Describe a city abroad that you know mainly through someone who lives there.
A card about a city in another country that you have come to know second-hand, through a relative, friend or colleague who lives there. It rewards ordinary detail about daily life rather than sightseeing, and the last bullet asks you to weigh up whether that life would suit you.
The task card
Describe a city abroad that you know mainly through someone who lives there.
You should say:
- which city it is and who you know there
- how this person shares their life there with you
- what you have learned about everyday life in the city
and explain whether you would like to live there yourself.
Now say it yourself
Record your own two minutes on this card and have it transcribed and marked against the Speaking criteria. Practising is free; the band estimate is part of Pro.
Record my answerHow long you have
- 1 minute
Preparation
The examiner hands you the card, paper and a pencil. Make notes — a few words per cue point, never sentences.
- 1–2 minutes
Your long turn
Speak until the examiner stops you at two minutes. Finishing early is the most common self-inflicted problem in Part 2.
- 1–2 questions
Rounding off
The examiner may ask one or two short follow-up questions, then moves straight into the Part 3 discussion on the same theme.
Part 2 takes three to four minutes in total. The whole Speaking test runs 11 to 14 minutes across three parts, and Part 3 that follows lasts four to five minutes.
How to approach this card
Name the city and the person in the same breath — 'Hamburg, where my old flatmate has worked for two years' — and add one fixed point about the place: the coast it sits on, the river through it, how far it is from home. You do not need to have visited; the card assumes you know it second-hand.
'How this person shares their life with you' is your story bullet. Video calls, photos in a family group chat, long voice notes, a visit home when they could not stop talking about it — choose one channel and one thing it showed you, such as the view from their bus stop or how early the shops close.
For everyday life, stay with the ordinary: the commute, the cost of a weekly shop, the weather, how neighbours greet each other. These are second-hand facts, so report them naturally — 'apparently', 'he says', 'as far as I can tell'. Reporting verbs and hedges are exactly the range this card can show.
The final bullet asks whether, not why, so a mixed answer is perfectly acceptable. Switch into conditionals — 'I'd probably rent', 'I think I'd struggle with' — and weigh one attraction against one honest drawback. The common mistake is listing tourist attractions you have never actually seen.
Model answer
Speak your own answer first. Examiners are trained to spot memorised speeches and mark them down — use this to study structure, pacing and naturalness, never to recite.
Show the model answer
The city I want to talk about is Melbourne, in the south-east of Australia. I've never been there, but I feel as if I know it quite well, because my cousin Jaspreet moved there to study nursing about three years ago, and she's never been shy about sharing her life. Mostly that happens through video calls on Sunday mornings, which over time have turned into a kind of guided tour. She'll prop the phone against the window so we can watch a tram rattle past her flat, or walk us round the market where she buys vegetables after a shift. Once she called from a narrow lane in the centre, so packed with people queuing at tiny coffee places that we could barely hear her. From what she tells me, daily life there is ordinary in ways I find appealing. She takes the tram everywhere instead of sitting in traffic, which is how I spend my evenings at the moment. She complains constantly about the weather — apparently you can get sun, wind and rain in a single afternoon, so she carries a jacket even in summer. And the rent, she says, is frightening; she shares a two-bedroom flat with three other people. Would I like to live there myself? I think so, though not for the reasons people expect. It's not the beaches or the sport. It's that her life seems to have more air in it — more evenings outdoors, fewer hours on the road. There's also a big community from my home country, so I wouldn't feel completely cut off. I'd miss my family badly, and I'd have to work out how to afford it. But each time one of those calls ends, my own flat feels a little smaller.
Why this works: Every detail has a believable source — the cousin's calls — and is reported with natural hedges ('from what she tells me', 'apparently', 'she says'). The final bullet gets a weighed answer rather than a list of attractions: the appeal is the pace of life, set against the rent and missing family, with conditionals ('I wouldn't feel', 'I'd miss') carrying the hypothetical.
Useful vocabulary for this topic
- second-hand
Known through someone else rather than your own experience: 'everything I know about it is second-hand'.
- from what she tells me
Natural hedge for reporting information you have not checked yourself.
- the cost of living
The money needed for rent, food and transport; almost always relevant to this card.
- the pace of life
How fast or slow daily life feels; a useful contrast with your current city.
- to settle in
To start feeling comfortable in a new place.
- to feel cut off
To feel isolated from family, friends or your own culture.
- I could see myself living there
Natural phrase for imagining a future in a place.
Part 3 discussion
After your long turn the examiner moves into a four to five minute discussion on the same theme, working from two related discussion topics with about three questions each. The first stays close to your own experience; the second widens out. Answer with reasons and examples, not one-line replies.
- 1How do people usually form a picture of a foreign city before they go there?
- 2Does social media give a realistic impression of life in other countries?
- 3What are the main difficulties people face when they move to another country?
- 4How can families stay close when one member lives abroad?
- 5Should governments try to attract skilled workers from abroad?
- 6Will remote work make where people live less important in the future?
More on how this family of cards is discussed: Places. Model answers for Part 3: Part 3 questions and answers.