Learning English Podcast - December 12, 2024
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Welcome to Learning English, a daily 30-minute program from the Voice of America. I'm Katie Weaver. And I'm Mario Ritter, Jr. This program is designed for English learners, so we speak a little slower and we use words and phrases especially written for people learning English.

On today's program, John Russell reports on the European Climate Agency's latest announcement about the world's temperature. Jill Robbins has a lesson on pronouncing names correctly. Brian Lynn has the latest on legal action over TikTok. Then, the lesson of the day. But first...

A recent report by the European Climate Service Copernicus says that November was the second warmest November for which the agency has records. The finding means that Copernicus will likely declare 2024 the hottest year ever measured using its sets of data. Copernicus called last year the hottest on record.

but after this summer scientists involved in the effort were expecting that twenty twenty four would set a new record in november the global temperature average was fourteen point one zero c

through November, this year's average global temperature is 0.14 degrees Celsius above the same period last year. Jennifer Francis is a climate scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center in the northeastern U.S. state of Massachusetts. Francis, who was not involved in the report,

said the big story about november is that like twenty twenty three it beat out previous novembers by a large margin the report said twenty twenty four will likely be the first year in which the average temperature was more than one point five degrees c above pre-industrial times

in earlier publications copernicus calls pre-industrial times the period between eighteen fifty and nineteen hundred the twenty fifteen paris agreement says human caused warming should be limited to two degrees c

in the years following twenty fifteen the world's top climate scientist said it was important to limit the rise in temperature to one point five degrees celsius to prevent the worst effects of climate change the scientist said these effects could include increasingly destructive and frequent extreme weather events

copernicus deputy director samantha burgess said in a news release that ambitious climate action is more urgent than ever many scientists say the main cause of climate change is the burning of fuels like coal oil and natural gas

francis said the new records are terrible news for people and ecosystems francis predicted bad effects from the quickly changing climate these include the possibility of animals dying off and changes to the natural food webs that the animals are part of

she added that coastal communities may face problems because of rising sea levels experts said heat waves over the oceans and a loss of sea ice and snow cover probably played a part in the temperature increase this year

copernicus the european agency said the area of antarctic sea ice in november was ten per cent below average a record the associated press reports that oceans absorb about ninety per cent of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases they then release heat and water vapor back into the atmosphere

last year's record heat was caused partly by an el nino a temporary natural warming of parts of the central pacific that affects weather world-wide but that ended earlier this year and an effect that often follows called la nina failed to take place

this left the scientific community a little perplexed by what's going on here why temperatures are staying high said jonathan overpeck overpeck is a climate scientist at the university of michigan one theory is that an el nino releases more heat to the atmosphere because of warmer ocean waters

Overpeck said, We're not getting the cooling effect that, often in decades gone by, helps bring the temperature back down. This year, he said, is such a big jump following yet another jump. I'm John Russell. Vice President Kamala Harris and pop singer Chapel Roan were among the year's most talked-about people.

Their names were also among those people said incorrectly or mispronounced. In early December, the language learning company Babbel and the captioning group released a list of words that people in the U.S. struggled with the most in 2024. The list also provides a look back at the year's most discussed subjects and people, from pop culture to politics.

Esteban Toma is a linguistic and cultural expert at Babel. He said, It's a nice way to kind of look back into the year and see everything that has happened. Chapel Rhone became famous this year and is nominated for six Grammy Awards. But people still do not know how to say her name correctly. The list says her name is pronounced

During Harris's campaign for president this year, two of her young relatives spoke at the Democratic National Convention to teach the crowd how to say her first name, pronounced Kamala. Also making the list was U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, whose last name still causes some problems.

During his 2020 presidential run, his campaign made shirts with the pronunciation Boot-edge-edge to help. Other words on the list include Dutch Kooikkerhundje, pronounced Kooi-ker-hund-je, is a breed of dog that became known this year. That is because Los Angeles Dodgers baseball player Shohei Otani

has a koi-karhunji called Dikoi that appeared with him at an opening game. The name of the actress Zendaya is often mispronounced as Zendaya, but it should be Zendaya. Online fast fashion business Shein is she-in, not sheen.

Newly discovered exoplanet Speculoos 3b is pronounced Speculoos 3b. Phrygia, the mascot of the Paris Olympics, is pronounced Phrygia. Semaglutide, the drug in weight loss medications Ozembic and Wegovy, is pronounced Semaglutide, not Semaglutide.

The last name of Irish actor Barry Keoghan, who starred in Saltburn, is pronounced Keoghan. Nancy Nijelski is chair of the linguistics department at Rice University in Houston. She points out that most of the words on the list are not English, so it is not surprising that they would be mispronounced in the U.S. The key to pronouncing them correctly, she said, would probably just be hearing them spoken.

Toma, a native Spanish speaker, said if you cannot pronounce a word, it is important to just keep trying. One of the problems we have is our mouths are not trained to do those sounds that come from different languages, he said. Toma admitted even he struggles with some words, including Harris's first name. Even though he knows the correct pronunciation, he said, it is hard to get it right in a conversation.

As Rohn's music gained popularity, it was an interesting cultural moment to watch as people learned to pronounce her first and last name, he said. The way we create understanding with each other is just trying to do these things, Toma said. I'm Jill Robbins.

TikTok has asked a U.S. appeals court to temporarily block a law requiring its parent company, ByteDance, to divest itself of the popular video sharing service or face a U.S. ban.

The legal request comes after the same federal appeals court last week upheld a law that forces ByteDance to sell TikTok by January 19th or face the ban.

Lawyers for ByteDance and TikTok are seeking to temporarily block the law to give the U.S. Supreme Court a chance to rule on the case. The companies said the Supreme Court had an established historical record of protecting Americans' right to free speech.

They added their opinion that they expected the high court to do just that on this important constitutional issue. In the legal request, the companies warned that without court intervention, the law would take effect next month, leading to the closure of TikTok in the U.S.,

They called the service, or app, one of the nation's most popular speech platforms, noting it currently has more than 170 million monthly users in the U.S.

TikTok also warned that if the law takes effect, it would affect services for tens of millions of TikTok users outside the United States. The companies asked the appeals court to act on their request by December 16th.

They noted that President-elect Donald Trump has suggested he may try to prevent a U.S. ban on TikTok. Trump is set to take office on January 20th. A temporary block on the law could give the incoming administration time to determine its position, they said.

The new administration's position, the companies argued, could make the Supreme Court hearing of the case unnecessary. Unless the Supreme Court rules, a decision about whether to delay the TikTok ban would rest with President Joe Biden. He could approve a 90-day extension past January 19th.

However, experts have noted it is not clear whether ByteDance could meet a series of requirements needed to permit an extension. U.S. officials have long warned that TikTok presents national security concerns. The government accuses ByteDance of sharing user data with China's government.

Critics have said China could also use TikTok to spread misinformation and that material published on the service can harm the mental health of young users. TikTok has repeatedly denied the accusations.

In its ruling, the appeals court recognized that 170 million Americans use TikTok to create and view all sorts of free expression. However, it added that a divestment of the service from Chinese control was essential to protect our national security.

ByteDance has said it does not plan to sell TikTok. Technology experts have noted that even if the company did agree to sell, the deal would likely be blocked by Chinese export rules. However, some American investors have expressed interest in buying the company's American operations.

They include Trump's former Treasury Secretary, Stephen Mnuchin, and billionaire businessman, Frank McCourt. Reuters news agency reports that it is not yet clear whether the Supreme Court will consider the case, but some legal experts have said the high court is likely to agree to hear it.

The law is considered by some a test to see how far the U.S. government should be permitted to go in acting against technology companies using national security as a reason. I'm Brian Lynn. You are listening to the VOA Learning English Podcast. We just heard the technology report.

Brian Lynn is here with us to talk more about the report. Thanks for joining me, Brian. Of course, Mario. Glad to be here. This week's report dealt with efforts by TikTok to delay a U.S. law that could ban the video sharing service in the U.S. if its Chinese parent company does not sell it to an American company.

Let's talk about a few vocabulary words used in the report that might be new to English learners. Okay, sure. That sounds great. How about starting with the term divest? This verb is not as common as some we regularly use, and its meaning is generally used in financial matters. A simple definition would be to sell off a particular investment or business.

Now, in the report, divest is used to describe what TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, must do to avoid facing a U.S. ban on the TikTok service. Listeners might also notice this word is similar to invest, which we use quite often and is more widely understood, and divest is really the exact opposite of invest.

Okay, how about the term essential? Yes, of course, I think that is a good one. This term simply means necessary or needed, so those two words could also be used in place of essential. In American English usage, the word essential is also often used to describe something that must take place before something else can happen.

and it is also used to describe basic things that people generally cannot live without. All right. Thanks again for joining me, Brian. You're welcome. Thank you, Mario. VOA Learning English has launched a new program for children. It is called Let's Learn English with Anna.

The new course aims to teach children American English through asking and answering questions and experiencing fun situations. For more information, visit our website, learningenglish.voanews.com. And now it's time for the lesson of the day on the Learning English Podcast. My name is Jill Robbins, and I'm joined by Andrew Smith. Hi, Andrew. Hi, Jill.

Our lesson is based on our video series, Let's Learn English. The series shows Ana Mateo in her work and life in Washington, D.C. Here's Ana introducing herself. My name is Ana Mateo. In a recent lesson of the day, we explained the differences between the verbs "talk" and "speak." Today, we compare the verbs "tell" and "say."

We'll be listening to some of Lesson 22, Level 2 of Let's Learn English to give some examples of these verbs. You know, we often get emails from our audience asking about how to use these two verbs. At first glance, it seems they should work the same way as they have the same meaning. But that's not the case. So I'm sure this will be very helpful. Tell us more, Andrew. Okay.

Here's the main idea to help your English. We put indirect object pronouns or nouns directly after the verb tell. Here's some examples. Tell me the truth. Tell me the truth. Tell her the answer. Tell her the answer. Tell them what we said. Tell them what we said. But with the verb say, we can't put those pronouns directly after the verb.

Listen to Andrew give these examples. She said to me. What did he say to her? Say to them. Did you hear the difference between tell and say? With the verb say, we must use the preposition to before the pronoun. And most of the time, we don't even use indirect object pronouns like in this example. He said that I need to finish the job by tomorrow.

Just to be clear, the pronoun I is a subject pronoun. The pronoun me can be either an indirect object pronoun or an object pronoun. Now let's listen to the beginning of Lesson 22 of Level 2. In Lesson 21, Anna visited a store that sells art and objects found in the trash or garbage.

Now, Anna has tried to make art or special objects from the things she found. Try to listen for the difference between the verbs tell and say. Welcome to class, Anna. I can't wait to see your trash. All right. It's a net with a, oh, that's got a hole in it. Tell me about that. This net said to me, Anna used to catch stuff.

I don't anymore. So, use me, Anna. That's what it said. It said, use me, Anna. Okay. So, it's a plastic helmet. This plastic helmet said, Anna, hey, Anna, find me a head. Okay. And a broken toy. This broken toy, this broken toy said to me, it said, Anna, Anna.

Help me find fun. Help me, Anna, is what it said. Anna, this stuff is not saying anything to you or me or anyone. It's what we like to call in the business garbage. We heard Sue say that.

And we heard Anna say... This broken toy said to me, it said Anna. You can hear how Anna used the preposition to after the verb say. And of course, the objects don't really talk to Anna. Anna just means that she was interested in the objects in a special way.

As we explained in our previous podcast lesson, we can say that the objects spoke to her. And notice that the past tense of say is pronounced said. You can remember this pronunciation by thinking of words that rhyme with said, such as read and head. And what about the past tense of tell? Let's listen to more of Lesson 22 to hear that verb.

Anna, what happened? I told you to wait for me. Actually, you told me not to start without you. The verb tell changes to told in the past tense. It sounds like Anna had some problems following directions in the class. She sure did. Our listeners should really watch the video to see just how badly Anna followed directions.

Yeah, I think it's pretty funny. Anna ends up with pieces of paper glued all over her. Okay, now we're going to move to the last part of our lesson. To learn how to use the verbs tell and say correctly, it can be helpful to simply hear several examples. So, Jill and I are going to read the following chant, which is kind of like a poem. Are you ready, Jill?

Ready? Okay, here's the chant. I can tell you and you can tell her. She can tell them and they can tell him. He can tell us and then we will learn. If everyone said the same thing you did. But if he says something we did not say, then we will know that something's astray. Astray just means wrong or not really right. I can tell you and you can tell her. She can tell them and they can tell him.

And if he tells us the same thing we said, what I told you is what you told her, and what she told them is what they told him. Isn't it great when everyone listens? That way you don't need to say it again. But maybe this poem's a little bit tricky. I think they just might need to hear it once more.

And that's exactly what rewind is for. Okay, okay, I get what you mean. Now let's continue before I turn gray. No comment on that, so take it away. Now we will tell you just what to say to family and friends and those who will listen. You can learn English by starting today with programs we make here at VOA. Our website is learningenglish.voanews.com.

And remember, you can write to us at learningenglish at voanews.com. You can ask us questions or comment on our lessons. Tell us what you think about our programs. Or tell us something about yourself and what you enjoy. We hope you enjoyed today's lesson about the verbs say and tell and Anna's effort to make treasure out of trash.

Thanks for listening. Say goodbye, Andrew. Goodbye, Andrew. Very funny. I'm Jill Robbins. And I'm Andrew Smith. And that's our show for today. But join us again tomorrow to keep learning English on The Voice of America. I'm Katie Weaver. And I'm