Fluency News #28

Hello, everyone!

Sejam bem-vindos e bem-vindas a mais um episódio da nossa nova série de podcasts, o Fluency News! Aqui, você vai treinar a sua escuta e ficar por dentro do que está acontecendo no mundo, sempre com as três principais notícias da semana, tudo em inglês! Ao longo do episódio, nós também adicionamos explicações em português das coisas que achamos que precisam de mais atenção, assim você não perde nenhum detalhe!

Neste episódio, temos mais uma atualização sobre os protestos em Myanmar, que têm se tornado mais violentos e mortais. Nós também vemos o que está acontecendo na Austrália, com os protestos da March4Justice. Em boas notícias, El Salvador se tornou o primeiro país da América Central a ser declarado livre de malária, e um meteorito encontrado no Reino Unido pode conter informações sobre o início do nosso sistema solar.

Temos uma página de dicas de inglês no Instagram, vá conferir! @fluencytvingles

Toda semana temos um novo episódio do Fluency News, não deixe de escutar! See you!

Este episódio foi escrito por Lívia Pond.

Transcrição do episódio:

What’s up, everyone! Welcome back to Fluency Academy’s Fluency News! I’m Scott Lowe and I’m thrilled you decided to join me today, to improve your English skills and find out what’s been going on in the world.

If you’re new here, welcome! It’s okay if you didn’t hear the previous episodes, because we’re always talking about the week’s news stories. You can still go back and listen to the other episodes, to practice your listening and comprehension skills, and to get familiar with stories we might update. This week, for example, we have an update to the Myanmar story we have been covering since the beginning of February.

But before we get into that, let me remind you we have over a thousand free lessons in our content portal, fluencytv.com. There you’ll also find the transcript to this episode, so you can read along, and all our sources.

As you probably already know, it’s possible that after a story, I’ll come in in Portuguese to explain something that might be more complicated, unusual or unknown, to make sure you understand everything we’re talking about. So, let’s jump in?

We’re going to start by visiting Myanmar again, as it had the deadliest weekend yet since the protests have started. An advocacy group reported that 22 protesters were killed by security forces in the suburb of Myanmar’s main city on Sunday, March 14th.

Another 16 anti-coup protesters were killed, as well as one policeman, in other townships. Hundreds more have been injured, many of them critically, as security forces used live ammunition against civilians.

Martial law was imposed in Hlaingthaya and another district of Yangon, Myanmar’s commercial hub and former capital, state media announced.

Army-run Myawadday television said security forces acted after four garment factories and a fertiliser plant were set ablaze and about 2,000 people had stopped fire engines from reaching them.

The Chinese embassy said many Chinese staff were injured and trapped in, and that it had called on Myanmar to protect Chinese property and citizens. China is viewed as being supportive of the military junta that has taken power.

Doctor Sasa, a representative of elected lawmakers from the assembly that was ousted by the army, voiced solidarity with the people of Hlaingthaya.

“The perpetrators, attackers, enemies of the people of Myanmar, the evil SAC (State Administrative Council) will be held accountable for every drop of blood that shed,” he said in a message.

The latest deaths would bring the toll from the protests to 126, the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners (AAPP) said. It also stated that over 2,150 people had been detained by Saturday, March 13th. Since then, more than 300 have been released.

No começo dessa notícia, eu falei que Myanmar teve o deadliest weekend. Quando eu digo deadliest, eu estou usando uma estrutura chamada superlatives. Os superlatives são usados quando estamos falando de uma coisa que é mais do que todas as outras. Por exemplo, o Monte Everest é o mais alto do mundo. O Vaticano é o menor (mais pequeno) país, enquanto a Rússia é o maior (mais grande). Em inglês é a mesma coisa. Para criar frases usando o superlativo, vamos usar o the antes do adjetivo e se ele for pequeno, adicionamos -est ao final. Se for comprido, adicionamos most na frente. Por via de regra, palavras que contêm a partir de 2 sílabas ou mais, são acompanhadas de MOST. No entanto, há exceções: há casos em que apenas adicionamos -EST, assim como fazemos em palavras curtas.

Lembrando que a divisão em sílabas do inglês é um pouco diferente do português; temos que observar quantos sons a palavra tem. Uma palavra “longa” como STRAIGHT, apesar de ter muitas letras tem um som só: /strei’/. Por isso se acrescenta EST ao final dela, quando estamos falando de superlativos. Deadly tem duas sílabas, por isso fica DEADLIEST.

Alright, let’s move on! We’re going to Australia, where thousands of women are marching demanding an end to violence against women and inequality.

Tens of thousands of women gathered outside Australia’s parliament and across the country on Monday, March 15th, calling for gender equality and justice for victims of sexual assault. Huge demonstrations are taking place as part of the women’s March4Justice.

The March4Justice was timed for the return of Parliament in Canberra, and provoked by recent sexual assault allegations that continue to loom over the government.

The protesters wore black to signal “strength and mourning” and chanted “We will not be silenced”. Protesters in Melbourne carried a metres-long white banner bearing the names of women killed in Australia from gendered violence since 2008.

While leaders of the major opposition political parties came out to join the crowds in Canberra, a delegation of organisers rejected an invitation to meet with Prime Minister Scott Morrison in private.

One of the organisers, Janine Hendry, explained the reason for the rejection. “We’ve come to his front garden,” she told Reuters. “We are 200 metres from his office and it’s not appropriate for us to meet behind closed doors especially when we are talking about sexual assault which does happen behind closed doors.”

Morrison said Australia had made big strides toward gender equality over the years, though he acknowledged the job was “far from done” and he shared the concerns of the protestors.

However, he raised some hackles by expressing pride in the right to peaceful protest: “Not far from here, such marches, even now, are being met with bullets, but not in this country.”

The march delivered a petition calling for independent investigations into cases of gendered violence, the strengthening of the Sex Discrimination Act, mandatory gendered violence and sexual harassment training for MPs and their staff and for all Australian parliaments to have a 50:50 gender split by 2030.

Em inglês nós temos plurais regulares e irregulares. Os regulares são aqueles que só pedem o S no final, como em planta. Plant é singular, plantS é plural. Os irregulares não seguem uma regrinha. Nesta história nós temos um exemplo do plural irregular, quando falamos de mulheres. Em inglês, o singular, woman, é escrito com um A e tem a pronúncia mais fechada, WOMAN. O plural, mulheres, é women, com um E no lugar do A. A pronúncia também muda um pouco, WOMEN. A mesma coisa acontece com homem e homens, MAN e MEN. Woman, singular, Women, plural.

Let’s jump into some good news now, how about that? Very quickly, let’s visit El Salvador, which has become the first country in Central America to be certified malaria-free. The achievement follows more than 50 years of commitment, hard work and community involvement. Front line workers and volunteers shared their stories to The Global Fund, and if you’re interested, you can click the link in the description to watch their testimonies.

Our final story of the day is really interesting! An extremely rare meteorite found in wake of U.K. fireball may contain the “building blocks of life”

In late February, a fireball lit up the night sky over the United Kingdom and Northern Europe. Now, locals are starting to recover leftover meteorite fragments — and scientists say they may contain the “building blocks of life.”

An extremely rare meteorite marks the first piece of space rock discovered in the U.K. in 30 years, the Natural History Museum of London said in a statement. It will give researchers a peek into what the solar system looked like when it was forming, some 4.6 billion years ago.

They’ve nicknamed it the Winchcombe meteorite, for the town where it landed.

The rare find is the result of a fireball spotted on February 28, around 10 p.m., over the western part of the U.K. The bright flash lasted about six seconds, the museum said.

The museum is now analyzing fragments of the meteorite, which weighs just 10.6 ounces, a little over 300 grams. The special type of meteorite is known as a carbonaceous chondrite.

“This is really exciting,” museum researcher Sara Russell said in a statement. “There are about 65,000 known meteorites in the entire world, and of those only 51 of them are carbonaceous chondrites that have been seen to fall like this one.”

The man who found the meteorite had missed the fireball’s entry, and was surprised to wake up to a “black, sooty splatter mark” on his driveway. Researchers describe it as looking like coal, but feeling much softer and more fragile.

The sample is in such good condition, it’s essentially comparable to rock samples from the space missions.

The museum said that the rock likely holds soft clay minerals, suggesting it once contained frozen water ice.

This type of meteorite stems from an asteroid that formed millions of years ago, when the planets in our solar system were forming. Scientists believe they hold precious information about our early solar system.

“Meteorites like this are relics from the early Solar System, which means they can tell us what the planets are made of,” Russell said. “But we also think that meteorites like this may have brought water to the Earth, providing the planet with its oceans.”

Eu disse ali que o fragmento de meteorito pesava 10,6 ounces, você reparou? Como nos Estados Unidos, o Reino Unido tem sua própria medida de peso e massa. Além de ounces, que pode ser traduzido para “onças”, eles usam “pounds” e “stones”. Uma onça equivale a 28.34 gramas, um pound equivale a 453 gramas, e um stone equivale a 6.35 quilos.

Isn’t that an extremely interesting story, and information about the measurement systems in other countries?

Alright, that is it for that, folks. Remember, we have a new episode of our news podcast every week, with news from around the world and explanations so you can learn while staying informed. Don’t forget to visit fluencytv.com to have access to all our amazing FREE content. If you’re listening from a streaming platform, you can also click the link in the description to visit our portal content.

E se você quer melhorar o seu nível de inglês, espanhol, francês, italiano, alemão ou japonês estudando com os nossos superprofessores, você pode se inscrever na nossa lista de espera.

Assim você vai ter uma chance ainda melhor de conseguir uma vaga quando a gente abrir uma nova turma! É só se inscrever clicando no link na descrição deste episódio. Leva uns 15 segundinhos! E é claro, se você conhecer mais alguém que quer aprender um novo idioma, você pode mandar o link pra eles também.

We hope you’re doing well and staying safe. Until next week! Peace out!

Sources:

Myanmar has deadliest weekend yet as casualties continue to mount

Myanmar has deadliest weekend yet as casualties continue to mount

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-politics/at-least-39-reported-killed-in-myanmar-as-chinese-factories-burn-idUSKBN2B602C?il=0
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/15/the-death-of-zaw-myat-lynn-allegations-torture-used-on-opposition-activist-in-myanmar
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-politics-idUSKBN2B7098
https://www.france24.com/en/asia-pacific/20210314-myanmar-crackdown-continues-as-civilian-leader-urges-protesters-to-keep-up-anti-coup-fight

Thousands of women march across Australia demanding an end to violence and inequality
https://amp.sbs.com.au/eds/news/live-blog/more-100000-women-are-protesting-across-australia-demanding-end-violence-and-inequality/9b2603d4-44a7-4def-a5c2-399ebbec4668
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-australia-politics-rape-rally/thousands-rally-at-australias-parliament-to-demand-justice-for-sexual-assault-victims-idUSKBN2B7043
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-03-15/womens-marches-canberra-parliament-house-brittany-higgins/13248096

Extremely rare meteorite found in wake of spectacular U.K. fireball may contain the “building blocks of life”
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/rare-meteorite-united-kingdom-fireball-asteroid-building-blocks-of-life/

El Salvador is the first country in Central America to be declared malaria-free
https://globalfund.exposure.co/el-salvador-triumphs-over-malaria#ZeroMalaria