Catherine: Hello, I’m Catherine and welcome to Question and Answer of the Week.

Helping me answer your questions today is Feifei.

Feifei: 大家好，歡迎收聽《你問我答》。

Catherine: Our question today comes from Way, who has a question about two very similar words.

Feifei: 是的，Way 的問題關于兩個看起來很相似而且非常容易搞混的詞。咱們來聽聽他的具體問題吧。

Catherine: Yes, let’s hear the question.

Question

I am not sure about the difference between 'historical' and 'historic'. Could you please tell me how to use the two words correctly? Thank you.

Feifei: Way 想知道 historic 和 historical 這兩個詞的區別。首先，這兩個詞都和歷史有關。

Catherine: Yes, absolutely. They are both connected with history, and they are both adjectives. We can talk about historic places, and we can talk about historical places too.

Feifei: Historic 和 historical 都是形容詞，而且都有“歷史的”意思，那區別到底是什么呢？

Catherine: OK. Well, historical is a very general word. Any single thing, or group of things, that are related to history, can be described as historical. Here are two people talking about their travel plans.

Example

Man 1: We’ll spend the afternoon visiting the historical buildings in the old town. Then we’ll have lunch.

Man 2: How long does it take to get there?

Man 1: Nearly 4 hours. Don’t forget to bring something to read.

Man 2: I will – I’ve got a couple of historical novels I want to finish.

Man 1: Oh, historical fiction? I like that too.

Feifei: 上面的例子里單詞 historical 指的是和歷史有關的或是歷史上出現過的人或事。比如說，歷史建筑 historical buildings, 歷史小說 historical fiction. 好，我們再來看一下單詞 historic.

Catherine: Right. So while historical is used very generally, the word historic has a very specific sense. We say something is historic when we want to emphasise that it is very special, important, unique or unforgettable in our history.

Feifei: 單詞 historic 常用來表示歷史上一件難忘的、有名的、重要的、獨特的東西。那重大事件呢？

Catherine: Both! We can talk about historic days, historic meetings, historic places, historic moments. Here’s a tour guide to give us some examples.

Example

And here are the steps from which the president made his historic announcement. And at the top of the steps, the historic silver gate is over 400 years old. It’s the only one of its kind that survives today.

Feifei: 上面例子中提到了一個歷史性的公告 a historic announcement, 還有發表這個公告的地點一扇歷史性的銀門 a historic silver gate. 好了，我們來總結一下這兩個單詞的使用方法：在使用這兩個詞的時候，記住: historical 來描述一般的歷史事件或與歷史有關的東西；用 historic 來形容一個具體的歷史事件。

Catherine: Yes. Historical is general, historic is specific. Or you can look at it this way: if something is historical, it happened in the past. If something is historic, it happened in the past and it’s very important.

Feifei: 明白了。區分這兩個詞的最好方法就是記住 historical 描述過去發生的一件事情；用historic 描述過去發生的、并且非常重要的事件。

Catherine: Let’s hope that listening to this programme turns out to be a historic moment for our questioner, Way.

Feifei: 哈哈。今天具有歷史意義的一期節目講解了 historic 和 historical 兩詞的區別。 如果你在學習中遇到任何問題，歡迎你發郵件告訴我們你的問題，我的郵箱是[email protected]. 感謝收聽，下次再會。

Catherine: Goodbye!

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（來源：BBC英語教學 編輯：Julie）