IELTS Speaking for Success - 🗽 Museums (Part 1) + Transcript

Episode Date: November 11, 2025

Get our premium episode archive: https://www.patreon.com/ieltssfs When was the last time you visited a museum? Do you often visit a museum? Are there many museums in your hometown? Do you think museums are important? Tune in and have a great day! - Book a class with Rory here: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://successwithielts.com/rory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Our course on Phrasal Verbs: https://successwithielts.com/podcourses Transcript: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://successwithielts.com/s13e02 Find an IELTS Speaking Partner: https://links.successwithielts.com/ieltspartner Our social media: https://linktr.ee/successwithielts © 2025 Podcourses Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hello, Lovely, I'm Miriam. And my name is Rory, and we are the hosts of the IELD Speaking for Success podcast, the podcast dreams to help you improve your speaking skills, as well as your listening skills along the way. We've started this podcast to give you gorgeous grammar and fabulous vocabulary for your high IELD score. Your band nine score. Ay, Rory, you're so old. You're like a dinosaur.

I know. I should probably put myself in the Natural History Museum now. But before that, let's talk about museums. Do you listen to museums? Do you often visit a museum? No. Oh wow. Only when I have to for work, really. I'm going to sound like a complete Philistine now, but having gone to museums once, I don't often see.

the point in going back to them. Even if there's a new collection or something, I just have other things to do. When was the last time you visited a museum? Probably this summer. In fact, it was. I took my class to see the Museum of Oxford, which is like a place dedicated to the, oh, well, the social history of the city, for lack of a better term. It's tiny, but there was a lot to do, which was quite nice. Are there many museums in your hometown? Quite a few, actually, yes. The first one, in my opinion, is the McManus Galleries, which sounds like an art gallery,

but is actually a collection of artefacts from around the world and they're linked to Dundee, my hometown, in some way. I think that's quite cool, and it's free of charge to get in as well. Do you think museums are important? Well, it's probably quite important to have these repositories of items connected to people places and things, yes, it can give people a chance to find out something new and develop a sense of

connection to whatever the focus is, but they're not the most important thing by a country mile. As you know, we now release all of our premium content for free, and it's available for one month. After one month, it goes into our super

secret archive. To cite, Sign up for the archive, click the link in the description below. See you soon. Rory was talking about galleries and you can say that this McMenus galleries sounds like an art gallery. You could say that about just about any museum, to be honest. It sounds like a, for example, maybe we have, well, for example, in my country we have Edinburgh Castle, which sounds like it's just a castle, but it's also a museum as well, a collection of artifacts. Yeah, or like the Louvre sounds like a museum, but it's much more than just one museum.

It's this, I don't know, a cultural center. And a great place to pick up some free art if you're an art robber, an art thief. Yeah, yeah, have you heard the news, the listener that? I, oh my God, yeah. I was robbed. Oh, what a joke. And the joke was like, oh, the Louvre was robbed and they found the jewels at the British Museum. I love that.

The British Museum sounds like it's a museum about Britain, but actually it's a collection of artifacts stolen from around the world. Yeah, from Louvre, from Peru, from Machu Pic. From everywhere. Oh, what a joke. Yeah, if you haven't heard the news, like go have a read. you know, like to be in the know of the events, like what's going on. So people are starting, you know, talking about, oh yeah, we need a new film, how the Louvre was robbed, you know, and a new Sherlock Holmes series.

The next phrase is having gone to museums. Once I don't see the point in going back to them. So we go back to different galleries, we go back to museums, we visit them again. So yeah, nice phrase of up to you. The other thing is it's having gone to museums, so it's like, oh my God, what would that be? Like, ING form plus third form, yeah, it's crazy. Perfect participle, because like I've gone to this museum, so I've been there once and I don't understand why I should go back there, you see?

and we make it more complicated, so having gone to this museum once, I don't see the point in going back. The next one is quite nice. I describe myself as a bit of a philistine delisone. Someone who is not culturally connected or aware or has very simple opinions about things. A phyllisstein is a bit negative, a person who refuses to see the beauty of, the value of art or culture. So I'm a bit of a Philistine. Usually you say you're a bit of a Philistine.

But it's negative. It's disapproving. And I think museums can help people feel a sense of connection. Yes. To the past. Connection to culture. Connection to art. A sense of connection.

Ooh. You're connected to the world. What else can you have a sense of? A sense of... A sense of... Fashion. A sense of fashion would be good. A sense of self or self-awareness?

Yeah, a sense of achievement, for example. Ooh, yes. Yay, nice. And deal with, we say that we visit a museum or we go to museums. And Rory, what's going on with articles? So do I say, I go to a museum, I go to the museum, or just I go to museum? Or I say, I go to museums. Definitely not I go to museum.

We need some kind of article or something to tell us about the number. here. Museums would be many. I go to many museums. That would be like a regular thing. I go to the museum would be talking about a specific museum. So you already need to talk about it before you say that. And then I go to a museum. Well, that would be like when you start to talk about it. Like I go to museum. It's the natural history museum. Yeah. So you can say just museums. I like museums. I don't like museums. I never go to any museums. Or the last time I visited a museum was last week or last year. So museums or maybe like a museum?

Where was the last time you went to a museum? Oh la la. That's a very good question. Perhaps in summer? Oh, I don't even remember. Maria, you Philistine. No, no, no, no, no. I like museums.

Like, we both, um, does an art gallery count? Does a photo exhibition count? No. Sorry. No, okay, okay, all right. Yeah, because I went to a photo exhibition to look at photos. Museum, wow. That's a hard one, isn't it?

It is a hard one, because it should be a proper museum, dear listening, yeah? Okay, maybe it was a year ago then, a proper museum, something like history museum, yeah? I remember nothing. So there we go. We need to, if you're listening, this is a problem. because if you haven't been to a museum recently, there might be a good time to go to the free museum. And we say that museums have a collection of something.

So there is a collection of clothes or a collection of artifacts, different exhibits. And we can also say that this museum is dedicated to the social history of the city. So my favorite museum is that-t-ta-ta, which is dedicated, which is about. the history of the city, about the culture, about, I don't know, war. And when we talk about the things in the museum, we talk about the collection. For example, there might be an Egyptian collection, especially if it's the British Museum, because they steal things. Maybe one day they will give them back. Who knows? No, no, no. Yeah, you have dinosaurs at the British Museum, right?

Do we? I thought we only had them at the Natural History Museum. Hmm. No, I don't know. I might be mistaken. I think you have some dinosaurs at the British Museum too, no? Maybe. I don't know. I've not been in about 10 years. Yeah, I've been there once. Yeah, amazing. It's massive, dear listener, the British Museum in London. It's just massive. Huge. Yeah, and you can say, like, okay, it has a collection of artifacts, different exhibits, different things from all over the world. and it's free of charge

Yeah, the museum is free And I love it about London You know, you go to the National Gallery, it's free The British Museum is free Yeah, the Louvre is far from free But one day, I think, a month You can get there for free And I did that

And then you stole the paintings No, no, it was ages ago Yeah, but it's funny Jewels was stolen from the Louvre Wow And Maria, It's just got a whole load of new jewelry. What a coincidence. Yeah, Rory, you said, um, repository.

Ooh. Repository. Oh, a repository is really just a place where you store things. Usually a repository of knowledge, but could be something else. Yeah, like a repository or repository. A place where things are stored and can be found. So, for example, like Rory is a repository of knowledge. So, like, Rory stores knowledge.

He keeps all this knowledge inside his head. And you can say that, no, this is a very nice museum, which is a repository of items connected to people, places, things. Rory, what did you mean when you said, museums are not the most important thing by a country mile? Oh, if something happens by a country mile, it's just like by a big distance. So museums are not the most important thing. Like, they're not even close to being the top of the list of most important things.

Is it an idiom? It might be. Is it a C2 level idiom? Well, the Cambridge and like Diction doesn't say, actually, but they say country mile, mainly humorous. It's like, ha-ha. If it doesn't say, then it must be C-2. And it means, like, a large amount in this context. For example, the show was better than the last show.

by a country mile. Like, it was much better. Or, for example, like, I missed my goal by a country mile. And museums are not the most important thing by a country mile. So it's like it really is not the most important thing in our life, but it just does add more color. It does, they, museums, they add knowledge, they add culture to our life. They develop our sense of connection to the past.

right into the present and future. But you know what? Like my favorite museum, I love the museum of Van Gogh. But it's actually a museum of Van Gogh in Amsterdam. But you can call it an art gallery because you see paintings. Van Gogh Museum. Love it. And there you can see his masterpieces.

Yeah, de Lisina, just Google a couple of museums that you like or you would like to visit, for example, the Louvre, and read about them. Write out maybe like three, five words about the museums. For example, my favorite is Van Gogh Museum, which contains his masterpieces. Masterpiece, you know, a nice word. Rory, are we ready for a joke? I have a museum joke. We've heard vocabulary.

No, we need a joke. So the joke is, you're ready? I took my kids to the dinosaur museum today. I spent the whole day looking up. at the giant sculptures of dinosaurs and I discovered a new species my neck is sore come on it's funny it's funny

you see so a dinosaur museum and when you look at the dinosaurs they're usually quite tall and you kind of you look up you know and you spend a lot of time looking up and then what happens, Rory, to your neck, when you just look up? It gets sore or painful. Like that joke. You feel pain in your neck, and we say that my neck is sore.

So, meaning like, pain. Or, for example, I have a sore throat. If you have pain in your throat. So, like, I was looking up at the giant sculptures of dinosaurs, And I discovered, I invented a new type of a dinosaur, which is called my nekhazore. And if you remember different names for dinosaurs, like, what are they called? Like Tyrannosaurus. Stegosaurus?

Yeah, like Deccasaurus or something like that. But my nekosaur-deca-saurus. Deccasaurus? Well, let's see there's a decaosaurus. No, I don't know. I don't know. Names of dinosaurs. But they're, like, funny names. Yeah, Tyrannosaurus.

Stegosaurus. Oh, Velociraptor. Spinosaurus. So it's something like soros, you see? And the joke is, like, I discovered, I invented a new type of dinosaur. My neck is sore. My neck is sore. My neck is soros.

Oh, it's funny. Come on. It's really good. Thank you very much for listening. back to you in our next episode. Okay? Bye. Do you often visit a museum?

No. Oh wow. Only when I have to for work, really. I'm going to sound like a complete Philistine now, but having gone to museums once, I don't often see the point in going back to them. Even if there's a new collection or something, I just have other things to do.

When was the last time you visited a museum? Probably the summer. In fact, it was. I took my class to see the Museum of Oxford, which is like a place dedicated to the social history of the city, for lack of a better term. It's tiny, but there was a lot to do, which was quite nice. Are there many museums in your hometown?

Quite a few, actually, yes. The first one, in my opinion, is the McMannas Galleries, sounds like an art gallery, but is actually a collection of artefacts from around the world and they're linked to Dundee, my hometown, in some way. I think that's quite cool and it's free of charge to get in as well. Do you think museums are important? Well, it's probably quite important to have these repositories of items connected to people, places and things, yes, it can give people the chance to find out something new and develop a sense of connection to whatever the focus is. But they're not the most important thing by a country mile.