arrow back icon Top Answers

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 136 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.

    bulb icon

    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.

    bulb icon

    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.

    bulb icon

    Tip

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

    calendar icon

    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 6-7

    I had met a Japanese friend of mine at a party and at that point of time I was just learning Japanese out of curiosity because I was into anime and I just thought you know I should at least know a basic level of understanding of I should at least have a basic level of understanding of Japanese so that's the reason I was looking up to Japanese and I and when I met my friend at a party Japanese friend he we just had a casual conversation about anime and you know things in general and although I was not able to speak very fluently but I was able to understand simple sentences that he was saying and I we had a conversation nice conversation around general stuff and everything about anime and the common shows that we have watched together after the conversation I felt great that I I felt good I felt nice that I was able to speak in a foreign language and was able to communicate at least at a basic level with a native Japanese speaker at least that was my experience of speaking in a foreign language for the first time with a native speaker whom I met at a party

    Band 6-7

    The first time that I talked a foreign language was English. I was in my junior school. I was in standard 6. Before that I used to always speak in Hindi, that is my mother tongue. But that time I chose to speak in English with my friend, my best friend. His name was Abhishek. We never talked in English ever before. So that was the very first time I thought of showing my newly learned language, that is English, that I was very much confident about. When I started the conversation, it was all about my daily routine, what I did so far. So I thought of sharing my daily routine and whatever I have done so far in English. The moment I started, he was shocked. He was like, am I talking to my friend right now? Who is this guy? I don't even know him. So his reaction was completely shocking. So he started laughing at me. He was like, what is this? Why are you talking in English? Brother, we are good friends. We can converse in Hindi. So it was a very embarrassing moment for me. And of course, after that I'd never talk to him in English. And that was the last day that I spoke with him in English. Otherwise, I would always speak with him in Hindi. So yeah, he was my best friend. And I expected that he will support me. But all the confidence that I had in the beginning, it all went away with his love.

    Band 6-7

    Reflecting on my first talk in a foreign language, it was during a class, I was assigned to talk in English in front of my classmates and I was a bit reluctant because it was my first official talking in English in front of hundreds of students and it was about my experience in the class where I was talking about...

    Band 6-7

    It was time when I was 10th class I speak in foreign language because I speak with my examiner. Examiner ask me question according to my subject because they give me my practical on English subject. I speak friendly and correct way to speak. I feel proud because today time I remember because this time give me a lot of knowledge related to my some grammar error mistakes as well as some mistakes to my speaking conservation to others. I will not proper attend the practical.

    Band 6-7

    The first time I ever talked in four languages was when I had to submit a mini-project on my lab work. So I had to meet my HOD. So he's my mentor. So I go to meet him and I have to speak with him in English because I don't know Tamil. Because the college which I study is in Tamil Nadu and the HOD is also a Tamil man. So I have to speak in English. I don't know speak in Tamil. So that's the first time I being speaking English and that time I felt very nervous because it's my first time and I don't know I am I felt that I'm making mistakes and did he notice it and is he making fun of me. So I have been very nervous about that but he's very cool with that and I also feel very comfortable and he also helped me to correct the viva project and many project that I

    Band 6-7

    The first time I talked in a foreign language was when I was in my college. I talked about myself in German language as I was in a classroom. Since we had to opt a course for our bachelor's degree in which we had to study a foreign language, so therefore I opted German as my extracurricular course because I wanted to learn it as I found it interesting and fascinating. I was in my classroom when my professor asked me to introduce myself, so therefore in front of my professor and students I introduced myself in German telling about myself and my parents. It was a very weird feeling since I was not known to this new language but I tried a lot and my professor appreciated me and she corrected me when I went wrong. The students were also helpful and told me that where I was wrong and corrected me on my mistakes. It was a nice feeling to interact with people in a new language when you don't know much about it but it helped me to gain the confidence and the courage to speak in a new language when I did not know much about it. Therefore, it was a great experience in overall.

    Band 6-7

    Well, being an extrovert person, I love to talk with every person, even a stranger, because it not only enhances my knowledge, as well as it also gives me a chance to socialize with other persons. Actually, without beating around the bush, I would like to talk about a time when I talked in a foreign language with a stranger person. Actually, last month, I went to the Amritsar with my family. On that time, I met with a foreign person who was a stranger for me, and he was not knowing, he was not, he had no knowledge about the Punjab. So, on that time, he took help from me to explore the place and explore the culture of the Punjab. On that time, I talked with him in the English language. It was a very great experience for me, because I also learned different things from him, and he also explored our culture with beauty, and I told him about the Sikh culture, and I told him about the heritage of the Amritsar, and it was a very great time for me. I was very happy, because it was the first time when I talked with a stranger person in a foreign language, and it was a very proudable thing for me, and my family members also felt proud of me, when I talked with that person. After that, he was very thankful for me to explore the beauty, as well as the culture of the Punjab.

    Band 6-7

    Once, when I talked in a foreign language was when I went to a Korean fanfare which was held in Bombay and it was quite an exceptional kind of fanfare because apart from it being in India, every celebrity that was present there was speaking in Korean language and it was very interesting because somehow you were forced to speak in that language and Korean is not very similar to English. In fact, it has more similarities to Hindi as a language and because Hindi is my mother tongue, I was able to catch on to some phrases and understand what some words meant like Amma and Appa basically meant mother and father and it is very similar to South Indian languages where this same phrasing is used for addressing to parents. So yes, there were some words that I could easily understand in graphs but when it came to understanding the tone and the speed with which they talk, that was where it got a little tricky because of course, if you are having a talk with a native, then it gets very difficult to catch on to the speed even though they try to talk slowly but yet, I had to use translation tools and it was in all very, very exciting and captivating incident that happened and the whole event was quite even.

    Band 6-7

    Back in the school time we used to have one foreign language subject as a compulsory subject there I learnt about German language. We used to have three classes in a week where one specified teacher used to teach us. She was a very strict teacher so I speak in German language with her. It was a two year course continued in 8th and 9th. I felt great because it was my first time to experience something which is not regular in our daily life. It was bit difficult to catch up but it was quite interesting to know others language. Not only about German but I also learnt French in my 12th. It was a part of my hobby. That's a different story. I continued it only for few days. But it was also great experience once I was in my office where I used few of my French skills with one of our clients. I felt great there. It was like I should be learning it more and knowing more other languages.

    Band 6-7

    A few years back, I went to Shirdi along with my parents to visit a Sai Baba temple there. When I went there, we were in a queue. The queue was very long and we stayed there for 4-5 hours just to overcome the queue and see the God. That was at the end of the room. While passing the queue, my father passed me so fastly that I almost got lost. When I got lost, I tried to ask the people around me to help me. I tried to talk to them to find my father, but they didn't understand my language. Behind me, there was this lady. I don't know where she was from or what language she was speaking. I tried to cry and tell her that I miss my parents in sign language, but apparently she couldn't understand that. So I cried a lot. After that, some random guy who knows Telugu came across me and asked me if my parents were there. I told him and pointed towards my parents and he took me there. It was a very scary experience for me because if I got lost there, I don't know where I would have been right now. I am thankful for that one guy who actually took me there.
    1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

    Master IELTS Speaking with Leap's Self-Prep Course

    student enroll count

    Students Enrolled

    review count

    2,411 Reviews

    app download banner image
    See Course Details

    Master IELTS Speaking with Leap's Self-Prep Course

    student enroll count

    Students Enrolled

    review count

    2,411 Reviews

    app download banner image
    See Course Details