IELTS Speaking for Success - 🎡 Public places (Part 1) + Transcript

Episode Date: November 24, 2025

Get our premium episode archive: https://www.patreon.com/ieltssfs How often do you go to public places? What are the busiest public places where you live? Have you ever talked with someone you don't know in public places? Do you wear headphones in public places? Would you like to see more public places near where you live? 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: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://successwithielts.com/s13e04 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, lovely. I'm Maria. And my name is Rory, and we are the hosts of the AILT Speaking for Success podcast, the podcast that 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 fabulous vocabulary for your high IELS score. Your brand line score. Rory, your hair is a mess. Seriously. I know, I know. I don't. I don't think I'll be going out in public until I can fix it.

Mm-hmm, quite right, mm-hmm. Let's talk about your hair. No, no, no, no, public places. What do we mean by public places? These are the places that Rory will not go today because his hair is messy. Such places as parks, streets, shopping malls, shops, squares, libraries, museums, sports office schools, restaurants, banks, hotels, theaters, airports, train stations, bus terminals, swimming pools, other sports facilities. So yeah.

Anywhere there are people. Oh, really? So any place with people. Well, any place with lots of people and it's shared. It's not owned by someone. I suppose it could be owned by someone, but the idea is there's lots of people. How often do you go to public places? I suppose almost every other day, since I need to go out in the street to shop or walk to my yoga studio or something like that. I also live close to a public park and the city centre as well, so I'm there for a stroll rather often too. What are the busiest public places where you live? At this time of year, probably the centre.

since all the shops are there and people are picking up their shopping for Christmas and stuff like that. Apart from that, I'm not sure. It's getting colder, so people aren't out much. I think the park might be more popular in the summer, but it's pretty deserted at the moment. Have you ever talked with someone you don't know in public places?

Hmm? Hmm? Yeah, especially if I bump into someone I know. It's not happened in a while, though. Oh, I actually know. That's a lie. I ran into a friend the other week at the gym. That was a nice surprise.

Do you wear headphones in public places? Usually, yeah, it's either that or listen to the sound of the traffic, and that's not as entertaining as listening to music or an audiobook or something like that. And with my earphones in, I don't run the risk of disturbing other people. Would you like to see more public places near where you live? I'm not sure there's the space, to be honest. it's a city and it's already a very well-developed area

and we're pretty lucky to be blessed with quite a few sort of common areas already. It's not like it's a big city and everyone is rammed into tightly packed buildings. Get no frills, delivered. Shop the same in-store prices online

and enjoy unlimited delivery with PC Express Pass. Get your first year for 250 a month. Learn more at PCExpress.CA.ca. 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, the listener, a new topic, public places. So as we've discussed, a public place is any place where you have people. So, outdoor places, banks, parks, shopping malls, anything.

So we usually go to public places and you can say, well, I usually go shopping, or I walk to yoga, I go to my yoga studio, or I live close to a public park. I live downtown, so close to the city center. and I usually stroll there. So that's your word. Casual walk. Yeah, so you walk casually in a park. You just stroll in a relaxed way, you know, la la, la, listening to our podcast,

to my stupid jokes, to Rory's stories. And like you say, yeah, I sometimes take a stroll in a park. Or I stroll where can you stroll? Can you stroll in a shopping center? I suppose you could stroll around a shopping center. Ooh, is that a phrasal verb? Ooh, it is a frasal verb. Stroll around a shopping center.

Public places could be quite busy. So, for example, I live near the street, which is very busy during the week. All the shops are busy because people choose their gifts or they pick up their shopping. So they choose their shopping, they do their shopping, or they pick up their shopping for Christmas, for example. And you can say that the shops near the place where I live are quite busy, but they can get deserted at any moment. So Anna is Anthony. So if there are not many people, the place is deserted. Or if there are no people, the place is deserted. See one word. So it's bent eight. for example a deserted street

is it yeah it is you one huh empty a deserted street or a deserted building for example so empty an empty building a very strange question

have you ever talked to someone you don't know in a public place like who have you ever talked to strangers in a street yes all the time it's one of my favorite hobbies Yes, like I, my hobby is talking to strange people, or just like strangers people, I don't know, random people, in public places. Yeah, you can use the phrase of verb, bump inter.

So if you bump into people, you just, you know, you meet them. Yeah, but you kind of like suddenly, you know, like you stroll around and then bam, you bump into somebody interesting or not interesting. Like, it's not planned. Or, for example, you walk down the street somewhere in Dundee in Scotland, and then, bam, you see Rory. So you can bump into Rory in Dundee. Dundee is a place where Rory lives somewhere in the middle of nowhere in Scotland, like a tiny little village. I don't live in a tiny village anymore. No, but seriously, Rory, we don't know where you live.

Dundee, where is it? I live in Dundee is the fourth largest city. What would be the equivalent in Russia? Volgagrad, I suppose. I don't know. We just don't know this place, Dudi. Well, not many people know about Volgagrad, but a million people live there. Anyway, the important thing is that I live there. That is where I live. Just Google Dandhi, okay? Yeah, so if you go to Dundee, you can bump into Rory.

Yeah, so it's like, whoa, wow. Reason enough to go on a holiday there. Another phrase of verb is run into somebody. So you bump into people, or you bump into someone I know, or you run into a friend somewhere in the center. Yeah, you're just like, oh, like, see your friend suddenly. It was a nice surprise, for example. Listening to the sound of the traffic is not entertaining. So it's not fun.

It is not. Yeah, entertaining. That's why I prefer listening to an audiobook or to I outspicking for something. success podcast while commuting to work or on my way to school. And I wear headphones. Maybe not for me. No, Rory, don't listen to our podcasts. I like to listen to the sound of my own voice. No? Oh, yeah, because Rory listens to our premium episodes, yeah. Speaking part two and three. And you can say, I have my earphones in, in like inside my ears. Or you can say I usually wear headphones or I wear earbuds. So like what do you have? I don't like disturbing people.

That's why I wear headphones. Disturbing must be an advanced word, surely. And if not, then bothering people. So I don't like playing loud music. Oh, see too, Rory. Is it? Proficiency benign. Yeah, a disturbing. Yeah. A very nice word. Nice. So actually, Disturbing as an adjective is C2. So listening to loud music is disturbing. So making people feel worried or upset. So it's disturbing to people. Well, I have never made anyone upset or disturbed them on purpose.

Disturb as a verb is B2. So interrupt somebody. Like, I don't want to disturb people. So you see, the listener, you should use disturbing. but here Rory used it as a verb, like I have my earphones in, so I don't run the risk of disturbing other people. So just to interrupt other people. Here, Rory's answer is pretty nice. I'm lucky to be blessed with quite a few of public places where I live. Well, we're lucky to be blessed. I'm lucky to be blessed. So that means that I do have some.

public places where I live. So I have, like, facilities, right, shops, banks, hotels, theaters, museums, squares, parks, all these jazz. So, but instead of saying just, yeah, I have some public places, Rory, as an educated super native speaker, says, I'm pretty lucky to be blessed. I'm just lucky to have many public places. And Rory, what did you mean by saying everyone is rammed, rammed, inter. Well, if you're rammed into a place, it's like you're crammed in there, there's not much space for you. So, for example, in a huge city where you don't have much space, everybody is rammed, inter,

packed buildings. Could you give us another example with the phrase of work ram inter? Well, if we talk about crowded places, for example, around about Christmas time, everyone is rammed into shops or everyone has crammed into shops because they are trying to get the deals and they're trying to prepare in advance. Yeah, also deal is there. You can talk about public toilets. They're also public places. Maybe you don't want to talk about the people you meet in public toilets though. Why not? Yeah, you can meet up, you can bump into some interesting people.

In public toilets? I hope not. Yeah. Also, public baths or public pools, for example. Have you ever been to a public? public pool. Yeah, but not for like a long time. There's one in my hometown, but I cannot remember the last time I was there. On the subject of not being able to remember things, I had difficulty remembering the last time I bumped into someone, but then I suddenly remembered.

And if you do that too in your exam, you can say, oh no, that's a lie, or oh no, actually. And then change the story. I ran into a friend. I bumped into a friend. I did that when I took my exam because I realized I was talking absolute nonsense about something. Yeah, dear listener, if you find yourself talking nonsense, you just say, okay, sorry, I'm talking nonsense, let me rephrase that, yeah, and just continue.

I don't know, I like to say that's a lie. It's funny. My yoga teacher does that all the time. Whenever he makes a mistake, he always just goes, and I'd like you to do this, and then he realizes the mistake and goes, oh no, that was a lie, and then moves on to the real, like... Yeah, yeah, yeah, if you said something stupid, you say, oh, oh, sorry, that was a lie. the truth is the actual truth is

sweet thank you very much for listening and we'll get back to you in our next episode okay bye how often do you go to public places I suppose almost every other day since I need to go out in the street

to shop or walk to my yoga studio or something like that. I also live close to a public park and that and the city center as well, so I'm there for a stroll rather often too. What are the busiest public places where you live? At this time of year, probably the center since all the shops are there and people are picking up their shopping for Christmas and stuff like that. Apart from that, I'm not sure. It's getting colder so people aren't out much. I think the park might be more popular in the summer, but it's pretty deserted at the

moment. Have you ever talked with someone you don't know in public places? Hmm? Hmm? Um, yeah, especially if I bump into someone I know. It's not happened in a while, though. Oh, I actually no, that's a lie. I ran into a friend the other week at the gym. That was a nice surprise. Do you wear headphones in public places? Usually, Yeah, it's either that or listen to the sound of the traffic, and that's not as entertaining as listening to music or an audiobook or something like that. And with my earphones in, I don't run the risk of disturbing other people. Would you like to see more public places near where you live?

I'm not sure there's the space, to be honest. It's a city, and it's already a very well-developed area. And we're pretty lucky to be blessed with quite a few sort of common areas already. It's not like it's a big city and everyone is rammed into tightly packed buildings.