IELTS Speaking for Success - 🎾 Hobbies and free time (S10E20) + Transcript

Episode Date: May 26, 2024

What do you like to do in your free time?/Do you have a hobby? Do you need any special equipment for it/them? Do you share your hobbies/activities with others? Did you have a hobby as a child? What would you like to do with your free time in the future? What are the most popular hobbies or pastimes in your country?  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/s10e20 Find an IELTS Speaking Partner: https://links.successwithielts.com/ieltspartner Our social media: https://linktr.ee/successwithielts © 2024 Podcourses Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, Sunshine. I'm Maria. And my name is Rory, and we're the host of the AIL Speaking for Success podcast. The podcast aims 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 super vocabulary for your high IEL score. And ninth score. Oh, Rory, we don't have a joke for this episode. We don't have any coincidences, like nothing. But that is because the episode is a joke.

Oh, are we talking about hobbies? Yes, because everyone is expected to be able to talk about their hobbies. It's like a cliche topic in English language learning. And here we are feeding this cliche in as nice a way as possible. It's like when you meet a person, the second question you ask them is, oh, what are your hobbies? What's your hobby? Let's talk about hobbies. A perfectly normal set of questions to ask people when you meet them the first time.

Oh, you go to a bar and they go, okay, what's your name? Hello. And what's your hobby? Do you actually use the word hobby? Like, do you ask people? And what are your hobbies? No, I was talking to someone about this recently because they were like, do you, I don't really think I have any hobbies. And they were like, yes, you do. You do a lot of things in your free time. And I was thinking, you do, yeah, but I wouldn't call them my hobbies, I would call them like my free time activities or things I do in my free time. So a better question than what are your hobbies would be, what do you like to do in your free time? So do you listener, and we're going to talk about hobbies. Or free time activities for the more modern listener.

What do you like to do in your free time? I wouldn't say I had a hobby really, unless my job teaching really counts. I do a lot of things in my free time. I like to read and write fiction and some short articles on teaching and I do different sports like wild swimming, jiu-jitsu and yoga. Do you need any special equipment for it or them? Well, nothing terribly out of the ordinary. I mean, to read, you need to have a book, clearly.

And similarly, for swimming, you need shorts, and the yoga studio requires you to bring your own mat. But outside of this, I think it's all pretty run-of-the-mill stuff, nothing special. I think the most specialist equipment I need. is the ghee that I wear for jiu-jitsu and a geese like a kind of uniform that you have to wear for this martial art. Do you share your hobbies or activities with others? So for yoga, swimming in martial arts, I definitely need partners for those things since it's safer

and well even necessary for the development of some positions and moves and concepts. But for reading and writing, those are pretty much solitary activities and I just spend time. doing them by myself. Did you have a hobby as a child? I mean, I used to collect these plastic models of various military craft from around the world. That was quite fun. Other than that, not really. I only ever read or roach and played video games or went out with my friends.

That's just standard stuff that you do when you're a young person, really. What would you like to do with your free time in the future? I quite like the things I do already, to be honest. I recently got into rope climbing, so maybe when I'm back from Oxford and I have more time, I'll get into that even more. What are the most popular hobbies or pastimes in your country? Oh, wow, that's a good question, actually. I think a lot of people go walking, running and jogging outdoors,

especially since we have a special law in our country that allows this to happen anywhere. I also think that outdoor activities in general are quite common, since we have so much free space for use, so why not use it for those ends? Dear listener, we do have our premium episodes for you, where Rory and I are discussing fresh topics speaking part two and three. This week in our premium episodes, Rory is describing a person he knows who likes to cook for others. Yum, yum, yum. And in speaking part three, we are discussing cooking. We give you grammar, vocabulary, super ideas, and band nine language. To check them up, the links are in description. So, hobbies, we can also use past times, right? So past times like free time

activities. Yeah. Can I say leisure activities? Because leisure is my free time, so leisure activities. I think so. That should be okay. Like, things you do for fun. Yeah. So in this episode, we used the word hobby a lot of times, but de listeners again, don't use it in real life. And in Ireland, it's better to use of free time activities, leisure activities, or just like, I do this in my freedom. And then you say, I do different sports like yoga. I do different sports like swimming. But Rory does wild swimming, like a true Scottish person, like freedom, wild swimming. All it is is cold or open water swimming.

Probably it's very popular elsewhere in the world too. Yeah, it's very boring to swim in a swimming pool. Like Rory does wild swimming, you know, in the open ocean. Well, it's also expensive. You have to pay to get into these things. Why would you pay to get into a swimming pool and you can go in the, like, water for free? So Rory also does Jiu-Jitsu. So I do karate.

I do martial arts. You know, all this like karate, J-Jitsu. Sometimes we do need special equipment. So special devices, or you can call it gear. Special gear, for example, if you enjoy diving, you need diving gear. So like an oxygen tank, a special suit. And Rory goes like, nothing terribly out of the ordinary. That just means nothing unusual.

Yeah, like I need a book to read, obviously. Swimming shorts to swim. And also the listener, to meditate, you do need specific. equipment. Did you know that? So there's a special meditation pillow. And you can't meditate without it, Deles. That sounds like some sort of late stage capitalist ploy to make people buy stuff they don't need. That's ridiculous. Oh, it's called meditation cushion. There you go. Oh, take a look, take a look. organic cotton Shambres

Zufu meditation cushion 40 pounds Rory four colors okay let's choose yes I'm sure when the Buddhist monks who came up with the concept of mindfulness were investing all this time meditating

and developing their minds they were thinking yes what this meditation really needs is some organic cotton well a lot of do listen go to yoga matters and take a look at this beautiful meditation cushions. Or you can get one for, or you can get like some special,

ooh, meditation kit for 140 pounds. Kit is like, you know, like, um... Yeah, it's a collection of objects needed to do something. So a toolkit is a collection of tools needed to make repairs. You see, the listener, beautiful language. So even if you don't like meditation, you can say, oh, yeah, sometimes I do meditation and I have my meditation kit with a cushion and a buckwheat.

bolster what's a bolster oh okay deal listen now you know where to go yoga matters dot com just it's a very good idea to look at the products look at the language they use and choose maybe like two words you can remember to name specific things and you can use them about anything for example the examiner asks you what's your favorite object you say oh my meditation kit with a cushion made out of organic cotton. There you go. You see, what would you like to buy? Of course, an organic meditation cotton.

And then the examiner will give you like a five for being foolish. Oh my God. Oh, they have like different fragrances and candles because you can't meditate without a candle. I am not hearing any of this right now. This is crazy. But our Rory is super simple. He only needs a mat. But also Rory, you mentioned some strange words you need for a jiu-jitsu.

Oh, a ghee. A ghee is just the uniform that you use for jiu-jitsu. Typically, at least in my country, they are white. I imagine they could be other colors too if they wanted them to be. But usually they're white. But yes, like I say, that's the closest thing to something very special that I have. So the closest thing to something special. or the closest thing to special equipment. But for the rest of it, there's this expression

nothing terribly out of the ordinary, which is connected to just saying nothing unusual or nothing terribly special. So, dear listener, this is your chance to use super topic-specific vocabulary. So you should choose an activity and then choose a word. You can remember something very specific,

like a thing you used to do this, or you can lie, okay? If, dear listener, you enjoy climbing, even if you don't enjoy it. For example, you are into rock climbing. What specific words can we use? I don't know if you need it for rock climbing, but when I go rope climbing,

I need a harness to hold everything in place so I don't fall. Very good. So you need a harness to do it. So just choose an activity. You can choose a strange activity like digital art, pottery, beekeeping. Maybe you enjoy keeping bees. But even if you don't, just lie.

choose a strange activity and then choose one word which is about some devices some tools you need to do this to impress the examiner with your topic specific vocabre in some activities we need partners so we need other people

some activities are solitary that just means you do them by yourself and actually doing something by myself is an expression that you could use not just for your hobbies but for anything like I work by myself or I can't work by myself because I need other people in a team to help me. When I was a child, I used to collect plastic models of military craft. Military craft like soldiers.

Yeah, like aircraft or whatever, you know, different machines. Airplanes, yeah? Yeah. When you speak about new hobbies, activities, you can say I recently got into rope climbing. I recently got into swimming. I recently got into painting. Or you can say, I recently took up gardening or took up walking. Like, started doing something.

So in your country, what do people usually do? And here you can say, well, I think a lot of people go walking. So go walking, go running, go jogging, outdoors, but do sports. Do you listen and careful with go and do? So what else do we do? Like do yoga, do karate, do sports. Well, thinking about it now, you go plus ING, don't you? And do?

The things don't usually end with ING, do they? For example, camping. Like, to stay in a tent. I go camping. You don't do camping. Riding. You go riding. Yeah.

What about football? You play football, but you play rugby and you play golf. But all of those involve ball. So that's why they're play. You do need balls to do this. What about gymnastics? You do gymnastics. So I'm thinking we're spotting a pattern here.

What pattern? Go plus ING and do plus not ING. And play for ball sports. Or just like, well, I suppose you can play chess as well. So it's like a game, play a game. And you can speak about outdoor activities, indoor activities. And you know what they say, Rory? about some hobbies.

They say make your hobby your job and you never have to work a day in your life. Well, that's complete nonsense because my hobby is my job and I still work every day. Thank you very much for listening and we'll get back to you in our next episode. Bye.

What do you like to do in your free time? I wouldn't say I had a hobby really unless my job of teaching really counts. I do a lot of things in my free time, though. I like to read and write fiction and some short articles on teaching. And I do different sports like wild swimming, jiu-jitsu and yoga.

Do you need any special equipment for it or them? Well, nothing terribly out of the ordinary. I mean, to read, you need to have a book, clearly. And similarly, for swimming, you need shorts, and yoga studio requires you to bring your own mat. But outside of this, I think it's all pretty run of the mill stuff, nothing special. I think the most specialist equipment I need is the ghee that I wear for jiu-jitsu and a ghee is like a kind of uniform that you have to wear for this martial art.

Do you share your hobbies or activities with others? So for yoga, swimming in martial arts, I definitely need partners for those things since it's safer and well even necessary for the development of some positions and moves and concepts. But for reading and writing. Those are pretty much solitary activities and I just spend time doing them by myself. Did you have a hobby as a child? I mean, I used to collect these plastic models of various military craft from around the world. That was quite fun. Other than that, not really. I only ever read or wrote and played video games or went out with my friends. That's just standard stuff that you do when you're a young person, really. What would you like to do with your free time in the future?

I quite like the things I do already, to be honest. I recently got into rope climbing, so maybe when I'm back from Oxford and I have more time, I'll get into that even more. What are the most popular hobbies or pastimes in your country? Oh, wow, that's a good question, actually. I think a lot of people go walking, running and jogging outdoors, especially since we have a special law in our country

that allows this to happen anywhere. I also think that outdoor activities in general are quite common, since we have so much free space for use, so why not use it for those ends?