📙 Part 2: Describe a time that you showed something new to others

You should say: when it was, what it was, who you showed it to, how you showed it, and explain how you felt about it.

This episode's vocabulary

To compromise (verb) - to lower or weaken standards.

Point-blank (adverb) - saying something very clearly in very few words, without trying to be polite or pleasant.

Learning curve (noun) - the rate of someone's progress in learning a new skill.

Housewarming (noun) - a party that you give when you move into a new house.

The general public (noun) - ordinary people, especially all the people who are not members of a particular organization or who do not have any special type of knowledge.

Disparate (adj.) - different in every way.

To bring someone/something together (phrasal verb) - to help people or groups to become friendly or to do something together, especially when they would not usually do this.

To set (something) up (phrasal verb) - to prepare something for use, especially by putting the different parts of it together.

Fragile (adj.) - a fragile object is easily damaged or broken.

To trip up (phrasal verb) - to fall because you hit your foot on something, or to make someone fall by putting your foot in front of the other person's foot.

Keen to do something (collocation) - very eager to do something.

User-friendly (adj.) - if something, especially something related to a computer, is user-friendly, it is simple for people to use.

Precarious (adj.) - in a dangerous state because of not being safe or not being held in place firmly.

To show off (phrasal verb) - to behave in a way that is intended to attract attention or admiration, and that other people often find annoying.

Questions and Answers

M: Rory, give us your story.

R: Well, a few weeks ago, I bought a new projector from my living room. It was my attempt at compromising because I absolutely point-blank refused to have a TV in-house, but I wanted to have something to display things whenever I had parties or guests. And it worked pretty well, to be honest, though, learning how to use it and where to place it was a bit of a learning curve. In more detail, I brought it out at my second large housewarming for different groups of my friends. I'd already done one before for my really close friends, but this was like one for the general public, so to speak. And the groupings were very disparate, so it was probably a good idea to have something that brought them all together, like this projector. In terms of how I did, I just set the thing up with some technical support from my partner, and it automatically adjusted to the place it was projecting. In this case, that was the wall, and people could see it as they came in and ask questions and mess around with it. It's quite fragile. So, or at least it seems it's quite fragile. So I did my best to keep out of the way and keep it out of the way to avoid people tripping up over it. Aside from some slight anxiety about accidental damage, I was quite keen to show the thing off, to be honest. It was relatively inexpensive and it did a great job, in addition to being fairly easy to use. All you needed to do was plug it in and then find an ideal place to sit it, and then you could use the remote to issue instructions and find things to watch, since it also has an internet connection and a very user-friendly interface, especially after a few drinks, which is always useful for a party. I wasn't too happy about the initial position I put it in, which is on the coffee table, but later on, after I moved it to a less precarious place, on a shelf, rather than the coffee table, I think it's much better now. And I'm really looking forward to showing it off in the future. It looks pretty cool. At least I think so, and it takes up all of that extra wall space I have just sitting there.

M: Hey! Thank you, Rory, for your story!

Discussion

M: So, dear listener, what can we choose? You showed something new to others, and mind you, we say showed. Show, showed, shown. I've shown you things yesterday. I showed you my new shoes, okay? Rory talked about his new projector. Projector? To show movies. And dear listener, you can speak about again, something easy for you to describe, something that you can describe, a new dress.

R: Could be a new phone...

M: A new phone. Yeah, but a dress could be difficult, because you should talk about the dress for like a minute. So a new phone, maybe, or your new house. There you go. Imagine that you've bought a new flat. So yesterday, I showed my new flat to my friends or my parents. And you can start it off with a few weeks ago, I bought a new laptop, I bought a new smartphone, I bought a new flat, a bicycle, a car. Yeah, but again, be very careful. It should be easy for you to talk about. And it was my attempt at compromising. So I tried to compromise. Rory refuses to have a TV in the house.

R: I hate TVs. I don't want them anywhere near my home.

M: Okay. But Rory wanted to have something to display things at his parties. Okay? And what can help me to display things? A projector. It worked pretty well. So my idea worked pretty well. Learning how to use it was a bit of a learning curve. What is a learning curve? Curve, like turn.

R: A learning curve is like the shape of the process of learning how to do something. So if something doesn't have much of a learning curve, then it's easy to learn. If it has a steep learning curve, then it's difficult to learn. And if it has a learning cliff, then it's almost impossible to learn.

M: The rate of someone's progress in learning a new skill. So you can say it's a steep learning curve when you start doing a new job, or it's a steep learning curve when you learn, I don't know, how to drive a car. When you learn a new foreign language. It's kind of difficult to learn. Then Rory described the project in more detail. And you can say in more detail, I brought it out at my second large housewarming party.

R: And if you want to show something, bringing it out will be important. And that usually just means moving it to a place for people to see.

M: So if you showed something big, I don't know, like your new bicycle, so I brought it out. I brought it out, and everybody could see it. Yay! Can you imagine, dear listener, like, describe something you showed to your friend, something new, and you say, like, oh, I bought a monkey, and I showed my monkey to my friends. Or kind of I bought a giraffe, not a giraffe, no, a lizard or a snake. You know? Oh, that's nice. And then you can talk about your monkey. That's a funny story. Yeah, if I were to get this topic in the exam, dear listener, I would talk about, I don't know, like a monkey. What exotic pets do people usually have? A snake, a monkey, a crocodile, a baby pig, a piglet. Nice. Funny. Not funny to you, Rory?

R: Um, I was just thinking it sounds insane.

M: What are people more likely to show off? They might show off a television, actually, or they might show their phone, they might show a computer or a book they bought. Something new, something interesting. I showed it to my really close friends.

R: And we always show something to people.

M: It was not for the general public, so not everybody could see it. Okay? And it was a good idea to have something that brought them all together, because Rory projected his photos on the wall, and it brought everybody together. So he was showing all his photos and selfies of himself. Can you imagine?

R: We were not. We were watching YouTube videos, to be honest.

M: Oh, no? Not your photos?

R: No. not. My photos are not that interesting.

M: In terms of how I did it, so how I showed it to them, so I set the projector up with some technical support. I had some technical support from my partner. And it automatically adjusted to the place it was projecting.

R: Or projecting to or on.

M: Yeah. Yeah, but the projector is connected to the computer, right? It's connected to the computer and then projects everything onto the wall.

R: Yeah. Well, it actually just is self-contained. So it connects itself to the internet, and then it displays things. Sort of a little computer inside.

M: Oh, I see. Oh, nice. Yeah, and my friends asked questions. They messed around with it. So if it was a new phone that you showed, my friends messed around with it, they touched it, they dropped it, they broke it.

R: Well, I hope they didn't drop it and break it, because it was expensive. Well, relatively inexpensive, but still quite expensive.

M: Yeah, you can say that it's quite fragile. Fragile means it can break easily.

R: Please tell me that is a band nine word.

M: C2, yes.

R: Yes! It is. Amazing.

M: A fragile object is easily damaged or broken. So, for example, usually vases.

R: A Faberge egg.

M: Yeah. A Faberge egg.

R: I don't know why. Like all of that Faberge egg that people have lying around, all those Faberge eggs people have lying around.

M: So, yeah, a fragile object. I did my best to keep it out of the way. Okay? So I did my best to kind of save it from everyone. I did my best to keep it out of the way. I did my best to keep it safe, to avoid people tripping over it, so if you trip over something, your feet touch the object and you fall over. What can we trip over? Trip over what usually?

R: Well, you could trip over a cable, for example, or something, some kind of material, perhap.

M: I was quite keen to show the thing off. So we show it off, dear listener. And this task is about an object, a new object you bought, and now you show it off, like, oh, look at my new car. Isn't it great? It's so expensive. So kind of you, you are very happy that you have it and you show it off. So you can say, I was very keen, I was very happy to show the thing off, to be honest. We show it off to people. So I was very happy to show it off, but I was a bit anxious. So I had some anxiety. I was nervous that it could break down or people might damage it. I did a great job keeping it safe. It's easy to use you can say. Or it's difficult to use. All I need to do is to plug it in. So you plug it in to electricity and then it works. Yay! I have a remote. So a remote control is this thing that controls your TV or a projector. It has a friendly interface.

R: A user-friendly interface, or very user-friendly.

M: Yeah, I know what to do with it. What's a precarious place?

R: Um, well, if it's precarious, then it's dangerous to have it there because it could fall over, for example. I wonder if that is also a band-nine level word.

M: Precarious. Precarious - in a dangerous state because of not being safe or not being held in place firmly. Could you give us another example? Precarious?

R: Sometimes children get themselves into precarious situations and don't realize it. They just go into a dangerous situation, and they don't even know that they're in danger.

M: And what else could be precarious?

R: Anything that puts something in danger. It could be rather precarious if you're driving a car under the influence of alcohol, or if you take an IELTS exam without appropriate preparation.

M: So you can say I moved it to a less precarious place on a shelf. So to avoid people tripping over it, because if a projector is on the floor, so people can just... Just like this. This can happen. So I moved it to a less dangerous place on the shelf, to a less precarious place on a shelf. Right, dear listener, what would you like to talk about? Something new. I would talk about my new piglet, a baby pig that I've just bought. What about you? Think about what would you like to talk about as long as you can describe it. Okay? For two minutes. Thank you very much for listening!

R: See you next time!

M: Bye!

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