IELTS Speaking Vocabulary - Talking about Books

hi I'm teacher Dennis and I'm here today to continue the IELTS speaking series today's topic is books and today we'll cover vocabulary that will help you answer the IELTS speaking questions such as do you like to read what kinds of books do you like to read and tell me about a book that you recently read and what you liked about it let's get started okay the first thing words we're going to talk about are about your reading habits the first word we have is big reader now this is a word that describes a person and the reading habits so a big reader is someone who reads a lot me personally I'm a big reader so you might get a question on the IELTS like tell me about your reading habits or do you often read and you could answer yeah I'm a big reader I read in all my free time or I read every night avid reader is the same idea it means the same thing as big reader an avid reader is a big reader it's just a different word for it now avid means something it means that you really like to do something and you do it a lot so you could be an avid reader you could be an avid basketball player you could be an avid cook you could be an avid model maker you could be an avid almost any sort of like hobby so these words both of these are you could use them interchangeably you could say if somebody asks you do you like to read do you often read you can say I'm a I'm a big reader you could say I'm an avid reader and both of those would be okay but remember for the IELTS you don't want to just have one sentence you want to say two or three sentences so if somebody asks you do you often read you can say I read a lot I'm an avid reader I usually have a book in my bag with me or in the car seat next to me because I really like to read so our next word is bookworm and this is an idiom and it's something that you use to describe a person and this we just talked about big reader an avid reader a bookworm likes to read even more than that a bookworm always has his or her nose in a book they've always got their nose in the book any sort of free time so if somebody on the IELTS if you were asked tell me about your reading habits you could say I always have my nose in a book I'm a bookworm I really like to read because it makes me feel happy and excited and enjoyable the next word we've got is bedtime reading and bedtime reading is not really to describe you as a reader or another person as a reader it's used to describe the kind of thing you like to read at bedtime so the kind of reading you do at bedtime or when you're in bed going to sleep so you might say if somebody says if you asked on the IELTS exam do you read in bed you could say something like yeah I do read in bed I like to read I usually like to read science fiction as my bedtime reading but sometimes it's a little bit too exciting so I have to read something a little bit lighter or more whimsical okay moving on now we're going to talk about words we use to describe books that we've read or that we are reading and something to notice is that a lot of these words are about feelings because that's what a book does that's what a good book does it lists at least it makes you feel something so you'll see a lot of these words are about how you feel the first is heavy going and you can also just say heavy now heavy going it means that it's difficult to get through the book now that could be because it uses a lot of high vocabulary and complex sentences or it could be that the emotional content of the book is difficult to read it's very sad or it's very scary so maybe if you're studying a psychology textbook that could be heavy going or if you're reading a novel about a war somewhere that could be very heavy because it's very difficult to keep reading through typically you might say something like I really enjoy to read books that are heavy going or you can say I don't really like to enjoy I don't really enjoy reading books that are heavy going the next word is a real page-turner and that's a really common word to use in the Western world too described a very good book and that means literally what it says a real page-turner page-turner to turn a page so a real page-turner is a book that you just keep you want to keep turning the pages it makes you want to keep turning pages and the reason it does that is because you really want to find out what's gonna happen next so you might say something like oh this book that I'm reading right now it's a real page-turner I can't put it down I stayed up until 3 a.m. last night reading it because I couldn't stop that would be a good example of how to use that that word in a sentence the next word is spine-tingling so we haven't worked spine here and that's this part of your body and we have stuff tingling and that's um that's like an electric feeling so spine tingling is a book that makes you feel kind of excited now it could be excited happy excited or it could be kind of scared like a little bit scared so it makes you feel a little bit excited so perhaps you might use it in a sentence like this I like to read at night I like to read horror books at night and it's dark and it really gives me a very spine-tingling feeling when I'm reading these books the next word is poignant poignant and poignant means something that evokes a heavy emotional feeling it makes you feel something real deep usually sadness so poignant is a word that you can use to describe a heavy book that has a lot of emotional content in it so you might say there was a you were reading a book so for example you might say I was finishing this book about a war and there was a very poignant moment at the end of the book when the characters had to say goodbye forever for example and the next is a tearjerker now this is that's something that's really cool about English is a lot of times if you look at the word it gives you a very strong image of what the word means and this is a great example of that so a tear is you know when you cry a tear and then a jerker so jerk means to pull right so a tear jerker is a book that pulls your tears out it's kind of a strange image but it's so it's a book that really makes you feel sad well I guess it could be happy it could be a tear jerker if it's like a happy sad does that make sense so a lot of a lot of romantic books or romance books they could be real tearjerkers and also maybe a kind of genre called a coming-of-age story could be a tearjerker coming-of-age now coming-of-age story is a story about a person who is sort of becoming a man a boy becoming a man or a girl becoming a woman it's about growing up and maturing and oftentimes those books are tearjerkers moving on we got two more and these mean more or less the same thing versus gripping and the second is riveting gripping and riveting and they both mean kind of the same thing and it's what I was just talking about you can see what it means so grip means to like hold something hard with your hand so gripping is a book that grabs you and won't let you go it's very good you don't want to stop you reading it it's a real page-turner and rivet is the same idea and a rivet is a it's in do with machine ease it's how do you attach two pieces of metal with a big machine you rivet it together right so a riveting book you're riveted to the book you can't look away from it it's just you want it you want to keep reading it so a lot of times books are real page turners because they're so gripping and riveting so you might use that in a sentence by saying yeah the book that I read that I finished last last week the story was so gripping I didn't want to put the book down I kept reading and reading and reading it was riveting that could be a good way to use those two words okay so the next one it's unraveling of the plot now unravel means to take apart like a knotted thread for example like if you had a ball of thread and you would unravel you would make it straight or if there's a sweater and you pull a string it becomes it starts to unravel it starts to come apart so unraveling the of the plot that means when you when you as the reader start to figure out what's going on in the plot now obviously this kind of thing is kind of vocabulary is something that you're going to use for mysteries or books that you're not exactly sure what's happening it could be like maybe a sci-fi one starts in a in a place and an environment where you're not familiar with so unraveling the part means when you as the reader start to figure out what's happening so unraveling of the plot on the IELTS speaking if you're asked what kind of books you like you could say something like this I really like books that are a real page-turner that are poignant and are gripping but my favorite kind of books are books where there is an unraveling of the plot where as a reader I have to figure out what's going on I really love that okay moving on to the next word next we've got enchanting enchanting now enchanting if you see the word right there enchant that means to cast a spell on somebody and this word enchanting is something we use to describe books that are magical a magical realism or fantasy these kinds of books and that mean so that yeah magical fantasy and fun enchanting book so you can also use that to describe a character in the book maybe maybe the lead character is very enchanting and he can use his his charm to convince other people in the story to do things that maybe they don't want to do the next word is informative informative and you can see it's the same root as information and informative means to tell somebody about something or to teach somebody about something to teach about something I'm just going to write s T therefore something so informative book is - a book that teaches you about something now if you're asked what kind of books do you like to read on the IELTS exam you might say something like well I like to read sci-fi and and adventure books and books that might be spine-tingling but I really like a fiction book that's also informative because it's like it's like a special bonus you get to read a book that's a nice story but you also get to learn something the next word is thought-provoking thought-provoking and provoking the route is provoked and that means to come out so a thought-provoking book is a book that makes you think it makes you think it makes you think now a thought-provoking book you can use it to describe fiction books and nonfiction books it can be used for both most often times when it's in fiction books you might say something like oh I really liked the story in that book because it was so thought-provoking I was thinking about it for days and days afterwards the next word is adventurous adventurous and that's pretty straightforward that's um usually to describe a story that moves pretty quickly and and very big action happens there's a lot of action usually the characters in this kind of book are going on a journey somewhere so well I'm going to write here action and a journey and that's an adventurous book and the last word that we have is whimsical whimsical and whimsical is a playful and fun book right it's very whimsical book is very different than a heavy book they're their opposites so if you're asked on the IELTS speaking exam to tell me about a book that you've read and what you liked about it you could say something like this I really read a I've read a book called The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho and it was a really good book because it was so thought-provoking I've thought about it for days and days after I finished it it was also a little whimsical because the things that happen in the book weren't very heavy and it was still but it was still informative in that it taught me a lot about how to live life in a good way that might be a good answer for that question okay moving on from vocabulary now we're going to talk about some sentence patterns that you can use to describe books the first we have I see myself a bit in the character of let's break that down a little bit a bit means a little and the character are the people sometimes animals depending what you're reading but it's usually a living thing usually a person in the book so to see yourself in a character means that you can relate to that character it means you can relate to this character so you might say something like I can see myself in a bit in the character of Edward the scientist because he's always trying to find the answers to the problems that he sees that he finds in the book and in my life I'm like that a lot too I'm always trying to find answers to the problems that I have in my life that could be a way that you can use that sentence pattern the next one is the story grabbed me from the get-go now if you remember we talked a bit ago about the word gripping this is the same idea the story grabbed me it was so interesting it hooked me so much that I couldn't stop reading it now from the get-go that just that means from the beginning that's another way to say from the beginning from the beginning so get go here means from the beginning the story grabbed me from the beginning I was interested right away the action started on page one and then I couldn't stop reading it was a page-turner now here you could you could say the story that's perfectly fine works great you could also say the plot now the plot in a story it goes with the movies and books as well but the plot is the sequence of events in the story its how the character goes from the beginning to the end of the story that's that's the plot okay so this the next sentence pattern is the story has characters now you this the stories have characters that do what the character story has characters that all have magical powers all have superpowers or maybe you might say the the story has characters that remind me of my family right you could say a lot of different things the story has characters that and then here you can put a verb almost any verb this the story has characters that can fly the story has characters that spend all night reading the story has characters that fall in love and get married and have a baby so if you're asked on the IELTS exam tell me about a book that you read and what you liked about it you might say something like this I finished this book called manifesting the monkey and it was a really interesting story because it had characters that went on a great adventure to find the secret of life the meaning of life and along the way they got into a lot of trouble and they had some big problems that they had to solve and that was a very interesting book it was gripping next sentence pattern is the story is based on now again you could probably you can switch plot to here you could say the plot is based on that would be okay - the story is based on now based on that what that means is where does the origin of this story come from where does the idea of this story come from so the story is based on what's what we often say is on a real story or we might say on real-life events right the story the story is based on real-life events and that means that something happened in the world and then an author came and took that of those events and made them into a story that we can now read as a book you might also say the story is based on on a movie or what we often have is the movie based on a book it's you the book usually comes first so we usually have a movie that is based on a book okay next one is next sentence pattern is it's set in it's set in now this so here we're talking about characters right what kind of characters are in the book next we've got plot and now we got setting and these are three key elements that every book has every fiction book has a plot characters and setting so here it's set in and then you can describe where it's set in its set in ancient Rome for example right ancient Rome an ancient means as you know a long long time ago so ancient Rome it's set in ancient Rome means oh what now we know that the story takes place in ancient Rome and this is very useful to answer the question of tell me about a book that you recently read you can say I finished this book called the Colosseum and it's it's set in ancient Rome and the characters are gladiators and they have to fight every day to stay alive and some of the action was spine-tingling it was a riveting book so it's set in and then you have kind of like a place or a time or a time you can say it's set in the the 1950s for example or you can say it's set in the future it's set in the past it's set in the 1950s 1970s you can put a lot of different kinds of things in here you could say it's set in the mountains of Nebraska or the flatlands of England or you can say a specific city it's set in London England it's set in Paris France that's very useful for describing your book because when you describe a book you want before you get into details you want to get a top level explanation so then that's a great time to use this sentence pattern oh I loved this book it was set in Paris France in the 1920s and then right away the listener knows where exactly you are and that's a great way to help you be understood well okay so the next one is to cut a long story short to cut a long story short now this is an idiom that we use often in conversation and it means that it means exactly what it says like a lot of times when we tell a story about what happens to us in our lives it could be quite a long story I mean we could just kind of go on and on and on so we just kind of we say this and that tells the listener that we're skipping a bunch of details but they're not essential to the plot they're not essential to the plot and we're going to kind of summarize the sent the story very very quickly so I live you know I traveled a lot around a lot and so I could there's a long story about how I got to travel but I could just say to cut a long story short I bought a one-way ticket and left right that's the way to use that in a sentence okay last sentence pattern and this is couldn't put it down couldn't put it down now this is used to describe a real page-turner right this is used to describe a riveting book these are all so a real a real page-turner a riveting book these are books that you couldn't put it down and any reader any avid reader out there has had that experience where they know they need to go to bed but they're just going to read one more page and then one more page and then one more page because they couldn't put it down so this is another example to use for that question about describing a book that you've read and what you liked about it you know you might say I was reading this book called the Colosseum it's set in nineteen 1900s Rome and the characters are very strong and powerful but at the same time they're very human they're very human and I could see myself in the bit in a bit a bit in the character of Romeo because he's very charming and handsome and he is very funny as well I just the book was a real page-turner I couldn't put it down that would be a good way to use that all right guys that's about it for today today's topic was books we covered vocabulary and sentence patterns to help you describe the books that you've read and to describe your reading habits and so I challenge you right now to go to your bookshelf and to take a book and use some of this language that we've discussed today in your own life to use it to describe a book that you have actually read and then take one of these sentence patterns and and leave it in the comment below to describe the book that you've read if you if you like this video if you want to see more content like this then go to best my test com we've got all kinds of videos to help you master the IELTS speaking thank you and see you guys next time

Channel: BestMyTest

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Keywords: IELTS, IELTS speaking, IELTS test, IELTS speaking vocabulary

Id: tQtXjxbW7ys

Length: 26min 21sec (1581 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 17 2019