Speak About the Photo

Twenty seconds to look at a photograph, then up to ninety seconds to describe it out loud. There is one recording and no retake, which makes the first ten seconds the most valuable ten seconds to rehearse on the whole test.

The Facts


Time	90 seconds
Preparation time	20 seconds
How many per test	1
Subscore	Speaking
Adaptive	No
Scored as	Speaking criteria: content, discourse coherence, fluency, grammar, lexis, pronunciation

What You See

A photograph with a twenty-second preparation timer. When it ends, a Record Now button appears; the recording starts when you click it and runs for up to ninety seconds. The photo stays on screen throughout.

Ninety seconds is a long time to talk about one image. Most test takers run out of things to say at about thirty and then lose fluency marks filling the rest. The fix is a plan, made in the twenty seconds.

What to Do With the 20 Seconds

Do not rehearse sentences. Pick four things to talk about, in order, and let the sentences happen live. This is what stops the answer stalling at thirty seconds.

Foreground. The one or two people or objects closest to the camera. What are they wearing, what are they doing.
Background. What is behind them, and what it tells you about the place.
Relationships. Who is with whom, who is waiting for whom, where people are looking.
Inference. Time of day, season, what happened just before or is about to happen. This is where the top bands live.

The four moves, spoken

"This looks like a bus stop, and it has been taken from behind the two people in the foreground. On the left there is an older man in a dark coat carrying a bag in each hand, and on the right a woman in a patterned coat standing beside a wheeled suitcase. Both of them are facing away from the camera and looking out towards the road, so I would guess they are waiting for something rather than about to leave. Further along the kerb there is a cream and green bus with a few other passengers near it. The trees behind have no leaves, which makes me think it is winter, and nobody seems to be in a hurry, so the bus is probably not due for a few minutes yet."

Language That Buys You Time Honestly

Location phrases let you move around the image without repeating yourself: in the foreground, behind them, on the left, further along, in the top corner.
Hedging turns guesses into fluent speech: it looks like, I would guess, judging by, which makes me think.
Reformulation keeps you moving when a word is missing: the thing you use to…, a kind of…
Sequencing gives the answer shape: the first thing I notice is…, the other thing worth mentioning is…

Filler that says nothing — "so, um, in this picture we can see, um" — costs Fluency directly. Filler that carries content, like a location phrase, does not.

Common Mistakes

Silence in the first three seconds. Have an opening that works for any photo: "This looks like…"
Stopping at thirty seconds. Content is capped by how much of the image you covered.
Going silent when a word will not come, instead of describing it.
Listing objects with no relationships between them.
Speaking too fast to fit everything in. There is no ideal speed, but there is a rate that stops being comfortable to listen to.

How to Practise

One photo a day, ninety seconds, recorded, without pausing the timer.
Listen back and count every silence longer than two seconds. That number is your fluency score in miniature; drive it down.
Practise the twenty-second plan on its own: look at a photo, name four things out loud, stop.
A photo with strong and weak model answers is on the Speaking samples page.

Kirill O'Nayd, Duolingo English Test expert

Written by Kirill O'Nayd

English test expert and educator at TestSucceed, where he builds the Duolingo English Test practice tasks and mock tests and has spent years taking apart how computer-adaptive, AI-graded exams award their points. See all TestSucceed preparation materials.