Heatwaves across the world: BBC News Review

Heatwaves cause record temperatures around the world.

This is News Review from BBC Learning English.

I'm Neil. And I'm Sian. And you can learn lots of vocabulary

about this story in the programme.

You can. And remember, subscribe to our channel, like this video

and try the quiz on our website.

Now, today's story.

Heatwaves are pushing temperatures to their highest levels ever recorded.

It has reached over 40 degrees in parts of Europe, North America, Asia

and the Middle East. Wildfires have been burning out of control. Experts

say heatwaves like this have become more frequent

because of climate change caused by humans.

Sian, you've been looking at the headlines.

What's the vocabulary?

We have 'scorch', 'bakes', and 'wrestles'.

This is News Review from

BBC Learning English.

Let's have a look at our first headline.

This one is from Earth Observatory from NASA.

So, let's start with that word 'heatwave' which is everywhere,

and it just means 'a period of time where the temperature is much higher

than usual'. But from the headline, the word

we're looking at is 'scorch', and it's connected to heat, isn't it?

And we've got a lot of words about heat in English.

Yes, we do. And 'scorch' is one of them.

It means 'to heat something to a level, which damages it'.

So, for example, Neil,

have you ever walked on a pavement in bare feet on a hot day?

Yeah. It's horrible, isn't it?

It can scorch the bottom of your feet. And that word 'scorch' -

we can use with the word 'marks'. Now, for example, if you're ironing a shirt,

you want to make your shirt nice and flat.

If you leave the iron on the shirt for too long,

it can leave scorch marks. It does. I have done this before,

and 'scorch' in this headline

means 'the heat from the Sun actually, literally damages the grounds,

so it scorches the ground.

Yes, and as you said, it's literal use here,

but we often use scorching to talk about hot weather.

It's an exaggeration. When we say:

'It's scorching',

we don't usually mean that the ground is burning.

Exactly. And here's a bit of useful British slang

for you connected to this word.

So, we can describe a very hot day as 'a scorcher'.

Yeah. We have had a few too many scorchers recently.

Today is a scorcher. Absolutely.

OK, let's have a look at that again.

Let's have a look at our next headline.

Yes. This one's from The Standard:

The word we are going to talk about is 'bakes'.

Now 'bakes' means 'to cook something in an oven like a cake'.

We bake cakes.

We do, but we also use bake to talk about very hot weather, and

it's very common in English to use cooking words to talk about hot

weather. OK. So how do I use it?

Do I say the weather bakes me?

I see what you mean, but no.

We don't say that. We normally use the cooking words

in the 'ing' form to make an adjective.

So, today

it's baking.

It's baking in here.

Yeah. It is baking out there.

You also mentioned that we use other cooking words in this same way.

Can you give us some examples?

Yes, so we also have 'roasting'.

So, you can roast meat in the oven.

But you can also say 'it's absolutely roasting today.'

Yeah, absolutely roasting.

And that's important,

isn't it? Because 'roasting' and 'baking' - these are strong adjectives.

We can't use 'very' with strong adjectives that sounds wrong.

'Very roasting', 'very baking'.

No, 'absolutely roasting'.

Are there any other cooking words we can use, Sian?

So we also have 'boiling'. So, water boils,

but we can use 'boiling' to describe very hot weather,

but be careful because not every cooking

words can be used to describe hot weather.

That's right.

We don't say it's 'frying outside' or 'it's really grilling today'.

Let's have a look at that again.

Let's have the next headline, please. This is from the Financial Times.

'Wrestles' is the word.

Now, if you wrestle with someone, you fight them.

You try to throw them to the ground.

So, how can you wrestle with the heatwave?

Well, like lots of the vocabulary

we look at in News Review,

this is not literal.

It's used metaphorically.

So, the important thing here is the idea of fighting with something.

Yeah. And this is very common to talk about

particularly difficult problems.

Yes. So, if you wrestle with a problem,

you have a difficult problem that you're trying to solve. So here,

the heatwave is the difficult problem and Europe is trying to solve it.

It is not a simple problem to solve so we have to wrestle with it.

Yeah. And there's an interesting spelling and pronunciation

of this word. It is not 'w'-wrestle.

No, that's very difficult to say, so

'w' is a silent letter like lots of words in English.

We have silent letters everywhere.

So, a useful tip. If you see

'W-R', the 'W' is silent.

So, 'wrist' or 'wriggle'.

Yeah. You're not wrong.

Let's have a look at that again.

We've had 'scorch' - damage with heat.

'Bakes'- heats to an uncomfortable level.

So, it's not just for cakes.

And 'wrestles' - struggles with a difficult situation.

But don't wrestle with your English. Go to our website

where you'll find a quiz to help you.

Thank you for joining us, and goodbye. Goodbye.