Hi, I'm Jessica Beck from the IELTS course Three Keys IELTS.
And today I would like to teach you five phrases to speak about your culture, your home town,
your home country.
On the speaking exam, these types of questions are everywhere.
In Part One, you're often asked to describe your home town or your country, or the place
where you're living now, if you're living in different place.
Um, you're also asked to share ideas from your cultures.
So a common Part One question might be, um, 'In your culture, do people watch much TV?'
Or, um, 'What's a traditional breakfast food where you come from?'
These sorts of questions pop up a lot in Part One.
Um, in Part Three also, you are often asked to reflect on bigger ideas about the society
you come from.
What your traditions or cultures?
Culture means and how it's different today than in the past?
So these, uh, the ability to speak and to introduce ideas from your culture is very
important.
So I'm going to give you five phrases that you can use to accomplish this task.
Um, so, the first phrase is, just very common, um, just let's start easy: "In my culture,
we like to blah, blah, blah."
"In my culture, it is very common for blah, blah, blah."
So, of course that's the basic one.
Don't use it too often because it's very common to say that.
If you really want to impress the examiner, you want to use uh more interesting phrases.
So, you can say um, "It is ... It is not uncommon in my country ... " I- I- I like this one,
so for example I can say, "It is not uncommon" that double negative shows a higher level
of relating words in your sentence structure.
Um, "In my culture, it is not uncommon for people to still cook eggs and bacon for breakfast."
I don't know if that's common or not, actually, but it sounds good.
Um, so "it's not uncommon for people to blah, blah, blah."
So you use that phrase to introduce a habit, something that you commonly see or people
commonly do.
Um, another phrase that you can use say, "Well, where I'm from, people generally eat cereal
for breakfast."
So it's this whole transition and introduction phrase that a native speaker would use.
"Well, where I'm from, people generally do blah, blah, blah."
Okay?
So, again it's not ... It's not about having a high level vocabulary.
It's about using natural vocabulary and sentence structure that a native speaker would use.
Um, and that just increases your fluency score, your vocab, your grammar because it's perfect,
it's exactly what I would say, all right?
Now, now I'll teach you a high level linking word you can use, perhaps in Part Three.
This ... Or it's not ... It's not a linking word but it's an adjective: ubiquitous.
I love this word.
So ubiquitous means something that is everywhere, all right?
So you could say, um, "Something ubiquitous in my country is Starbucks.
They're everywhere.
You can't walk five blocks without seeing a Starbucks."
So, again, that phrase is, "Something ubiquitous in my country is ... blah, blah, blah."
Again, great sentence structure, high level vocabulary word.
It's something that a native speaker would say.
Okay, so that's the fourth one.
The last one, um it's trying to work in some, uh ... Some more native speaker, not high
level but interesting vocabulary.
So remember in order to get a seven or higher for vocabulary on the speaking exam, it's,
it's not just about high level words.
It's about interesting vocabulary, all right?
Something that you don't just get from a textbook.
So, in this phrase, uh we're using the word folks, instead of people.
So you could say, "It's not" and it has that double negative thing I like again ... "It's
not unusual for folks in my hometown to, uh, go watch the car races on the weekend."
Actually they did do that in my hometown.
I used to love doing that.
So, "It's not unusual for folks in my hometown to ... da, da, da."
Um, and these are very versatile phrases, very easy to memorize, and use on the speaking
exams.
So please watch this video a couple times.
Write down these phrases that I gave you, and practice using them to talk about your
culture, your hometown.
Because that's not something we often talk about in English, right?
Or even in your first language, you probably don't talk about it, because it's just normal.
Why would you talk about it?
So it's really important to practice describing things from your home country, your hometown
in English.
So practice using these phrases, and describe the eating habits, shopping habits, exercise
habits of people where you're from.
I promise you you'll be able to use these on the speaking exam to impress the examiner.
So, thank you very much for watching.
For more tips and tricks and IELTS level practice, please visit my website ielts.allearsenglish.com.
And check out our IELTS course, the only course that comes with a score increase guarantee.
So if you want to increase your score by a whole band point or more, check out my course,
Three Keys IELTS, available on ielts.allearsenglish.com.
Thank you for watching.
Have a wonderful day.