IELTS Speaking for Success - 🧹 Tidiness (Part 1) + Transcript

Episode Date: June 24, 2026

Get access to our episode archive: https://successwithielts.com/ Is Rory a stickler for tidiness or will he have a nervous breakdown in a messy room? Maria reveals the best idioms and polite phrases to describe your living space, even if it's a 'creative mess'! Tune in and have a great day! - Book a class with Rory here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://successwithielts.com/rory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Transcript: https://successwithielts.com/ 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

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free of charge. BetMGEMGEMD operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. Hello, lovely. I'm Maria. And I am amateur opera singer Rory Duncan, and we're the hosts of the IEL Speaking for Success podcast. The podcast aims to help you improve your speaking skills, as well as your listening skills along the way. We started this podcast to give you super grammar and fabulous vocabulary

for your high IELS school. Your band, ninth school. Oh, Rory, so now you are what? An amateur opera singer. Amateur opera singer. Amateur opera singer. Amateur means not professional. Like I'm an amateur tennis.

player, not professional. Opera singer. Rory sings opera. Wow. Okay. This is a joke, delis. Rory is a teacher. But today he's an opera singer. I was an opera singer. I'd be much more interesting. Rory, could you demonstrate? You know, how do you sing? No, no. If you want a demonstration of opera, you can just go online. Okay. Oh wow, Rory, your office looks good today. Thank you. I was tidying it earlier. It's so tidy and clean.

Shall we talk about tidiness? Yes, let's talk about tidying. Being tidy, like being clean or tidiness is our topic. Tidiness means the condition or quality of having everything ordered and arranged in the right place. So it's kind of like clean, cleanliness. Cleanliness.

It's crazy because like the adjective is clean, but cleanliness. Tidy, tidiness. Hmm. Let's rock and roll. Are you a tidy person? I try my best to be one. I don't have a very high tolerance for mess

and I like everything to be in its proper place. It makes my life a lot easier. How important is it for you to keep your room or workplace clean? I mean, it's not the be-all and end-all, but I like having things organized and where I can get to them easily when possible. That said, I'm not going to have a nervous breakdown if something is slightly out of place either. It's just a preference.

Did your parents teach you to be tidy when you were a child? Well, I suppose they must have done. Otherwise, I wouldn't know how to do it now. But I don't really remember them sitting me down and explicitly saying something like, this is how you tidy your room. I think it would have been more general reminders than anything else. How do you feel when you are in a messy environment? Well, I'm not overly thrilled about it,

just because I'm usually more of a stickler for tidiness. But I suppose I could put up with it if it wasn't my home, because, well, it would be pretty rude to do or say anything otherwise, wouldn't it? You can't just walk into someone's house and say, oh, this is a mess. When you're a mid-sized business, you need every competitive advantage you can get. Like an AI solution that works for you, not against you. SAP Grow is built with AI embedded at its core, working across every system. And it's ready to go from day one so you can hit the ground running.

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See you soon Right dear listener Yeah like the question is a bit strange Like are you a clean person You know what if I'm not I'm dirty I'm disgusting saying I'm a mess. Because I'm a mess.

Right? So I'm just like now my room is just, oh my God. You could say it's not a priority for me. So you can say like to be honest, I'm not. It's not my priority. Okay, I'm messy. Don't say it's not my cup of tea. No, no, no, don't do that.

So or you can say you can lie again, dear listener. Just lie all over the place. I try my best to be one. So I try my best. I do my best. I'm trying to be a clean person. But we don't repeat. And this is a good way to avoid repeating. Yes, exactly, Maria. You were about to say that. Sorry, I interrupted. Keep going. No, go ahead. Go ahead. No, you go ahead. You're much more interesting. Yeah, like one. One, you don't want to repeat a tidy person. So when the examiner asks you, are you a tidy person? I do my best to be one, a tidy person.

And then you say, I don't like being in a mess, or I don't have a high tolerance for mess. Or, like, I'm okay if there is a mess in my room. Or I'm quite messy. I can deal with it. I can cope. I don't mind a mess. I can't cope. I need it to be tidy.

Yeah, but, like, if our listener doesn't mind being in a messy environment, like, what do they say? Oh, just, I'm okay with it. I can deal with mess. Yeah, I can deal with mess. I'm psychologically equipped to deal with mess. Like, I'm not a tidy person. I'm not a clean freak. Yeah, oh, there we go. I'm not a clean freak. A freak is a crazy person.

So if you don't clean everything, we'd say, I'm not a clean freak. Hmm, okay. I keep my room, I keep my workspace clean. or it's rather clean, it's not so dirty, it's tidy, like everything is well organized. I have things organized or I have some things organized. But sometimes it gets messy, it gets dirty with a lot of empty cups and what you call rubbish, which is food, you know, like leftovers and stuff. Food waste?

Food waste, yeah. I don't have any food waste, but do we have this situation as a creative mess? You know, some artists have, or kind of like... I think that's just called being untidy. So you don't have it in English. Well, we definitely have it. I just think it's an excuse for not being organized. Yeah, but can I say, oh, I have this creative mess.

You can if you like. I just don't... I wouldn't believe it. Yeah, yeah, but like, have you heard? heard anyone use it. I've heard people say, like, creative people are messy, but I don't know how true that is. Yeah, you can say, like, you know, like, as all artists and genius people, I have a small mess in my room. I guess, and the examiner will absolutely believe you, 100%. So when you say it's not the be all and end all. It's like the most important thing. So it's not the most important thing. It's not the be all and end all. Yeah. It's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a

Canadian be all. Is it a beep one? It doesn't say, like, the be all and end all. And as always, if it doesn't say in the Cambridge Dictionary, then that means that it's C2 band nine. Yeah, band nine, absolutely. So the be all and end all is the most important thing. So, for example, winning is not the be all and end all.

Or in the arts world, getting a nine is not the be all and end all. it's not the most important thing in life to get a nine. If you get an eight or a seven, that's good, right? Even 6.5 is good out of 9. Six is also nice, dear listener, you know, depends on what you want. So I enjoy, I have things organized. And you can say, I'm not going to have a nervous breakdown if something is out of place. So if something is messy, if something is out of place.

I'm not going to go crazy and nervous breakdown. Yes, this crisis situation. So sometimes things get out of place. My parents taught me to be tidy. My parents taught me to be clean when I was a child. Rory, seriously, like, when you were a child, you were clean? No, I didn't say that. It was just my parents taught me to do this, or this is how they taught me to do it.

Yeah, you can say, like, I don't remember being taught. how to be clean. They gave me general reminders. Reminders, like they reminded me to clean my room. General gentle reminders, conveyed through the power of yelling. Exactly, yeah. They yelled at me, they shouted at me like, Rory, Fergus Duncan, clean your room.

Immediately. Oh, you know, Rory, I was horrible. My room was so messy. It was, oh God, it was like a trash. Was it almost uninhabitable? Absolutely. It was full of trash. All over the place and clothes and books and, oh boy, I was really bad.

So I was a rebel. Yeah, can you use trash? Trash. Like, there's trash in my room, rubbish. I suppose you can if you want to. But most trash goes in the bin. Yeah, but if it doesn't, if it doesn't, then I can't help you. Remind me never to live with you because I would have a nervous breakdown then.

Yeah, how do you feel in a messy environment? A messy environment, for example, a room or a house, you go in there and there is a mess. It's messy. A room, a place, a cafe, I don't know, somewhere, some place. And you say, like, I'm not overly thrilled about it. That means... I don't like it. I don't like it.

I hate it. So that's a polite version of I hate it. I'm not overly thrilled about it. Or you can say, I'm not happy about it. I'm not thrilled about it. What else? Rory, like, what are the feelings can our listener have? I'm not a big fan of it.

I feel confused. I feel awkward. I feel horrible. I feel... Grimy. Grimy. Grimy. Grimy is like covered in dirt.

You probably, it would have to be very untidy for you to feel grimy. Yeah, grimy is dirt. Yeah, like a grimy face. All right. Yeah, or you can say, I feel disgusted. Like, ooh, yuck, what's that? Disgusting me. So I feel absolutely disgusted.

I'm usually a stickler for tidiness. But that just means I'm someone who tries to be as tidy as possible. or I focus on tidiness. Yeah, you can say, like, I'm a clean freak. Why not? So, a stickler, a person who thinks that a particular type of behavior is very important. So I'm a stickler for detail. I'm a stickler for efficiency.

I'm a stickler for tidiness. I can't put up with mess. So I can't tolerate mess. That's a phrase of verb. Or I could put up with some mess. It's okay. I don't mind mess. I could put up with some mess.

But not in my home. Right. Okay. Now, what do you call an untidy person? Oh, you can say, like, I'm quite untidy. Messy. I'm disorganized, maybe. But that could apply to the personality as well as like physical surroundings.

Messy untidy. My worst nightmare. All right. And we're going to wrap it up with a joke. Okay. So, Rory, this is a question. You don't answer the question, right? You just wait for the answer.

Right. Why did the cleaning lady learn hypnosis? She wanted to do some brainwashing. So, Rory, could you explain the joke? No, I don't want to. So a cleaning lady does the cleaning. And hypnosis helps you make people do what you want, which is called brainwashing. And obviously, the cleaning lady does the washing.

So she is brainwashing. Yeah. Oh, God. Yeah. Right. Thank you very much for listening. We'll get back to you in our next episode. Okay.

Bye. Bye. Stay clean and healthy and happy. Bye. Are you a tidy person? I try my best to be one. I don't have a very high tolerance for mess, and I like everything to be in its proper place.

It makes my life a lot easier. How important is it for you to keep your room or workplace clean? I mean, it's not the be-all and end-all, but I like having things organized and where I can get to them easily when possible. That said, I'm not going to have a nervous breakdown and if something is slightly out of place either, it's just a preference. Did your parents teach you to be tidy when you were a child? Well, I suppose they must have done.

Otherwise, I wouldn't know how to do it now. But I don't really remember them sitting me down and explicitly saying something like, this is how you tidy your room. I think it would have been more general reminders than anything else. How do you feel when you are in a messy environment? Well, I'm not overly thrilled about it just because I'm usually more of a stickler for tidiness, but I suppose I could put up with it if it wasn't my home, because, well, it would be pretty rude to do or say anything otherwise, wouldn't it? You can't just walk into someone's house and say, oh, this is a mess.