Fluency News 29

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, falamos sobre o navio cargueiro que bloqueou o Canal de Suez, e temos mais uma atualização da história de Myanmar. Também falamos sobre o México ter passado o Brasil em casos de COVID-19, e sobre o bem que a pandemia tem feito às baleias.

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 is up, everyone! Welcome back to Fluency News, Fluency Academy’s news podcast. I’m Scott Lowe, one of your English teachers and your host! It’s great to have you with me one more time.

As you probably already know, this podcast was made thinking of you. We wanted to give you a place where you could practice your listening and comprehension skills, while getting informed. A great way to kill two birds with one stone, right? Falando em killing two birds with one stone, você sabe o que isso significa? É uma expressão que significa literalmente matar dois pássaros com uma pedra só. É o equivalente ao nosso “matar dois coelhos com uma cajadada só”. Isso que eu fiz aqui vai se repetir no nosso episódio. Toda vez que tivermos uma nova expressão, uma palavra pouco usada ou incomum, eu vou explicá-la em português, para garantir que você vai entender tudinho que escutar aqui.

And, to make things even easier, you can go to fluencytv.com to read the transcript of this episode, and to find all of our sources. So, if you’re listening from a streaming platform like Spotify, Deezer or Apple Podcasts, make sure to head over to fluencytv.com. There you’ll also find awesome free tips and lessons, in English, Spanish, French, German and Italian! And soon, we’ll add Japanese and Mandarin lessons and tips too, so make sure to go to our portal so you don’t miss anything.

Alright, how about we see what’s going on in the world? We’ll start with the story that literally paralized the Suez Canal.

Last week, on Tuesday the 23rd, the Ever Given, a 400m long ship ran aground in the Suez Canal, blocking other ships and vessels from passing through one of the world’s most important waterways. The Ever Given became jammed diagonally, halting shipping traffic on one of the busiest and most important waterways in the world.

The Suez Canal is located 75 miles east of Cairo, the capital of Egypt, and it links the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea, allowing for direct shipping from Europe to Asia. Roughly 12% of the world’s shipping traffic and a chunk of its oil supply goes through the man-made canal, which has become particularly vital following pandemic-related disruptions to shipping.

The Ever Given was stranded after losing steering control amid high winds and a dust storm. Some 367 ships were backed up at either end of the canal, creating an unprecedented setback for global trade. Since the container ship ran aground, efforts have been made to free Egypt’s waterways, using 10 tugboats to push and pull the vessel. On Monday, 29, the ship was partially refloated, raising hopes that the canal will soon be reopened.

“The position of the ship has been reorientated 80 percent in the right direction. The stern… moved to 102 metres from the shore” compared to its position four metres from the shore previously, Suez Canal Authority (SCA) chief Osama Rabie in a statement.

The process “will resume when water flow increases again from 11:30 am (0930 GMT)… in order to completely refloat the vessel, so as to reposition it in the middle of the waterway,” the statement added.

A spokesman for the vessel’s owner said there has been damage sustained by the ship on its bow when it got stuck “but no new damage has been reported”.

The Suez Canal salvage teams intensified excavation and dredging on Sunday and were hoping a high tide would help them dislodge it.

Data compiled by Bloomberg indicate that around 14 vessels stuck in and around the canal could be carrying thousands of livestock. While most other ships’ cargo can be stored for long periods of time, livestock depends on food and water, and carrying ships rarely keep more than the necessary for such deliveries.

According to shipping company Inchcape, the vessel is floating again. That doesn’t fix the problem entirely, as the giant will still need to be maneuvered to free the passage. The Ever Given was lodged firmly into the embankments on each side of the Suez Canal, and though it is afloat, it’s longer than the canal is wide, complicating the removal task.

“If … the Suez Canal remains blocked for another three to five days,” Sea-Intelligence vice president of product and operations Niels Madsen told Reuters, “then this will start to have very serious global ramifications.”

His comment was made days ago, on March 24th.

Você viu que nesta história eu usei a palavra resume? Ela é um de muitos falsos cognatos, falsos amigos que nós temos entre o inglês e o português. Resume se parece bastante com a palavra resumo, mas tem um sentido completamente diferente. Resume, em inglês, significa “continuar”, “retomar”, “prosseguir”. Se você quisesse falar resumo, no caso de um resumo de um livro, em inglês, você diria “abstract” ou “summary”.

Now, we have another update on the Myanmar story, and it’s not a positive one. As you may recall, we’ve covered the political unrest in which the country has been in, since a military coup in February. The protests started soon after, and the crackdown has been violent and lethal.

The United Nations in Myanmar said it is horrified by the “needless loss of life,” and said Saturday 27th marks the “bloodiest day since the coup.”

A count issued by an independent researcher in Yangon who has been compiling near-real time death tolls put the total on Saturday at 107, spread over more than two dozen cities and towns.

“The violence is completely unacceptable and must stop immediately,” the UN said. “Those responsible must be held to account.”

According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, a monitoring group based in Thailand, over 328 people have been killed. Among the dead, UNICEF reported that there are at least 23 children.

Na palavra “needless”, nós temos o uso do sufixo “less”. Quando adicionamos “less” no fim de uma palavra, estamos dando o sentido de “sem”. Need é precisar, necessitar. Less adiciona o sentido de “sem”. Então podemos traduzir para sem necessidade, desnecessário. Como com grande parte dos sufixos, você pode adicionar “less” a várias palavras, para criar esse sentido de menos, sem alguma coisa. Hope é esperança, hopeless é desesperançado. Home é lar, homeless é sem lar, ou morador de rua. Para ampliar o seu vocabulário, você pode tentar encontrar esse e outros sufixos na transcrição deste episódio.

In coronavirus news, Mexico has published revised figures indicating that the number of deaths caused by COVID-19 is 60% higher than previously reported. The toll places Mexico with the second highest death toll, after the United States.

More than 321,000 people are now believed to have died from Covid-19 in the country, and President Andrés Manuel López Obrador has faced widespread criticism over his handling of the crisis.

That places Mexico above Brazil, which has registered 310,000 deaths, and below the US which has recorded 549,000 fatalities.

On Wednesday 24, Brazil’s health ministry reported 2,009 daily COVID-19 deaths, bringing its pandemic total to 300,685. On Tuesday, 23 the country saw a single-day record of 3,251 deaths.

Speaking late Tuesday Bolsonaro said that Brazil would resume “very soon a normal life” thanks to the vaccination campaign that he had early criticized.

“I want to reassure the Brazilian people and inform them that the vaccines are guaranteed. By the end of the year we will have more than 500 million doses of vaccine to vaccinate the whole population,” Bolsonaro said.

Currently some 11.1 million Brazilians, or 5.2 percent of the population, have received at least one dose of vaccine and 3.5 million both doses, according to an AFP tally based on official figures

Former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva said on Friday 26 that the more than 300,000 deaths amount to the “biggest genocide” in Brazil’s history, on an attack to the current leader.

“We must save Brazil from COVID-19,” the former president added, saying that “Brazil will not withstand it if this man continues to govern in this way.”

Você sabia que em inglês os números são representados de formas diferentes? Quanto chegamos na casa dos mil, por exemplo, ao invés de separar os números com um ponto, eles são separados por uma vírgula. E na hora de representar centavos, em inglês se usa um ponto ao invés de uma vírgula. Então se você vir um valor representado por um número, seguido por um ponto e outro número, você sabe que o que vem depois são os centavos. E no caso de números grandes, como 300685, entre 300 e 685, em inglês, há uma vírgula. Não é interessante?

Alright, let’s see some good news, shall we? The pandemic has made the oceans quieter, and the whales have been thriving!

According to the NBC, the pandemic has actually been good for the whales, as human interference has decreased and ambient noise in the world’s oceans is also way down.

“I think, overall, the pandemic has largely been a positive for whales,” said Ari Friedlaender, a marine ecologist and biologist with the University of California at Santa Cruz.

He is studying how the quieter oceans have affected whales by measuring their stress levels through hormone samples. Friedlaender said animals use acoustics such as whale songs to communicate with one another and locate food. Noise in the environment can interfere with those communications and other critical life functions

“The thought is that as you decrease the amount of human activity and noisy environment, we’re going to see a decrease in the stress hormone levels of these animals,” he said.

The pandemic has had an even more concrete impact on the whale population off Iceland’s coast: It has helped accelerate the end of commercial whale hunting.

“I’m never going to hunt whales again, I’m stopping for good,” Gunnar Bergmann Jonsson, managing director of the minke whaling company IP-Utgerd, told the news agency Agence France-Presse last year. And demand has continued to fall.

Hardarson, the captain of a whale watching boat, said that people have stopped eating whale meat for several reasons, including realizing the senselessness of killing an animal that can live for almost a century. And he highlighted another simple reason, as well.

“They are worth way more alive than dead,” he said. “I think there’s going to be no commercial whaling, and in the future. I can see no reason why there should be.”

Nesta notícia, nós temos o uso de um tempo verbal bem interessante. Na verdade, é possível encontrar pelo menos três tempos verbais só nessa história, mas eu quero focar em um específico. No Present Perfect. O Present Perfect é formado usando o verbo have, no presente, e o verbo seguinte na terceira forma. Have been, por exemplo, é uma representação do Present Perfect. Esse tempo verbal é usado principalmente para falar de uma ação que começou no passado, mas continua no presente. A terceira forma do verbo, chamada particípio do passado, está sempre na terceira coluna que vemos em tabelas de verbos. Você não precisa decorar todos! Quando for um verbo regular, ele vai simplesmente ter ED adicionado no fim, como em HAS HELPED. No caso de verbos irregulares, vocÊ vai conseguir se lembrar dos mais usados com muito contato com o idioma, então continue escutando nossos podcasts!

That’s where we’re going to end today’s episode, guys! We hope you’re having an excellent week, and that you enjoyed spending this time putting your English into practice. Don’t forget to go to fluencytv.com to explore and learn more!

E se você quer melhorar o seu nível de qualquer um dos 7 idiomas que ensinamos – inglês, espanhol, francês, italiano, alemão, japonês ou mandarim – aprendendo com os professores da FluencyTV, você pode se inscrever na nossa lista de espera.

Assim quando a gente abrir uma nova turma você vai ter uma chance ainda melhor de conseguir uma vaga! É só se inscrever clicando no link na descrição desse episódio.

Leva uns 15 segundinhos e vale super a pena! Assim você não arrisca perder a próxima turma e ficar meses esperando uma nova chance!

Alright, everyone! There’s a new episode of Fluency News every week, so make sure you check back, and follow us on our social media so you don’t miss out. Until next time! Peace out.

Fontes:

Ever Given story
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/3/29/ever-given-turned-80-percent-in-right-direction-live-news
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/mar/26/at-least-20-livestock-ships-caught-in-suez-canal-logjam
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/29/suez-canal-attempt-re-float-ever-given-delay-salvage-tugboats
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-egypt-suezcanal-ship/hopes-of-reopening-suez-canal-boosted-by-partial-refloating-of-jammed-ship-idUSKBN2BL0A3
https://www.cnet.com/news/ever-given-in-the-suez-canal-now-afloat-everything-you-need-to-know/
https://www.qatar-tribune.com/latestnews-article/mid/506/articleid/5951/suez-canal-time-running-out-for-92-000-animals-stranded-on-ships

“A day of terror and dishonour”: Myanmar forces kill dozens of people, including children, in what may be deadliest day since coup
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/myanmar-coup-violence-dozens-killed/
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/29/biden-and-eu-condemn-myanmar-bloodshed-as-outrageous-and-a-day-of-shame
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-myanmar-politics/thousands-take-to-the-streets-in-myanmar-after-bloodiest-day-since-coup-idUSKBN2BL0C2

Covid-19: Mexico revises coronavirus death toll up by 60%
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-56558059

Coronavirus pandemic slowdown has made the oceans quieter, which has been good for whales
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/coronavirus-pandemic-slowdown-has-made-oceans-quieter-which-has-been-n1262175