📕 Part 1: Future

Rory, tell the world, how do you think your life will change in the future?

Well-well, ideally it will change for the better. I'll have less work, fewer jobs and more free time to spend with my friends and family. And hopefully I'll have a family of my own in a house that I own as well. So in summary, less work and more people will be in my life.

What are your future plans?

Well, in a nutshell, get into primary teaching and have a quiet life with a partner and two and a half children and a dog. But to expand on that, I need to do a university course and hopefully that will be next year. And then after that, I'll see how that works out. And it all depends on whether I like primary school teaching or not. And if I like it, then I'll stay in Scotland. And if I don't like it, then I'll need to go back to English teaching. But that's OK because I like English teaching as well. Either way, hopefully I'll have the time to buy a house and live there and do whatever work I set alone there.

Are you worried about your future?

A little bit. One of my fears is that I might not get to meet my children or grandchildren, having passed the point of no return for that to happen. And I think I still have a bit of time before I hit panic stations, though. So it's just a small worry, but it's not... But it's still something to be concerned about.

Do you think you'll have a bright future?

Hope so. I don't think many people want a miserable future, do they? Um, I think well, there will always be things that could be better, but I'm hopeful that everything in my life will be positive for the most part.

What challenges do you see for yourself in the near future?

Well, I think probably the greatest hurdles to overcome will be finding a partner and maintaining a stable job while having a family. I think about it often, but it's not really something you can do much about until you meet the other person in your life that you decide to have children with. But it is a thing that comes up increasingly. Not just in my life, but other people I think are facing this challenge as well. So it's good to know that I'm in good company in this respect.

How much travelling do you hope to do in the future?

Not a great deal, to be honest, after the next few years, although within that time period I'd like to visit a few countries in the Caucasus, and the Balkans, and South America. But after that, I'm pretty much done. Like I said, a quiet life is very much desirable and you can't have a quiet life if you're leapfrogging from country to country, like someone's lit a fire under you. -

Leapfrogging. Oh God. That's the word of this episode, dear listener, leapfrogging.

You can say animal or amphibian if you want to get technical.

Yes, yes, yes, yes. Let's go technical. Amphibian, so frog and leap is this huge jump. So if you travel a lot from one place to another, you can say leapfrogging and Rory doesn't want to do leapfrogging.

Well, I don't after a certain point.

Oh, so funny. So, Rory, let's discuss your future, shall we? And vocabulary that goes together with your future. So we change our future for the better.

You do.

You change your life, for the worse. You may have a bright future. And that's a very strange question. Like the examiner goes like, do you think you'll have a bright future young man? Looking at you, you know.

It's such a strange question, isn't it? Because like...

It is a strange question. Yeah, but if we ask this question in a neutral tone like do you think you'll have a bright future and you go, yes, I will have a bright future,

You can say, no, I think I'll die.

And be miserable all my life. But Rory used a very nice strategy. Rory says, I hope so. I don't think many people want a miserable future, do they?

Yes.

So this is our favorite tag question.

Question tags. They're the best thing ever for showcasing how good your intonation is. Assuming your intonation is good.

So, like, people don't want a miserable future, do they? So the the rule is very easy, so people don't want and then do they so negative and then positive. So in a nutshell, Rory.

I said in a nutshell, which is supposed to be a cliche, but it's true, like you could say in a nutshell, or in short, or to summarize.

To cut a long story short.

Yes. Well, I do have, like, very detailed plans for the future, but I don't think people would be very interested in hearing them. And your examiners only got something like four minutes to ask you.

Yeah, so make sure that you do have a list of actions that you want to do in the future. For example, do a university course like Rory, to own a house, to have a family, to find a partner. So these are some of the things that you want to do in your future.

To not die before that happens.

Leapfrogging can also be part of your future plans. Rory, I'm actually worried that you haven't mentioned our podcast as your future plan.

How much is Vanya paying you to interrogate me on the air?

No, think of all our listeners, Rory. You need to give them hope, you know, that you are continuing this podcast forever. Like, come on.

Nothing lasts forever.

Oh no, dear listener.

Sorry. Should I not have said that?

Oh, no, oh, no. So one of my fears is that I may not get something, right. So when you talk about how worried you are about your future, you can talk about your fears, like, I'm afraid that or one of my fears is that I may not meet Rory face to face ever again.

You will meet me face to face again. We still have lot's of things to record.

I will find you in Scotland. You know, when you go back to Scotland, we will find you.

I love that. I will find you.

We will hunt you down wherever you are. We're going to plant this bug into your shoe and find you, track you down. Yeah.

Good to know.

Right. So passing the point of no return. A very positive phrase on this podcast.

If you pass the point of no return, and it just means that you reach a stage where you can't do whatever, well, alternatives. So, for example, maybe you want to go to university, but you're too old to go. So at that point you've passed the point of no return.

Yeah. And can you use it in the conversation like, oh, what's up? Oh, I've passed the point of no return.

Well, you have to say, like I passed the point of no return for whatever it is that you have past the point of no return on.

Or for example, like I broke up with my boyfriend and like we've past the point of no return.

You have past the point of no return, yeah.

In a relationship. OK. Yeah, so fierce passing the point of no return, very positive. And panic stations. So apparently we have panic stations.

You do. Panic stations is just another way of saying that you panic basically. And if you hit panic stations then it's like, oh my God, everything is a disaster. We need to panic.

It's time to panic.

Well, the idea is we need to panic and the cause of fixing things. But to be honest with you, panicking about things never did anything. So why panic? But some people do. Some people hit panic stations and they panic.

Sometimes I do hit panic stations, yeah, so I worry about the future. It's OK. But, dear listener, Rory is staying on this podcast. He's going to do it because he likes it, right, Rory? Tell the world what you like. Come on, darling.

Moving swiftly on to more important things.

He's avoiding me. He's ignoring me now. OK, fine. Yeah, we are hopeful about the future, right? Rory, are you hopeful?

I am hopeful about the future.

Yes, because it's positive.

But it should be. Well, if it's not, then you should do something to address that. But if it's not, there may be challenges and you may have hurdles to overcome. Now, a hurdle is a way of speaking about challenges in the future.

So a hurdle is a challenge.

Yeah.

Hurdle. So the greatest hurdle is or I have some hurdles to overcome, we overcome difficulties.

A significant hurdle in the future will be traveling effectively. And when you want to talk about travel, you need to talk about where you want to travel to. But instead of mentioning specific countries, we could talk about regions. And I mentioned three here. I mentioned the Caucasus in the Balkans, which are regions of the world with lots of countries in them. And I mentioned a continent, South America. So if you can't think of a country, you could always talk about the region where it is.

And you can talk about leapfrogging. Could you give us another example with this leapfrogging? I seem to like this word.

You leapfrog from task to task, basically? So you just like jump from task to task and you're not really taking time to chill out and enjoy the, and smell the roses. You need to take time to relax and smell the roses.

Relax and smell the roses. Can I say just like, oh, stop leapfrogging.

Well, you could, but I don't think that would be a very common expression. Thank you for listening!

We really hope that you'll have a rosy future.

Hopefully the future is looking bright with our vocabulary.

And grammar.

And on the subject of things that you can find online, come and talk to us on Telegram and Instagram. And it turns out that a lot of people can't find our transcripts. So if you cannot find our transcript, they are on our website. Go to successwithielts.com to find them. You can do that in the future. But from us here in the past. Bye!

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