Fluency News #9 – A Google smartwatch?

Hello everyone!‍

Welcome to another episode of Fluency News! Here, you’ll practice your listening and get informed on all that’s happening in the world; all the major headlines of the week, all in English! During the episode, we make sure to explain the things that we believe need extra attention, so you don’t miss any details!

In this episode we’ll talk about business news! Apple is taking a big step towards offering more banking services to its customers; TikTok moves forward with live shopping in the US; Google thinks smartwatches are the future again.

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We’ll have a new episode of Fluency News every week, don’t forget to listen! See you!

Episode Transcript‍

Hello everyone, how is it going? I’m Benjamin Robson, and welcome to Fluency News, the podcast with the most recent news of what’s going on around the world, all in English so you can learn new expressions, vocabulary and grammar.

Before we start, I want to remind you that learning English must be fun, interesting, and used in daily conversations, or else you won’t be able to take your fluency to the next level. That’s why the internet’s best teachers and I have put together our course to show you how to speak English for real.

If your goal is unlocking your English, we can help you with that. Just go to en.fluencytv.com and register for our complete online course, so you can boost your vocabulary and take your English to the next level.

Now, shall we begin?

Apple is known as one of the biggest producers and sellers of cellphones, computers and smart devices. Now, the company is taking a big step toward offering more banking services to its customers. The company announced its partnership with Goldman Sachs to soon launch a new savings account feature for its Apple Card credit cardholders, which will allow them to save and grow their “Daily Cash” — the cash back rewards that are earned from their Apple Card purchases.

How cool is that? Alright, so let’s take a look at this interesting form of the pronoun “it”. You heard me saying: the company is offering banking services to its customers, announced its partnership with Goldman Sachs, and the launch of a new savings account feature for its Apple Card credit cardholders.

When we use “its”, without the apostrophe, it means that this “it” owns something, something belongs to it, it’s soooo possessive, right? That’s why we call it a possessive form of “it”. “Its” is like hers, his, ours, theirs, and yours but we’ll use it when referring to things or animals. For example, the possessive form of she is hers. The possessive form of we is ours. And the possessive form of it is its. So if I say that “my neighbor’s house has its own garage” I mean that the garage belongs to my neighbor’s house. If Apple is offering banking services to its customers, it means that these customers belong to Apple. Easy, right?

So, the next story is about the social media most people from Gen Z love: TikTok!

Besides its success with funny videos and trends, TikTok is moving forward with live shopping in the US. That’s right! Live shopping combines TikTok live streams with ecommerce to allow viewers to buy products without leaving the app. A launch in the US will make it the second time the social media platform has tried to launch live shopping outside Asia. However, this time will be different because the company is set to partner with Los Angeles-based TalkShopLive to bring live shopping to the United States.

That’s great news, way to go TikTok! Now, let’s go through some interesting vocab. I said “TikTok is moving forward with live shopping in the US”. To move forward means to make progress, to advance. So they are progressing with live shopping in the US and to do that they are having a launch. A launch refers to a business’s planned and coordinated effort to debut a new product to the market and make that product generally available for purchase.

Another interesting expression is “set to”. I said “the company is set to partner with Los Angeles-based TalkShopLive”. “Set to” means to be prepared to start doing something or to begin working, so that means TikTok is ready to start a partnership with TalkShopLive.

Are you set to study with Fluency Academy? You can join our waitlist now and get set to move forward with your English. Go to en.fluencytv.com and join now!

Now, let’s move forward with the last news of this episode…

Who doesn’t love being up to date with the newest technology? Especially when it comes to Google. Once again, this company is stepping into the wearable tech world. Did you know that Google had already considered launching a smartwatch, even before Apple did? In 2014, they came up with the idea, but it didn’t go very far. Now, Google thinks smartwatches are the future again. They’re about to launch the Pixel Watch. This concept is really quite simple, offering terrific health and wellness insights through the Fitbit app, bringing the best of Google like the core Google apps to the device, and putting it all together in a beautiful design.

That sounds so interesting, doesn’t it? I can’t wait to have one of my own. So, did you notice that I started this news by saying, “who doesn’t love being up to date with the newest technology?”. Being up to date means having the most recent information, keeping up with the times, so I was saying that everyone loves having the most recent information about technology, isn’t that right?

I also said that, “in 2014, they came up with this idea, but it didn’t go very far”. To come up with means to propose, to suggest or think of an idea or a plan. For example, I, as a teacher, need to come up with new ideas for my students, I need to think of new ideas to teach them. And you, as a student, can come up with new questions to ask me or new ideas for our classes. So, have you come up with any new ideas recently?

Alright guys, we’ve come to the end of this episode. Now I think I will check my TikTok and see if I can buy that smartwatch with my Apple Card.

But first, I have some English sentences to practice on Memhack. While I’m surfing on the internet, I’ll take some time to study a little bit, in a very fun and personalized way. The app is totally free and the link is in the description of this episode. That’s it for today, guys. I’ll see you next time!

‍Stories:‍

‍Apple is taking a big step toward offering more banking services to its customers
https://techcrunch.com/2022/10/13/apple-partners-with-goldman-sachs-to-introduce-high-yield-savings-accounts-for-apple-card-holders/?utm_source=thenewscc&utm_medium=emai&utm_campaign=referral

‍TikTok moves forward with live shopping in US
https://www.searchenginejournal.com/tiktok-moves-forward-with-live-shopping-in-us/466881/?utm_source=thenewscc&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=referral#close‍

‍Google thinks smartwatches are the future again
https://www.theverge.com/23389978/google-pixel-watch-wearables-fitbit-future