Some Common Vocabulary Words For ”Travel and Places”

• Accommodation

On the IELTS, “accommodation” has two meanings. It can mean the place where you live. This use is especially likely to come up in IELTS Speaking, where you may be asked to describe the accommodation you live in. In travel conversations, often heard on IELTS Speaking audio tracks, “accommodation” refers to the places people stay while they are travelling, places such as hotels, inns, and hostels.

• Transport

“Transport” refers to the way that people move from one place to another if they aren’t walking. In IELTS conversations, there will be talk about long distance transport, such as trains and airplanes taken to holiday destinations. There will also be discussion of transport within a town or neighbourhood, such as the use of a car, bicycle, scooter, or bus to get to work, school, or the supermarket.

City centre The city centre is the business district found in the middle of a city. Sometimes this centre is also referred to as “downtown.”

• Main Square

The “main square” is the small, most central area of a city centre, or of a business district outside of the city centre. Examples of famous main squares around the world include Times Square in New York City and Tiananmen Square in Beijing.

• Attractions

In IELTS conversations about travel and places, “attractions” refers to tourist attractions, interesting places that travelers like to visit.

• High rise

A “high rise” is a very tall building, often seen in a city centre. High rise buildings are especially common in and around the main square of a city centre.

• Storey

A “storey” is a single level of a building, and is also sometimes called a “floor.” A high rise building generally has more than 10 storey’s, and may have dozens of storeys, more than a hundred storeys in extreme cases. In IELTS conversations, people also may talk about the number of storeys in their personal accommodation, with phrases such as “two storey home” or “a flat in a 12 storey building.”

• Traditional/quaint

The words “traditional” and “quaint” are both used on the IELTS to describe towns, neighbourhoods, houses, and other locations that look “old fashioned.” A place is traditional or quaint if its characteristics are associated with a past time period.

• Character

A home, community, town, or location is said to have “character” if it is an interesting place that is different from other places. This word has a positive connotation — a positive feeling or sense. If a place has character, it is special in an enjoyable way.