[Music] Hello lovely, I'm Maria. And my name is Rory, and we are the hosts of the IELTS Speaking for Success podcast. The podcast that aims to help you improve your speaking skills, as well as your listening skills along the way. We've started this podcast to give you gorgeous grammar and super vocabulary for your high-iron score. Your bandine score. Rory, you sound terrible, do you have a cold? Uh, no, I have allergies because the flowers are in bloom here. Oh, flowers, allergies to flowers, you're allergic to flowers. Ooh, let's talk about flowers. Flower, power. Flower, power, move your feet. This is the song for you for today. Flower, power, and my nose and my immune system. Flower, power, de listen, are you allergic to flowers? To pollen, we call it pollen. You know, flowers have this little thingy that goes up your nose, and you go, ah, like this. So, pollen, I'm allergic to pollen. And also, Rory said that flowers are in bloom. Flowers, bloom. So we see flowers everywhere, they're happy, and everybody is allergic. My nose is not happy. Let's talk about flowers. What flowers do you like? The ones I'm not allergic to? I mean, from a safe distance, I like all flowers. Especially if they're in the wild, I think it really brightens things up. What's your favorite flower? I'm not sure I have a favorite one, to be honest. I like tulips just because of the shape of the petals and the simple stem. They have different colors, but I'm not crazy about them or anything. Are there any flowers that have special meaning in your country? Ah, we have a thistle is the national flower of Scotland, so that appears on a lot of emblems and heraldry. Aside from that, I'm not really sure. Perhaps, Heather, there's a sort of shrub that grows in the highlands, but I couldn't tell you anything in depth about it. Have you planted any flowers? Ah, well, I'm growing a bonsai tree from the seeds I got. Does that count? It took ages to get them to grow and its constant care and maintenance. Have you sent flowers to other people? Well, not for a long time. I think the last time was the flowers I sent to my cousin, Hilda, on her 90th birthday. That's not something I make a habit out of, since flowers are dying, and I doubt many people really like having dying things in their houses. [Music] Dear listener, we discussed the topic of flowers back in 2021. So, could you please listen to our first episode about flowers? We also give you good grammar and vocabulary there. And listen to this episode. Yes, you'll also hear Maria calling me a plant killer. It's very unkind. Flower, power, flower, power, move your feet. So, I'm allergic to flowers, or I'm not allergic to flowers. If you have allergies, we say allergies. Like half-shot allergies, you say I have allergies. I'm allergic to lots of flowers. And if you have allergies, you can say I like flowers from a safe distance. So, not close to me. If flowers are far away, I like them. But if they are too close, then I have allergies, and I'm not very happy with them. I like flowers if they are in the wild. So, animals are in the wild, flowers are in the wild. They are not in a shop, but in a forest, on a field. And Rory tells us that flowers brighten things up. They make our life more bright, okay, brighter. So, they brighten things up. You should be ready to answer what your favorite flower is. So, Rory told us about tulips. You can google tulips. But you can also say something like daffodils, roses. Daffodils, lilies, lavender. Mmm, they seem like this beautiful flower that has the smell. You can say daisies. So, just go to google images and type in flower kinds and choose maybe three interesting names of flowers. I would go for daisies, lilies, and lavender. Daffodils are also nice. But don't say like roses are my favorite flowers because... And Rory does this like... Not because it's a usual word. Or everybody knows a rose, but kind of... For example, a daffodil is already an interesting word. Or coronations, dellessina. Pink coronations. Mmm, you should google it. So, just remember two, three interesting names of flowers. Okay, to impress the examiner with your vocabulary. Tulips have nice petals. So, a petal is a part of a flower. So, this, you know, a petal. And a flower also has a stem. This like, stick. Stick is called a stem. So, the petals open to attract the insects, and the stem supports the flower. Yeah, and where are tulips popular in which country? Well, I think they're popular everywhere, but you hear about them in Holland. Yeah, the Netherlands, dellessina. Ooh, like fields and fields of tulips. There's a very interesting story about that, I think. A long time ago, about 300 years or something, tulip bulbs were really popular, and they were traded as stock on the Dutch stock exchange. And they crashed the entire economy, because people became over-invested in it, and like flooded the market. It's amazing. Like, they almost destroyed their economy. Oh, wow. And in all the Netherlands have the oldest botanical garden, where the first tulips were planted. Back in 1593, dellessina. Okay, they have black tulips. Like white tulips, tulips of all colors. Black tulips are quite cool. Yeah, they are quite cool, yeah. Dellessina, you should also know what flowers have special meaning in your country. So Rory told us about the national flower of Scotland, which is a thistle. Thistle, national flower of Scotland. Yeah, so this is their emblem. So the flower appears on different emblems. Okay, and then Rory, you said something. Hira. Haraldry, these are the symbols associated with different clans and noble houses in my country, and in any country that has these things. Okay, so this is not only about Scotland. No, no, it could be about England, or any other country that's like this, possibly France, maybe Switzerland, Norway, Sweden, other countries with a royal family, or some kind of royal connection. Yeah, dellessina. You need to have a king or queens, kings. So Haraldry, it's very difficult to pronounce. Haraldry is about the history of the families. So this emblem with this flower belonged to this king, okay? This flower appears on emblems and Haraldry. And then Rory mentions another one, which is Hether. Hether, like I'm going this flower, because I don't remember what it looks like, and you should also Google Hether. I think it's a kind of small bush or shrub that's quite common in hills in my country. I think it's purple. Nice. So it's a sort of shrub, shrub like a bush, yeah, grows in the highlands, in the mountains in Scotland, hey? Hether, listen up. So you should know what's the meaning of this special flower in your country. We plant flowers, we grow flowers, and Rory told us about this bonsai tree he has. So he got seeds from somewhere, and now he is growing a bonsai tree. Beautiful. And this bonsai tree is in a pot, right? It is, yes, or in a bowl, to be more precise. But there are, I just discovered, the bonsai tree is not just one thing. I was given many seeds, so now there are many tiny bonsai trees growing in my pot or bowl. But I don't think a bonsai tree is a flower. I just wanted to talk about how the bonsai tree, but how I have one. It's okay, you can talk about like plants. Okay, they won't be flowers, but plants. But it's a good time to ask this rhetorical question. Does that count? Meaning, does that mean the same thing as a flower? And it gave me a chance to use words connected to plants, like grow, and general words like care, and maintenance for plants. And it took me ages, because bonsai trees take forever to grow. Yeah, because now I'm googling what flowers can be grown at home in pots and the names of the flowers are just crazy. Like one of them is chrysanthemums. How do you say this? Chrysanthemums. They're quite popular in Japan, I think. Say it again? Chrysanthemums. Chrysanthemums. You see, to listen, they are just difficult to pronounce. So yeah, you can say like roses. Yeah, daffodils, I grow daffodils. Okay, I grow daisies. All right, because like an other pot of flowers. And you can say that, well, it takes ages to get them to grow, to get my flowers to grow, and they need constant care. So I have to care about them all the time, and they need maintenance. So our flowers need maintenance. We need to take care of them. We need to maintain them and water them. We water flowers. We sometimes send flowers to other people, or we give flowers, or kind of like we send flowers as a gift. So we give flowers on different occasions. And Rory said that the last time I sent flowers to people was a long time ago. Or not for a long time. It's not something I make a habit out of. So I don't make a habit out of sending people flowers. And then the idea that, well, flowers are kind of dead. And it's not a nice thing to have some dying things in your house. Now I disagree, flowers are cool, they are alive. Flowers are dying, unless they are connected to the plant. I mean, you mean to the ground, to soil. Well, yes, you've got to put the plant in soil too. So no, flowers, if you have them just in a vase with water and nothing connected to them, they will die, and that will not be very pretty. You want a plant to live and thrive and grow and not die. Yeah, there's none. So you can say that, now I'm against growing flowers. But if you grow flowers, you grow them. So they are kind of connected to us, to the soil. So it's okay. Yeah, that's fine. Okay, okay. Yeah, you can listen to our episode about plants. Yeah, we also talk about the growing plants. Rory being a plant killer murderer. My, my bonsai trees are thriving. Thank you very much. In fact, I have three plants. All of them are doing very well. Oh, how long have you had them a week? That is not important. I have had them alive. I've kept them alive. Oh, oh, oh, oh. You see the listener, he says that he has three plants, but he has just had them for a week. So we'll wait and see, okay? I don't know. I could have had them for much longer. Three months later, Rory, how many plants do you have? Um, zero. My life's not dead. I have one dead, two alive. Okay. Yeah, we need to see pictures of your bonsai tree. That seems interesting. Okay. So there is some. Thank you very much for listening. Have you chosen the two or three interesting words about flowers? Have you? Thank you very much for listening. And we'll see you in our next episode. Bye. Bye. Bye. What flowers do you like? The ones I'm not allergic to? I mean, from a safe distance, I like all flowers, especially if they're in the wild. I think it really brightens things up. What's your favorite flower? I'm not sure I have a favorite one, to be honest. Uh, I like tulips just because of the shape of the petals and the simple stem. They have different colors, but I'm not crazy about them or anything. Are there any flowers that have special meaning in your country? Uh, we have a thistle is the national flower of Scotland. So that appears on a lot of emblems and heraldry. Aside from that, I'm not really sure. Perhaps Heather is a sort of shrub that grows in the highlands, but I couldn't tell you anything in depth about it. Have you planted any flowers? Uh, well, I'm growing a bonsai tree from the seeds I got. Does that count? It took ages to get them to grow and its constant care and maintenance. Have you sent flowers to other people? Well, not for a long time. I think the last time was the flowers I sent to my cousin, Hilda, on her 90th birthday. That's not something I make a habit out of, since flowers are dying. And, you know, many people really like having dying things in their houses.
