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Shadowing practice: Useful IDIOMS for Any Topic in IELTS Speaking

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  1. Idioms are fun and I want to show you a bunch of idioms that you can use for any topic in IELTS speaking.0:00
  2. Let's do it!0:10
  3. Hello this is Keith from the Keith Speaking Academy and this YouTube channel English Speaking Success and I'm here because I want to help you change from being an English0:21
  4. student to an English speaker and I know you can do it if you study with me step by step we can make it.0:34
  5. So idioms I know lots of students can find idioms to be a real challenge right?0:43
  6. Which do I learn?0:51
  7. How do I use them?0:53
  8. Well there are thousands of idioms in English and I suggest that you just learn maybe one a day right as a part of your daily English diet if you0:55
  9. like.1:09
  10. I also suggest that you don't go and look for lists of lots of idioms and try and learn them right?1:10
  11. I don't think that's effective.1:19
  12. Much better is that when you're watching a film or a video or listening to a podcast and you hear an interesting expression make a note check the meaning and1:21
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  1. then learn it because then you've got the context and you're getting kind of just one or two idioms a day which is easier rather than learning a list of1:32
  2. 20.1:44
  3. Now I realize it's a bit ironic because I'm giving you a list today but I am going to try and give you the context that will help you see1:45
  4. how to use it better right?1:55
  5. Now idioms are very important because they help you to understand natural spoken English but also they're very important in IELTS speaking right because if you want a band seven1:58
  6. or above the band descriptors tell us over here that you use you must use some less common and idiomatic vocabulary so it is important.2:09
  7. I also think idioms are fun and I think people forget why we use idioms right?2:22
  8. We use idioms to add color, metaphor or humor to the way that we speak.2:29
  9. This is why you hear newsreaders, journalists, politicians use them a lot right to make their speech really attractive and colorful.2:38
  10. Now I'm a big fan of food I'm a real foodie and cooking and I think you can think of idioms as being the salt and pepper or a sal2:49
  11. y pimienta of your speaking right?3:00
  12. So they add a bit of flavor they are not the main dish but they give spice to your speaking right?3:04
  13. So also do not overuse idioms don't use so many because like your food right if you're putting in lots and lots of salt you're going to ruin your food.3:14
  14. This is same if you use lots of idioms you will ruin your speech ruin your English so just use them sparingly pepper them into your speech to give a3:27
  15. bit of spice and flavor.3:40
  16. Now in this video I'm going to show you some idioms and idiomatic expressions that you can use for any topic right in IELTS speaking.3:42
  17. We will look at how to express opinions talk about likes and dislikes expressing confusion saying that things places and people are very good or even that things places and3:52
  18. people are not very good right?4:10
  19. Lots of flexible idioms.4:13
  20. What's more I'm going to help you with the pronunciation because idioms are not literal they're often metaphorical it's really important you get the pronunciation the stress and the intonation4:15
  21. spot on so people understand you.4:28
  22. I'm going to help you with that and also show you an awesome mobile app called Elsa speak which can help you when I am not here.4:32
  23. Right now let's get into it.4:41
  24. Okay let's have a look first at expressing opinions.4:48
  25. We can take maybe just a typical question about opinions what do you think about something for example right many governments are investing in space travel what do you think4:53
  26. about this?5:06
  27. You could say my take on this is it's a good idea my take is my opinion right what's your take what's your opinion my take on this is right5:07
  28. if you can connect the take on my take on this and stress the my because it's emphasizing your opinion my take on this try my take on this is5:23
  29. it's a good idea great or you could say to my way of thinking it's a good idea to my way of thinking it's a good idea my way of5:40
  30. thinking is again it's not literally a path or a way it's just a form of thinking and we would say to my way of thinking notice the of thinking5:58
  31. of thinking to my way of thinking nice or if you're not sure if it's a good idea you could say I'm in two minds about this two minds boom6:12
  32. two different opinions I'm in two minds about this and then you could go on to say well on the one hand on the other hand a similar expression is6:31
  33. I'm on the fence about this so you might say I'm on the fence the meaning here is if you imagine a wall and you're on the wall you're not6:47
  34. over here and you're not over here you're in the middle I'm on the fence a fence is a kind of wooden wall I'm on the fence the stress I'm7:01
  35. on the fence because you're emphasizing on you're not off right I'm on the fence I'm on the fence on the one hand it's a good idea but on the7:12
  36. other hand maybe it's not I think I'm on the fence might be more natural to say I think I'm on the fence okay now a nice idiomatic expression which7:22
  37. is also a phrasal verb is to boil down to right and this means that the most important thing is this boil down comes from when you you have a7:36
  38. sauce or a soup and you're boiling the liquid so that the liquid disappears so you're boiling it down to the essential thing the most important thing so we can7:50
  39. say it boils down to money can we afford to invest in space right it boils down to plus the noun a simple way of of using it is to8:02
  40. say it boils down to one thing and then you say what the most important thing is for example it boils down to one thing our planet is in danger8:17
  41. so we must explore space it boils down to one thing nice so what about you many governments are investing in space travel what do you think about this lovely8:29
  42. let's move on next up let's look at likes and dislikes so very often in iout speaking especially part one you might be asked if you like something right do8:54
  43. you like your job do you like football do you like fast food for example now if it's a singular noun like job or fast food there are certain expressions9:12
  44. you can use and one of my favorite ones is it's the bee's knees right be as in knee as in this part of your leg it's the bee's knees9:26
  45. pronunciation bees knees it's that long vowel sound it's the bee's knees great so we often use this expression for a very particular thing right if you're talking about for9:43
  46. example fast food sometimes if the truth be told we go to mcdonald's once in a blue moon and i love the big mac right for me the big mac10:02
  47. it's the bee's knees or for example i watch football now and again and i was watching england in the euro 2021 well done italy and one of my favorite10:14
  48. players harry kane right and for me he's the bee's knees so for very specific things we can use this expression notice if it's a plural noun we wouldn't use10:30
  49. it in the same way so if for example do you like picnics speaking generally you can't say it's the bee's knees because it's picnics right so often we would10:45
  50. make a noun phrase so for example yes do you like picnics i love going to the countryside it's the bee's knees it's referring to going to the countryside the10:58
  51. noun phrase i love going to the countryside it's the bee's knees all right so just be careful that we use it with singular nouns and usually quite specific ones11:14
  52. now if there's something that you don't like a lot and you don't dislike we could say i can take it or leave it right um do you like your11:26
  53. job i can take it or leave it take it or leave it it's i'm indifferent i don't really mind i can take it or leave it notice there's a11:38
  54. nice trick there that when you're you've got a sentence with or you can pause there you can go i can take it or leave it i can take it11:50
  55. or leave it it can help with your fluency right you can just break up into two little chunks i can take it or leave it and then finally if12:01
  56. you dislike something you can say it's not my cup of tea it's not my cup of tea um so that's usually used in the negative things that you don't12:13
  57. like do you like uh do you like rugby ah it's not my cup of tea great let's move on now let's look at things that confuse you so sometimes12:24
  58. in iELTS speaking right there are some topics or subjects that can be confusing right maybe science or artificial intelligence um what else maybe museums or art architecture and maybe12:41
  59. you don't know much about it or you find it confusing there are a couple of nice idioms you can use to express that confusion for example right somebody says12:58
  60. what do you think of artificial intelligence well to be honest i can't make head or tail of it it's just totally confusing for me i can't make head or13:08
  61. tail of it right means i don't understand it it's a bit like when you look at an animal and and if you can't say well which is the head13:20
  62. and which is the tail i don't know it's too confusing i can't make head or tail of it right often we would link head or tail of it i13:30
  63. can't make head or tail of it nice and i think um in the us the americans tend to use the plural i can't make heads or tails of it13:41
  64. either one is absolutely fine another similar expression is i can't get my head rounded if you get your head round something it's to understand it so if you can't13:56
  65. get your head around it you don't understand it it's confusing you know what do you think of modern art i can't get my head around it it just looks14:09
  66. like nonsense to me for example okay great right right listen let's kick back and take a break from idioms if we can um what would you like a cappuccino14:20
  67. all right well listen while we're waiting i want to tell you about an awesome mobile app um that i really really like it's it's second to none it's a14:41
  68. cut above the rest elsa speak it's a pronunciation mobile app um that i really like not only because of the the really cutting -edge technology it has using ai14:52
  69. right for voice recognition but also because of its approach to learning so you're able to repeat phrases that you hear words or phrases and then it pinpoints your mistakes15:05
  70. and gives you feedback and you can carry on practicing at your own pace until you improve it's great i think actually it's not just a great tool for pronunciation15:19
  71. but actually building up your vocabulary right picking up idioms day by day as a part of your English diet let's go inside let me show you um the different15:31
  72. things you've got in here right so you've got different features of pronunciation you can pick out anyone that you want or you can go and look at different topics15:44
  73. there are the common topics you get in i else or everyday life in fact there are specific i else topics topics for part one part two and part three15:54
  74. um even like conversations like this that you can practice brilliant right for your i else speaking and there are also study sets where students and teachers are sharing different16:04
  75. phrases um all words that they want to practice i've got some study sets here i'm going to show you my um study set for idioms for i else speaking16:18
  76. so let's have a look at this one here here is my idioms for i else speaking i'm going to take this expression it's the bee's knees so i hear16:28
  77. the model i then try i'm going to do it wrong it's the business almost correct well 50 percent is not 57 percent is not great but what's the feedback16:39
  78. bees pronounce the e with the vowel e yeah i said it should be e bee's knees try again it's the bee's knees excellent much better brilliant so listen you16:59
  79. can go and download the app and uh you can start practicing my study set brilliant also Elsa for my students that's you if you're watching this there they have17:19
  80. some great discounts right if you go for the one -year membership you can get 30 discount if you go for the lifetime membership you get 80 80 80 percent17:30
  81. discount and then you've got Elsa in your pocket for the rest of your life day by day improving your pronunciation with Elsa fantastic you can check out the links17:44
  82. below go and download the app check them out and start practicing with Elsa speaking excellent now you can have your cappuccino to go because we're going back to find17:54
  83. out more about those idioms let's go now in isle speaking part two sometimes you have to talk about a person maybe a person you know or a famous person18:06
  84. right and very often you may say i'm going to talk about or the person i'm going to talk about is my father well there's a nice little idiomatic expression18:21
  85. you can use here which is the person i'm going to talk about is none other than my father none other than is just it's used usually when the person18:33
  86. you introduce is going to be a surprise for the listener right the person i'm going to talk about is none other than donald trump oh what a surprise now18:46
  87. the thing is because whoever you talk about is going to be a surprise for the examiner because they don't know you so in fact you can use this for18:58
  88. anybody right the person i'm going to talk about is none other than my english teacher at primary school absolutely fine just notice the pronunciation none other than we normally19:09
  89. link none other than none other than try the person i'm going to talk about is none other than brilliant let's move on now we talked about i'll speaking part19:23
  90. two you may have to talk about a person but you may also have to talk about a thing or a place now if you want to describe a person19:47
  91. a thing or a place as being very good there are a number of different idiomatic expressions you can use let me take an example i'm going to talk about19:58
  92. a celebrity a famous football player harry kane who else none other than harry kane i could say harry kane is hands down the best football player in the world20:09
  93. harry kane is second to none he is a cut above the rest i think the world of harry kane so all of these expressions mean you know he's very20:24
  94. good or he's the best you could also use these for places um or for things maybe your favorite restaurant right what's your favorite restaurant oh mcdonald's is second to20:38
  95. none really no i'm joking what about you which is your favorite restaurant in your city now if you want to talk about um things places or people that are20:52
  96. just normal right nothing special a really nice idiom is to say run of the mill run of the mill can you say that run of the mill run of21:11
  97. the mill just means ordinary nothing special right i went to a restaurant last night in my neighborhood it was okay but it's a run of the mill restaurant i've21:28
  98. got this new game on my phone yeah it's okay it's a run of the mill game like all of them really nice expression to use so we've looked at21:41
  99. something that's very good something that's normal what about if something is not so good again we might want to say for example um it's not a patch on it's21:55
  100. not a patch on it's not a patch on can you say it's not a patch on and here we're comparing two things right so for example i saw the22:07
  101. latest marvel film the other day right the black widow have you seen it right it's good but it's not as good as the previous film right it's not a22:21
  102. patch on the previous film or i saw a film um and i've also read the book i mean the film's okay but it's not a patch on the book22:33
  103. the book is much better it's not a patch on nice expression similarly another expression is it can't hold a candle to this one again meaning it's not as good22:44
  104. as so the latest marvel film was okay but it can't hold a candle to the very first marvel film right i mean spider -man is good but he can't22:59
  105. hold a candle to batman so you can use it with things with people um with places as well yeah i mean manchester's a nice city but it can't hold23:11
  106. a candle to london i shouldn't say that because manchester's my hometown but it's true london i think is a nicer city than manchester but don't tell anybody i said23:23
  107. that great so we've talked about people places and things that are very good normal and not so good let's move on so remember just pick out one or two23:36
  108. idioms from these start practicing them and slowly build up your base maybe one idiom a day so that over time you'll have a larger and larger base of idioms23:49
  109. that you can use more confidently and will help you move from being an english student to an english speaker excellent if you like this video please do press the24:02
  110. subscribe button turn on notifications and do remember check out elsa speak if you want to really improve your pronunciation or even just brush up on your pronunciation it's a24:15
  111. fantastic tool to do that if you go down here follow the links um you can download the app and you can get your 80 % discount on a lifetime24:29
  112. membership go and check it out and i look forward to seeing you very very soon in the next video take care my friend bye bye24:40

A British IELTS coach teaching idioms at a brisk B1 pace

In this clip Keith, from the channel English Speaking Success, talks through idioms that IELTS candidates can use in the speaking test. It is good material for ielts speaking practice because it sits at CEFR B1 and moves at 133 words per minute, faster than 9% of the catalogue, so a beginner cannot coast through it on autopilot.

Across the 124 lines he stays in teacher mode: explaining, listing reasons, then circling back to add a caveat, which is close to how a real IELTS speaking answer is built out loud rather than read from a plan. He is not reading a script either. He interrupts his own sentence, corrects course mid thought, and once reaches for a Spanish phrase before landing back on English, so the pace and the self correction are both worth training on, not just the vocabulary.

Three lines worth listening to closely before you shadow this line

A few moments in the opening show how Keith actually talks, not how a textbook writes idioms.

  • "So idioms I know lots of students can find idioms to be a real challenge right?" runs as one breath group with no pause before the tag question. Practice the quick rise on "right?" since he drops it after almost every claim in the clip.
  • "We use idioms to add color, metaphor or humor to the way that we speak." lists three nouns with near even stress and a light, almost swallowed "or" between them, a useful line for british english pronunciation practice on unstressed function words.
  • "This is why you hear newsreaders, journalists, politicians use them a lot right to make their speech really attractive and colorful." stacks three job titles before the verb arrives, so the sentence only makes sense once you hear it through to the end, which is exactly the listening skill this clip trains.

A line by line order for working through Keith's idiom list

Work the opening in this order rather than jumping straight to the idioms further in.

  • Start at line 1, "Idioms are fun and I want to show you a bunch of idioms that you can use for any topic in IELTS speaking." Shadow this line first to catch his opening rhythm before he speeds up.
  • Isolate "learn maybe one a day" from line 8 and repeat it alone a few times before saying the full sentence around it, to get the unstressed "maybe" and "a day" out of your mouth cleanly.
  • Take the long stretch from line 12, "when you're watching a film or a video or listening to a podcast and you hear an interesting expression", as one breath group. This is where his fast pace is felt most, so it is the best test of whether you can improve english speaking at his speed rather than a slower one.
  • Shadow line 17's clause "they help you to understand natural spoken English" and then explain, in your own words, why idioms matter for ielts speaking topics. Saying the reason back to yourself is english speaking practice for daily use, not just repetition.
  • Loop "add color, metaphor or humor to the way that we speak" from line 20 last, once the earlier lines feel steady, to check your rhythm has actually shifted rather than just your memory of the words.
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