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Fluency News #64
Fluency Inglês 
Podcast
Hello, everyone!
Sejam bem-vindos e bem-vindas a mais um episódio da nossa 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!
No episódio desta semana, o primeiro do ano, nós temos atualizações sobre a pandemia ao redor do mundo, e falamos sobre o compromisso de cinco potências mundiais de não usar poder nuclear. Nós também vemos algumas boas notícias, como o promissor tratamento experimental contra câncer e o retorno de elefantes e lontras selvagens ao Camboja.
Nós 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.
Episode Transcript
Hello, squad! Welcome to the first episode of Fluency News of 2022! It’s a brand new year, and the perfect time to get started on your goals! If one of your resolutions is to become fluent in English, you’re on the right track! This podcast series is a great way for you to train your comprehension skills while remaining an informed citizen of the world.
I’m Thalita Uba, one of your teachers here at Fluency Academy, and I’m super excited you decided to join me today. We’re going to cover some of the most relevant stories of the week, and we might pop in some Portuguese from time to time to clarify or explain some things that might deserve a little more attention.
As always, you can find the transcript of this episode and all of our sources in the description, or by going to our content portal, fluencytv.com.
Let’s start off this year with some Covid updates, shall we? Sadly, we got to 2022, and we’re still dealing with the coronavirus pandemic. There are some good news and bad news surrounding it. Let’s hear the bad news first. The U.S. set a new global daily record of over one million cases. You heard me right. Over one million people were diagnosed with Covid in a single day in the U.S. as the omicron variant is sweeping through the country. The number is almost double the previous record, set only four days prior.
It is more than twice the case count seen anywhere else at any time since the pandemic began more than two years ago. The highest number outside the U.S. came during India’s delta surge, when more than 414,000 people were diagnosed in May 2021.
While there haven’t been any reported severe infections and skyrocketing number of deaths, the impact has been felt across the nation, as flights are being canceled, schools and offices are being closed and hospitals are overwhelmed.
The silver lining is that deaths from Covid haven’t similarly soared. Early studies show the omicron variant spreads faster than earlier strains but causes milder symptoms. It has reached over 100 countries so far.
In France, scientists and researchers reportedly discovered a new variant, deemed more contagious than omicron, which is being described as the fastest spreading virus in history. Not much is yet known about the variant, named IHU. It hasn’t been spotted in any other countries and the WHO hasn’t labelled it a variant under investigation yet.
Since I did promise some good news with the bad, here it is: the World Health Organization is optimistic that 2022 can mark the end of COVID’s acute stage. Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus reminded people that there’s still a long road to be walked, but that there might be a light at the end of the tunnel.
Você já ouviu a expressão silver lining? Se fossemos traduzir literalmente, fora de contexto, significaria “forro de prata”. Mas se você já escuta esse podcast há um tempo ou consome nosso conteúdo pelo nosso portal, fluencytv.com, você já sabe que nós não descobrimos o significado de uma palavra ou expressão traduzindo ao pé da letra, e sim pelo contexto. Contexto é tudo, e ele vai te ajudar a entender o sentido de uma frase, por exemplo, mesmo que você não saiba uma ou mais palavras. A expressão silver lining significa, basicamente, “o lado bom”, ou “o ponto positivo”. O filme “O Lado Bom da Vida”, com o Bradley Cooper e a Jennifer Lawrence, que foi lançado em 2012, em inglês é “Silver Linings Playbook”. Uma possível tradução seria “O manual do lado bom”, no sentido de como ver a vida de forma positiva.
In pretty big news, five global nuclear powers have pledged to prevent atomic weapons from spreading and to ensure a nuclear war is never fought.
The statement said that the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom and France, who are the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council – consider it their primary responsibility to avoid war between the nuclear states and to reduce strategic risks, while aiming to work with all countries to create an atmosphere of security.
“We believe strongly that the further spread of such weapons must be prevented,” the rare joint statement said, adding, “A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”
Russia hopes the pledge will reduce world tensions, while saying a summit of permanent UN Security Council members remains necessary.
“We hope that, in the current difficult conditions of international security, the approval of such a political statement will help reduce the level of international tensions,” Moscow’s foreign ministry said in a statement.
Despite concern that the US and its allies face growing military threats from China and Russia, the statement stated that their nuclear arms “are not targeted at each other or at any other state”.
The group also said it was committed to “a security environment more conducive to progress on disarmament, with the ultimate goal of a world without nuclear weapons”.
Você já deve ter notado que quando falamos de países em inglês, alguns são precedidos por “the”, como em “the United States”, ou “the United Kingdom”. Você sabe por que isso acontece? O artigo “the” é inserido em duas situações. A primeira, é quando o nome de um país é um título político. Alguns exemplos são “the United Kingdom, the United States, the Czech Republic, the People’s Republic of China, the Dominican Republic e the Arab Emirates”. A segunda situação que pede o uso de “the” é quando o nome do país é na verdade um conjunto ou grupo de ilhas, como the Philippines, the Maldives e the Bahamas. A maioria dos países foge dessas situações, mas esse é um bom truque para saber quando inserir o artigo antes do nome!
Now, how about we start off this year by focusing on some good, wholesome, uplifting news, instead of all the bad?
An experimental treatment in Spain has put 18 cancer patients in complete remission from an incurable disease.
Multiple myeloma is a form of an incurable cancer found in the bone marrow, which normally contains immature cells that transform into new blood cells – red blood cells, white blood cells and platelets. Multiple myeloma causes abnormal growth of plasma cells, a type of white blood cell that produces antibodies, the first line of defense against infection. The survival rate after five years is around 50%.
The new therapy, called ARI-0002h, was developed through the Spanish public healthcare system, and the cost is lower than commercially available products. Barcelona’s Clínic Hospital announced that 18 out of the 30 patients in the trial were in complete remission and showed no evidence of the disease.
ARI-0002h belongs to a new generation of treatment known as CAR-T, or chimeric antigen receptor T cells, which are engineered to produce special receptors. This kind of treatment has become the great hope for many tumors, ranging from certain lymphomas to leukemia.
How awesome is that?
A palavra “into” é uma preposição que é usada de forma similar, mas com sentidos diferentes da preposição “in”. “Into” descreve um movimento, uma direção, enquanto “in” é um lugar fixo. Se eu disser “I ran in the room”, eu quero dizer que eu corri DENTRO do quarto, um lugar fixo. Se a frase for “I ran into the room”, eu estou dizendo que corri PARA DENTRO do quarto, descrevendo um movimento direcionado.
Cambodia shared some good news with the world – wild elephants have returned to one of the forest conservation sites in the country.
At the Cardamom Tented Camp, forest rangers discovered and photographed elephant footprints and droppings after a five-year absence. The camp, which is funded by the Golden Triangle Asian Elephant Foundation (GTAEF), aims to minimize human footprint on the natural world.
Lodge manager Allan Michaud, who happens to be a wildlife photographer and conservationist, said that a group of Smooth-Coated Otters have also returned to the Preak Tachan river beside the camp.
“There are around 15 to 18 of them, ranging over 20 km of river, with the camp being pretty much at the centre of their territory,” said Michaud in the same statement from Cardamom Tented Camp.
The statement noted that guests often see otters, macaque monkeys, kingfishers and hornbills from their boat when they travel to the camp, which is only accessible by river.
During the downtime caused by the pandemic, the camp created a new 4 km trail, which is a continuation of an existing one.
The camp is currently back in business, after being closed for guests since the pandemic hit.
Se você consome muito conteúdo dos Estados Unidos, já deve ter notado que nós raramente usamos centímetros, metros ou quilômetros. Isso acontece porque o sistema de medidas americano não é o mesmo usado na maior parte do mundo. Nós usamos inches, polegadas, feet, pés, e miles, milhas. Esse é o chamado sistema imperial de medidas, e serve para comprimento, distância e peso. Se você estiver tentando se comunicar com um americano, é melhor ter uma tabelinha de conversão com você! Mas, só pra você ter uma ideia melhor, um quilômetro equivale a 0,62 milhas.
And last, but not least, a start-up in Cameroon is offering hope for the fight against plastic pollution.
In Cameroon’s economic capital, Douala, a new start-up specialising in recycling plastic waste promises a solution to an old problem.
The sewage system and drains in the capital are frequently blocked by discarded plastic waste, causing floods and disturbances to daily life. That thrown-away plastic is now being collected to be turned into diesel fuel.
Once the waste has been collected, it is then transported to the processing unit.
After sorting and shredding, the waste is pelleted and placed in a pyrolysis oven along with other materials, being melted and transformed into fuel.
The system produces 15 liters of fuel per day in 7 working hours. The production remains modest, but it is still a way of fighting to protect the environment.
Nessa última notícia, nós temos a palavra fight, que significa “lutar”, sendo usada de duas formas diferentes, com dois acompanhamentos diferentes. A primeira vez que nós a vemos, é fight against, e a segunda, fight to. A palavra against significa “contra”, então o significado seria “lutar contra”. Nesse caso, a luta é contra a poluição. Quando dizemos fight to, o sentido é o oposto. A preposição to aqui tem o sentido de “para”. A luta é “para” alguma coisa, a favor de alguma coisa. Nesse caso, para proteger o meio ambiente.
And this is the end of today’s episode, folks. We hope you’re having a fantastic start of the year, and we hope to see you again next week, for another episode of Fluency News.
Você sabia que a gente tem uma lista de espera? Se você tem interesse em estudar na Fluency Academy, com os melhores experts em fluência de idiomas do mundo, inscreva-se na nossa lista de espera 100% de graça! Assim você vai ficar sabendo quando abrirem novas vagas para as turmas de inglês, espanhol, francês, italiano, alemão, japonês ou mandarim. É super rápido: aperte o link na descrição desse episódio e faça a sua inscrição.
There’s a new episode of Fluency News every week, so check back to keep yourself informed! Until next time, guys. Peace out.
Stories
COVID updates
https://time.com/6132659/us-record-covid-cases/
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-04/u-s-sets-new-global-daily-record-of-over-1-million-virus-cases?sref=PFCuwcPr
https://english.elpais.com/usa/2022-01-03/omicron-the-fastest-spreading-virus-in-history.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/12/29/covid-variant-fauci-says-data-suggest-omicron-less-severe-than-delta-.html
https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/12/1108932
https://www.firstpost.com/health/france-detects-new-covid-19-variant-ihu-more-infectious-than-omicron-all-we-know-about-it-10256521.html
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/new-covid-19-variant-ihu-discovered-in-france-is-more-infectious-than-omicron-101641274969259.html
Five world powers vow to prevent spread of nuclear weapons
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3162000/p5-nuclear-powers-including-china-us-pledge-keep-nuclear-weapons-only
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/3/five-world-powers-vow-to-prevent-spread-of-nuclear-weapons
Experimental treatment in Spain puts 18 cancer patients in complete remission
Cambodia’s Cardamom Hills sees return of wild elephants and otters
Start-up in Cameroon offers new hope in the fight against plastic pollution
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