IELTS Speaking for Success - 😇 Smiling and being friendly (Part 3)

Episode Date: February 16, 2026

Get access to our episode archive: https://www.patreon.com/ieltssfs Do people smile more when they are younger or older? Do women smile more than men? Why? Why do most people smile in photographs? Do you think people who like to smile are more friendly? 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://linktr.ee/sfspremium 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

You don't need AI agents, which may sound weird coming from Service Now, the leader in AI agents. The truth is, AI agents need you. Sure, they'll process, predict, even get work done autonomously. But they don't dream, read a room, rally a team, and they certainly don't have shower thoughts, pivotal hallway chats, or big ideas. People do. And people, when given the best AI platform, they're freed up to do the fulfilling work they want to do. To see how ServiceNow puts AI to work for people, visit ServiceNow.com. Hello, hello, lovely. Welcome into ILD speaking part three. We're talking about smiling.

What a lovely topic, full of happiness, smiles and joy. Rory is an expert on smiling. Am I? I don't think so. I think Maria's thinking of a different Rory. You are the only Rory. I know. The only Rory we have in this world. Right, the listener, yeah. The Rory. Let's talk about smiling. Do people smile more when they're younger or older? I don't know, really. I'm tempted to say younger people smile more because they've had fewer letdowns in life

and everything is newer and shinier, so there's burn to be more optimism and smiles. But maybe if you're older and more experienced, you can make the events that make your smile happen more often. So it's anybody's guess. Do women smile more than not? men. Surely that's more about personality rather than a gender thing. If I'm pushed though, maybe women, mostly because there's this idea that women show their emotions more freely.

I think that's a pretty broad generalization, don't you? Why do people smile then in general? God, I think that list of reasons is as long as my arm. I'm trying to organize it in my head. So, I suppose the first and foremost reason is that it's to show that they're happy and you show the other person that you're happy. And so that is part of building a relationship and a shared understanding and experience of the situation. Some people do it to calm a situation by showing there's no need for any tension because they're happy.

So they're openly displaying their emotions to calm things. Other people do this when they are nervous in an attempt to do the calming as well. So there's all kinds of reasons. it could also just be an automatic reaction that people have to good things happening in their lives. Right, and is smiling important in your culture? I think it's probably more important than it is in others, relatively speaking, because you see people smiling more openly here compared to other cultures. So this open signaling of emotion is part of how we interact with each other,

which is less so in other places. Why do most people smile in photographs? That's also a good question, actually. I've never really thought about it. Maybe it's because people want to show their emotions and you cannot really convey how you're feeling in a picture without some kind of visual aid. So the smile is a visual aid to show that everybody is having a good time.

That is just a guess, though. I don't really know. Do you think people who like to smile are more friendly? I think that depends on the type of smile that it is really, doesn't it? Because if it's genuine, like a genuine authentic smile, and the person with it has a friendly disposition or demeanor, then it seems like a fairly safe assumption that they're a friendly person. But if it's like a sinister smile or it doesn't match the situation

or the emotions being expressed, then it might unnerve people quite a lot. Are there any occasions when people need to pretend to smile? Probably, yeah. Like, if you're at an event that you're not really having a good time at and you're just sort of put on a perfunctory smile to try and get through it without bringing other people down along with you, then you would pretend to smile. I don't know how believable it would be, but that's one reason, yeah.

And some people rarely smile or never smile. a smile. Why? Well, it could be a personality thing. Some people are just not prone to open expressions of emotion. Or it could be a cultural thing for basically the same reasons that I just gave there. Maybe open smiles are not something which is encouraged because of, well, a variety of reasons. Maybe it's associated with stupidity, for example. So those are two of the foremost ones. another reason could be they have some kind of facial paralysis perhaps like oh what's that thing it's what's it called it's yes it's a it's facial it's facial ataxia

it just means that you lose control of some muscle so you can't smile 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. Thank you very much, Rory. Look at us using complex medical terminology. Wow, yeah, dear listeners, definitely Ben 9 and the examiner will be all interested in you, you know?

Maybe Googling this word. And it's okay if the examiner doesn't know the word, you just educate the examiner. Yeah, that's fine. So you can show off your profound knowledge. of medical terms and diseases with muscles. So, right, Dillissela, smiling. Okay, and some silly questions. So who smiles more, younger or older people?

Here Rory chose our favorite strategy. I don't know, really. But, well, yeah, I don't know. Like, who smiles more, younger or older people? But now you do know, because according to Google, and Google tells the truth and knows everything. Yeah, so we trust Google. Children smile more often than adults.

So that's a fact. Why? Because many studies suggest. No, no, I mean, like, why do they smile more? They counted that children may smile up to 400 times a day. Dear listener, if you have a child, you can count how many times your child smiles a day. Compared to an average adult who smiles how many times a day, Roy, you think.

An average adult smiles how many times a day? I don't know. 20. Oh, wow, okay. That few, I thought it would be more. 20 times. Because children smile like all the time. At strangers, at dogs.

You know, stray dogs, dirty dogs, happy dogs, unhappy dogs. Like, they smile, seriously. So, we say that children smile more. Fair enough. I'm tempted to say, like a temptation. This is another way of expressing our uncertainty. I'm tempted to say this just because, and then if you're not sure about your answer, at least you said, like, it's not absolute.

I don't know this 100%. And children tend to be more optimistic, so they smile more. There we go. And they may have more events that make them smile. And then an even more stupid question about women and men. And here Rory uses the same strategy, but different words. I have absolutely no idea, which means I don't know. But check out the language.

I have absolutely no idea. Or I've no idea. And that's fine. We can answer like this with something else. Now you know that according to Google and studies, some studies we don't know, women smile more often than men. because research has indicated. Women smile up to 62 times per day,

and men only eight times a day. Wow, poor man. Of, yeah? Hard life you have, Rory. Rory, your task for today, no, for tomorrow will be count how many times you smile, and how many times your brother or your friend, your flatmate, smiles. I'll do that, but it's interesting, Because actually, I think my task, I have daily tasks to try and be more mindful.

And the one today is make three people smile. So it's funny we're talking about this. And I seem to have managed with you and Vanya, who is listening in. So that's good. I have one more person to make smile. Hopefully that is the person listening to this podcast. Do you listen. If you're listening, just smile, you know.

Put on a nice silly smile on your face because now I'm smiling. Yeah. And we have live. Dentalgroup.com and the reasons why do women smile more than men the science of smiling? Oh la la. Because women have better control over their facial muscles. Ha! Women have less stress hormones in the bodies and check it out.

They have a grammar mistake. Fewer stress hormones. Ah, lifedentalgroup.com. Grammar. fix your grammar maybe they're talking about the combination of stress hormones together in which case it would be less but if they talk about

individual hormones then there we go dear listener now you know and you can use the word gender so I don't think it's a gender thing but now according to science and you can quote life dental group

with wrong grammar on their website. So you can say that, yeah, according to this, you know, to a website, I read research, I read studies, yeah, and yeah, according to recent studies, women smile more often, because they control their facial muscles, the muscles in their face. The list is as long as my arm. So that means that the list of reasons why people smile. is very long. This is just buying more time, though,

because I was like, what a weird question? And then I was like, okay, there are all these ideas, but I need to organize them. Yeah, and people usually smile because it's a social signal that communicates positive emotions. Okay, according to BBCSciencefocus.com. So when people feel good,

when people are pleased to see someone, We smile. Or if you're not pleased to see them, you can force a smile. People smile in photographs. So in photos. Okay. And if you have nothing to say, you can say, whoa, that's a good question, actually. Actually, your intonation goes up.

That's a good question, actually. I've never really thought about it. Rory, could you read out this sentence with your beautiful Scottish intonation? English. British. That's an interesting question. I've never really thought about it, actually. Maybe it's because, ta, ta, ta, or it's because this.

So people usually convey their emotions. So we show our emotions, and we convey, so convey, pretty much like show. We convey our emotions in the photo with a smile. Convey express, we express our emotions. And there is Joe Rainey, who, actually wrote an article. Why do we smile in the photographs? And this Joe says that it's the social expectation. So people, most people expect you to smile in photographs. And it's a nice idea. Yeah, and this is this history behind it. When the first camera appeared for the general public,

like people were asked to smile. And now we just expect people to do it. Yeah, and just like for natural or social reasons, like people just started smiling in photographs. Also, because of the adverts, like advertisements, TV, like social media, they also promoted smiling in photos. And again, like when we see a smile,

we feel happiness, we feel kind of safe. Right, so it's connected with happiness, pleasure in our minds. So dopamine, serotonin, and endorphins. There we go, our super hormones. Because we are expected to smile. Yeah, and some people can force a smile, dear listener. So if you don't want a smile and you just put on a smile, it's not real, or you force a smile.

Or you can say you fake a smile. So not real. A perfunctory smile. What's perfunctory? Perfructory. Could you give us a sentence, an example? I think perfunctory is just in order to do the thing, really. It's to do with the social expectation.

You're not doing it because of a genuine interest. It's because you're just expected to do it. Yeah, perfunctory, something that is done quickly without taking care or interest. like her smile was perfunctory, like not real, not genuine. But if a person smiles genuinely or if it's an authentic smile, a genuine smile, real smile, then like other people feel happy with this person. You would hope so. And see two moment, deal with nine, vocabulary, disposition.

The particular type of character, yeah, a person has, for example, she's of an nerve, She's of a cheerful, like happy disposition. Yeah, and if a person has a friendly disposition and smiles, then they tend to be more friendly. But if a person doesn't smile or if a person doesn't have a genuine smile, a person has a sinister smile, this sinister look. Well, it's sinister if it looks like there's a bad intention behind it. Maybe you could have a different smile, like a fake smile, and that's not sinister, it's just fake. It's not authentic. Then this person can unnerve people.

So if you unnerve people, you make them nervous. You make people less confident and frightened. So he unnerved many of his colleagues. Ready listener. Now you know that people smile mainly to you. express positive emotions like joy, happiness, amusement, amusement when you are amused, when you are glad. And also, it's a social signal to convey, to express friendliness, to express that you are a friendly person with a friendly disposition, character. And like to bond with people, to connect with people,

you smile at them first. Genuinely, the listener. Yes. You don't just smile without being genuine, and it's fairly obvious. Thank you very much for listening. Keep listening, yeah, keep working on your English, and we'll get back to you in our next episodes.

All right? Bye, boy, boy, boy, boy. Bye. Do people smile more when they're younger or older? I don't know, really. I'm tempted to say younger people smile more because they've had fewer letdowns in life and everything is newer and shinier, so there's bound to be more optimism and smiles. But maybe if you're older and more experienced, you can make

the events that make you smile happen more often. So it's anybody's guess. When the weather cools down, Golden Nugget Online Casino turns up the heat. This winter, make any moment golden and play thousands of games like her new slot wolf it up and all the fan favorite Huff and Puff games. Whether you're curled up on the couch or ticking five between snow shovels, play winner's hottest collection of slots, from brand new games to the classics you know and love. You can also pull up your favorite table games like blackjack, roulette, and craps,

or go for even more excitement with our library of live dealer games. Download the Golden Nugget Online Casino app, and you've got everything you need to layer on the fun this winter. In partnership with Golden Nugget Online Casino. Gambling problem, call ConX Ontario at 1-866-531-2,600. 19 and over. Physically present in Ontario. Eligibility restrictions apply.

See Golden Nuggettcasino.com for details. Please play responsibly. Do women smile more than men? Surely that's more about personality rather than a gender thing. If I'm pushed though, maybe women, um, mostly because there's this idea that women show their emotions more freely, I think that's a pretty broad generalization, don't you? Why do people smile, then, in general?

God, I think that list of reasons is as long as my arm. I'm trying to organize it in my head. So, I suppose the first and foremost reason is that it's to show that they're happy and you show the other person that you're happy. And so that is part of building a relationship and a shared understanding and experience of this. situation. Some people do it to calm a situation by showing there's no need for any tension because

they're happy. So they're openly displaying their emotions to calm things. Other people do this when they are nervous in an attempt to do the calming as well. So there's all kinds of reasons. It could also just be an automatic reaction that people have to good things happening in their lives. Right. And is smiling important in your culture? I think it's probably more important than it is in others, relatively speaking, because you see people smiling more openly here compared to other cultures. So this open signaling of emotion is part of how we interact with each other, which is less so in other places.

Why do most people smile in photographs? That's also a good question, actually. I've never really thought about it. Maybe it's because people want to show their emotions. and you cannot really convey how you're feeling in a picture without some kind of visual aid. So the smile is a visual aid to show that everybody is having a good time. That is just a guess, though. I don't really know.

Do you think people who like to smile are more friendly? I think that depends on the type of smile that it is really, doesn't it? Because if it's genuine, like a genuine, authentic smile, and the person with it has a friendly disposition or demeanor, then it seems like a fairly safe assumption that they're a friendly person. But if it's like a sinister smile or it doesn't match the situation or the emotions being expressed, then it might unnerve people quite a lot.

Are there any occasions when people need to pretend to smile? Probably, yeah. Like if you're at an event that you're not really having a good time at and you just sort of put on a perfunctory smile to try and get through it without bringing other people down along with you, then you would pretend to smile. I don't know how believable it would be,

but that's one reason, yeah. And some people rarely smile or never smile. Why? Well, it could be a personality thing. Some people are just not prone to open expressions of emotion. Or it could be a cultural thing. For basically the same reasons that I just gave there, maybe open smiles are not something which is encouraged

because of, well, a variety of reasons. Maybe it's associated with stupidity, for example. So those are two of the foremost ones. Another reason could be they have some kind of facial paralysis, perhaps. Like, oh, what's that thing? It's, what's it called? Yes, it's a, it's facial ataxia. Ataxia is a, it just means that you lose control of some muscle so you can't smile.

At the National Post, we don't just report the news. We dive into the stories that shape Canada and the world. From politics to pop culture, we question. We investigate and we bring you insights with a fresh perspective. If you're not already a subscriber, go to nationalpost.com slash Spotify and get unlimited digital access for only $6. That's nationalpost.com slash Spotify. Thank you.