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Talking about your home in IELTS Speaking sounds easy, but the wide range of vocabulary needed to do it well, can be challenging to find.
In this IELTS Speaking lesson on the topic of Home and Accommodation, you will learn how to talk about your home, describe different kinds of accommodation, how homes have changed, as well as a number of idioms related to this topic.
Table of Contents
IELTS vocabulary: Homes
A home is seen more than a building, it includes the idea of family living together too. Accommodation refers to any kind of building where you live. There are many types of accommodation, and here is some useful and essential vocabulary to start talking about them.
- Bought accommodation (= a place you own)
- Rented accommodation (= a place you rent)
- Short-term rental accommodation
- Suitable accommodation
- Affordable housing
- A newly-built apartment/flat
- Studio flats
- A fully furnished flat
- A semi-furnished flat
- A basement flat
- Off-road parking
When discussing inside a home, we can talk about the following.
- Fully-fitted kitchen
- Spacious living room
- Have a wonderful view of the park
- Overlook the garden
- A cozy study
- A draughty hall (=wind enters, making it cold)
Verbs used to talk about home and accommodation
- To leave home (= to move out, often when you become an adult)
- To feel homesick (= miss home)
- To feel at home (= to feel comfortable)
- To make yourself at home (= make yourself comfortable)
- To buy a second home (house used only for weekends/holidays
- To move in / move out of a flat / house
- To buy a place of my own
- To take out a mortgage (= to get a loan from the bank to buy a house)
- To throw a party
- To welcome someone home
- To invite someone to your house-warming party
- To add/build an extension
- To completely refurbish (= to renovate and decorate a house/flat)
- To do up an old house (= repair/ repaint / decorate)
IELTS Speaking idioms: Topic of home
Get on like a house on fire = get on very well
Become a household/word name = become famous
Offer something on the house = free of charge; such as coffee in a restaurant
Nothing to write home about = nothing special
e.g. This new job is quite normal, it’s nothing to write home about.
Hit home = become fully understood
e.g. It wasn’t until my daughter left home, that it really hit home how much I would miss her.
IELTS Speaking: Types of accommodation
Houses
- A detached house
- A townhouse – a duplex – a semi-detached (usually two houses together)
- A terraced house (one house connected to many others in the same row/street)
- A bungalow (a house with only one level)
- A squat (empty building where people start living without the owner’s permission)
- A hovel (very small, dirty house or flat in a bad or run-down condition)
- Rented accommodation (can be either furnished or unfurnished)
- Council or social housing is rented accommodation provided by the state for people who cannot afford to buy their own homes
- A Council Estate (U.K.) is a large group of such housing
Flats
- Flat / apartment (a living area within a bigger building)
- e.g. a two-bedroom flat
- Note: flat and apartment are really the same, you can use either.
- A block of flats (a building that contains many flats)
- An apartment block (a building that contains many apartments)
- A condominium (a building that contains many apartments)
- A penthouse (a luxury flat at the top of a building)
- A high-rise building
High-rise flats/tower block flats are flats in a tall, modern building with a lot of floors.
A granny flat (informal) is a set of rooms for an elderly person, connected to a relative’s house.
Often for students
- Rented house
- Student accommodation
- Student digs
- A studio / A bedsit (a self-contained unit; everything in one room)
Collocations
Remember to use collocations to add ‘color’ to your language.
- A run-of-the-mill house = an ordinary house
- A cosy / noisy / cramped flat
- Cozy = small and comfortable
- Cramped = too small and uncomfortable
- A three-story building
Note: ‘three-story’ is an adjective and so is singular. You can spell this ‘story’ or ‘story’.
I live on the third floor
a spacious /comfy flat
- Spacious = plenty / lots of room
- Comfy = comfortable
Parts of a house
Rooms
- Kitchen
- Living room
- Dining room / area
- Bathroom
- Lounge = living room
- Entrance hall
- Office (n.) / study (n.)
- Bedroom
Furniture and Equipment
- Kitchen island (table in the middle of the kitchen for food preparation)
- Oven (for baking and roasting)
- Fridge
- Stove (hot plates for cooking)
- Cupboards (for pots, plates, cups…) Tiled floor
- Coffee table
- Couch = sofa
- Fireplace
- Cabinet
- Bookcase
- Desk
- Armchair
- Bed
- Bedside table
- Carpet (wall to wall)
- Rug
- Chest of Drawers (for socks, underwear…)
- Wardrobe (for clothes)
- Staircase
- Sink
- Shower Bathtub
- Mirror
Decoration
- Paintings Photos
- Plants
- Ornaments (any kind of decoration)
- Table lamps
- Floor lamps
- Model plane
- Desk calendar
Useful Collocations
- En-suite bathroom (attached to the bedroom)
- The master bedroom (the biggest one, usually for the parents)
- A king-size bed (the biggest size)
- Open plan kitchen
- Spacious living room with a modern look
- Colorful bedroom
- An elegant bathroom
- A bedroom full of contrasting colors
- Fluffy cushions (on the sofa) and pillows (on the bed)
- A hand-woven carpet (made by hand)
- Fully-furnished house
- A well-lit living room
- A flat-screen television
- A state-of-the-art TV
- Artificial plants
- A wooden table
Homes now and in the past
This is a typical Part 3 question in IELT Speaking on Home and Accommodation, and the examiner is testing your ability to make comparisons and between two different things, but also across time (in this case between now and the past). So, try to make use of comparisons if possible, and also an appropriate use of tense.
We can use a wide variety of tenses, as seen in these sample phrases.
I am living in a coastal city (present continuous)
I have been living here for 2 years (present perfect continuous)
We live on the sixth floor (present simple)
It’s quite a cozy place, but it is a little bit cramped
Before we moved here, I was living in Malaysia (past continuous)
We lived in a condominium (simple past)
It was a 27 story building
We can use the following kind of language to show our knowledge of comparisons.
It was much bigger than where we are now
There was far more room
It was just way more spacious
It had a lot more mod cons (modern comforts) than what we have now
More Free IELTS Speaking Lessons
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HOLIDAYS in IELTS Speaking. Discover the 10 things the British do on holiday and learn the useful vocabulary and idioms to talk about it.
FAMILY in IELTS Speaking. How to talk about your family, stages of life, as well as idioms about family.
PRIZES in IELTS Speaking. How to talk about prizes and rewards at school and in the workplace.
