Emma Raducanu wins US Open: BBC News Review

Britain's Emma Raducanu wins the US Open.

Hello, I'm Rob. This is News Review from BBC Learning English

and joining me today is Catherine. Hello Catherine.

Hello Rob and hello everybody.

Now, don't forget we're going to be teaching you some vocabulary today

and you can test yourselves on the words by going to our website

bbclearningenglish.com where there's a quiz.

But first, let's hear a news report from the BBC about this story:

So, yes – exciting news from the United States:

Britain's Emma Raducanu has beaten Leylah Fernandez

to win the US Open Tennis Championships.

She is only eighteen years old.

It's her first time at the US Open.

Yes. Well done Emma! Very exciting news.

And we've got three words and expressions

that you can use to talk about this story, haven't we?

We have. We have: 'captures imagination'.

We have 'fluke'. And we have 'fallen for'.

So, that's 'captures imagination', 'fluke' and 'fallen for'.

OK. We're going to find out where these words appear in news headlines.

And what is your first headline now please?

Well, we're starting at BBC Sport and the headline:

'Captures imagination' – makes people interested and excited.

'Captures imagination' is a two-word expression here.

The first word: 'captures' – C-A-P-T-U-R-E-S.

And the second word: 'imagination' – I-M-A-G-I-N-A-T-I-O-N.

Now, the headlines have actually missed out the word in the middle,

which is either 'the' or it can be a pronoun

like 'my', 'your', 'his', 'her', 'their'.

So, in everyday English,

something 'captures the imagination' of something – someone.

Or something 'captures my imagination' or 'your imagination' –

his/her... 'his' or 'her' or 'their imagination'.

So, if something 'catches your imagination',

you suddenly get really interested in it.

You want to know more about it. You get very excited about it.

So, Emma Raducanu has come from...

it seems like she's come from nowhere –

she's actually been working a long time for this,

but suddenly here she is. She's an amazing winner.

Everybody wants to know more. Everybody's interested in her story.

So, she has 'captured the imagination' of many, many people.

They're interested!

Yes. Everyone's very excited, including me.

Got... that's really got me into tennis, I suppose.

We're using the word 'capture' here, which is like 'catching'.

So, are we actually 'catching' something?

Yes, 'capture' – if you 'capture' something,

you kind of trap it so it can't get away.

You think about, you know, escaped criminals;

the police will try to 'capture' them.

They will catch them, so they can't escape.

So, it's not that you can't escape literally,

but it's that idea of – you really...

you don't want to escape; you want to know more.

You're interested, you're engaged, you're excited.

And has anything captured your imagination recently, Catherine?

Well, as it happens, yes.

I've seen an advertisement for this dinner experience.

You go to have dinner, but there's all these people

from Charles Dickens novels all around the place –

I don't know if that's serving you food or chatting to you,

but it's this immersive theatre experience

and it sounds really interesting

and it's 'captured my imagination', so I'm going to go.

Excellent. Well, let's have a summary of that phrase:

So, we are talking about tennis today

and we've talked about tennis before here on News Review.

Earlier this year, Wimbledon started again

after being locked down because of coronavirus

and so we talked about Wimbledon starting up again.

So, how can we watch that video again, Catherine?

It's easy. You just click the link.

Just click the link down below. Excellent.

OK. Let's have a look at your next headline.

Yes, we're at the Guardian now, still in the UK – the headline:

'Fluke' – something that happens by luck or chance and not skill.

Yes, it's a single word this time: F-L-U-K-E – 'fluke'.

A 'fluke' is a noun. It can also be an adjective

and there is a separate adjective that I'll tell you about later,

but 'fluke' – noun or adjective and sometimes even a verb.

It's a short, nice-sounding word, isn't it?

It is.

Which... which gets used occasionally – for example,

I've got a local football team I support.

I won't name them, but they're not very good to be honest,

but last weekend by 'fluke'

they won a game – the first one this season.

They scored a couple of amazing goals

and we could say it was 'flukey'. There's that adjective.

So, they won 'by fluke', which is an interesting way to to use the word –

'by fluke' – as an adverb there.

And what happened exactly Rob then?

What was this 'fluke' – this amazing, kind of, weird thing that happened?

Well, basically, the other player tripped over –

at that moment, there was a gap to score a goal

and so the striker, you know, hit the ball in.

Complete 'fluke'! Lucky – I suppose you could say.

OK. So, something that happens, which isn't expected; it's really unusual.

Everybody's surprised: you don't expect it to happen

and it probably won't happen again.

It's a 'fluke'. It's almost like a kind of miracle that you...

just came from nowhere and surprised everybody.

What the headline is actually saying is that

  Emma Raducanu's win was not a 'fluke'.

It's saying that she's... I think the story says she trained a long time.

This was all, kind of, planned and predicted.

It just looked like a 'fluke', because people weren't expecting it.

But a 'fluke' is something that happens unexpectedly, by surprise.

It's really unusual and it probably won't happen again.

And I mentioned, a bit ago, about the adjective version of 'flukey'.

We can say things are 'flukey'.

Yes, put a 'y' on the end of 'fluke'

and you've got the lovely adjective 'flukey'.

Excellent. OK. Well, let's have a look at a summary of that word:

On News Review, we talked about something

that may have been a 'fluke' earlier this year.

That was heavy snowfall in Spain back in January.

Was that unexpected? Was it 'flukey'?

Well, we talked about it, as I say, on News Review

and how can we watch that video again, Catherine?

You can find it by clicking the link – that's not going to be a 'fluke'!

You click the link – that programme will be there.

Definitely be there! Good stuff.

OK. Let's have a look at our next headline please.

Yes. And this time the Metro, here in the UK:

That's 'fallen for' – suddenly started loving someone.

Yes, we have a phrasal verb. 'Fallen' – F-A-L-L-E-N.

And the second word is 'for' – F-O-R.

And if you've 'fallen for' someone, you've fallen in love with them.

It's a very, very similar expression to 'fall in love'.

If you fall in love with someone, you can say you've 'fallen for them'.

Now, when you fall in love with somebody,

often you want to date them. You want to marry them.

You can talk about when you 'fell for' your wife or husband.

We're not saying everybody wants to marry Emma Raducanu,

but what we are saying is New York, here – the people of New York –

have suddenly thought: 'She's great! She's amazing! We love her!

We want to know more about her!'

All of a sudden, they're all talking about her

and they think she is amazing.

So, they've 'fallen for her' means they think she's great: they love her.

Does it mean people are falling over then? Are they actually falling?

They're not actually dropping to the ground.

So, it is not that kind of 'fall'.

It's much more to do with the feelings.

So, the word 'fall' is used metaphorically.

And I've heard the phrase 'to fall for a joke', for example.

Does that mean people are falling in love with jokes?

Now, don't... not to be confused with – yeah.

If you 'fall for someone' you fall in love with them.

If you 'fall for something', we can often say that that's

actually to do with a joke or a trick that you were fooled by.

So, for example Rob, if someone rings up from... and says:

'I'm from your bank. There's a problem with your account. Please log in.'

And you log in and give them lots of money and later you think:

'Oh no! That was a scam and I fell for it.'

It means you were tricked by it,

or you can 'fall for a joke' – means that

somebody plays a prank on you and you... you get tricked.

OK. No romance involved there. OK.

No. Not at all.

Excellent. OK. Thanks for that.

Let's have a summary of that expression:

OK. We're almost out of time but, Catherine,

could you recap the vocabulary that we've discussed today please?

Of course. We had:

'captures imagination' – makes people interested and excited.

We had 'fluke', which means something that happens by luck or chance

and not skill.

And we had 'fallen for' – suddenly started loving someone.

Don't forget – you can test yourself

on your understanding of today's vocabulary

by going to a quiz on our website at bbclearningenglish.com.

And don't forget, of course – we're all over social media.

Well, thanks for joining us today and we will see you again next time.

Bye for now. Bye.