Fluency News: Anitta takes over the world, She-Hulk is coming, Covid-Zero in China

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 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 a apresentação da Anitta na Billboard MusicCon e Coachella. Também falamos sobre a taxa zero de Covid levemente duvidosa em Xangai e, por fim, a resposta dos fãs da Marvel quanto ao CGI de She-Hulk.‍

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!

Transcrição do episódio

Hello, everyone! Welcome back to Fluency News! Our podcast series that is made to help you be an informed citizen of the world. I’m Scott Lowe, one of your English teachers here at Fluency Academy. It’s awesome you took some time out of your day to join me! Try to stay with me till the end because every week we bring you the hottest news, of course, but we also add some comments in Portuguese so you can develop your English skills and feel confident when talking to an native speaker.

Aliás, você sabia que a Fluency Academy também tem cursos online completos em 8 idiomas diferentes? Não deixe para amanhã, o link para a nossa lista de espera está aqui na descrição. Leva só 15 segundinhos, eu até posso esperar por você se quiser!

Well, now let’s get down to business!

We’re going to start today’s episode talking about the Brazilian artist that is taking the world: Anitta! Anitta Showcases Brazilian Pride During Billboard MusicCon Performance.

Superstar singer Anitta brought Rio to Las Vegas at Billboard’s inaugural MusicCon on Friday, May 13th, at Area 15, ahead of her performance at the event.

The Brazilian icon’s energy was on display as she discussed her trailblazing Coachella performance, plans for retirement, her team’s doubts about “Envolver,” and much more.

She “didn’t have fun at all” during her first-week Coachella performance.

“The first week I wasn’t able to enjoy anything, I just wanted it to go amazing and exactly the way I wanted,” Anitta explained. “I just wanted to make sure it went perfectly. You want your country to feel they were well-represented.” The Rio-made singer described the pressures for her Coachella set. She wanted everything going according to plan, especially because she was the first female Brazilian solo artist to perform on the Coachella stage.

After the debut performance, Anitta didn’t party. Instead, she went back to her hotel straightaway to watch her set over and over again, saying she was excitedly jumping on the couch, thanks to how well it went.

Speaking of firsts, Anitta also hit a few Billboard milestones.

“Everyone in Brazil said it felt like the World Cup for them,” Anitta explained of her Coachella first and Billboard spread, as the first Brazilian to grace the cover. “It’s the first time of so many things for Brazilian people that I am managing to do with my work now.

Everything that happens, my country just goes crazy.” She also noted her explosive single, “Envolver,” which reached No. 1 on Billboard’s Global chart and on Spotify’s Global list, making Anitta the first Brazilian artist to achieve both feats.

The Brazilian also walked the red carpet and handed over a trophy at the Billboard Music Awards, on Sunday the 15th. The star was called to take the stage alongside the Canadian singer Michael Bubble to announce the category ”Best Country Duo/Group”. The winners were the duo Dan + Shay.

The singer has recorded songs in her native Portuguese, Spanish and, most recently, English, with songs like “Faking Love,” “Girl from Rio” and “Boys Don’t Cry,” all of which she sang at MusicCon and at her Coachella performances.

A palavra “feat” pode ser traduzida como façanha, proeza ou feito. Se a Anitta foi “the first to achieve both feats”, quer dizer que ela foi a primeira a “realizar ambas as proezas”. Podemos usar “feat” em outras frases como “this building is a feat of architecture” esse prédio é um feito, ou seja, é um grande passo ou grande realização do ramo da arquitetura. Ou então se diz “no easy feat” para descrever algo bem difícil de se fazer.

E claro, falando nesse momento da carreira da Anitta temos a palavra “charts” que são as “paradas”, as listas de músicas mais tocadas. Então se um artista está no “top of the charts” ela ou ele está no “topo das paradas”. Ou “number one on global charts”, número um nas paradas globais.

How cool is that? The woman is unstoppable. Você precisa mandar esse episódio para seu amigo que é fã de Anitta.

Moving on to the second headline for today we’ve got some good news? Or not so good? Shanghai declares zero-Covid milestone but residents cast doubt on reopening.

Antes da gente começar essa nova notícia, deixa eu te contar um pouquinho mais sobre os nossos podcasts. Aqui nós temos um para cada uma das suas necessidades. Tem os Walk ‘n’ Talks, que trabalham diálogos entre nativos: um com explicações em português, o Essentials, e a versão 100% em inglês, o Level Up. Mas a gente tem muitos outros focado em pronúncia, vocabulário, expressões, business, e cultura. Não deixe de conferir, fizemos com muito carinho pra você conseguir inserir o inglês no seu dia a dia!

Okay, so now let’s talk about China. Shanghai officials on Tuesday said they had achieved “zero-Covid at the community level” in what appeared to be a turning point in a severe and expensive campaign to tame an Omicron outbreak — but many residents remain skeptical the city will reopen anytime soon.

Since China’s leader vowed to endure with his zero-Covid policy on May 5th, Shanghai authorities have taken increasingly hardline measures, canceling food deliveries in some neighborhoods, forcing residents who tested negative for Covid into government quarantine and disinfecting their homes without consent.

However, while the tough measures have fueled discontent among residents, they also appear to have brought infections down.

Shanghai reported fewer than 1,000 new cases on both Sunday and Monday — the first time under four figures since March 24, according to the city’s health commission.

At a news conference Monday, Shanghai officials declared the outbreak to be “under effective control” as 15 of the city’s 16 districts had stopped the community spread of Covid. Officials said the city’s reopening will come in three phases, with the goal of restoring life to normal and fully restarting factories in June.

The reopening roadmap was met with skepticism by some Shanghai residents who have lost trust in the local government.

When the local government announced a two-stage lockdown in late March, it said it would last for only four days and promised daily supplies would be sufficient. But days turned into weeks, and many struggled to secure access to food and other daily necessities.

On Chinese social media, some Shanghai residents said they were still not allowed to go outside despite their neighborhoods reporting no recent cases. Others lashed out at state media reports claiming life in the city is returning to normal.

Meanwhile, an article on the website of the People’s Daily, featuring pictures purporting to show reopened restaurants, cafes and supermarkets was lampooned.

“Although I’m not allowed to go out in Shanghai, I can feel a real sense of warmth from your fake news. Thank you People’s Daily!” said one resident in a social media post under a hashtag that loosely translates as “the smell of cooking is coming back in Shanghai”.

Others kept their ire for the People’s Daily. “The Shanghai described in their words is not the Shanghai I’m living in right now,” a user said. Most of the comments had been deleted by Tuesday afternoon, apparently by China’s internet censors.

Você percebeu que quando falamos que alguém “disse algo”, a estrutura da frase fica um pouco diferente? Quando relatamos algo que outra pessoa disse, temos uma estrutura chamada “reported speech”. No inglês, para passar adiante o que outra pessoa te disse, a gente usa um tempo verbal passado, anterior ao que a pessoa usou quando te contou o fato. Mas como assim? Se a Maria te diz “I need to go to the supermarket”, e você precisa contar isso para o João, você vai falar “Maria said she NEEDED to go to the supermarket.” Aqui na reportagem temos a frase “Shanghai residents said they were still not allowed to go outside”, com “were”, pois é um relato do que eles disseram! Pode parecer um pouco confuso, mas se você começar a observar e praticar, o “reported speech” se vai se tornando mais intuitivo.

And for our last headline, let’s talk Marvel! Marvel fans are unhappy with She-Hulk CGI

Meet Jennifer Walters, attorney at law…who also just happens to be She-Hulk, too.

During The Walt Disney Company’s 2022 Upfront presentation, executive producer Kevin Feige, president of Marvel Studios and chief creative officer of Marvel, welcomed star Tatiana Maslany to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, as the pair shared details about the upcoming series — including the August 17 launch date!

She-Hulk: Attorney at Law follows Jennifer Walters as she navigates the complicated life of a single, 30-something attorney who also happens to be a green 6-foot-7-inch superpowered hulk. The nine-episode series welcomes a host of MCU vets, including Mark Ruffalo as Smart Hulk.

Since the first trailer for the new She-Hulk TV series dropped, it has been safe to say the majority of the Marvel fanbase has some pretty valid complaints when it comes to the quality of the CGI used to bring the big, green, lawyer to life. Hopefully, when the finished product ends up on the streaming service Disney Plus, we will see some improvement.

Marvel fans only ever seem to be really enthusiastic and positive, or really critical and unhappy with the various MCU movies and sci-fi series that we’ve been treated to over the last 14 years.

For this MCU Phase 4 series, it’s certainly the latter judging by social media, with many fans comparing the visuals to games like The Sims and other movies like Shrek, and even the infamous Hulk movie from 2003!

Aqui a gente tem um jeito bem casual de dizer que algo foi lançado, o verbo drop. The new trailer dropped yesterday, quer dizer “o novo trailer foi lançado ontem”. É usado também para músicas, clipes, episódios de série e assim por diante. Anitta dropped a new music video yesterday seria “a Anitta lançou um novo clipe ontem.” O verbo mais formal com esse mesmo significado seria “release”.

And it’s with that story that we’re ending today’s episode, guys. There’s a new episode of Fluency News every week, so don’t forget to keep an eye out to stay informed about what’s happening.

Antes de eu terminar o episódio de hoje, deixa eu te fazer uma pergunta. Você gosta de estudar outros idiomas? Você pode tentar escutar esse mesmo episódio em espanhol, italiano, francês e até alemão! Não esqueça de conferir depois, hein?

E por último, mas não menos importante: Você quer ter aulas aprofundadas comigo e com os outros professores da Fluency TV? Você pode se inscrever na lista de espera para as nossas próximas turmas de inglês, espanhol, francês, italiano, alemão, japonês, mandarim e coreano. Não fique de fora: aperte o link na descrição desse episódio e faça a sua inscrição 100% gratuita.

I’ll see you soon. Peace.

Anitta: BBMA
‍https://www.spamchronicles.com/see-anitta-attending-the-2022-billboard-music-awards-popline/

Coachella
‍https://www.coachella.com/

Billboard MusicCon
‍https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/5-takeaways-anitta-brazil-world-171900348.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAEHe3WklGDf8OcgfrQmgmQLr5H9XGm7Ue0BS0KHc4n4-GBfCRKj0zbkzvj1d0t1RlBq-JKBGFG6N4x5JuoCMD8tt-zbf299Xx0I49zYkb_t7G5_9qcTiP8R_NO_2GqRrsI3HFLF9amyLE9BTrpqnuoN2h4bLOy7aUfuxbICxIkFU
‍https://www.billboard.com/music/latin/anitta-musiccon-performance-recap-1235070939/

Shanghai 0 COVID
‍https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/17/china/china-covid-shanghai-reopening-intl-hnk/index.html

She-hulk: series
‍https://www.marvel.com/articles/tv-shows/she-hulk-first-trailer-jennifer-walters-disney-plus

Internet reactions
‍https://www.thedigitalfix.com/marvel-cinematic-universe/she-hulk-cgi-fans-unhappy