IELTS Speaking for Success - 🏖️ Days off (S09E08) + Transcript

Episode Date: July 3, 2023

How often do you have days off? What do you usually do on your days off? Do you usually spend your days off with your parents or friends? When was the last time you had a couple of days off? What would you like to do if you had a day off tomorrow? Tune in and have a great day! - Get exclusive episodes on IELTS Speaking parts 1, 2, and 3: https://linktr.ee/sfspremium Book a class with Rory here: https://successwithielts.com/rory Our course on Phrasal Verbs: https://successwithielts.com/podcourses Transcript: https://successwithielts.com/s09e08 Our IELTS Writing course: https://linktr.ee/wfspremium Find an IELTS Speaking Partner: https://links.successwithielts.com/ieltspartner Our social media: https://linktr.ee/successwithielts © 2023 Success with IELTS Get bonus content on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, Sunshine, I'm Maria. My name is Rory, and we're 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 started this podcast to give you joy, happiness, gorgeous grammar and super vocabulary for your high AILT school. Your bad nine school. Oh, Rory, look at you. You look very rested. Hmm. And tend.

Thank you. Yeah, I had a day off yesterday, so I feel pretty good. Shall we talk about days off? Shall we talk about days off? What a coincidence. Oh my gosh, on this podcast again, days off is a recent speaking part one topic. So, let's do it.

How often do you have days off? Probably not nearly often enough, frankly. No, I'm just kidding. Actually, my weekends are when I take my days off. I never work them. And to be honest with you, I really like my job, so my life is almost like a perpetual holiday or time off. What do you usually do on your days off?

Well, on my proper ones, I like to read and relax and play video games. I'm trying to think of anything else, really, but to be honest with you, it's quite important that I chill on my downtime, so I try not to do much. It's really important to have this time to disengage. Do you usually spend your days off with your parents or with friends? Well, both at the moment. Most of my friends now live in the same town as me, so, and I live quite close to my parents, so it's easy to see them when I'm out and about. When was the last time you had a couple of days off?

Well, other than the weekends. I think that's about it. Oh, no, I think the last time I had like sort of an extended period of time off was when I was when I was when I was, I think, I went to see my friend's Mike and Lena in New York. We spent a lot of time wandering around museums and galleries and talking about art. What would you like to do if you had a day off tomorrow? It depends on the weather. If it were warm out, then I would probably go for a walk in the countryside. But if it were a cold one, then I'd probably, well, do the things I described before.

I'd just spend the day reading and playing video games. It's not very imaginative, but it is what I would like to do. Thank you, Rory, for your imaginative, creative, really interesting answers. Is that sarcasm? Yes. Dear listener, we have our premium episodes for you where Rory and I are discussing speaking part two and three fresh-eyed topics. This week on our premium, we are discussing noise.

Nice. Describe a noisy place. And in speaking part three, we are discussing. in noise and noisy places in general. A very interesting topic, noise. Do check out our premium episodes. The links are in the description. Days off.

It's a day when you do not work. The best kind of day. And Rory says, like, I don't work weekends. So that's a nice expression. I don't work weekends. So when you don't work on the weekend. Well, I say I don't work on the weekends, but the number of people that contact me at the weekend to ask me questions.

I end up working anyway. How did you describe a holiday? You said something perpetual. Oh, a perpetual holiday. Yeah. If something is perpetual, it just means that it goes on and on forever. And that is what my life is like now, because I have a job that I love, and I get to do what I like, and I'm very relaxed about it most of the time.

You can say it's a never-ending holiday. It is a never-ending holiday. It's great. Personal days off help us to recharge, to kind of relax and be more productive at work later. So we have a day off and then we are more productive at work. Rory chills on his downtime. Which makes me sound like I'm from California, like chill on my downtime, man. I do chill on my down time.

It just means I relax when I have free time. To be honest, I relax when I'm working anyway. I try to read and play video games. you see so really interesting what do you do just read play video games okay I'm sorry

but those are my those are my go-to activities that's fine yeah my go-to activities you see so okay I usually I go for a walk and I play video games those are my go-to activities

these are the things I do yeah yes it's almost automatic it's like oh I have I have 30 minutes I can play games I've been reading about three main caties for day of activities. Okay, Rory.

Relaxation, productivity and pleasure. Dear listener, I'm going to give you a list right in the comments. What activities do you prefer? Okay, Rory, also you can choose. So take a bath, declutter your closet. Declutter is kind of when you declutter, you throw away unnecessary things, old things. So you declutter. You kind of empty it.

You create more space. and by throwing out different things you don't need. Do laundry. You wash your clothes. Do laundry. Very productive. These things sound very relaxing to me, but... No, this is like productivity.

Take a bath or talk about relaxation, productivity, declutter your closet, do laundry, rearrange your bookshelves. Rearrange the books. Mend your clothes. If your clothes have... so you kind of feel mended, manned. Neen, no, no, right? Oh, about emails, you can say that, oh, I, on my days off,

I prefer to get to zero inbox. What does it mean? To go to inbox zero, or get to inbox zero. Can you clear out your inbox as well? Clear out, yeah. Is that a phrasal verb? Clear out, yes, it's a phrase of up. Oh, my.

I wonder if there's a place or something that has lots of phrasal verbs in it. I wonder Success withirriouts.com forward slash podcourse This is great because I'm sitting here organizing my diary and I can rattle this off

with no problem at all You can clear out your inbox You have many emails And try to get to Zero emails Is it possible? I don't think it's possible Absolutely it is

I have zero emails in my inbox Or I had until I booked tickets to a music festival So you can say that on my days off, I prefer to get some things done. All right, so I'm productive or I prefer to relax. When you get out and about, what happens? Out and about is just an expression for going outside and meeting people

or being outside of your home and meeting people. And out and about is a binomial expression, isn't it? It's an idiomatic expression. If you're not sure, you can say that I'd really have to think, about it to be honest with you. This is a very nice strategy, so the examiner asks you a question and you go, Rory, how do you say it naturally with nice intonation?

I'd have to think about it to be honest with you. So notice the chunking. Oh, I'd have to think about it to be honest with you. So there's a little pause between different parts of the sentence because you're in the process of thinking and putting together the sentence. We spend time wandering around Gellon. galleries. Rory goes to galleries now. That was one of the best trips I've ever been on. Lena and Michael,

if you're watching, which I doubt you are, your lives are infinitely more interesting than mine, then thank you. That was amazing. I loved New York so much. It was so good. So I spent time walking in the countryside or I spent time visiting museums or wandering around museums when you go all over the place, like you wander around galleries and museums. In this question, we have the second conditional, right? So what would you do if you had? So we are imagining, oh, tomorrow is Monday, but if I had a day off on Monday, I'd do something. And Rory also used the second conditional, if it were.

if I had a day off, I'd do something. So you said, if it were warm. Well, if it were warm out. It just means if the weather's hot. If it were warm out. Yes, warm out. If the weather was hot, but what's this? It's to be warm out?

No, no. If it were warm out is two words, first of all. And it just means if the weather's nice and if it's warm, it's not cold. Then I'll go out. So if the weather was nice, was, again, we're imagining, right? But maybe it will be nice, right? So if the weather was nice or if the weather were nice, I'd go for a walk in the countryside. Yeah, go for walk.

Or I'd wind up playing video games, Rory's favorite phrase of her. Is it if it was or if it were? Both. Is there a rule? Or is it one of these high-level native speaker? No, no, no, no. It used to be if it were only. We used to have only one option.

But now if it was, if it were, no problem. So wind up doing something or end up doing something. So if it were cold or if the weather was bad, I'd wind up playing computer games. Yeah, Rory, but let's have something else. You know, computer games, video games, come on. Like, don't you know other words? I have a very boring life. Well, what do you want me to do?

Okay, you have me. You have me to jazz it up. So, three options. Number one, explore a new neighborhood in your city. Well, in this case, in your village, in the middle of Norway and Scotland. There are some neighborhoods in my hometown that I would not be caught dead in. So that is not happening. Say that right now.

Okay. Dream up your next vacation. Dream up, like, plan out your next vacation. Well, I've done that already. Or the third one, people watch from your window. So you do some people watching. You watch people and you kind of like, mm-hmm. Well, this is pointless because my one window looks out onto a bare patch of ground where no one goes.

And the other window looks out onto the path where no one goes. I can see it now. So you've given me terrible options. That's not helpful. Okay, maybe you can go to a cafe or to the center. of your village kind of town and you can watch people there. No.

Just for change. I'll plan out my next vacation and in fact we could actually involve people in this because many people know now that I'm going to Turkey well I will be in Turkey by the time this episode comes out actually. However, after Turkey I'm also going to Slovenia. I'm going to Turkey to study. That's not a holiday, I'm afraid.

But I'm going to Slovenia for a holiday afterwards. So if there are any Slovenians watching, Then if you have any recommendations about what I could do while I'm there, if there's anything you think I should see, then please mention it in the comments or get in touch on Instagram and tell me what I should do in your country. Because, first of all, I've never been there before. So it would be nice to get some input from people who are actually from there.

So Turkish people in Istanbul, Aurora is going to be in Istanbul. You know what to do? I'm so excited for Istanbul. I'm excited for both, but for different reasons. Thank you very much for listening, for watching. Check out our premium episodes. The links are in the description. So if you want to say thank you,

go and invest in our premium part two and part three episodes together with our Fraser Verb course. And we'll see you next time. Bye. Bye. How often do you have days off? Oh, probably not nearly often enough, frankly. No, I'm just kidding.

Actually, my weekends are when I take my days off. I never work them. And to be honest with you, I really like my job. So my life is almost like a perpetual holiday or time off. What do you usually do on your days off? Well, on my proper ones, I like to read and relax and play video games. I'm trying to think of anything else, really. But to be honest with you, it's quite important that I chill on my downtime.

so I try not to do much. It's really important to have this time to disengage. Do you usually spend your days off with your parents or with friends? Well, both at the moment. Most of my friends now live in the same town as me. So, and I live quite close to my parents. So it's easy to see them when I'm out and about. When was the last time you had a couple of days off?

Well, other than the weekends. I think that's about it. Oh, no. I think the last time I had sort of an extended period of time off was when I went to see my friend's Mike and Lena in New York. We spent a lot of time wandering around museums and galleries and talking about art. What would you like to do if you had a day off tomorrow? It depends on the weather.

If it were warm out, then I would probably go for a walk in the countryside. But if it were a cold one, then I'd probably, well, do the things I described before. spend the day reading and playing video games. It's not very imaginative, but it is what I would like to do.