IELTS Speaking for Success - 🍝 Describe a great dinner you and your friends or family members enjoyed (Part 2) + Transcript

Episode Date: October 2, 2025

Get our premium episode archive: https://www.patreon.com/ieltssfs You should say: what you had, who you had dinner with, what you talked about during the dinner, and explain why you enjoyed it. 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: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sign up for our archive to get access to the transcript⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ 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, hello, dear listener, welcome into IEL speaking part two. Describe a great dinner you and your friends or family members enjoyed. You should say what you had, who you had the dinner with, what you talked during the dinner about, and explained why you enjoyed it. Lori, give us your story. Well, I had my birthday recently, so that's probably the one that's probably the one that stands out the most in my mind right now. It was about a month ago, give or take, and we had dinner on the decking at my family home where my parents live. When it comes to what we had, it was just

typical birthday party fair, to be honest. Obviously, there was a birthday cake, too, actually, now I think about it, along with things like sausages, sausage rolls, pizza, and other kinds of finger food, I suppose you'd call it. I should say, there were two cakes, because I share my birthday with my aunt who was joining us this year for that occasion. And in terms of who else was there, well, my aunt's husband was there, of course. It would be a bit weird if they traveled separately. And my parents were there, along with my friends and my partner. My brother and his girlfriend were also there now that I think about it.

And she even brought her dog, which was really nice. You would think that having a pet at an event like that would be complete chaos. but she was actually pretty chilled out, the dog, that is. And worryingly so, actually. She doesn't move much, but apparently that's normal for her, so that was okay. To tell you more about the topics of conversation and what they were, actually we focused lots on the cakes, not just because of the taste, although that was also good, but also because there was a picture on the icing of one of them that showed my aunt and I,

and that was about 34 years ago, or maybe 35 now, when I was just a picture. a baby and neither of us recalled the photo being taken. Obviously I wouldn't but my aunt had no idea where we were or what we were doing at the time which was quite funny to speculate about. That was just one reason that I liked the whole thing. It was nice being with my loved ones after being away for a long time working in Oxford so it sort of restored my sense of community as well. If it hadn't happened I think it would have been a pretty dull day and who wants that on their special day. And what about your friends? Did they enjoy it? Well I hope so because I invite them so they should have enjoyed it.

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. Yes, so the topic is a great dinner. Dinner is usually late at night, like at 6, after 6, or it could be in an unlike, like, 3 p.m. 4 p.m. You can talk about lunch if you wish. The story is in the past, so we use pass simple, pass perfect. And Rory told us about his birthday. Yay. It stands out the most in my mind.

So I remember it very clearly. And you can start off with, I'm going to tell you about a dinner I had for my birthday because it stands out the most in my mind. Yes, I should say actually, this was an idea I had when I was speaking to one of my students who was looking for an easy idiom or idiomatic expression to include in the beginning of the speaking part two. And so I was thinking you could say just about anything sticks out in your mind, especially recent events. And if something sticks out, then it's clear to see or clear to remember.

And that's an easy thing that you could use for just about any speaking topic, to be honest. Exactly. For example, like talk about a book. that you've recently read? Well, I read a lot of books, but the one that sticks out in my mind the most is my favorite book, which I read a few days ago, or which I reread a few days ago. Or I read a lot of books,

or I've read a lot of books recently, but the one that sticks out in my mind the most is... It was about a month ago, it was two months ago, it was a year ago, give or take. If you don't remember when exactly it happened, you can say it was a month ago, give or take. I'd say give or take a few days.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, it was like a month ago, you would take a few days. We had dinner outside, at home, Rory had dinner on the decking, at my home. Decking, like, means what? Some space outside. It's an area covered in planks of wood that's outside. When it comes to what we had, so when you change the topic, we can say, when it comes to, When it comes to who I was with, when it comes to what we had, we had a birthday cake, obviously, along with some sausages, sausage rolls, sausage pizza, sausage. There was like a sausage dinner. Passages everywhere. So, Rory, that wasn't really healthy, was it?

Well, no, but I don't think people go out of the way to eat healthy food on their birthday. They might do, but it's not the main thing. Yeah, and Rory called it finger food. So, like, unhealthy finger food, food that you can eat without using nice forks or spoons, or with your fingers. So you can just, like, you can grab it. Bam. So no lasagna, no soups, no, you know, like, finger food.

There were two cakes. There were two cakes for two birthdays. Yes, deal with. And it's a good idea to mention three dishes. dishes that you had and you can choose something interesting. Maria is now looking up ideas for her birthday party celebration. Yeah, or you can just Google some interesting dishes with super specific words, like lamb chops with the spinach.

In terms of who else was there, my family was there, my friends were there, my brother and his girlfriend, their dog. The dog counts as a person. Absolutely, yeah. The dog was pretty chilled out. So chilled out like calm. Not stressed. Just chilled.

The dog's name is Clementine, which I think is an amazing name for a dog. And the dog doesn't move much? Oh, that's strange. No, honestly, this dog just lay there the whole time. Even though there was food freely available, most dogs go crazy for that kind of thing, but she was very well behaved. And when you change the topic once again, say to tell you more about the topics of conversation, because one of the bullet points is

what you talked about. So to tell you more about the topics of our conversations, or in terms of what we talked about, we discussed everything and everybody, we gossiped about other people. All the gossip. Yeah. So you can say that our conversations were about the cake, or we talked about the cake, or I know the weather, politics, religion, and other things. And Roy talked about the photo on the cake, because the cake has some icing, and there was a photo there, and they speculated about it. So they remembered certain things, they thought, where's picture taken, so they speculated about it. At the end, you can say that, oh, we speculated about our childhood.

another word, like, reminisce, right? Uh, yeah. Reminous is a good one. Surely that's a C2 level word. Yeah, could you give us an example with it? Oh, at the party we were reminiscing about things we did before, because we hadn't seen each other in a long time, which is true, actually. That was also something we talked about.

Yeah. Reminis to talk or write about part experiences that you remember with pleasure. So you think about something good, dear listener, okay? not just something bad like, oh, I reminisce about all the disasters in my life. No, no, no, no, no. Oh, but what is the antonym of reminisce? I wonder. Reminous is about positive things.

But if you want to talk about negative things, then the word is ruminate. Oh, yes. For example, could you give us a sentence? Well, I don't do that often, but if we talked about this particular party, we ruminated on things that had gone wrong. So ruminate to think carefully for a long period about something. Usually a negative thing. And then Rory used our favorite, the third conditional, surely, to show a range of grammar structures.

Yes, you did, Rory, you're a band nine. Do you know, when I got my band nine for speaking, I remember trying to use this in the actual test. And I only got halfway through the sentence before the examiner went, no, that's enough. And I was like, oh, okay, so there you go. You only need to make sure that you can get to the end of the two minutes and maybe start using the more advanced structure before anything else. Yeah, with more interesting, okay, okay, okay, I see that you're cool, okay, okay, enough. I think it was because the time was up.

The examiner controls the time deal, you know, and if you are stopped by the examiner, it's absolutely okay, it's normal. Because we usually don't feel these, you know, like two minutes. That's why you can keep going, but the examiner will stop you. Or your story might be too short, for example, one minute and a half, and then the examiner will ask you more questions. That's also okay. So if it hadn't happened.

So imagine that it didn't happen. If it hadn't happened this dinner, I think it would have been a pretty dull day. It would have been. But it wasn't. It happened. and it was a nice day. So in an imaginary situation in the ban.

Rory, could you please say it naturally what we connect? Like connected speech, how do you naturally say it? If it hadn't happened, I think it would have been a pretty dull day. Would have been, you see? Would have been. And hadn't happened. So we don't say hadn't happened. Hadn't happened.

I think it would have been a pretty dull day. Yeah, nice. Nice. So de listen, what dinner? You can talk about, okay? The easiest option is to talk about your birthday dinner, but you can also talk about your family dinner, any dinner that you enjoyed in a restaurant, for example, or imagine.

You can steal Rory's story. Thank you very much for listening and we'll get back to you in our new episode. Bye! Describe a great dinner you and your friends or family members enjoyed. You should say, what you had, who you had the dinner with, what you talked during the dinner about, and explain why you enjoyed it. Well, I had my birthday recently, so that's probably the one that stands out the most in my mind right now. It was about a month ago, give or take, and we had dinner on the

decking at my family home where my parents live. When it comes to what we had, it was just typical birthday party fair, to be honest. Obviously, there was a birthday cake too, actually, now I think about it, along with things like sausages, sausage bowls, pizza, and other kinds of finger food, I suppose you'd call it. I should say, there were two cakes because I share my birthday with my aunt who was joining us this year for that occasion. And in terms of who else was there, well, my aunt's husband was there, of course, would be a bit weird if they traveled separately, and my parents were there along with my friends and my partner, My brother and his girlfriend were also there now that I think about it.

And she even brought her dog, which was really nice. You would think that having a pet at an event like that would be complete chaos. But she was actually pretty chilled out, the dog, that is. And worryingly so, actually. She doesn't move much, but apparently that's normal for her. So that was okay. To tell you more about the topics of conversation and what they were, actually we focused lots on the cakes,

not just because of the taste, although that was also good, but also because there was a picture on the icing of one of them that showed my aunt and I, and that was about 34 years ago, or maybe 35 now, when I was just a baby, and neither of us recalled the photo being taken. Obviously, I wouldn't, but my aunt had no idea where we were or what we were doing at the time, which was quite funny to speculate about. That was just one reason that I liked the whole thing. It was nice being with my loved ones after being away for a long time working in Oxford, so it sort of restored my sense of community as well. If it hadn't happened, I think it would have been a pretty dull day, and who wants that on their

special day? And what about your friends? Did they enjoy it? Well, I hope so, because I invited them, so they should have enjoyed it.