us. Bye. Where are my gloves? Come on, heat. Any day now? Winter is hard, but your groceries don't have to be. This winter, stay warm. Tap the banner to order your groceries online at walla.ca. Enjoy in-store prices without leaving your home. You'll find the same regular prices online as in-store. Many promotions are available both in-store and online, though some may vary. Do you want to live in a tall building? Well, I think that depends on exactly how many stories it is, to be honest. If it's like a high-rise with dozens of floors, then that would be too much for me. But if it's just three or four floors, it's a lot more manageable.

Is there a building that you'd like to visit? Not desperately, though if I get the chance, I'd love to see Bledon Palace near Oxford. I think it's an old royal residence that's a kind of museum now, and people say it has amazing architecture. Do you take photos of buildings? Not really, no, unless it's a really famous or unusual one, like the Birch Khalifa. It's that sail-shaped building in the Middle East. Sometimes I take photographs of the graffiti or displays on the facades of different buildings, but that's more about the art than the architecture, I think.

Are there tall buildings near your home? Well, if you mean something like the Empire State Building, then definitely not. I think the tallest thing might be an old factory chimney or an old office block that has six or seven floors. but that's about it. It's a very flat place.