M: What did you enjoy doing as a child?

R: Probably the same things as most children I'd say. I did a lot of drawing and reading, but not as much outdoor play and sport as I could have since I wasn't terribly interested in it.

M: Did you enjoy your childhood?

R: Not as much as my adulthood I think. I like the freedom of action and greater responsibility I have now compared to the relative, well, powerlessness of being a child.

M: What are your best childhood memories?

R: I really like spending time with older people like my grandmother and our family friends. I think they allowed more room to mature and grow compared to hanging out with people my own age. Though, I do miss the times when I would create chaos as a teenager as well.

M: Did you have any plans for your life when you were a child?

R: I really wanted to be a teacher and a writer, actually. And look what happened. Exactly that. I suppose that was inevitable, really. I didn't have any pipe dreams like being a footballer or anything like that.

M: Hey, dear listener, childhood! The time when you were a child. And you know, like a child, how old is a child?

R: How long is a piece of string, to be honest with you? I would say it goes from being born until you're, what, like, reach the age of majority. So that could be 16 in some countries. In other countries, it's 18.

M: Yeah, dear listener, so kind of our childhood. You know? Like when you were a child.

R: When you were younger than you are now.

M: Yeah, pretty much. Like, you know... You are 30 today. You know, last year it was childhood. Like 29. Childhood. you can say like, oh, I'm still a child, you know? So, yeah, some strange questions. Like, did you enjoy your childhood? But what if you didn't enjoy your childhood, Rory? Can I say, like, no, I was very unhappy in my childhood. Everybody bullied me.

R: To be honest, that I was very tempted to say, like, no, I didn't like being child, actually, I hated it. But I think it's good to put a positive spin on these things. So I just said, not as much as my adulthood, which is now I'm an adult, allegedly.

M: Yeah, dear listener. So it's much better to say a couple of positive things about your childhood, but if you want, you can say like, oh, no, I hated my childhood, but this would make the examiner uncomfortable, I think. We can say that, yes, I enjoyed my childhood. I enjoyed being a child. I did a lot of drawing and reading, I did a lot of reading. Our Rory is a writer, and he did a lot of reading when he was a child. You know? Other popular activities in our childhood are board games. Maybe you played board games, or you rode your bicycle. Maybe you did sports. You played hide and seek, dear listener. You know, like this game, when everybody has to hide and you have to find them, hide and seek. Or like you did puzzles. Maybe you did a lot of jumping on trampolines, like, boom, boom, boom.

R: We had a trampoline in our garden, actually, now I think about it. How dangerous is that?

M: You can also say that I did a lot of outdoor sports. Okay? I played a lot with my peers. We have childhood and we have adulthood. So if you enjoy being an adult more, you can say, I enjoy my adulthood more. So we have childhood and then adulthood. Nothing in between, Rory?

R: I think you could call that your adolescence. But there is some debate as to whether that's actually a real thing.

M: Adolescence. Yeah. An adolescent is a teenager. Adolescence? Like the time when you are a teenager and you can say, yeah, I enjoy being an adult more because I like the freedom of action. Adults have the freedom of action. We can do whatever we want. Scotland. And we have greater responsibility.

R: But that just means we have to do more things. But I like that. I like being responsible.

M: Yay! But if you don't like it, you can say, well, I enjoyed my childhood because I hate this responsibility and I hate this freedom because it's very difficult to choose what to do. And you have to decide what to eat every day. Dear listener, every single day of our life we are thinking, we think about what we'll eat.

R: Is that much of a difficult decision to make?

M: Yes, sometimes it is.

R: Is it? No... It's easy.

M: We always have this food noise, oh, what's for dinner, what's for lunch, what's for breakfast. Oh... Do I have food for tomorrow? Do I have food for the evening? Oh, there's no food. What do I do?

R: Unless you're me, in which case you do a shop every Monday, and everything is ready for you for the entire week, and it's fine.

M: Aw... Rory, you're so organized.

R: I am so organized.

M: When we are children, we are powerless.

R: Well, relatively powerless.

M: We don't have much power. We don't have responsibility. We are given food, all right? And we have a choice to eat it or not.

R: Food will be a running theme.

M: And you can say that I enjoy being an adult more because I don't like this powerlessness. Powerlessness, Rory?

R: It's just when you don't have power. Or the idea of not being able to wield power.

M: I've got the power. So we have power and no power. Powerlessness.

R: And I like the word relative, too. I love that word. Because we're supposed to avoid generalizing for higher scores. So relative helps us avoid this because it's in relation to other things, relative to an adult, children are powerless. They are relatively powerless.

M: And you can say that I really, I don't enjoy feeling powerless, or I don't like this sense of powerlessness. Your best childhood memories. Dear listener, you should be ready to answer that. Okay? For IELTS. Or imagine, make it up. Okay? Imagine, I don't know, a birthday party or your first day at school, but something nice, but speak about some positive things. Okay? Yes, our childhood might be horrible, but, well, let's talk positive. And we can say I really liked doing something, I enjoyed spending time with older people, Rory told us. Like my grandmother, my family friends, my relatives, my grandparents. This allowed Rory more room to mature. So to mature? Become an adult. To mature and grow. Or you can say like I used to hang out with people my own age. I used to, in the past, I don't do it now. So I used to hang out, hang out with my peers. My peers? People my own age.

R: Well, my age or at my social level.

M: I created chaos as a teenager. I enjoyed creating chaos. Chaos is this, you know, like disorder. When you're running around all the time, you know, like destroying all the house. Chaos.

R: Maybe not that kind of chaos, but close enough to it. And we'd create chaos, we do not have chaos. Can we talk about the grammar?

M: Absolutely! Could you please talk about the grammar?

R: So I said when... Well, first of all, I said when for a relative pronoun. When I would create chaos for the regular action in the past. It could be used to but I said would.

M: Why did you use would?

R: Why did I use would? There's a reason. I've forgotten it. Would fit with... No, no, that's not true. Would is more appropriate for talking about repeated past actions for certain kinds of verb. Maria will now explain which they are most useful for, because I have forgotten. Is it the difference between state verbs and action verbs? Is that what it is?

M: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

R: Yes!

M: But the point is that when you did something repeatedly in the past and it's an action verb, like run, write, paint, laugh. You can use would. So Rory created chaos every day when he was a teenager. So you say I would create chaos, meaning I created chaos in the past. You can say I used to create chaos, I used to run every day, I used to go jogging every day, or like every weekend I would go jogging, which means every weekend I went jogging. So we can use would about the past, dear listener. It's crazy. This English language is just insane. Crazy. And you can say like, I do miss the times when I would visit my grandparents, or I do miss, like I really miss. I do miss the times when I would do something and give an action.

R: And I used do here for emphasis. Thank you for highlighting that. That was going to be my second point. I do miss this kind of thing. You could say I really miss, but I do miss I think will be higher level. It's got a special name this do. But I forget what it is.

M: Band nine phrase?

R: Band nine do, that's what it's called.

M: Yeah, you can say, like, I do miss being a child, or I did enjoy riding my bicycle, if it is in the past. Like I do like it now. I do miss it now.

R: But it's got to have the special emphasis with the stress for pronunciation, which we rarely talk about on this podcast.

M: I had some plans for my life when I was a child. Or I didn't have plans for my life, or you can say I didn't know how my life would pan out. Like how my life would be. So as a child, I didn't know how my life would pan out, how it would be like. Rory wanted to be a teacher and a writer when he was a child. And now look at Rory. He's a teacher and a writer. Wow. Dreams come true!

R: Success.

M: Scottish dreams. It was inevitable. So like Rory wanted it, it happened. It was inevitable. What are pipe dreams?

R: Um, well, pipe dreams are just fantastical or unrealistic dreams. For example, many young children would like to be famous footballers or celebrities, but I did not want to do that when I was younger. I just wanted to be a teacher. I was a very realistic child.

M: A pipe dream is an idea or plan that is impossible or very unlikely to happen. For example, if Rory wants to become President of the United States. Well, first of all, he can't do this, because he's Scottish. To be president, you have to be born in the states, if I'm not mistaken. Or to have an American passport. Rory has a Scottish passport.

R: I don't have a Scottish passport. I have a British passport.

M: A British passport. Ah, okay. Right. So it's like his pipe dream. Could you give us a sentence with pipe dream?

R: I didn't have many pipe dreams as a child. Or it could be something like, it would be great to be famous, or it would be great to be a famous actor, but that's probably just a pipe dream now. Because I haven't invested much in acting.

M: Okay, can you say that when I was a child, I had a pipe dream of becoming an actor?

R: No, I think you would say I used to dream. You wouldn't say like I had a pipe dream, because then you would know it was a pipe dream. But there are very few children who know that their dreams are pipe dreams.

M: So we can, we can use it only in the negative, like I didn't have any pipe dreams, or I had some dreams, but now I understand they were pipe dreams, right?

R: Yes. I didn't understand they were pipe dreams at the time.

M: Yeah. Rory, and could you tell us, like, are there any synonyms for children? Because when I was a child, when I was a child, and also in essays, if IELTS essays are about children. Do we just write children? Can I paraphrase children?

R: Okay. So for speaking, probably we want to say things like when I was little, when I was small, and you could talk about when I was a youngster, maybe. If we talk about writing, then children, adolescents at a push, or just younger people, relatively young people.

M: Can I say the youth?

R: Oh, the youth, the youth of today. You could also talk about youths. Plural.

M: Hmm...

R: I think that's enough synonyms to get by on. How many are you gonna need for a 250 word essay?

M: No-no-no, that's fine, that's fine. Yes, dear listener, we can't find any appropriate jokes about childhood. All right? So if you know any, let us know. Right, dear listener, hopefully you enjoyed your childhood. Or feel free to lie that you did enjoy your childhood very much. Okay?

R: Or say that you like being an adult better. Being an adult is cool.

M: Yeah... All this responsibility, thinking about food every day, earning your money, paying taxes, paying the rent, yum, yum, yum, how delicious it is. Thank you very much for listening, dear listener! Hey! Hugs and kisses!

R: Bye!

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