Shadowing Practice: ⚽️ Childhood activities | IELTS Speaking Part 1 | Model Answers and Vocabulary (2026) - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

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Hello, lovely.

I'm Maria.

And I am private detective Rory Fergus Duncan.

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 started this podcast to give you super grammar and gorgeous vocabulary for your high IELTS school.

A bad nine score.

So you're a private detective now, Rory.

Yeah, I'm a private detective and I help people hunt down Band 9 vocabulary and grammar.

Wow.

I didn't make that up in advance,

I just came up with that there.

Were you playing that private detective thing when you were a child, Rory?

No, but I'm sure we made up other games when we were children.

Hmm, shall we talk about childhood activities?

Oh yes, let's do that.

What were your favourite activities when you were a child?

I can't really remember, to be honest.

It was quite a while ago.

But I suppose it must have been the usual things like hide-and-seek

or going for walks and wandering about with my friends and probably getting up to no good.

If reading counts, I did a lot of that when I was younger too.

Did you prefer to do activities alone or with a group of people?

I suppose it would have depended on the kind of activity,

to be honest, and my mood.

If it were a more active thing,

like going out or playing video games,

then I'd have done that with people.

But you can't really read a book together, can you?

Especially if you don't have a lot of energy and can't be bothered with people.

Are there any differences between the activities you liked when you were a child and activities you like now?

Oh, definitely.

I'm a lot more active than I used to be.

I used to loathe exercise,

and now I do it all the time.

Well, for example, I do things like yoga now,

which I wouldn't have been caught dead doing as a child.

I still like reading though,

just at a more measured pace than before.

What are your favourite activities now?

Apart from reading and exercise?

I'm not sure, No really,

I like going climbing and I like doing yoga but I see that as closer to exercise.

I've obviously not changed too much over the years aside from that. in the description below.

See you soon!

So dear listener, do you remember what you did when you were a child?

Or are you an old man like me and you cannot remember anything?

Yeah, and actually there is a good joke about childhood and remembering at the end of the episode, dear listener.

And a nice one, I promise.

And Rory, how old is a child?

So are we talking like two years old, like one year old?

I don't know.

I think childhood, as far as I'm aware,

is defined as between zero and 18 years old.

And so you're not legally responsible for certain things until you're 18 or 16,

in my country anyway.

Oh, okay.

So I can speak about things that I did when I was like 15,

14, like a child.

I think so, yeah.

Yeah, like I say, at least this is according to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.

The definition covers everyone up until their 18th birthday.

So, dear listener, you can say, I can't really remember.

Okay?

Like, to be honest with you, I can't really remember.

Like, don't say, like, to my mind or as far as I'm concerned.

No, no, no, no, no. Just say,

to be honest, I don't really remember.

Or, to be honest with you,

I really enjoyed playing with Lego.

Hide and seek is a really popular activity,

or like used to be super popular.

Hide and seek, a children's game in which a person

or a group of people hide and another person has to find them.

Play hide and seek.

I played hide and seek outside,

or you can play hide and seek at home.

Or when you're a child,

you could play hide and seek.

you maybe don't do it now

that you're an adult although oh why not can you imagine

like a group of like 30 year olds like six 30 year olds

or six like 35 or 40 year olds like yeah yeah let's play hide and seek

that would be awesome actually um yeah i was gonna say

i'm sorely tempted to do this i know just like running around looking for each other wow

and you kind of you play in teams if we have a holiday, Maria?

If we go on holiday together,

can we play hide and seek?

Totally, let's do that.

Yeah, I can get my brother, his girlfriend.

Then I can get some strange people.

Just people we don't know.

Want to play hide and seek?

Because the usual situation is like you get bored just sitting there where you are.

And even if it's a great place to hide,

you just have to stay there,

you know, for several hours.

And what do people do?

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they just get out and then they get caught yeah they have to wait for everybody

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or they could join the seekers yes seekers like hide

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and seek you hide

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and then you seek people you have to find them look

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for them yeah seek seekers are people who have to find you so i went for walks or

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I went wandering about with my friends.

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So to wander about, to just walk somewhere.

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But with no end goal in mind.

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Yeah, just you know, I wondered about the neighborhood.

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I wondered about with my friends.

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I went for walks with no purpose in particular.

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I did reading.

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So reading was my favorite activity.

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It's a very boring child.

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I know, Rory.

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You didn't say anything.

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I went climbing, I destroyed people's toys.

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Oh, that's rude.

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And mean and cruel, in fact.

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That wouldn't be a favorite childhood activity, unless you're a sociopath.

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Other things that people could talk about

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if they were a more active child could be going to the park and climbing on climbing frames.

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That's quite a popular thing.

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What about crafts and art?

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I don't know anything about that because I'm the least creative person on the planet.

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Yeah, but as a child,

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didn't you do some crafts,

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you know, like creating and all?

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Just if I was forced to at school,

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I wouldn't say that was like my favorite thing to do.

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Favorite means I liked it.

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Yeah, listen, you can say like,

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oh, I did crafts or I made crafts.

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Well, it would be I did craft and I made things.

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Yeah, so you can say like, I built houses.

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Toy houses.

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Toy houses, yeah.

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It used to be really popular.

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It's probably not popular now,

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but kids used to make ashtrays for their parents in school.

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And I just think that's really funny because it's so wildly inappropriate.

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Yeah, I did a lot of drawing.

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I drew when I was a child.

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I played board games.

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Yeah, I just like I played outside with my friends.

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Important to point out, though, you play with people.

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You do it together.

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play on a climbing frame

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because you're on it it's the position now i'm reading this website

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and it has seven childhood activities and one of them is like napping without guilt

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so napping is like to have a nap to just to sleep for a

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while in the middle of the day to nap

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so napping without feeling guilty oh i think that adults do that now you know like oh For example,

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you've eaten something sweet and then you say,

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oh, I shouldn't have done it, no, I'm bad.

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So you feel guilt.

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This feeling of worry and unhappiness.

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But like you nap without feeling guilty.

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I did those activities alone on my own or with my friends.

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And I played video games alone or on my own.

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Or sometimes I would play video games with my friends.

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And sometimes I couldn't be bothered with people.

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So, I can't be bothered with people.

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So, you're just like, I want to do something alone.

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Like, to be bothered, to kind of...

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Well, to not want to do something, basically.

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It's like a more advanced way of saying I didn't want to do something.

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Or I don't have the energy to do it.

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You can say that now I'm a lot more active than I used to be.

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So, about the past, you use used to.

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Oh, I used to be passive.

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I didn't do anything.

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But now I'm more active or I'm a lot more active.

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Like I'm much more active.

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I'm far more active.

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You know, to say that I'm super active now,

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but I used to be quite passive.

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So when you talk about the past,

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make sure you use this used term.

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About activities you did in the past, but not anymore.

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I used to play football, but now I don't.

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Or I used to be quite passive.

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Now I'm far more active, yeah.

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Well, we talk about the grammar.

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If you are old like me and you're not so sure about things,

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you might have to say, it must have been.

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And it would have depended on.

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Because we are deducing logically what would be the case.

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Advanced grammar.

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I used to hate exercises or I used to loathe exercises.

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That's a nice synonym to hate.

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Like I really disliked exercises like sport or I used to loathe exercises.

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And loathe, C2.

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Yes, that's what I like to hear.

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Normally people say I hate sports or I hate swimming,

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but you can say I loathe.

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the pronunciation is crazy.

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I loathe.

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Like, Rory, how do you say it?

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Loathe.

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Or here, I used to loathe.

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Yeah, like I loathe doing homework.

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Oh, again, we are talking about the past.

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So, what did you do as a child?

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I used to loathe exercise.

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Or I used to loathe school.

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Now, I enjoy climbing, yoga, I enjoy reading.

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I enjoy exercise.

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I've changed.

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Or I haven't changed much over the years.

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So over the years, during the years, and present perfect.

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I've changed much.

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I haven't changed much.

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Or my activities haven't changed much.

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Yeah, let's Google adult activities.

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Let's not Google adult activities.

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No, no,

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no. we are googling like top adult activities okay oh there

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we go oh wow i wonder what's gonna come from this

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what are good activities for adults the first link on google a deal is okay

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so okay adult hobbies okay they are called adult hobbies for relaxation and personal growth

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sometimes homemade.com okay there you go like it should be a list of creative oh yeah this is a list Painting,

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drawing, sculpting, dear listener Photography Oh,

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sculpting, very, very fancy Like when you make sculptures Creative writing,

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you know, like writing a novel Like Rory,

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you're fond of this

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Playing a musical instrument Pottery or ceramics

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So kind of you use your hands You get them dirty and you create something Jewelry making,

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there we go Candle making,

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actually that's very trendy now, candles, to make candles.

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Origami.

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Scrap booking, what was scrap booking?

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That's when you take pieces of things or photographs and put them in a collection together.

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Although why you would do that instead of just like putting things in a photo album?

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I don't know.

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Gardening.

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Bird watching.

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Dear listener, you can kind of like...

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What are your favorite activities?

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Isn't gardening more of a chore?

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I think gardening would be more of a chore.

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some people enjoy creating a garden oasis oasis like you know like in a desert oasis

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so yeah dear listener you can say like oh now i enjoy bird watching and gardening

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and rock collecting rock collecting rock collecting yeah beekeeping there we

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go i keep bees feel free to lie okay all of

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these seem like very middle class hobbies to be honest with you

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If you are just a normal person and you like to read books,

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then talk to the examiner about that.

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No, there you go.

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Home brewing.

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I enjoy home brewing.

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So I make beer and wine and kombucha at home.

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What?

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That's nice, you know.

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And, dear listener, you become interesting to the examiner.

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Oh, really?

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Like, you seriously make beer at home?

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Oh, wow.

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The examiner will be like,

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can you make me some wine?

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Yeah, yeah.

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Could you just, you know, get in touch later?

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Yeah, so 55 activities from sometimeshomemade.com.

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Thank you very much.

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Which of them do you do, Maria?

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Do you make your own wine?

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You keep your own bees?

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Not yet, I will.

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I'll Google it today.

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Oh, I do dancing.

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Dancing, you see.

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I do traveling sometimes.

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And meditation, there we go.

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Well, very nice.

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Very fancy.

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So, dear listener, here's the joke.

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Childhood is like getting drunk.

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everyone remembers what you did except you Rory,

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could you please explain the joke?

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Well, apparently if people get drunk and do something embarrassing they don't remember it

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but obviously everybody else talks to them about it

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so it would be the same about childhood you never really remember what you did

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but all your parents and everyone they tell you what you did

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Very funny Thank you very much for listening we'll get back to you in our next episode What are we talking about?

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It's a mystery.

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Do you need a detective to solve your mystery?

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We're gonna talk about brewing.

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Home brewing.

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No, we're absolutely not.

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Thank you for listening.

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Bye.

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Bye.

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Rory, what were your favorite activities when you were a child?

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I can't really remember, to be honest.

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It was quite a while ago.

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But I suppose it must have been the usual things like hide

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and seek or going for walks and wandering about with my friends and probably getting up to no good.

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If reading counts, I did a lot of that when I was younger too.

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Did you prefer to do activities alone or with a group of people?

299

I suppose it would have depended on the kind of activity,

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to be honest, and my mood.

301

If it were a more active thing like going out

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or playing video games then I'd have done that with people

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but you can't really read a book together can you especially

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if you don't have a lot of energy

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and can't be bothered with people are there any differences between the activities you liked

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when you were a child and activities you like now oh definitely I'm a lot more active than I used to be.

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I used to loathe exercise and now I do it all the time.

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Well, for example, I do things like yoga now,

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which I wouldn't have been caught dead doing as a child.

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I still like reading though,

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just at a more measured pace than before.

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What are your favourite activities now?

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Apart from reading and exercise?

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I'm not sure really.

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I like going climbing and I like doing yoga but I see that as closer to exercise.

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I've obviously not changed too much over the years aside from that.

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Shadowing Practice: ⚽️ Childhood activities | IELTS Speaking Part 1 | Model Answers and Vocabulary (2026) - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

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Shadowing Practice: ⚽️ Childhood activities | IELTS Speaking Part 1 | Model Answers and Vocabulary (2026) - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

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Why practice speaking with this video?

Grammar & Expressions in Context

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What is the Shadowing Technique?