Written by David S. Wills · January 10, 2019
Looking back at the “recent posts” section of this website, I see that I haven’t posted much since before Christmas! I am very sorry about that. As many of you know, I quit my job in China and returned to Scotland to spend Christmas with my family. It was a wonderful time and I’m so glad that I could go home. It had been eleven years since I was last home for the holidays!!! Can you believe that?
Here is our Christmas tree:
After Christmas and New Year, I decided to take off travelling for a while. Now I’m in Italy, where I have visited Venice, Florence, and Rome. You can follow my travels here: www.davidswills.com
Visiting Venice gave me an idea for a post. I thought that I would talk about historic places. So here we go.
First, is it a historic, or an historic?
Interesting question!!
In English, some people say “a historic” and others say “an historic.” Both are correct and have exactly the same meaning.
The difference comes from the pronunciation. For some people, words starting with “h” are considered to start with a vowel, and should take “an” instead of “a”.
This is not for all “h” words; only ones with a very soft “h” sound.
In this case, the “h” is almost removed and the two words come together, so it sounds like “anistoric”. Don’t be fooled by this strange pronunciation!
Describe a Historic Place
For the ease of understanding, we shall go with “a historic” and choose an IELTS speaking part 2 cue card:
Describe a historic place that you know about.
You should say:
– what the place is
– where it is located
– what is the significance of the place
and describe your experience of the place.
First of all, you need to analyse the question and make notes on it. Don’t take too long at this; you only have one minute. Look for key words that restrict your answer, such as historic. You cannot talk about any place.
Note the details you must discuss. For this, you should pay attention to question words: what, where, and so on. Also, remember the final line, as it is usually an important one: describe your experience.
My answer is going to be on the ancient city of Venice, which I mentioned having visited. Here is one of the photos I took. My own answer to the question is below.