IELTS Speaking Vocabulary - Talking about Bags

hello welcome back i'm dennis with bestmytest.com today we're going to continue talking about the ielts speaking test and today's topic is bags lots and lots of bags today we're going to talk about things that can help you answer questions like do you usually carry a bag what types of bags do you carry what do you put in your bag and what kinds of bags do women like to buy those are some example questions let's get into it okay before i get into it these categories they're not set in stone it's not black and white some something might be a shoulder bag but it could also be considered a handbag maybe or maybe even like a tote bag so i just want to let you know that the categories aren't so rigid okay first up we have a shoulder bag and a shoulder bag is a bag you wear on your shoulder it's got a strap that you put on your shoulder now typically a lot of women use this as a purse it's a strap that goes like that and hangs down with the bag here it could also be something that's called a satchel or which is like this that goes over the shoulder like that right that's also technically a shoulder bag because it's got a strap that goes over your shoulder but it's also called a satchel okay uh so next up we got backpack and this is what you probably put your books in when you went to school it's a it's a bag that you wear you have two straps on your that go over your shoulders right and this is a you know perfect example of a backpack very simple two straps go on your back now what i said about the categories right so a backpack that's a backpack but a rucksack is kind of like a very big backpack and a rucksack is what you use if you go traveling or in america we say backpacking where you have a very big backpack or a rucksack that you know you can put all your stuff and live pretty much out of the bag we call it for weeks months even so that's an example of what i mean that sometimes the categories aren't so clear okay so the next up is handbag and handbag is what i often think of as a woman's purse it is a small bag that you keep personal items in and the it has straps usually have straps but they're not long and because you hold the straps in your hand right because it's a handbag right or it's also very commonly called a purse okay so next bag is a briefcase and this is something that is you often see in the business world and that is the rectangular it looks like a like a small suitcase right looks like a small suitcase and it's where business people keep their important documents they go into a meeting they carry their their briefcase set on table click click and open it up and and get down to business these are usually black sometimes brown but if you're if you're looking to kind of level up your game in terms of business or professionalism a briefcase will do that for you all right so rucksack like i talked about is a very big backpack and it's used for extended travel extended travel i backpacked through south america for a year once lived out of a rucksack for a year pretty fun also not fun all right so next up is bum bag bum bag now bum is slang for your rear end for your butt and that's because these are the little bags that you click around your waist and you have a part that hangs on your bum now in america i'm an american in america we don't say bum bag we say fanny pack why do we say fanny pack because fanny is a slang term for your bum right so it kind of means the same thing just different words and those um you'll see you know those are like when you go out to the beach maybe you go for a run people put on a fanny pack put on a bum bag put their essentials in there and take off okay next is tote bags and these are um and tote is a way to kind of like it means to carry something and tote bags are um they could be plastic but you know in these day and ages they're usually made out of cloth and they have short straps and they're big and rectangular and that's where you can tote around you can carry around maybe your books if you're going to the library it's what i use them for or maybe you're going to go pick up a few things at the grocery store you just take your tote bag and put them in there and so they but they have short straps right but they're different than handbags handbags have short straps right yeah they do so what's the difference the difference is tote bags have more carrying space typically a handbag is really for personal items like and it's typically women who carry handbags so they carry um lipstick and mirrors and keys and money wallet stuff like that in there so if you were asked you know what kind of bag do you what type of bag do you usually carry you might answer something like well you know if i'm if i have a business meeting come up i'm sure to take my briefcase maybe i need some documents but i really just want to project that kind of image to the people i'm doing business with but i also like to run on the weekends down by the beach and for that i put on a strap on my bum bag with my phone and essentials so that i can be very lightweight but if i'm going to the grocery store definitely going to bring my tote bag actually how about two of them so that i don't have to use up plastic and pollute the environment and i can carry my goods home in my tote bag okay and so grocery bags now grocery bags if you're in america a grocery bag is typically a plastic bag and back in the day it was a paper bag and so you can still get them paper bags you can still get plastic bags but it could also be a tote bag so this sometimes these might be the same thing like you might say hey get the grocery bag let's go to the grocery but it's actually tote bag right that's what i mean the categories are not they're not rigid so grocery bags and so the the ones now they're usually made out of cloth the new ones are made out of cloth or they're plastic or they're plastic okay and the last one are expensive designer bags and these are these are the designer brands this is gucci and prada and whatever else i don't really know i don't want to keep up with that stuff okay so expensive designer bags these are i mean of course they're about the function of the bag of course that's important but it's also about about the look about being the kind of person who carries a designer bag all right okay let's add some ielts context if you were asked what types of bags do women usually buy or do women like to buy you could answer something like this well i see a lot of women shopping at the malls and they're they're usually looking at shoulder bags or handbags and this is because women carry purses more often than men do and most women that i know really enjoy shopping for expensive designer bags maybe they don't buy maybe they're just window shopping but they do like to spend time looking at expensive designer bags so over here we got some more some more vocabulary words and these are about bags kind of like parts of bags and the first is pouch and then we got pocket and a lot of people think pouch in a pocket is the same thing and they're not really the same thing a pocket is something is like a small carrying space that's sewn into a larger item sewn into a larger item so your pants usually have pockets they're sewn in there right your bag has pockets it's sewn into the bag but a pouch is usually just a very small bag on its own right you might you might have like a pouch for your coins for example and you might put that into your bag but the the big difference here between these two is that pouch is independent it's by itself it's its own thing and the pocket is part of a larger thing and the next is a zipper and that is the thing that closes a bag or closes a jacket and it's called a zipper because it is really fast to close and it zips by right and that's why we call it a zipper really and actually in french they call it a furniture eclair which means lightning closure right because it just it was a new thing when it came out zipper was new it was like wow this is a new way to close stuff it's super fast so zippers can be an important part of an item if you're looking to buy a bag right the kind of zipper the quality of a zipper is important because if it breaks it's not good okay next is the strap right so this could be the straps on a rucksack the strap on a shoulder bag the straps on a handbag but pretty much all of these bags have straps now they might be thick they might be thin they might be cloth they might be denim they might be leather but they all have straps and that's an essential part of talking about about a bag okay so if you were asked for example um what do you usually put in your bags you might say something like well um if i'm going on an overnight trip i'll take my backpack and i'll put you know a change of clothes in the backpack in in the pot in the front pocket in the front pocket i'll keep um my id and some cash and i also have a pouch inside my bag with some loose change in case i need to take that out and pay the bus or something like that so that's mine how you that's how you might answer that question all right we got two more vocabulary words here the first is buckle and uh you'll find buckles on bags you'll find them on belts you'll find them on seat belts in america we actually say buckle up and that means to put your seatbelt on so the buckle is the part of the bag where one end slips into the other so you have this end that comes into here and it buckles right so this is a buckle and it buckles so buckle could be both a noun and a verb so that's buckle uh the last one is latch now you're not gonna find latch on any of these bags except a briefcase except a briefcase and the the latch is that thing if you've seen in the movie or you have one or your dad has one or somebody has one and you've seen people kind of go into a meeting and they they set their briefcase down and they go click click and those two things pop up those are the latches of the briefcase and a briefcase has those because usually the items in a briefcase are really important and a latch can be locked it's it's a higher level of security than you know on a rucksack or a backpack for example okay let's put that into an ielts context let's imagine you were asked what do you look for when you're buying a new bag you might answer something like this when i'm buying a new new bag the first thing i look for is what it's made out of and i'm looking for a quality bag so that that probably means leather or a high quality cotton or denim next i check out the straps because i know if the straps aren't any good the bag's not going to be any good and then i have a look for at the buckle or the zipper because i know that if those are low quality they're likely to break first and if they break a lot of the functionality of the bag is gone but of course if i'm buying a briefcase a latch the latches of the briefcase are really important because i want my documents and the things i carry in my briefcase to be secure all right so that is the ielts speaking about bags and as like i said in the beginning the categories are a little bit vague a little bit blurry so we talk about different kinds of bags we talked about different parts of bags for more ielts speaking questions please go to bestmytest.com and i'll see you in the next video

Channel: BestMyTest

Views: 6,590

Keywords: IELTS speaking, ielts, ielts test, ielts vocabulary, ielts speaking questions, ielts speaking test, yt:cc=on

Id: sWcQ0TLX4Hg

Length: 13min 5sec (785 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 18 2021