Don’t say…… (part one)

It often surprises people to learn that native speakers don’t necessarily perform particularly well in the IELTS speaking exam. They won’t make many, if any, mistakes but they fail to use a wide vocabulary resource or a wide range of complex structures. They will invariably speak to the examiner as if speaking to a friend and fail to realise that they need to impress and demonstrate their their full command of the language.

Most of us, in everyday speech, use remarkably few few words even though we know very many more. For example, we will say that something is ‘nice’ even though we are able to use lots of alternatives.

So, during your speaking practice sessions force yourself to stop saying certain very common words and use something else instead. In this post we’ll start with ‘nice’ as in the IELTS exam we are frequently asked to describe positive experiences and people, places and things that we like.

Here are a few good alternatives which you should know and be ready to use: