Learning English Podcast - February 13, 2025
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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, Jill Robbins tells about America's first president, George Washington, on our new All About America series. Brian Lynn has a story about health concerns in Europe. John Russell and Ana Mateo define important terms for artificial intelligence.

Brian Lynn is back with a story from Angkor Wat in Cambodia. Then Jill joins Andrew Smith for our Lesson of the Day. But first… George Washington was the first President of the United States. He served from 1789 to 1797. He was a famous general who led the American colonists to freedom from British rule

and he presided over the convention that created the U.S. Constitution. He wanted to retire from public service and return home, but the country's founders wanted him to move to New York and serve as the American president. Washington accepted the job as his duty. Washington was sworn in as president in 1789.

He had to invent the job of being president for all future presidents. He established a group of advisers, called the cabinet, as well as the nation's official money. He appointed a six-member Supreme Court. And he created the Department of Foreign Affairs, now called the State Department. He hoped to act in such a way that future presidents could continue to build on what he began.

From the beginning, George Washington was careful to establish a good working relationship with Congress. By his actions, he confirmed the separation of powers of the three branches of the government, as described in the Constitution. Historian Joseph Ellis says one of the best things about George Washington was his ability to give up power. At the end of the Revolutionary War, George Washington returned his sword.

and at the end of his second term president washington simply returned home like many plantation owners washington was a slaveholder by the end of his life washington opposed slavery he left a will ordering his survivors to free his slaves after his wife's death three years after he finished his second term as president washington fell ill

on december fourteenth seventeen ninety nine he died in his bed surrounded by his wife enslaved maids and friends he was sixty-seven i'm jill robbins a new study warns that millions of europeans could die from heat related causes by the end of the century

the study was based on computer simulations of predicted climate activity in eight hundred fifty four different european cities it found that extreme temperatures mostly heat could kill as many as two point three million people in europe by twenty one hundred

the researchers said the number of predicted deaths could be reduced if nations are able to find better ways of cutting carbon pollution levels and dealing with extreme heat currently cold weather kills far more people in europe than hot weather

but the study found that as temperatures continue to rise deaths from cold weather will lessen over time however heat related deaths are predicted to rise sharply scientists at the london school of hygiene and tropical medicine led the research

the results appeared recently in a study in the publication nature medicine the researchers urged increased efforts to reduce greenhouse gases and expand indoor air cooling systems and cooling centers in parts of europe

without such efforts places in italy southern spain and greece are likely to see large increases in heat deaths related to climate change the study found

on the other hand much of scandinavia and britain are predicted to see fewer temperature related deaths largely because low temperatures are expected to become more moderate pierre maslow studies the environmental effects of human health at the london school of hygiene and tropical medicine

he helped lead the research maslow told the associated press that drops in cold deaths in northern parts of europe are happening in areas not as populated as places further south the mediterranean is a so-called climate hotspot he said

it's a region that is warming much quicker than the rest of the world and malta is right in the middle of it the study predicts malta's temperature related deaths will increase by two hundred sixty nine people for every one hundred thousand individuals by the end of the century

on the other hand ireland's rate is expected to drop slightly to fifteen per one hundred thousand people european officials reported several heat waves have killed thousands of people in recent years across the continent

the highest number was in two thousand three when about seventy thousand deaths were recorded among the areas predicted to see the most deaths from future temperature rises is barcelona spain

the study found almost two hundred fifty thousand people could die from temperature related causes in that city by twenty one hundred and the study warned that rome and naples could have up to one hundred fifty thousand deaths

the study predicted that more than five point eight million extra heat deaths would be linked to climate change at the same time the study found cold related deaths would drop by three point five million brian

There are several terms experts use to describe computer systems in the field of artificial intelligence. Recently, the French news agency, AFP, defined some of the common terms and ideas used in that field. Here is a version for English learners. The first term is artificial intelligence.

When asked what artificial intelligence is, the AI-powered ChatGPT system says that the term means "the simulation of human intelligence in machines that are programmed to think, learn, and make decisions."

AI's main quality or characteristic is taking in large amounts of data and then processing it using methods from statistics. AI involves using ideas from many fields including computing, mathematics, languages, psychology, and others.

Currently, the technology is being used heavily for investigating health issues, translating human languages, and predicting problems in machine tools and self-driving cars. But AI is affecting many fields of business and industry. A second important term is algorithm.

An algorithm is important to all computer operations. It is a series of steps or instructions followed by a computer program to get a result. Algorithms can give rules for an AI's behavior, helping it to realize the objectives of computer program developers.

Unlike a simple computer program, AI algorithms permit a computer system to learn for itself. A third important term is machine learning. Machine learning is one method that researchers have used in their efforts to produce artificial intelligence.

Machine learning lets computers learn from data without being directly programmed on what results to produce. In recent years, the field of neural networks has given important results. In a neural network, connections between some nodes are strengthened and others weakened as the system learns and makes changes.

Learning can be supervised. This means the system learns to put new data into specific groups based on a model. For example, the system could learn to identify spam in an email or other messaging programs. Unsupervised learning permits the system to independently discover new areas or ways of doing things.

These discoveries in the available data might not have been immediately clear. An example would be letting an online store identify buying trends in sales data. Reinforcement learning adds a process of repeated trial and error. In this process, the system is rewarded based on its outcomes, causing it to learn and improve.

one example might be a self-driving vehicle whose objective is to reach its destination as quickly as possible but also safely that requirement would lead it to learn to stop at red lights although it requires additional time deep learning owes its name to its use of many layers of neural networks

Raw data is examined by each layer in turn at growing levels of abstraction. Geoffrey Hinton received the 2024 Nobel Peace Prize in Physics. Hinton is credited with developing deep learning. Hinton received the prize along with 1980s neural network developer John Hopfield.

Francis Bach, head of France's Sierra Statistical Learning Laboratory, said this about deep learning: "The more layers you have, the more complex behavior can become, and the more complex the behavior can be, the easier it is to learn a desired behavior efficiently. The method might help lead to scientific discoveries."

We now turn to large language models, LLMs. These might be the most popular example of generative AI. Large language models power tools like OpenAI's ChatGPT or Google's Gemini.

Such systems are able to write long papers, answer legal questions, or even produce a cake recipe based on their statistical models. But the technology is still new. LLMs can suffer from hallucinations, the creation of content that is false or incorrect.

A final important term is Artificial General Intelligence , one of the big goals of the whole AI field. AGI suggests the unrealized dream of a machine able to reproduce all human processes of human thinking.

People who push the idea include OpenAI chief Sam Altman and his competitors at Anthropic. They consider such a system to be within reach. The goal is to use large amounts of data and processing power to train LLMs that are increasingly powerful.

But critics say that LLM technology has important limits, including its ability to reason. Maxime Amblar, computing professor at France's University of Lorraine, told AFP last year, LLMs do not work like human beings.

Amblar added that humans, as flesh and blood intelligent beings, are sense-making machines with different abilities from today's computer systems. I'm Ana Mateo. And I'm John Russell.

Cambodian officials are warning visitors to the nation's famous Angkor Wat complex of buildings to stay away from wild monkeys. They say the animals have become aggressive and destructive.

The officials blamed the behavior of the macaque monkeys on visitors to the area who feed the animals or interact with them. Social media influencers, many of them on YouTube, use video of the monkeys to grow their online followings, the officials added.

The macaques are native to forest areas surrounding Angkor Wat, a UNESCO World Heritage Site in northwestern Cambodia. The monkeys have become more destructive of property around the popular tourist area.

Officials watching the animals told the French news agency AFP that too much human interaction, especially by people filming material to publish online, had changed the monkeys' behavior. The agency that operates Angkor Wat is the Apsara National Authority.

It said in a statement that a small number of YouTubers repeatedly feed the monkeys to create videos. This changed the monkeys' natural behavior from being wild animals to domestic ones that are aggressive, steal food, and cause injuries among people.

Agency spokesman Long Ko Sal told AFP that officials also worry about the monkeys causing damage to stonework that dates back centuries. On top of biting visitors, they have been climbing up and pushing stones down, damaging temples, he said.

Some macaques had also damaged information signs. Local officials have urged tourists to leave the monkeys alone while visiting Angkor Wat. They added that they are currently looking for an appropriate solution to solve the problem. Angkor Wat was the capital of the Khmer Empire.

Building work began on the complex about 900 years ago. It remains Cambodia's top tourist site and earns a lot of money for the developing nation. More than one million foreign tourists visited the area last year.

Since becoming a World Heritage Site in 1992, Angkor Wat and the surrounding forest have received increased legal protection and security.

Officials have expressed hope that wildlife sightings around Angkor Wat will increase visitor interest and support conservation education efforts.

Last year, Cambodian officials announced a plan to carry out a census of monkeys in public areas to identify and take away those presenting a danger to humans. Brian Lynn. My name is Anna Mateo. My name is Jill Robbins. And I'm Andrew Smith.

You're listening to the lesson of the day on the Learning English Podcast. Welcome to the part of the show where we help you do more with our series, Let's Learn English. The series shows Ana Mateo in her work and life in Washington, D.C. Ana loves to be outside, but she is often too busy at work to enjoy the outdoors.

So, in Lesson 29 of the series, she is happy to join her coworker, Marsha, who suggests they try to do some work outside. In Washington, D.C., there are many places that bring history to life, but people who live here often do not have time to see them. They are too busy with work, like me. Hi, Marsha. Hi, Anna. Have a seat.

Thanks. This was a good idea. Working outdoors is nice. Mm-hmm. It is. I am tired. Today was a busy day at work, and I still have work to do. Hmm. That's too bad. How are you these days? I'm really busy too, Anna. Let's get to work. There are many ways we can talk about being busy.

Notice how Anna uses the preposition "with" after the adjective "busy." They are too busy with work. We can say we are busy with work, or busy with our jobs, or busy with a project. But when we describe what we are doing, we simply use the -ing ending on the verb. So we can say, "I'm busy with work," or we can say, "I'm busy working."

Here are some other examples: I'm busy writing my report. I'm busy these days getting ready for my exam. These days I'm busy applying for jobs. And with past participles that are followed by prepositions such as "tired of" or "worried about," we can simply follow them with a noun or with the -ing form of the verb, which is called a gerund.

That's spelled G-E-R-U-N-D. And the gerund works just like a noun. So we can say, "I'm tired of work," or "I'm tired of working." We can say, "I'm worried about the cost," or "I'm worried about spending that much money." A bit later in Lesson 29, Anna and Marcia talk about childhood dreams.

They talk about what, when they were children, they hoped to become in the future as adults. Let's listen. In fact, I wanted to be, don't laugh, President of the United States. Stop! I know, it's a silly childhood dream. Sorry, it's not silly. Guess what I wanted to be? What?

When I was a kid, I studied the stars and planets. I wanted to fly into outer space. You know, Marsha, childhood dreams are important. They are. And it's good to remember them. The word "dream" can be a noun or a verb. And when it's a verb, it can be followed by two different prepositions.

We use "dream of" to express what we wanted to become when we were young. And we use the -ing gerund after the preposition "of." So, Anna dreamed of becoming president. And Marcia dreamed of becoming an astronaut. The other preposition after the verb "dream" is "about."

We use "about" to express a particular subject of our dreams. For example, I can say, "Last night I dreamed about Jill's dog." I hope she was a good girl in your dream. She was. When we want to express dreams for our future, we tend to use the preposition "about" followed by a gerund. For example, we can say, "Oh, I dream about going to Paris one day."

Oh, me too, Andrew. Or we could say, "We dream about finding a new home for our family." We can also use "dreamed about" in the same way as "dreamed of" to talk about childhood hopes. So, Jill, did you dream about becoming or doing anything in particular when you were young? I wanted to be an astronaut too.

I cut out all the stories in the paper about the space program and I watched live as the first humans walked on the moon. But then I found out you had to be a man and in the military, two things I didn't think were possible at the time. Well, some of those things have changed. Yeah. And now there are women astronauts who are not necessarily in the military. Andrew, how about you? What were your dreams?

I don't think I had any very specific dreams of what I wanted to be, but maybe for a few months I dreamed about becoming a professional tennis player. But I think I dreamed more about interesting places to travel. And now that I think about it, I did dream of going to the highest mountain in the world, to Mount Everest.

But I do agree with Anna when she says: You know, Marsha, childhood dreams are important. And the dreams we have as adults are important as well. You can tell us about what you dreamed of doing when you were a child or about your dreams as an adult by writing to us at [email protected] or putting your comments under this video on YouTube.

And if you want another way to practice your English, just do an internet search of songs with the word dream in the title. You will probably find more songs than you could ever listen to. That's because most of those songs are about love. And that's a topic for another day. For now, we hope you've enjoyed today's lesson of the day on the Learning English Podcast.

And you can learn more on our website, learningenglish.voanews.com. You can also find us on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. Thanks for listening to the lesson of the day on the Learning English Podcast. 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