30 Phrases to Talk about your Free Time in English

what do you do in your free time do you have any interesting hobbies let's find out hello my name is keith from english speaking success and the website the keith speaking academy here to help you speak better english give better answers and get higher score on the ielts speaking test so in this lesson i'm going to show you lots of cool phrases so that you can talk confidently and naturally about what you do in your free time or your leisure time or your leisure time as they say across the pond in america and also i'll be showing you how to use these phrases right so by the end of the video you'll be able to talk confidently about your hobbies how often you do them and why you like them great and it gets better because i'm going to show you how you can use different tenses to talk about hobbies as well now if you're an ielts student pay attention oy wake up if you're an ielts student you know that in ielts speaking you need to show wide range of grammatical structures including different tenses so this video ticks all the boxes that's great expression to tick all the boxes meaning to fulfill all the requirements great and it gets better listen up as bonus at the end of the video i'm going to tell you the most common mistake that see students make when talking about this topic of hobbies and free time now before we start let me tell you the secret to succeeding in ielts speaking and if you're new here if this is the first time you're watching me you may not know this so listen up this is important the secret to success in ielts speaking is to speak natural spoken english not formal academic english no natural spoken conversational english that's it and that's exactly what show you in all of my videos right now once you've learned these phrases today of course you need to practice unfortunately it's not enough to just sit back and watch me no you need to be practicing and you can practice on your own but think one of the best places you can practice is cambly it's fantastic online platform with native english speakers where you can practice all the english that you need especially for ielts speaking i'm going to tell you more about cambly later and i'll tell you how you can get free lesson as well as some great discounts on their platform so look out for that but right now let's start to talk about your free time activities okay so let's talk first about different types of free time activities okay or as said we could call them leisure activities or hobbies we can also say pastimes think there are probably four common types of activities there may be more but this is where would put most of the activities and hobbies people do first of all indoor activities right so this could include playing games board games or video games reading watching tv or watching films or just chilling out hanging out with friends admittedly that last one could be outdoors and that moves us to the next category which is outdoor activities now this can include things like sports be it playing football skiing swimming jogging gardening it's very popular hobby in the uk traveling although know not so much lately but for lot of people traveling is great pastime and also going shopping again going shopping right could be outdoors could be indoors next category is collecting things or collections the most common collections are stamps coins and nowadays things like nfts yes if you're modern newfangled young man like me no seriously nfts right non-fungible tokens these are all the rage nowadays lots of people are snapping up and buying nfts an nft if you don't know is basically unique digital item that you can buy and sell it may be painting piece of art video clip all the rage check them out the fourth category is creative activities so i'm thinking about things like playing musical instrument right play the guitar for example painting maybe knitting or some similar handcraft work and also guess taking photographs another popular one so there you have four categories and lots of different types of hobbies let's now move on to see how we can talk about your hobby so how do you answer the question what do you do in your free time well here are some nice phrases you can use right you could say get up to lot of things meaning do get up to means do lot of things or you could say don't get up to much if you don't do very much most importantly don't say nothing especially if you're doing an english test like ielts don't say don't have hobby say something right it's important that you speak out so to get up to means to do now sometimes to get up to something can mean to do something that's maybe bad that you shouldn't do but to be honest we use this when you say to people what did you get up to at the weekend it just means what did you do so in the context of hobbies it's fine to say get up to lot of different things we can also say more simply like to do yoga or like doing yoga keith i've been thinking about that what's the difference between like to do something and like doing something well it's very good question and thank you for asking great it's very very simple right you can use both to express your enjoyment of something right so enjoy yoga like to do yoga like doing yoga however and like to do something can also be used to show habit or choice for example like to do yoga on thursdays you're focusing on the habit every thursday or the choice to do it on thursdays rather than focusing on the enjoyment that's it super simple more phrases to show that you love an activity or hobby i'm fond of playing video games that's true what about you i'm fond of great or i'm into playing video games what about you i'm into nice or i'm passionate i'm passionate about playing video games what about you i'm passionate about very very nice now here is really good learning tip notice if verb follows preposition then that verb must be in the gerund with the ing right i'm fond of playing of playing preposition verb ing i'm into playing games right i'm passionate about painting remember that important learning tip now appreciate sometimes you may not be passionate or love hobby but you do it less seriously just for bit of fun right in this case you can say well like to dabble in cooking sometimes dabble in painting last week dabbled in nfts not true just an example right so notice dabble in something or doing something dabble in painting what about you dabble in nice in addition we can say play the guitar i'm just an aficionado an aficionado from the spanish word aficionado just means you're not professional in many cultures right you may like to be quite humble you don't say play the guitar and i'm fantastic no play the guitar i'm not very good but play i'm just an aficionado or play for fun just play for fun or i'm i'm an amateur i'm an amateur say that i'm an amateur again meaning i'm not professional so it's just for fun not too serious lovely now leave me comment down below tell me what do you do in your free time now when talking about your hobbies we can not only talk about what you do but also how often you do it it's great to go into more detail so to talk about how often we use adverbs of frequency from the simple to the advanced simple often paint regularly paint frequently paint regularly and you regularly good more complex paint whenever can whenever can or paint as often as can as often as can as often as can or paint whenever get chance and more complex don't paint as much as would like don't as much as would like or don't get round to painting as much as would like don't get round two gerund don't get around to painting as much as would like excellent now let's move on okay so we've talked about adverbs to make your answer more interesting let's make your answers right even more sophisticated clever better we can use different tenses right in order and especially if you're an ielts student this is important that you show off or you show your ability to use different tenses in english we can start with simple and become more complex let's start with the present simple so we can say paint recently took up painting to take up hobby means to start doing hobby recently took up painting i'm new to it meaning it is new for me i'm new to it i'm new to it next simple past started painting couple of years ago or decided to have go at painting to have go at something means to try something new decided to have go at painting or even decided to try my hand at painting to try my hand at is to try something new right especially hobby decided to try my hand at painting it doesn't have to be handcraft activity right decided to try my hand at playing football where you don't use your hands well unless you're goalkeeper or it's american football right and then more complex present perfect continuous so present simple now simple past past simple in the past talking about something that began in the past and carries on until today right it's hobby you still do present perfect and present perfect continuous we can use both i've been playing or i've been playing football for as long as can remember for as long as can remember can you say that feel the rhythm for as long as can remember good i've been i've been painting for as long as can remember and you nice and nice little idiom i've been painting for donkeys years meaning for long time great so we can put it all together right present past present perfect continuous often paint decided to have go at painting because my daughter was taking classes yeah so i've been painting for about two years now lovely you can pause the video and practice for you right now we're going to move on by the way if you're liking if you're liking if you like this video if your likings sounds like mcdonald's advert i'm loving it if you like this video press the subscribe button turn on notifications to hear about more videos coming don't go away don't fall asleep because right now we're going to talk about the benefits of hobbies okie dokie let's talk about the benefits of hobbies okay think the three most common benefits of hobbies are help you to relax help you stay healthy and to socialize there may be other benefits but these think are the three most common let me now give you some very good templates you can use to talk about the benefits first of all it helps me blank even better it just helps me blank okay it helps me to unwind it helps me kick back it helps me chill out all of those meaning to relax right keith i've been thinking right do we say it helps me to relax or it helps me relax it's another good question and well done for being so proactive the simple answer is they are both the same you can use both it's fine another template find that it helps me blank find that it helps me blank okay we can say find that it helps me get into shape find that it helps me keep fit find that it helps me stay in shape right especially talking about sport or eating or cooking healthy staying healthy lovely next it allows me to or it allows me to just blank it allows me to just blank yeah so if we're talking about socializing right it allows me to hang out with friends it allows me to just meet up with friends it allows me to chill out with friends also it's nice way to blank it's nice way to socialize and if you want to sound really british right and this is so natural it's quite nice way to blank it's quite nice way to get close to nature have go it's quite nice way to so natural brilliant finally three nice phrases you can use to talk about again relaxing and fighting stress that we have so much of in the world first of all it has calming effect it's really therapeutic it's great stress buster excellent some nice phrases and templates you can start practicing tell you what am so impressed that you're still watching that you're still awake and that you're actually practicing as well it's great so listen in moment i'm going to tell you the most common mistake students make when they talk about free time and hobbies first i'd like to tell you about way you can practice even more all of this language and that is with cambly now cambly is great online platform where you can find teachers native english speaking teachers from around the world so you've got teachers that are available 24 7 any time of the day wherever you are in the world all you need is good internet connection in addition the teachers are not only qualified teachers but they come from different backgrounds which can be interesting for you right you can find teachers who may also have background in hospitality in business in art in human resources can be very very useful in addition mean what's great right about cambly is you're getting to practice your english with real live person one on one and you're getting feedback but on top of all of that love the flexibility that cambly gives you right you can choose the teacher that you want you can choose when you want to have the class you can even choose the content if you want to decide what you want to study and also because the classes are recorded you can go back in and review and practice again the things that you need to cambly have lots of different packages so there's bound to be one that's just right for you now as cambly are sponsoring this video thank you so much kimberly if you are first-time user for cambly you can get free 50-minute lesson to see if the platform is right for you if you go for the one-year plan the 12-month plan you can use the code new keith and you'll get 40 discount off that plan fantastic you can click on the links below go and check it out if you feel it's right for you and it's just what you need go and sign up for plan use the code new keith you'll get 40 discount think it's so important to practice so important to get the feedback to help you level up your spoken english and if you're doing ielts to help you get the score that you need on the ielts speaking test okay let's move on and let's have look at the most common mistake students make okay so let's talk about the most common mistake now in ielts speaking talking about hobbies and free time is such popular topic that practice this lot with students and here is the mistake so many students make see if you can spot the mistake i'll give you few examples right my favorite hobby is play the guitar my favorite hobby is collect stamps can you see the mistake play the guitar is verb collect stamps is verb but my favorite hobby is and noun you need noun right what it should be is my favorite hobby is playing the guitar or my favorite hobby is collecting stamps playing the guitar is the noun phrase we can take verb put it into the gerund to make noun phrase playing the guitar is the noun phrase my favorite hobby is painting my favorite hobby is playing computer games it's simple mistake to make but such an important one make sure you don't make that mistake and you can avoid mistakes like this by practicing more right go and click and check on cambly you can practice and get feedback with teacher who'll help you correct your mistakes as well and don't stop watching stay with me go and watch the next video which is all about small talk in english how to start conversation in english quite tricky right go and watch the next video it'll show you how to do it lovely and will see you very soon thanks for watching take care my friend bye