S04 - 3 Home

Native English speakers answer questions about the home from previous B2, C1, C2 and IELTS  exam papers.

In this episode there are plenty of useful adjectives and idioms, we will also focus a bit on pronunciation, as well as some top tips about what not to do in exams. 

For classes or transcripts go to https://realexamenglish.com/

Music: Wholesome by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/5050-wholesome
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Thanks to all of the contributors, including Matt, Leah Ann, Stephanie, Loli, Emma and Leanne from the Beach Travel Wine podcast.

Transcript

Real Exam English Season 4 Home

Hello and welcome to the Real Exam English podcast, this episode is about the home. Most exam text books have a chapter about houses in them, so you should have some nice vocabulary to describe rooms and neighbourhoods. In this episode there are plenty of useful adjectives and idioms, we will also focus a bit on pronunciation, as well as some top tips about what not to do in exams. 

As usual, the transcript for this episode can be found on the Real Exam English website, realexamenglish.com

What is your favourite room?

In my house it's the kitchen because it gets a lot of sunlight and I live in Ireland, so sun, sun isn't plentiful all year round and I have a really comfortable chair that sits right inside the window and I love to sit in it and look out in the garden at my plants and it's very relaxing, so it would be that spot in the kitchen. And I probably spend most of my time in the kitchen because it is the warmest and brightest room of the house. 

How does the colour of a room affect you?

Definitely, yeah. In choosing colors for my house and for the rooms in my house, I would have been, I would have thought a lot about it and took a while before making my decision because I think it definitely affects the way you feel in a room. In my house I have a lot of muted colours because I think that's quite relaxing and it's a relaxing space to be when you have those colours. 

Quite an interesting and unusual use of would have here. In choosing the colours for my house I would have thought a lot about it. Normally we would use the past simple here right, I thought a lot about it. When she uses I would have thought a lot about it she is implying that there was some form of habit or repeated action here, so she probably thought about it a few times, or over an extended period of time. Another example would be, when I was a kid, we would have gone to the beach a lot or there wouldn´t have been a lot of American tourists back in those days.

In terms of the colours she mentioned she has muted colours, which are colours that are not very bright or have been subdued. Interestingly, our next speaker also mentions muted colours, so it seems to be quite a popular choice. For adjectives she used plentiful, comfortable and then relaxing three times. As you know by now, we don´t want much repetition in exam answers as you need to show a wide range of vocabulary. So instead of relaxing she could have said calming or soothing. 

Regarding pronunciation, people can find this word comfortable tricky and it varies a bit from country to country. In Ireland we say comfortable, kind of leaving out the second o, comfortable, in the UK it’s comfortable, without the second o and without the r, comfortable and then in the US they say comfortable, which does include both the o and the r, comfortable. So any one of those is acceptable, what´s not ok it comfortable or comfortable, pretty ugly those two, so make sure to practice this as it´s a frequently used word.

Stephanie

How does the color of a room affect you? 

I love color. I love deep, rich, saturated colors. It makes me excited, energized, and creative. Sometimes muted colors help relax me, but mostly I enjoy when there are bright and saturated colors because I feel more creative and more energized. 

So here we have the muted colours again, also deep, rich, saturated colours, plus she had more adjectives: excited, energized, creative and bright. So, in terms of vocabulary this would score way better than the previous answer. It´s also organized in a simple but effective way, sometimes muted colors relax me, but mostly I enjoy when there are bright and saturated colours and then she gives the reason because I feel more creative and more energized. You can use this same structure in other answers too, like sometimes I do exercise alone, but mostly I play sports with other people because I enjoy the interaction. Sometimes I enjoy horror movies, but mostly I watch comedies as they make me feel more relaxed. Simple but effective, nice. 

Loli

Which would be the most important factors when choosing your ideal home?

I think I have an ideal home now. I live in the middle of the country. So I don't have very many neighbours. There's not very much noise, so it's easy to sleep at night. We don't have any traffic noises. I have quite a big garden and a swimming pool so I can relax in the garden. We've actually got grass, unbelievably in Spain. So yeah, what would I like to change about it or improve the inside? Maybe redo the kitchen to make it, you know, my ideal home, improve the kitchen, maybe and the bathrooms and, you know, give it a fresh lick of paint. But apart from that, yeah, I'm quite happy where I live. I quite like the environment. For some people, it's a bit far from things. You have to get the car to go anywhere, but you know that's what I'm used to actually. I like to go to the places where there's a lot of noise and to the fiestas out when I want to go, but I don't want it here on my doorstep, do you understand what I'm saying.

Why do you think people didn’t care so much about decoration in the past? 

What? Can you please repeat? Why they didn't care about decorating…..they've always cared about decoration, wallpaper and things like that. Or maybe I don't know, maybe they were out…maybe they were living outside of their home more time, maybe they were working longer hours and didn't have time to be in the house and think about what it was aesthetically. You know, people maybe didn't sit in front of the telly. It's a very strange question, that one. 

It is a strange question, isn´t it, but she dealt with it well. At the start she said what? Can you please repeat? This is not how to ask someone to repeat a question, she was being ironic when she said this, by the way. The correct way to ask is could you please repeat the question? Or, Sorry, would you mind repeating that please? Or I beg your pardon, I didn´t catch that. So use one of these phrases, much better than What….can you please repeat? By the way, it won´t affect your marks if you ask the examiner to repeat a question, although if you do it a few times that will affect your marks for interactive communication, so make sure to stay focused.

So she was happy with her house overall but would like to redo her kitchen. If you redo a room or a house then you paint it or decorate it or put new furniture in it to make it nicer. As she said give it a fresh lick of paint, nice figurative use of the word lick there.  

She said she likes leaving her house to go to noisy places and fiestas, which are parties in Spain, where she lives. But she doesn´t want the noise on her doorstep. If something is on your doorstep it is really near your house. Like we´ve got a choice of bars and restaurants on our doorstep, or I´m all for setting up a dog refuge in the town, but not on my doorstep.

So speaking of doorsteps, this is just a reminder that if you would like English classes without having to step outside your doorstep then get in touch for information about individual or group classes. You can find details on the website, realexamenglish.com.

Matt

How much time do you spend at home?

I spend most of my time at home. Most days I'm at home. I work from home so I don't have any need to go anywhere, and if I do go out then I'm just out hiking. There's no…I'm in the middle of nowhere, so there's no bars or anything else around here. There's just the woods, the fields. So that's all there is to do around here really. 

Which would be the most important factors when choosing your ideal home?

I think not being terraced, out of the way, where other people, I guess I'm a little bit misanthropic. I like to be out of the way of people. I lived in London before here and that was, that was hectic, so the ideal home would be away from people, I think, and enough space for me to have a little work area and that would be it. 

Lovely idioms here, in the middle of nowhere and out of the way, both used to describe places far from where other people live. He also said he wouldn´t like a terraced house, which is a house that is belonging to a row of houses that are connected together. Other common types of house are a detached house which is a house that is not connected to any other house, a semi-detached which is two houses connected together and of course an apartment or flat.

He said that he is a bit misanthropic which is someone who doesn´t like other people and is a bit unsociable. And that London was hectic, great adjective this hectic, meaning really busy. You can use it for a location, like the city centre was hectic last night, or you can use it when speaking about yourself being really busy, for example, I had a hectic day at work, non-stop problems. 

Leahann

Tell me what you like about your home.

I love that my home is very close to the sea. I love the sea. I really like my neighbours as well so I'm very close to a couple of my neighbours so I feel really, really safe. I really enjoy that my home is very close to public transport, such as the bus and the train so I can get around and I really enjoy my home because it's not very big so it means that cleaning is really easy and also my bills are not huge as well so it's very achievable for me on my own to have a mortgage and live on my own here in Dublin. 

Is it easy to have your own unique decorating style nowadays?

Oh, yes it is. However, I think almost I have too many options, so then I get very confused on what type of option to go with when decorating my home and at the moment you may want to decorate, but it's very expensive and secondly you can't find somebody if you just want to do something small in your home to decorate and you need somebody's help to do it, you cannot find a company to do it unless you want to do a big job. So yes, I think there's plenty of opportunity to do different design in your home, but it can be quite challenging. 

Indeed it can. Let’s focus in on her adverbs and adjectives in the first answer. She said she lived very close to the sea and that she is very close to a couple of her neighbours. So the meaning is different here, right. In the first one she lives close to the sea, in terms of distance and in the second one she is close to her neighbours, as in they are friends and have a close relationship. I love this in an answer, using the same adjective in different ways. However, after that she then repeated very close again, very close to public transport, then very big, then very enjoyable, very confused, very expensive, and then I really like, I feel really, really safe, I really enjoy, it´s really easy. Clck not great for an exam answer, is it? In real life, nobody would even notice this stuff but examiners watch out for it so remember to mix it up. 

Of course, her pronunciation is fantastic and she had some nice vocab related to homes such as the mortgage, which is the loan you get from a bank when you buy a house, the bills which are the different amounts of money you owe for water, gas, electricity and so on. Just to note that in English the word electricity is used, rather than light which is sometimes used in other languages. 

The last thing is this phrasal verb, to get around, meaning to move from place to place. She has good public transport so can get around easily, that´s a handy phrasal verb for speaking about your hometown or maybe about a place you have visited as a tourist. 

So hopefully you found some other handy language in this episode too and could understand the various accents. Have a think about your home, the different rooms, decorations, your neighbourhood and your neighbours as these are all things you could be asked about in an exam. 

Ok guys, that´s all we have time for today. Thanks a million for listening.

Have a good one

Trevor