📕 Part 1: Decorations in your home

This episode's vocabulary

Eclectic (adj.) - methods, beliefs, ideas, etc. that are eclectic combine whatever seem the best or most useful things from many different areas or systems, rather than following a single system.

Display (noun) - a collection of objects or pictures arranged for people to look at, or a performance or show for people to watch.

Commission (verb) - to choose someone to do a piece of work, or to have a piece of work done.

Ornament (noun) - an object that is beautiful rather than useful.

Garish (adj.) - unpleasantly bright.

Overarching (adj.) - most important, because of including or affecting all other areas.

Redecorate (verb) - to paint the inside of a house or put paper on the inside walls when this has been done previously.

Contemplate (verb) - to spend time considering a possible future action, or to consider one particular thing for a long time in a serious and quiet way.

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Questions and Answers

M: Rory, how is your home decorated?

R: Well, I suppose that means it depends on which home you mean, to be honest. In Scotland my home is decorated by my mother and the style is very eclectic, really. We've got Japanese art, and African, and Fijian wall displays. And we also have paintings from my uncle John. Um, I think some of them were commissioned paintings as well, actually. And if we speak about my apartment in Moscow, then it's a bit more Spartan. But there's still a theme of Russian religious icons and other decorations and ornaments. And I like it a lot, actually, even though it's quite a contrast to what I would usually have.

M: What color would you choose to paint the walls of your room?

R: I keep wondering about that myself, to be honest. My old room has bright red wallpaper, but I'm not sure that was actually the best choice. I think something more calming, like maybe deep sea blue or midnight blue. Something to help me calm down after the day. Um, or feeling that some sort of chalky white. It's sort of standard, but it works. It's a bit like ordering Caesar salad. You can never get it wrong, but it's a bit bland.

M: What color would you never use in your home?

R: Oh, God, lime green. It reminds me of this sort of garish color scheme I saw in a pub in an English village we used frequent in my childhood. They turned this magnificent Victorian building into some sort of free colored nightmare. So in summary, any color but that one.

M: What's your favorite color when decorating your home?

R: I like dark colors, but then I've never decorated a whole house before. I have a feeling that I wouldn't have darkness everywhere, but that would be like an overarching theme in many rooms.

M: Will you redecorate your house in the future?

R: Not as long as my parents are living there and even then I don't think I would change it if and when I inherited it. There are a lot of memories bound up in all of the ornaments and artifacts we have on display. So I don't think it's worth changing it to great extent.

R: Do people in your country like redecorating their homes?

R: I'm not really sure, to be honest with you. It's possible they do it more often now, they're stuck there in quarantine and they have more time to contemplate their interior design choices. On the other hand, they might have less money in the economic downturn. Either way, I haven't really noticed any trends, but I'm not a major design buff, to be honest with you.

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Discussion

M: Rory, thank you for your answers. Rory the designer, Rory the redecorator, the decorator.

R: From Scotland. Freedom.

M: Quality.

R: What a coincidence.

M: Band nine. Dear listener, I know it's very strange listening to us saying all these phrases.

R: You'll understand when you're older.

M: We just chose the best phrases, not the best.

R: We don't need to explain our word choices. People will get it when they see something that's going to happen soon. Let's create an air of mystery around it.

M: Just for now, just smile and maybe just raise your eyebrow. Like what?

R: Except the random vocabulary that comes flying your way. Band nine vocabulary.

M: Right. So, dear listener, now, in speaking part one they can ask you questions about, like do you live in a flat or a house? Also, another topic is decorations in your home. So, Rory, what's going on with this decorated, redecorated.

R: Yes. So when you decorate something, it means that you add things to it to make the appearance better so you can decorate by painting the walls or adding different patterns on wallpaper. Or you could put things on the walls. Wall displays, pictures, portraits.

M: Portraits, yes, and wallpaper. This is what we call it, where you put wallpaper and then you put all this extra decorations.

R: Well, you can or you could have bare walls. We've got bare stone walls in our living room and it's quite nice. It's like being inside a cave.

M: Mm hmm. OK. Mm hmm. Cave house. What a joy. Whoo hoo!

R: What a coincidence.

M: No, I live in a cave too. I'm moving to a tree house on a boat. What? A tree house on a boat?

R: Are you OK? Did you take something?

M: No, no, wait. Let's go back to decoration. Yeah. What about redecorate, to redecorate.

R: Yes. I was going to say when you redecorate, that's when you change the decorations that you put up originally because you prefer a new style of decorating, for example.

M: Yeah, that's what the question is, like, do people in your country, like redecorating their homes, right? So when we speak about decorations, we can use synonyms. Ornaments. Decorations and ornaments, patterns, you said, Rory.

R: Yes. If we go back to the ornaments, though, because ornaments are things which are not put on walls. They're like small statues, small sculptures, things like this. So it's a different it's artwork, but it's different kind of art.

M: Mm hmm. And you have African wall displays?

R: We do.

M: Nice, and your home in Scotland is in a very eclectic style.

R: Well, yes, it's eclectic because it takes things from different places. Somehow it works like I've just described things from three different cultures. Well, four if you include Scottish as well. And somehow it all, this sort of mishmash of things works together. Don't ask me. It's my mum's choices.

M: Mishmash. Mm hmm. So if you have all different styles in your home, you can say, oh, it's a bit of a mishmash of different styles. Like a mixture, a mess of different styles. Yeah. And when we talk about decorations, you talk about your walls, your paintings on the walls, the photographs, like everything you have at home. Here in Moscow, Rory is living in a Spartan flat. Spartan is like this person, a rebel,

R: No, Spartans aren't rebels. Spartans are like the opposite. Spartans are like the empire.

M: Yeah, but they're tough. They're like, you know, husch. They just sleep on a stone. Drink only water.

R: Exactly.

M: So just breathe air. OK

R: Most people breathe air and they're OK with that.

M: Oh I'm hungry. OK, so breathe some air. Yum yum yum.

R: Um, what was I going to go.

M: Spartan.

R: Yes. Spartan style is just like there's not much in the way of decorating. There's maybe like one or two pictures and that's all.

M: Yeah You say like minimalism. I prefer minimalistic style.

R: Minimalistic interior design.

M: Yes. That's your word of the day. Interior design. So the design inside your house, if we talk about design outside your house is what. Exterior.

R: Oh, we should talk about the outside of someone's house because you can talk about, oh my dad would be really good at this. I think you call it like repointing, which is when you make sure that the stones your house is made of are stable. I'm pretty sure that's what it is. My dad's the best person to speak to about this.

M: Ok, we have to have your dad on this podcast.

R: My dad would not even know what a podcast was.

M: Please come to Moscow.

R: He doesn't need to. We could send him a microphone.

M: Totally. Let's do that. So coming on Rory's dad on this podcast.

R: He is a very quite man.

M: Yeah. When we talk about decorations, you do need some vocabulary about colors. We have an episode about colors, so you can listen to it and pick and choose the vocabulary of all colors. Rory mentioned the bright red walls, deep sea blue, a midnight blue lime green.

R: Lime green.

M: Which he hates.

R: It's a fruity colour nightmare.

M: Lime green. Chalky white. So you see, dear listener, it's not enough just to say white. You should say chalky white. Chalk is like this thing that you write on the blackboard.

R: Chalkboard.

M: Chalkboard. Yes. Chalky white, so make sure that you do know the names of the colors. You can say, for example, turquoise. I'd like turquoise walls. Turquoise is this color of the sea. This greenish and bluish. Yeah. By the way, bluish.

R: Flexibility with vocabulary.

M: Rory is all about black and he likes dark colors. Right? So his T-shirt he's wearing now is black.

R: My jeans are black as well.

M: And he has white socks.

R: I should say, the t-shirt is solid black, but the jeans are sort of black and gray mixed together. So it's not like I'm an art student or anything.

M: And Rory said that my place might be an overarching theme.

R: It could be overarching and overarching. It doesn't matter. The point is that it's the main theme.

M: Yeah, the main theme, color theme.

R: Or color scheme.

M: Color scheme o, yeah.

R: Band nine. What a coincidence. Scotland freedom.

M: Quality. Oh, dear listener, you have no idea what we are doing, but we're doing it anyway.

R: We're doing it.

M: Yeah. So you would prefer a dark overarching scheme?

R: I think I would prefer a dark, overarching scheme, but I have no way of knowing this because I've never decorated before. But I did use the present perfect to say I have never done something. So, you know.

M: Yeah. So when they ask you a question like what's your favorite color when decorating your home, and you have no idea.

R: Don't say I have no idea. Say I have never decorated in my life. But if I were to decorate.

M: The second conditional is coming.

R: Probably. Is it the second conditional?

M: The second conditional, Rory. So if you were to decorate your house, you would...

R: Have an overarching theme of darkness, sort of like in my life.

M: You have a dark soul.

R: Very.

M: Artifacts. OK, so ornaments and artifacts.

R: Yes. An ornament is designed as part of, well, its primary purposes for decoration. An artifact is not, for example, I've got. We used to have them I don't know if they're still up, but we used to have clubs from Fiji that people used to smash each other's skulls open with. And obviously the primary purpose of that is as a weapon, but now...

M: Sometimes I think that Rory is a horrible person. He ate dog who has these clubs at his house. Rory, you were supposed to be nice and fluffy.

R: People have guns on their walls. I'm not allowed to have a Fijian club? No?

M: No.

R: Oh, sorry about that. Well, no, I'm pretty sure my mom took it down and replaced it with something else. But there are different wall displays. Anyway, the point is that the artifact is not designed as a piece of artwork. It was designed for a different purpose, but it's not used for that anymore. And it's sort of a symbol of a certain culture. So in this case, this Fijian club is a symbol of, well, the warrior aspect of that.

M: Oh, wow. Interesting. Do you have any artifacts at home? Or if you don't, you can just say that you do. Just to use this word.

R: Just say you have a Fijian Warrior Club. It just trips off the tongue.

M: Yes. If you're not into design, you can say I'm not a major design buff.

R: Exactly. And above is someone that knows a lot about a certain subject. So design buffs know a lot about design. Science fiction buffs know a lot about science fiction.

M: Yeah. And if you don't, then you say, I'm not a design buff, I'm not into design, I'm not into colors. So go away my IELTS examiner. Next topic. But, Rory, what would you really like to have in your home as a kind of like decoration, maybe a statue, maybe some stone.

R: A statue of you.

M: Stonehenge. Oh, a statue of me. Aw. I would like to have a statue of you.

R: I haven't really thought about it, to be honest with you. I'd probably have...

M: But would you would you have, like, some sculpture, painting, self-portrait on a horse?

R: I don't know.

M: Like a tsar.

R: I haven't given it much thought really. I suppose if you pressed me on the subject, I would have lots of pictures of my friends, for example, but I think I'd probably leave it up to my partner. All of the people I've been with so far. Like had relationships with, have been much better at choosing decorations that I have. And it's probably something I have in common with my dad. Like my dad lets my mom make all of the interior design choices just because she's got a better eye for it. So I get my laziness and in terms of interior design from my dad,

M: Yeah, you can so I delegate all this interior design business to my partner, to my parents.

R: And you can use that delegate.

M: Delegate.

R: It's a good band nine word. Scotland freedom. What a coincidence.

M: Yeah. Quality.

R: Let's keep going.

M: Oh, so much fun.

R: Oh, this isn't about grammar or vocabulary, but it is about organizing what you say, because I gave this really long explanation about why I don't like lime green, but I finished it off by saying so in summary any color but that. And that's how you can finish a lot of your things as well. Your things.

M: Your things. Finish your things.

R: Finish your things. That's how you can finish a lot of the things you say too.

M: Yeah. Sometimes the examiner just stops you and asks you another question. And it's OK if the examiner stops you because the examiner controls the time like the English queen. So you you do what you are told. So. Yeah, but to wrap it up, so in summary, blah, blah, blah, or if you have nothing else to say, you say, oh, OK, that's all. I think that's all. But again, in speaking part one, your answers could be shorter than in other speaking parts. So you're fine.

R: You could do what they do on. Oh, what's the name of that movie? Forrest Gump. And that's all I've got to say about that.

M: Bye! Ok, thank you very much for listening. We do hope that you picked up some nice vocabulary about interior design, interior design buff, the color scheme and lime green.

R: Bye!

M: Bye!

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