How to Compare and Contrast: Phrases, Connectors and Idioms

a key skill you need in ielts speaking is being able to compare and contrast things places at people and activities and ideas it can be quite complicated but i'm gonna make it super easy for you let's do it hi this is keith and i run the website the keith speaking academy and also the youtube channel here english speaking success now comparing and contrasting you know in ielts speaking part one you may be asked to directly compare two things a and b right for example traveling by car and traveling by plane in part three of ielts speaking you will probably need to compare more abstract ideas like the past and the future or the future and the present you may also have to compare opinions you've given or examples that you've shown in this lesson i'm going to show you how to do that confidently let's begin first of all talking about comparing and we're going to discuss how we compare people places activities and things okay a common question though students ask is um what exactly is the difference between compare and contrast well it's a good question right comparing generally means finding the similarities between two things right i compare you to a summer's day it means i liken you to a summer's day i'm making you similar to a summer's day very poetic contrasting though is finding the differences between things so let's focus first of all on comparing right now the easiest way here to do this is to use the expression a is similar to b in context we may also say a is similar to b because or a is similar to b in that d for example if we're talking about places right let's say london and paris london is similar to paris because they are both capital cities right london is similar to paris in that they are both capital cities okay notice is similar to the two becomes a ta because we're stressing the nouns london is similar stressed similar as well london is similar to paris paris is similar to london because we're stressing the nouns and the adjectives london is similar to paris to paris try london is similar to paris nice london is similar to paris because they are both capital cities very nice good you've got that nice cadence lovely remember also we can be using adverbs right to quantify how similar is it very similar or just a little similar right london is really similar or it's pretty similar it's rather similar it's quite similar to paris really add some extra richness to your answers another way to express similarity is to mention both a and b first and then give a kind of summarizing phrase right so if we're exam if if for example we're comparing cars and brands of cars we could say right when it comes to cars two of the most famous brands in the world are audi and bmw and they are so alike or and they are pretty much alike or and they have a lot in common or and they are really similar in addition we can also use this structure to show likeness a is as blah blah and the as becomes us for example an audi is as reliable as a bmw as reliable as say that as reliable as an audi is as reliable as a bmw nice paris is as big as london john is as tall as michael fantastic remember as well we can also put those adverbs in to show how much they are similar right or not paris is almost as big as london john is nearly as tall as michael okay again adverbs adding richness to your language finally if the two things are actually not similar but actually a lot of actually finally if the two things are not only similar but actually the same we could say a is identical to b a is identical to b or a is the same as b same as same as a is the same as b so for example if we're talking about people let's say jack is identical to his father they both love football jack is the same as his father they both love football another common phrase is just like jack is just like his father just like his father or if they actually look the same physical appearance right a nice expression is jack is the spitting image of his father the spitting image or the spitting image if you have a southern english pronunciation jack is the spitting image of his father the spitting image of his father they look just the same did you know i am actually the spitting image of my father great let's move on wonderful so we've looked at comparing now let's look at contrasting again we're going to be looking at how we contrast places people things right so probably the most straightforward and the simplest way is to say a is different from b notice different from right we had similar to different from a is different from b um a is different from b because or a is different from b in that's it right for example let's talk about my hometown manchester and let's say paris in france right we could say manchester is different from paris because it's much more industrial or manchester is different from paris in that the climate is colder than paris you can omit the the last than paris if you want but if you want to put it together it's colder the climate is colder than paris you could also put it so manchester um is different from paris in that the climate is colder nice and do remember again you can add adverbs right to show the intensity of the difference right manchester is really different from paris or manchester is totally different from paris if you want to impress the examiner i think it's strikingly different or i think it's distinctly different actually if the difference is small you can say well it's slightly different it's rather different it's subtly different that's nice manchester is subtly different from paris in that the climate is slightly colder i love adverbs they're great okay let's move on right now in this next section i'm going to stick with contrasting but we're going to look at some idiomatic expressions to to use to show contrast so again if we're talking about two things or people or places we can use all of these for example we may say well they are worlds apart right london and new delhi they are worlds apart now it doesn't mean they're on the opposite side of the world it just means they're very different so i could say manchester and london are worlds apart or they are poles apart the pole being the north pole and the south pole of the planet they are poles apart right my brother and my sister their poles apart completely different um like chalk and cheese chocolate cheese is only used for people right my brother and sister they're like chalk and cheese very different another expression is a is a far cry from b right um manchester is a far cry from paris they're very different in that and then you give the the reason why another one a is in a different league from b manchester united are in a different league from real madrid are they you're going to say of course they are keith one's in the premier league ones in the uh the the what i'm not a football fan i mean one's in the premier league and one's in the spanish league no it's idiomatic it just means they're different right i could talk about two authors right stephen king is much better than enid blyton stephen king is in a different league from enid blyton for example also we can just use far or way a is far blank than b or a is way blank than b right stephen king is far better than edith blyton manchester united are way better than real madrid don't tell the people in spain i said that it's actually not true well is it true no it's probably not true right anyway some interesting idiomatic expressions you can use for contrasting things that are very different let's move on now we have looked at comparing and contrasting things places uh people now i want to look at connectors and linking words that can be used to compare and contrast ideas and that can be really useful in part three of ielts speaking right so we can look at for example to compare similarly and likewise for example i love football similarly i'm a big fan of basketball too or i love chinese food likewise i'm really into vietnamese food too when it comes to contrasting we can use on the contrary conversely on the other hand for example i'm really busy during the week um but on the weekend conversely i have lots of free time notice here in speaking the word order is often a little different from writing right when speaking we often have the first noun the second noun and then the adverb and then the sentence right notice i said i'm really busy during the week it's the first noun but on the weekend it's the second noun conversely adverb i have lots of free time so that now now adverb and then the end of the phrase look at the other examples well i'm really busy on mondays fridays on the contrary are much easier can you see i'm busy this week actually next week on the other hand i have much less work to do right can you see that pattern that is much more a speaking pattern rather than a writing one that's it interesting and beautiful ways to compare and contrast people places things and ideas in fact anything you want at all listen if you enjoyed this video i think you might like my online course ielts speaking success get a band 7 plus it's a complete preparation course to get you ready for the ielts speaking test it's fun and professional fun because i believe that when you enjoy learning the learning is deeper and also i believe it will help you not only become a better english student but a better english speaker if that sounds good to you go and check it out there's a link below it's on discount at the moment so you can get a great deal check it out if it's right for you don't hesitate great listen thank you so much for watching i hope you found this useful do remember to subscribe turn on the notifications and i can't wait to see you again very very soon take care my friend bye [Music] you

Channel: English Speaking Success

Views: 160,162

Keywords: ielts speaking success, ielts keith, keith speaking academy, linking words, compare and contrast, linking words in english grammar, ielts compare and contrast, ielts speaking compare and contrast, ielts speaking comparing and contrasting, comparisons, comparisons with as...as, comparisons in english, idiomatic comparisons in english, celpip and ielts comparison, comparison and contrast connectors, idioms comparison, idioms contrast

Id: V8lKfgtCzME

Length: 16min 15sec (975 seconds)

Published: Sat May 08 2021