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Describe the time when you first talked in a foreign language: IELTS Speaking Cue Card

You should say

  • Where you were
  • Who you were with
  • What you talked about
  • And explain how you felt about it
Show all 104 answers

Cue 1:Where you were

  • Begin by describing the location where you first spoke in a foreign language, making it vivid and relatable.
  • Mention any specific details about the environment that made it memorable.

Example

I was at a language exchange event in my city, held at a local community center. The room was filled with people from different backgrounds, and there was a buzz of excitement in the air as everyone was eager to practice their language skills.

Cue 2:Who you were with

  • Introduce the person or people you were with during this experience.
  • Explain your relationship with them and why they were significant to this moment.

Example

I was paired with a native Spanish speaker named Carlos, who was also learning English. We were both nervous but excited to help each other improve our language skills.

Cue 3:What you talked about

  • Outline the main topics of conversation you had with the person.
  • Include any interesting or funny moments that occurred during your discussion.

Example

We talked about our favorite hobbies, food, and cultural differences. I remember laughing when Carlos tried to explain a traditional Spanish dish, and I struggled to pronounce it correctly.

Cue 4:And explain how you felt about it

  • Share your emotions during and after the conversation.
  • Reflect on how this experience impacted your confidence in speaking a foreign language.

Example

At first, I felt anxious and self-conscious about making mistakes. However, as we continued talking, I felt a sense of accomplishment and joy. It was liberating to express myself in a different language, and I left the event feeling more confident in my abilities.

Conclusion

    Example

    Overall, that experience was a turning point for me. It not only improved my language skills but also encouraged me to seek more opportunities to practice speaking in foreign languages. I realized that making mistakes is part of the learning process, and it made me more open to new experiences.

    Following this structure will ensure you cover all the essential points while providing a clear and engaging response to the cue card topic.

    Tips to answer this Cue Card

    1: Avoid Vague Responses

    Being vague can make your answer less engaging and informative. It may lead to a lack of detail that is crucial for a good score.

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    Tip

    Provide specific details about the location, people, and conversation to create a vivid picture for the examiner.

    2: Don't Overuse Simple Language

    Relying too much on simple words can limit your expression and fail to showcase your language skills. This may affect your fluency score.

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    Tip

    Incorporate a variety of vocabulary and sentence structures to demonstrate your language proficiency.

    Neglecting Emotional Impact

    Failing to express how you felt can make your answer less personal and relatable. Emotions add depth to your response.

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    Tip

    Share your feelings about the experience, such as excitement or nervousness, to connect better with the examiner.

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    IELTS Cue Cards asked last week

    Reported by Leap students who gave IELTS

    Describe your favourite food at a traditional festival or a special event in your country
    anonymous person icon

    Reported by

    Anonymous student Band 7.5

    location icon

    Pitampura Test Centre, New Delhi

    Answer

    I like to taste different types of cuisine. Here I would like to talk about my favorite dish at my traditional festival of Onam which is Sadya. Sadya is popular in my city. We are experimenting these cuisines on Onam festival day. Onam is a famous festival in my city. All family members get together in my home and we make a delicious Sadya. There are many ingredients includes that Sadya. Moreover, we make a big feast that day as well as we create a lot of memories together and we wear that day the traditional dress called Sari and men wear the Dhotis. That festival is really important to us because the whole day we are conducting different kinds of games at our homes and all the family members came together. It's a memorable day in my life. This is the festival. We are making the Sambar and Aviyal. These all the kinds of foods are making with the vegetables.
    Talk about a toy you liked in your childhood
    anonymous person icon

    Reported by

    Anonymous student Band 8

    location icon

    Sector 34 Test Centre, Chandigarh

    Answer

    The toy which I liked in my childhood was a panda doll, which makes me pleasant and makes me more blush. The pandas are the most beautiful creatures of the world, which looks gigantic and has pooshy cheeks and they are like stars in the clouds and they dream in me. Furthermore, these have been given by my father. My father is a very very beautiful artistic person, who makes me think of that. Every day you will face every difficulties and make you suffer and move forward. Pandas are always seen in Japanese countries. It is my lifelong dream to visit a Japanese country and click a photo with the original pandas, which makes sounds better.
    Describe a time you were in a place where you didn't know the local language
    anonymous person icon

    Reported by

    Anonymous student Band 6.5

    location icon

    Whitefield Test Center, Bengaluru

    Answer

    As India is a very large country full of diversity, so there are many places which have their own language and speak their native language. The place which I visited and I didn't know about their language was Leladakh, which is about 300 km away from my hometown and it is a very good place as it consists of different kind of trees, animals and have many scenic views and I visited over there last year in summers as it was the best time to visit because it has many, it was cold over there and we had summers in our area so it was the best time to visit over there and I went over there with my whole family.
    Describe a time when your friend damaged something you owned
    anonymous person icon

    Reported by

    Anonymous student Band 7

    location icon

    Begumpet Test Centre, Hyderabad

    Answer

    When I was a kid, I had a little pencil box which had these four buttons which gave the pencil box an operative use. When you press the button, the box would open up. When you press the second button, a little part of it would slide out. Basically it was just a little electronical and a fun thing to have and I owned it when I was in 6th. One day after break, I was standing and talking there with one of my friends and another friend of mine was running through the hallway and accidentally she pushed my shoulder and my pencil box hit the ground and it broke into multiple pieces to the point that it was not functional anymore.
    Describe a book you recently read
    anonymous person icon

    Reported by

    Anonymous student Band 7.5

    location icon

    CBD Belapur Test Centre, Navi Mumbai

    Answer

    It Ends With Us is a book I read recently. It's by the author Colleen Hoare. It's mainly a story about two teenagers, Atlas and Lily, and how they just handle their life going through high school, adolescence, and just domestic violence at home. Both of them come from very, very different families. However, they have one common determining factor between them, which is domestic violence. The abuse that they've seen their moms go through is just insane, and they connect through that on a different level. They're actually in the same high school, but they never speak to each other until Atlas actually crashes into an empty house next to Lily's villa. When Atlas is homeless and he doesn't have anywhere to go, he just comes and breaks into the house next to Lily's, and Lily helps him with all the daily necessities like clothes and food, medicines and stuff. Furthermore, their friendship blossoms into love, but it doesn't really fructify as Atlas has to leave. This book really gave me a lot of knowledge about domestic abuse and how to deal with it.

    All Answers

    Here are all the answers by real-users practicing speaking for IELTS Cue Cards on our IELTS Prep App.

    Band >7

    The first time I talked in English was when I was around 5 or 6. I had just started my first grade and completed my kindergarten and I joined a new school which was completely English medium. My mother tongue was Telugu and Hindi and this was during school. It was my first year of school and the teacher had asked me which grade I was in and what was my name. At first I was shocked and I didn't understand what she was saying. I was kind of scared as well, confused even. And then I started understanding the words in my head and I spoke out loud. My name is Vaishnavi. I am from the first grade. The teacher smiled at me and that was my first experience talking in a foreign language. Growing up in my house, we always spoke Hindi or Telugu. I lived in a joint family and the major language we spoke was Telugu and learning English was quite a difficult task. But I seem to have overcome that. I seem to have overcome that challenge.

    Band 7

    Well, I was in school then and I studied in a Bengali medium school, but there was a spoken English class arranged for us specially so that we can be fluent enough in English. And there was a teacher who came from another institution of a language school. She actually defined a protocol in the class that all the students must speak in English and if we speak our native language, she said that she would not teach us anymore. So in the first class, she asked us to describe ourselves and what are our hobbies and what we love to do and whether we have any pets and what kind of relationships do we share with our parents and friends and everything regarding us. So that was the first time I remember I communicated her in an entirely foreign language without speaking a single word in my own mother tongue, my own native language. Yes, and that day I felt quite confident and quite happy because I spoke quite fluently in English and very confidently. So that was the memory I have, yes.

    Band 6-7

    Well, I first talked in a foreign language when I was very young and I used to write journals but I was not perfect in grammar yet I used to write journals and I practiced English more and more because of my school medium which was CVSE. I never got people to talk with but my English was not good at all but then by the time I started practicing I started watching English shows and comedians and youtubers which then made me realize that I can speak even more better and then after a day passed I started speaking more and more better. I started speaking to myself and yeah it was the very first time to speak a foreign language and yeah I am now practicing for IELTS to study even more.

    Band 6-7

    So, I was at my home and the language that I was learning was Korean, a French language. I was always fascinated and wanted to learn this language because of my favorite actresses in the country and the songs produced in this language. I was talking this with a Korean mentor who was helping me teach. And we were having conversation about, you know, grabbing a cup of coffee or to meet at the restaurant or what food I would like to order and how I would order. While practicing this, sentences, vocabulary, I felt happy, a sense of accomplishment that I am finally able to learn my dream language. But due to some reasons, I had to discontinue it, but overall the experience was amazing and felt really great in doing this.

    Band 6-7

    I always wanted to learn English as my first foreign language although it was a subject for me in my school I couldn't learn it and I couldn't speak it fluently so I joined this English speaking tutor called Shetla Academy where I learned English grammar there were sections and as I progressed I went for the speaking section there first time my tutor told me to speak abruptly in front of everyone I didn't know what I was going to talk about so he gave me a subject it was about trees I started talking I really felt like I couldn't do it but then as I started I got confident because everyone in front of me just were my friends I didn't have to panic in front of them because I wasn't embarrassed in front of them no matter what I talked or if I talk correctly or incorrectly grammatically or not so I started talking I became confident with time and I really enjoyed that

    Band 6-7

    I spoke Korean with my friend who is living there. I am from India, Hyderabad. My native language is Telugu. The first foreign language is Korean which I spoke with my friend in the recent times. It was a very short and simple conversation. Yet, it made me really happy. I have learnt this from various Korean series. I am a big fan of Korean dramas and movies. I regularly watch them on Netflix and Prime videos. By watching this series, it had influenced my language and confidence in the foreign language. When I watch this series, I just pick up a few words from it and try using it like I miss you, saranghae, I love you, etc. Using these small short words, I have communicated with my friend. She was very happy to listen to me talking in Korean language. It was such a sweet, memorable moment we shared that day. I was also happy that at last I spoke a different language. My friend was trying to help me with the Korean language but I have learnt.

    Band 6-7

    I live in a place that is a tourist hub, so different people from different countries visit there. I usually meet people there, people from different countries, different races, different ethnicities and I talk to them, I talk about their culture and we talk about many other things. The first time I conversed in a foreign language to a foreigner was in a tourist place. He was a tourist from New Zealand and he had visited to see our state that is in India and he was actually lost and he asked me where can I find this address, so I told him and I showed him this address. So we became friends, we started talking because I gave him a lift in my car and we started talking about things like the culture in New Zealand and the culture here, how the cultures are different from each other, how they are similar to each other. They weren't similarities but we got to know about each other, we got to know about the culture that they and I have in my country. So that was the first time I talked to a foreigner in a foreign language. I struggled a little.

    Band 6-7

    This all happened last year December 10th where I was looking for a job and my friend recommended me to a digital marketing analyst role in his company. At that time I speak the foreign language English with my interviewer who was also the CEO of the company. At first my interview was not that good because I flustered and got panicked then the second interview when he recommended the CEO directly took my interview. At that time I did few courses and made myself more presentable. I had worked on a specific project which showcased my work in the profession which I am leading to where I showed him my one page SEO blog on page SEO blog where I had used top ranking keywords to rank my blog page on top. He extremely liked that approach where I had made use of Google Keyword Planner, AHRF tools to understand what the keywords I need to use for my blogs and how well I should structure it. So it was a great feeling once when I got rejected I took it as a challenge and worked on myself then presented in a more pleasing manner and second time I got the job.

    Band 6-7

    Yoon Karud MA Aariz, meinugene meri jaata hai maale One memorable time when I first talked in a foreign language was during my first semester of college. I was in Visakhapatnam inside our campus library working on a project with my classmates. One of my classmates from the North East and he didn't speak Telugu so the only common language we had was English. I was sitting with him along with two of my friends and we were discussing how to divide the project work until the point I had never spoken continuously in English with anyone. I used to practice English only during examinations or while reading books. So speaking it in a natural conversation felt completely new to me. At first I felt very nervous because I was worried about making mistakes or mispronouncing words. I even paused many times because I was trying to translate Telugu sentences in my mind before speaking. But surprisingly he was very patient and friendly. He encouraged me to speak slowly and said he understood me clearly. We mainly talked about the project topic, the deadlines and how we could present the ideas creatively. As we kept discussing I slowly become more comfortable. After a few minutes the conversation felt normal and I wasn't thinking too much about grammar or vocabulary. In the end I felt really proud and confident. The movement actually motivated me to improve my communication skills. It also showed me that speaking a foreign language is not about perfection. It's about expressing yourself and being understood.

    Band 6-7

    A memorable moment when I first talked about in a foreign language was back in 2018 when I spoke French for the first time. I was waiting at Mumbai airport in the lounge area for my flight and I happened to come across a tourist who wanted help regarding the currency exchange center. He was asking me for directions in French and although I have been learning and practicing how to speak in that language through YouTube videos or Duolingo, it was a bit difficult for me because I have never spoken it in front of anyone. Although I decided to give it a try and continue speaking in French to help the stranger. I decided to explain the directions not only through words but also through hand gestures which made him understand the directions clearly. He then understood what I was pointing at and later even thanked me for my help. This interaction helped me gain confidence that you don't need to be perfect while speaking, you just have to be confident. Make sure the other person understands what you're communicating. This helped me boost my confidence in learning foreign languages and I effectively started learning more about French, culture of France and how I would eventually travel there one day and experience the culture myself. This experience was one of the most important yet overwhelming experiences for me and it was the first time I experienced the culture of France for the first time in my life.
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