IELTS Speaking for Success - 🎅 Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Episode Date: December 25, 2020

Thank you very much for sticking with us this year! Let's see what the new year brings! We love you! Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year ❤️ Maria, Ivan and Rory -  IELTS Speaking for Success PREMIUM: https://linktr.ee/sfspremium Find an IELTS Speaking Partner: https://links.successwithielts.com/ieltspartner Our social media: https://linktr.ee/successwithielts © 2021 Success with IELTS Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Eligibility restrictions apply. See Golden Nuggett Casino.com for details. responsibly. Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello, hello. Welcome into our Christmas special super episode. I'm Rory. And I'm Maria. Hey, and we're the host of the AIL Speaking for Success podcast.

I would say that we're here to improve your listening skills and your speaking skills, but actually today we're just here to shoot the breeze about Christmas, aren't we? Yeah, we're going to ramble. We haven't really prepared, so we don't have a strict plan to follow. We have some questions that you, You wrote to us on Instagram, so we're going to answer these questions. And we just ramble. Ramble, like talk about Christmas and holiday spirit.

Yay. Roy, do you feel this Christmas mood? Do you feel the Christmas? I don't think I feel it as much as you do. No? But I still feel Christmassy. Yeah. What are your plans?

What are you going to do this Christmas? Uh, work. Hooray for me. No. No. I've got, well, Russian Christmas isn't until January, is it? So on the 25th of December, I will be working. I have one student who I'll be spending some time with. Are you joking?

Well, he's really cool, so it's okay for me. I don't mind. Normally what Mark and I do is we look at, well, we revised the past grammar and vocabulary, and then we look at stories in English, and then we play chess. But this time around, I have a special. surprise for him. We're going to do all of the things we usually do. He really likes his chest game, especially since he won last time. And we're going to make a Christmas tree together. It's going to be cool. Oh, sweet. And I'm tempted to buy him a Christmas present as well. Nothing too crazy,

but like something nice. And then on the subject of Christmas presents, I'll be dropping all of the ones off to the people that I work with. That'll be a pleasant surprise for them, I would imagine. So you've prepared presents for your colleagues? I haven't prepared presents. I've, I don't want to go into too much detail and ruin the surprise. Will this episode be going out on Christmas Day? Yes. Okay, so maybe it's not so bad. I'm going to buy each of them a bottle of wine, mostly,

except for the guys who will be getting beer. And then each of them's getting a letter as well from me because I can't say enough positive things about the people I work with. They're awesome, and they deserve, like, to be told how cool they are. Oh, this is so sweet. So hopefully that would be nice for them. Please don't, oh, I should have said, like, spoiler warning or something. Like, if you're listening to the podcast before, and you're a member of staff at Simply English, then please don't listen past this point because it's going to ruin it.

So, Vanya, you can just, like, change it back around. And if Vanya can't do that, then that's life. I'm sure the guys will appreciate it anyway. So that's my Christmas Day. I'm kind of happy to do that. So it's it. I'm working, but I'm not working hard. What about you, Maria?

What are your plans? Oh, nothing much. Just chilling. Yeah, chilling. and Russian Christmas is on the 7th of January Right And this is like more of religious holiday So I, me personally, I just don't celebrate it

So it's just a day off for me Do you not spend it with your family? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah Like New Year, but New Year is far more important I think like if you're not religious Right, so New Year is an important holiday Russians do really like New Year Yeah, like more than people in the West for sure

But that's because we're still recovering from Christmas, I guess. Yeah, and New Year is like the 31st of December with a family celebration. And we get together, we pig out on a massive New Year dinner, supper, lunch, breakfast, all in one. So you're going to have a party. Oh yeah, I think like it's going to be a family party. So will I. Except it will be my Russian family party because this year... Roar is Russian now.

Well, ostensibly. Also, I don't get to go home this year. so it will be the Russian equivalent although that's not bad I have cool friends so who cares yeah Rory has got Russianized

I have become Russian I've become Russian I'm so it's not obvious from the podcast but people who know me outside of the podcast will understand just how Russian I have become yeah we should get you a Russian surname because like Rory Duncan so Duncan is a really Scottish surname

Duncanovich Duncanovich wow no it wouldn't I would be Rory Ianovic because my dad That's Ian. Oh, God. All right. We have some questions from our listeners,

and thank you very much for writing these questions to us. So the question is, right, what food do Scottish people make? At Capital One, we're more than just a credit card company. We're people just like you who believe in the power of yes. Yes to new opportunities. Yes to second chances. Yes, to a fresh start.

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Perhaps on Christmas. For Christmas? Yeah. I'm going to really disappoint everybody when I say this, but for the life of me, I can't think of any special Scottish foods for Christmas. Like, in the West, all Christmas foods are sort of the same. It's like minced pie.

which is like a mixture of fruit and meat, Christmas pudding, and of course there's turkey. But then I'm probably going to disappoint people by saying that I don't have any of these things because I hate all of them. What? I do hate Christmas pudding.

I hate Christmas pudding the most. I hate fruit in my dessert. It's unnatural. So I'm just... Rory's on pizza. Yeah, well, this year I'm having pizza. Last year we had fish. And it will be pizza and syrenicky

this year. So, yeah, I don't like turkey, it's too dry And I like fish, everybody knows how much I like seafood And I don't like traditional Christmas foods Sorry, I'm an individual I'm not part of the hive mind I'm breaking the conditioning Yeah, and the next question was like turkey or fish

Well, fish, then, so fish for you? Last year we had salmon, I think What about you, turkey or fish? Turkey, I'd go for meat, bird Do you not think it's too dry? Yum, yum, yum, yum. Oh, it depends on how you prepare it. You can have some sauce.

Yum, yum, yum. And last year, I actually made a freaking turkey. You made a turkey? I made a turkey. I don't kind of, like, grew the turkey, but I bought a frozen turkey and I stuff it in the oven. And it was actually quite delicious. Cool. It was juicy and nice.

I had this berry sauce or something. Cranberry sauce? Yeah, yeah, cranberry sauce. Nice. It's so American. But it's nice. I like cranry sauce. So American.

Don't say that I eat American food. Well, we all eat American food. McDonald's. There you go. I don't eat McDonald's. No? Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Sorry, dear listener, Rory eats American pizza, which is called Papa Jones Pizza. It's Papa John's American. Which is American pizza. Okay. Well, it's not the fact that it's American that bothers me. It's just like it's not very unique. I don't know. But then I suppose the answer to the answer to the.

That is, does everything have to be unique and, you know, you don't? Because I made this cranberry sauce from Russian cranberries and some port wine from Portugal, by the way. Nice. I bought it in Portugal. So it was a unique cranberry sauce. Oh, I was going to ask, we talked about special foods for Christmas in Scotland. But what about in Russia? Some, I like a lot of our listeners aren't Russian.

Salads with mayonnaise. Salads with mayonnaise and more salads with more maineas. mayonnaise is the secret Russian ingredient. Somebody, I read somewhere that someone was like, Russian people have this habit of putting mayonnaise and, and dill and smetama, which is like sour cream on everything unnecessarily. We can even put dill on pizza.

You do? Yeah. Why? I have no idea. What is this Russian obsession with dill? Is it like the only herb that grows in this country? Yeah, dill and parsley, like we put it in every. every soup and if you hate deal, oh, oh, you should, you can't eat pretty much most of the food

because in restaurants, in some, you know, reasonable restaurants, yeah, they have deal everywhere. In sales and soups on your meats, in dumplings, Russian dumplings, Ben, many. So, Rory, do you like deal? After living in this country for five years, I had no choice. It's in everything. The chocolate has dill in it. Chocolate with dill. Yum, yum, yum.

Yeah. Yeah, dear listeners, let's share our Christmas dishes. So what do you usually have with your family on the 25th of December? We're going to create an Instagram post. So please go on our Instagram and share your favorite dishes or like your just like what food you have or make, prepare, cook on Christmas Day. All right. Other people are sending love and they are. saying we are awesome. So instead of asking us questions, they're just saying that we are awesome. That is nice. Do you know, I don't know about you. I think you do, but I get messages from people almost every day

now just saying thank you and that's really quite sweet. Although I assume you do as well. Yeah. It's probably important to point out though. While it is nice to hear thanks from people, please don't say things like you're the reason that I passed and got like a

good mark in my exam because you know, sure, we provide the material, but the people who make the real effort are you guys, so don't sell yourself short. Like, this is a team effort, if anything. Yeah. And we really appreciate all your nice comments, and when you write some private messages to us with sweet words, like really, they are music to our ears. And when I get up and then I check the Instagram and there's a message like, oh, you're awesome. Thank you so much. like really like thank you and we really appreciate it. Me too, yeah, it's super nice to hear from people.

Like, it's weird, but at the same time it's really nice. So thank you so much for your support and we are recording in a studio now and this studio is possible because we have this premium. And our premium listeners, they just make the studio possible. We are investing more time in the podcast because again, like we should eat and we should buy presents. So, and we used to do the podcast for free, right? And now we are recording many episodes for free. But again, the fact that Rory is preparing for the podcasts, I'm preparing, right?

Ivan is editing. This is all possible because we have this premium listeners, this premium section. And premium is not only like the episodes, right? You have IOT's webinars, we have transcripts, we have vocabulary lists. you have a special premium section on our website. So if you want to say thank you and if you want to give us some present on Christmas or New Year, you can become our premium listener.

Absolutely. It's important to point out that obviously the premium subscribers pay regularly, which is extremely nice of them. But if you don't have that much money, but you'd still like to have some success in your exams and you would like to spend it with us, then there are other alternatives like the right. writing checks, for example, or the mock exams. So, you know, it doesn't have to be a regular

payment. Obviously, we'd appreciate that, but, you know, don't feel like you have to. If you want to support us, there are other methods, and we very much appreciate it. We couldn't do any of this without, well, just supportive people in general, could we? Yeah, and we would be really grateful if you could just share our podcast, right? Yeah. So the more people know about our work and the more people, your colleagues, like students, friends, family, everybody, you know. If they know about us and if they listen to us, that would be lovely. So we want to conquer this world.

I don't speak for success. Well, we're doing very good job of it. We're number one in India. We're number one in India. Yes. I don't know how we manage that. Thank you very much, our Indian listeners. We love you.

Thank you. So hugs from Moscow. We kind of have a thing with countries beginning with either because we have a massive fan base in Iran, which is not to say that it's not a significant country, but it's the most random place. Hello Iranian listeners. So, hello to our Iranian listeners, especially the ones that I had the pleasure of speaking to

when I did my free lessons about a month ago. That was extremely good fun. So it was nice to meet some of them. And to find this out, I had no idea that we had this group of people here. It's another one of these things. It's really strange, but it's also really cool and really nice to see.

We also have, we are popular in Thailand, in Vietnam. So hello to all our Thai listeners and listeners from Vietnam and actually Asia. So thank you for your support. Yeah. Yep. And Russia. Russia is also, we are getting big in Russia. Yeah, we are.

Absolutely. Are we not quite popular in some parts of Africa as well? I'm sure I read that we were up in Nigeria. Dear listener, we're just popular. We are just getting more popular. We have over one million listens. And it doesn't matter which country, you know, like we love you all and we hug you. and yeah.

So we shouldn't single out favorites. No, no, no, no. On the other hand, like, some groups are more focal than others, so we should acknowledge them. All right. So with your help, we're going to be number one podcast. It wouldn't surprise me. Actually, to be honest with you, this is like,

it's an exam preparation podcast, but... It's also fun. It's fun. And, you know, our answers are useful in terms of language. Yeah. We're quite funny. Yes. And I crack really funny jokes, okay?

Well, and if you feel that some jokes are silly, Rory. Some jokes are more realistic than other, more realistic, more appreciated than others. Yeah, but if you have some ideas, some constructive ideas on how we can improve our podcast and how I can make my jokes even funny, let us know. Or just how they could be made funny, really, would be a step up at this point. Anyway, thank you so much. and have a lovely Christmas, New Year, lovely holidays with IOTs, without IOTS, with English, without English. But always with our podcast.

Yeah. Merry Christmas and a happy New Year to you. Mua.