📙 Part 2: Describe a time you gave someone advice

This episode's vocabulary

Unsolicited (adj.) - not asked for.

To narrow something down (phrasal verb) - to make a number or list of things smaller, by removing the things that are least important, necessary, or suitable.

To shy away from something (phrasal verb) - to avoid something that you dislike, fear, or do not feel confident about.

Outright (adverb) - completely or immediately.

Mercifully (adverb) - in a way that makes you grateful because it stops something unpleasant.

Concrete (adj.) - clear and certain, or real and existing in a form that can be seen or felt.

Questions and Answers

M: So, Rory, give us your story.

R: To be honest, I really don't like giving unsolicited advice, because I'm of the opinion that you never know or really knew all aspects of the situation, like the person you're talking to. However, I'm a teacher, so it's also part of my job when students request this. And one time, a student asked me whether or not she needed to, or she should take an exam to improve her English. She was of the opinion that she needed to take an exam in order to be more successful at English, and it would do her good to have something to work towards. We'd been studying together for several months since I came back from Turkey. And she had come back from her own holidays. So it seemed like a good time to discuss such things. I pointed out what the different exams were that she could take and what the drawbacks and advantages of each one were. For example, in the case of IELTS, it's a good exam to determine your level of English. But it only lasts two years while something like the Cambridge Advanced exam only has one level to work towards, but the certificate is valid for the rest of your life once you have it. At least it was at the time, I don't know if that's still true or not. There were a lot of choices. So she asked me my opinion, and I narrowed it down for her. If she wasn't going to emigrate to another country or go to university somewhere, then it seemed like Cambridge Advanced was the best choice. And following that she applied for it. And we've been working on it ever since. It seemed like the most helpful thing to say at the time since I had a greater background knowledge than she did. However, I often shy away from outright telling people what to do in case it goes wrong, or I wind up taking away their agency. Mercifully, it seems to have worked out this time. If I hadn't given that advice I've no idea what we would have done. Just thinking about how we talk to each other, we might even still be talking about it making the choice and not going anywhere. So it's nice that we had some concrete choices made.

M: And was this advice helpful to her?

R: I certainly think so. Yes.

Discussion

M: Right. So the task is "describe a time you gave someone advice". So we give advice. I give you some advice. I gave you an advice. No, no, no. So I gave you some advice. My advice and also my advice is good or is helpful. So even when you use it in the plural, so singular, one, or a lot of, it's always advice. Okay? And Rory's advice is always good, is always helpful. Or I gave her this advice. It was helpful. Okay, dear listener? What synonym can we use instead of advice, and we can use it in the plural?

R: Support. Give you a tip.

M: Yeah. So tips, right? So I give her a tip. A tip, like a piece of advice, or I gave her some tips. Tips like advice. Do we say advice? I gave her a lot of advices.

R: No, pieces of advice.

M: No, no, no, no, no, no. So I gave her pieces of advice. Or I gave her some tips. So careful, dear listener, control yourself, control your essays. Advice...advice. Like this. Yeah? And my advice is good. And I gave her some advice, they were, no, no, no, it was. Okay? So a very common mistake. And for this topic, speaking, part two. And also speaking part three is about advice. So make sure you keep saying advice, advice, advice, tips, tips, tips, or a tip or some pieces of advice. Rory, you started off by saying that I don't like giving advice. And you said unsolicited, what's this unsolicited?

R: Yeah, unsolicited advice is advice that's not asked for. Although really, I'm not a fan of giving advice, period.

M: So when people don't tell you like, oh, Rory, like, what would you advise? Advise is like a verb. You don't give people any advice.

R: I try not to because it's... You know, people always are not on purpose. They just usually don't tell you everything that you need to know about a problem or a situation and that can be unhelpful when you're trying to work out what the best advice is.

M: Yeah, like advice is. You see? It sounds like advices but it's advice is. So we say I don't enjoy giving unsolicited advice. Right? No article. I don't enjoy giving unsolicited, no, no, no, unsolicited advice. I am of the opinion that you never know everything about a person, about the situation. Yeah? So I'm of the opinion that...

R: Yeah. It's my opinion that. I think.

M: Yeah. So you don't really know all aspects of the situation, so you can't really advise them on it. So advise is a verb.

R: Yes.

M: Or like, advise somebody about something.

R: Or advise someone of something, usually advise them of something in the future.

M: Or I advised my friend to listen to the IELTS Speaking for Success podcast, I advised him to do something, or I advised him against buying some other episodes. Only IELTS Speaking for Success podcast, dear listener. So advising somebody against doing something is the phrase. So when a person requests some advice, I give this advice. And Rory told us about a situation when a student, his student asked him about an exam. Yeah? So should I take this exam or not? To improve her English.

R: And I helped her come to the conclusion.

M: Yeah. So I helped her to come to a conclusion. I helped her out. It would do her good to have a certificate, to do good to somebody.

R: Well, that's just to improve their situation. If something would do someone some good, then it improves things.

M: For this story, you should use the past tenses because you gave advice in the past. And here, past simple, so I gave her this advice. Past Perfect. Like my friend had come back from her holidays. And then we met. Yeah? So Past Perfect. Or we had been talking about it for a long time since she came back from your holiday. I pointed out.

R: But that's just because I drew her attention to something.

M: Yeah, I showed her there are different tests, I pointed out that there are some exams she could take. And you could say, oh, I pointed out that my friend could do this or could do that. I pointed out the advantages and disadvantages of something. And then you could give an example. Like if my friend wanted this, then this. So depending on the situation you're talking about, yeah? And here Rory talked about certificates. For example, IELTS. The IELTS certificate is valid for two years, but Cambridge exams, like CIE, and FCE, they are forever. So once you take them, well, a test is forever. So your passport is valid for a certain period of time.

R: Yeah.

M: So there were lots of choices. There were lots of options. And my friend asked me my opinion. So here, should I say for? Like my friend asked me for my opinion, asked me for something.

R: Well, yeah, or you can ask someone their opinion too. So you can ask for their opinion or ask their opinion, you don't necessarily need a preposition.

M: Like my friend asked my opinion. Right? Or my friend asked me for advice. And because there were a lot of choices, a lot of options, I narrowed it down. So I reduced the number of choices. So for example, your friend asks you like what company should I work for? There are many options. So you narrow it down.

R: For them.

M: And I told her what the best choice could be. And then your friend, so you give advice, so you gave in the past, and then your friend followed this advice, or your friend didn't follow the advice. Or you can say... What else can you say? Like, um, my friend didn't do what I told them to do.

R: They didn't take a telling, maybe that would also work as well.

M: What? Telling?

R: If you take a tailing that just means you follow instructions.

M: So we need a sentence.

R: Well, what? Children frequently fail to take a telling the first time you give advice or the first time you ask them to do something.

M: And this was the most helpful thing to say. So we can say my advice was very helpful. If you don't enjoy giving advice, you can say, I often shy away from telling people what to do.

R: Yeah, if you're shy away from something, it means that you don't like doing it. Not a fan.

M: And Rory phrased it, I shy away from outright telling people what to do.

R: But if you do it outright, then you just say it directly to them. This is what you should do.

M: Like no one asks you and you go like, oh, you should do this, this, this. Or you can say I enjoy outright telling people what to do.

R: You might enjoy it, but do other people enjoy it? That would be another question to ask.

M: Yeah. And then like, so I shy away from giving advice. Like I avoid giving advice to people, shy away from it.

R: And a good phrasal verb for advice working, it seems to have worked out this time.

M: Because your advice worked, or it didn't work. Also, you can say that my advice was really constructive. So my advice was helpful, or it was constructive. So pretty much like good advice. Or it was like excellent advice. But again, no article, dear listener. It was excellent advice. Or it was really practical, or sensible? Rory, can I also say, I gave her sound advice?

R: Yeah, if it's sound, then it makes sense. It's logical. That's not just for advice, though, that's for everything. An argument can be sound if it's logical, or convincing.

M: So like my friend said that my advice was sound. So she followed my advice. You can also say that my friend turned to me for some advice. So people turn to us for advice. They ask us for advice, so ask for advice, or turn to me for this advice. Or she went to me for some advice. And I gave it to her.

R: Did you already say she came to me for some advice?

M: Oh, she came to me for my advice. Yeah.

R: Yeah. It's nice when people come to you for advice. But it's also important to be careful as well.

M: How did you organize this answer?

R: How did I organize that answer? I gave a very long preamble about why I don't like giving advice, which is not distinctly related to the task. It's just explaining why the story is so wondering because it's really not my thing to give people advice. Then I explained the situation in a bit more detail, talking about why I thought I could do it this time, what the actual advice was, and the consequences as well, when it worked out. But nothing terribly overly complicated here. Just, I don't like to do it, but I did. And it seems to have panned out in the end.

M: Sweet. So dear listener, you should choose a situation. So when you give advice, maybe at work, maybe to your friend, again, choose something which is easy for you to talk about. Something, well... Or imagine, imagine, right? A very good strategy is to say that I don't like giving advice because then you can use this phrase, I often shy away from telling people what to do. You see? Or I don't like giving unsolicited advice. Because... You see? Very nice phrases you can use if you say like, oh, okay, I don't like giving advice. But then you should describe a certain situation. Maybe you advised your friend on a job, she should take or shouldn't, for example. Thank you very much for listening! And we'll get back to you again in our part three episode "Giving advice" again.

R: Giving advice. It's what we do.

M: Bye!

R: Bye!

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