🗽 Learn English With News: Advanced English Vocabulary, Grammar, Pronunciation | Free English Lesson

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2022-10-13 ・ JForrest English


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🗽 Learn English With News: Advanced English Vocabulary, Grammar, Pronunciation | Free English Lesson

276,285 views ・ 2022-10-13

JForrest English


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

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Today we're going to read a news article together and you're going to learn a lot of vocabulary,
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grammar and even pronunciation naturally by reading this article with me. This is an article
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in the very popular online magazine Time Out New York and this article is about one of
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the most iconic buildings in New York and in the world. The Statue of Liberty. Welcome
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back to JForrest English training, of course I'm Jennifer and this is your place to become
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a fluent confident English speaker. Let's get started. To read this article, we need
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to go onto my computer. So let's go on to my computer now and start the lesson. Welcome
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to my computer. As you can see our famous landmark, the Statue of Liberty. So let's
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begin our article. The title is "You can finally climb on top of the crown of the Statue of
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Liberty again". Now just in case you don't know what the crown is, here's our Statue
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of Liberty. So the crown is this top part right here. And of course it looks like what
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a king, queen, any royalty, what they wear on their head and that is the crown. So you
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could climb, climb up to the crown. That would be pretty cool, wouldn't it? Why was the Statue
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of Liberty crown closed until now? Let's find out. Following a two and a half year closure
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caused by the COVID 19 pandemic, the Crown portion of the Statue of Liberty has officially
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reopened to the public this week. So let's look right here, two and a half year. Now
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two and a half, a half is of course point five right, so two and a half. That is 2.5.
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But why does it say year? And why doesn't it say years? That's because right here, two
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and a half, this is an adjective two and a half year. This whole thing is describing
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what type of closure it was, okay? And that's why year does not have a plural, because adjectives
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don't have singular and plurals. This will make more sense if you look at it like, I
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took a 30 day vacation. Okay, so notice here, I took a vacation. This is grammatically correct.
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What type of vacation, a short vacation a long vacation a relaxing vacation. All of
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those are adjectives but I can also use a time period as an adjective. I took a 30 day
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vacation a 30 month vacation a 30 minute vacation compared to I took a vacation or 30 days.
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Now here is our noun 30 days, which means to be singular or plural. If it were one day
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obviously singular. 30 more than one so days. That is why you don't have an S here. I hear
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this mistake a lot from students. What else? Oh, let's look at this re opened when you
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add re in front of a verb it means to do it again. Okay, so I could say I re watched the
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movie. I can't think of a movie name. I really watched the movie. So this means I watched
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the movie again. I watched the movie again. So this is my verb. Watch is just in the past
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simple and I'm adding rate. You can add a dash there or you don't have to. It's optional.
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In terms of spelling. I see it more commonly without the dash but as you can see here in
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the article, they do have a dash, but your boss might say, hey, Julio, can you redo the
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report? Can you redo the report? He's asking you how to do it again. Can you redo the report?
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So that's a very useful word to put in front of a verb notice the pronunciation re re redo
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rewatch reopen, remake. If you've been trying to visit the destination since March of 2020,
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though, you might have to wait a tad bit longer. Tickets to access the crowd are basically
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sold out through October. Make sure to reserve your past for a future date. Right here. So
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you can reserve your past if you'd like. Okay, notice here What verb tense is this? The present
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perfect continuous have or has depending on the subject you have is just a contraction.
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B E. So this is you have you have equals you as a contraction, then we have been and then
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we have our verb in ING so that's the present perfect continuous and we use this for an
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action that started in the past, but continues until now and we want to stress the continuation
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of the action. That's the i n g. I've been trying to book my ticket since March since
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2020 cents this morning. Now you could also say for two hours for two years for five days.
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So when we have a period of time we use for and then we use sent with a specific date.
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I like this one a tad bit a tad bit. This is a very natural vocabulary choice and it
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means a little bit a little bit a tad. So you might say I was a tad late today, through
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here. I was late today. How late were you? Just a little right so you could say I was
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a little that's very common. You probably know it. Here's a new fun natural expression
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that's very common. I was a tad late today. You need this article. Ah, you might say I'm
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a tad tired today. So this is saying I'm a little tired or she's tired. hungry right
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now. Right now she's a tad a little tad. Tad don't forget that article. Let's move on.
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According to CNN, the National Park Service, which manages the landmark was attempting
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to hold a soft reopening without too much advertisement in late October to celebrate
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the 136th anniversary of the statues dedication in 1886. Okay, so here we have reopening again,
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here we had re open. Now we're having re opening. So they're opening it again, opening it again.
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Re opening I don't think there's anything else I want to teach you here. If you have
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comments about any of this just put your comments in the chat and I will try to answer them
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or record a future video. This is a good one. I hope you already use this in your vocabulary.
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But according to someone or something. This is a very professional formal business vocabulary.
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The CNN is a newspaper Media Group, so that is considered a something but you could have
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a someone according to Brad, Brad, the reporter with The CNN according to Brad according to
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my mom agreeing to my boss according to the news report, so it can be a someone or something.
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Don't forget this too. And don't forget it's an i n g according to. Alas, folks got so
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excited about the announcement that those in charge had no choice but to work on a full
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fledged opening this month. You're probably wondering what this alas means. This is an
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adverb. It's a little bit outdated. To be honest. I don't think you'll hear it that
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often. But it is interesting. You might hear it in movies more so it's an advert to express
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disappoint disappointment, basically disappointment. So I might say I wanted to go to the party.
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But alas, I had to work. So here is the sentence is correct without it was not necessary. But
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I had to work. I wanted to go to the party but I had to work. You don't know what my
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tone is. And am I upset that I missed the party? Am I relieved that I missed the party?
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If I add a last? You know, I'm upset because it's used to express disappointment. I want
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it to go to the party. But alas, I had to work. Alas, alas But alas, I had to work.
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We had to hire people to get them up to speed to effectively run Crown corporations. Gerri
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Willis, a spokesperson for Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island said to
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CNN, okay, we had to hire people when you hire someone, it means you bring them into
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your company as an employee, as a worker, you give someone a job, right? So it's a very
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useful verb. This is a verb to give someone a job to hire someone. Now, to get someone
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up to speed to get someone up to speed. This is a great expression this means to get someone
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up to speed okay? This means to give someone the information that they need to do the job
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or do the task. So if you were just hired to manage a project, but the project was already
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in progress, you need to know a lot of different things about that project. What is the timeline?
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What's the budget who's doing what who is in charge of what what has already been accomplished?
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So if I share all that information with you, I'm doing it because I want to bring you up
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to speed. So this is the information you need to have. And this is the information you have.
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So I want you to I want to bring you up to speed which means to make sure your knowledge
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is where it needs to be. Now, this is very commonly used with two verbs to get someone
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up to speed or to bring someone up to speed I think I use to bring someone up to speed
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and some of my examples because that's the one I use more frequently. But I also here
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get someone up to speed. Both of these verbs are acceptable and they both have the same
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meaning. So this is an excellent expression. To bring to bring someone up to speed Okay,
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to give someone the information they need to complete a task. Now that task might be
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a job. It could be something more casual as well. Why was the Statue of Liberty crown
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close? Great question. On March 16 2020, the National Park Service shuttered all operations
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at the Statue of Liberty in reaction to the pandemic this is only used in a business context
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the verb is to shutter and this means to permanently close to permanently close. So when a company
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or a business permanently closes, you can say the board shuttered that company. The
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board closed the company. The government shuttered that company. This could also be used in the
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passive. The company was shuttered. But again, this is very specifically a business verb.
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You won't use it outside of this context. Although portions of the monument started
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welcoming visitors once more. The pedestal deck, for example, has been operating since
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July of 2021. The crown itself remained closed. I don't think there's anything there I need
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to teach you. Willis told CNN that a variety of factors contributed to the delayed reopening,
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including state and federal pandemic restrictions and dealing with a record low hiring pool.
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This is a useful expression. Low, record low. So of course you can have highs and lows.
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So let's say the average low is about here. Let's use the weather so let's say in winter,
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in your city, the temperature is 10 degrees Celsius. But and that's the average temperature
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but then one year your city had a record low so it went down to five degrees Celsius or
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three degrees Celsius. So that means it was a record it was a new accomplishment and note
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worthy of that. So a record low means lower than average, lower than normally it is now
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hiring pool. A hiring pool describes the amount of people available to be hired. And remember,
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we already learned what that meant up here. When you hire someone, you give them a job.
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So if I want to be hired, it means I want to receive a job. So to be hired. This is
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when you receive a job, to be higher to receive a job to hire someone is to give someone a
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job. These are two must know verbs and make sure you don't confuse them because I could
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say, I was hired by the company. The company hired me. So passive I'm receiving the job.
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Active the company is giving the job. And remember hiring pool is just the availability
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of people able to be hired. So maybe there are 100 people in the hiring pool. 100 people.
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But it could also be a million people. It could be five people. The number could be
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any number at all. So we'll just say 500 people. How do I get to the Statue of Liberty crown?
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Great question. Would be visitors need to buy tickets in advance, which include a round
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trip ferry ride to Liberty Island and usually a pitstop at the Ellis Island National Museum
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of Immigration as well. Certainly a must see in of itself. All right. There's some great
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vocabulary here for travel vocabulary, round trip, round trip. So a round trip means you
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go and you return a one way trip is you go that's it. So of course you need a round trip
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because you need to come back. It's an island. You can't be stuck on the island, right? So
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it makes sense that it's a round trip, but you might commonly purchase a one way ticket
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to Spain, because you want to stay in Spain for a longer period of time or after that
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you might go to another country, but you don't necessarily want to go to Spain and come back
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if you do then that's our round trip. Ticket to Spain. Up hit stop. This is when you go
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from destination A to B but you need to do something in the middle. So maybe I'm going
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from my house to my office. But I need to make up pitstop at the bank and take out some
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money or deposit some money or I need to make a pit stop at the grocery store and buy some
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milk or I need to make a pit stop at the mall and buy a new pair of shoes. So you're going
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from A to B but then you stopped somewhere before so a pit stop. Pit is an adjective
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is just describing what type of stop a pit stop a temporary stop when going from point
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A to B and is a temporary stop for a specific purpose, such as to buy milk or to purchase
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something else or to drop something off the pastor's will also grant you access to
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the Liberty National Monument, the pedestal and the crown of the monument. The Statue
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of Liberty museum with its three interactive galleries and the grounds of Liberty Island
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and Ellis Island. Once on premise, you will have to climb in stories. There's 215 stairs
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to be precise, to reach the statues pedestal and another one 162 stairs to actually get
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to the crown. In case you were wondering, there is an elevator but it peaks out the
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pedestal portion of the monument. Needless to say the extra workout to climb all the
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way to the top is absolutely worth it. All right. This is a Muslim expression right here
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to be worth it. Do you see the verb to be? Is right here to be worth it. So you could
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say climbing to the top is worth it. So this is our something. This is commonly used as
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a gerund expression. Notice here climbing to the top I might say visiting the top that
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that would be a good gerund verb visiting the top what happened to the rest of mine?
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I don't know where the rest of the text went. Sorry about that. Visiting the top is worth
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it. Seeing the top climbing to the top. So a gerund verb going to the top. Taking pictures
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at the top is worth it. Now you could also say it is it it's worth it to climb to the
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top. So you can absolutely see this and it's grammatically correct. We're starting with
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our subject are ever worth it. And then to climb to the top this is grammatically correct.
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This I would say is more common. So the exact translation would be climbing to the top is
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worth it. And this gives you the chance to use a more advanced structure and use a gerund
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verb and let's look at right here as well. Needless to say, this is all very advanced
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expression it will help you sound professional. Needless to say. This is an expression that
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means information isn't surprising. So it's expected. Needless to say the extra workout
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to climb all the way to the top is absolutely worth it. So this is a way of saying climbing
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to the top is worth it. But that's not surprising, right? Because let's look at the top. If you
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came all the way to New York, and you visited the Statue of Liberty, why would you stay
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down here at the bottom, when you can go to the top? Wouldn't it be worth it to go to
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the top? Of course it would. Needless to say it's not surprising. It's expected that I
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would say it's worth it. And of course you wouldn't do that right? I would totally want
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to go to the top. In fact, I've been to New York many times. I've been to the Statue of
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Liberty and I'm embarrassed to say I didn't even know you could go to the top. So I'm
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a little bit embarrassed about that. And now I want to go to the top. What about you? Have
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you seen the Statue of Liberty in person? Did you know you could go to the top? Okay,
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needless to say, I might say let's say it's been a very, very busy week at work extremely
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busy. Our record breaking busy week. Now I might say tomorrow is Friday and needless
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to say, we all need a break. So it's Friday, which means it's the weekend. It's time for
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you to relax and recover from the busy, busy busy week. And of course I'm saying we need
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a break but that's expected it's obvious we need a break because we just had a very busy
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week. Needless to say. Needless to say, I might even say something like needless to
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say as a language learner, it's important to expand your vocabulary. So my sentences
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as a language learner, it's important to expand your vocabulary, but I'm adding this expression
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to let you know well this isn't very surprising is it? Do you know this expected needless
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to say an excellent expression to add to your vocabulary. And that is the end of our article.
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Amazing job today. Think of all the natural grammar, vocabulary and even pronunciation
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that you learned in this very interactive way in this very natural way. If you found
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this video helpful, please hit the like button, share it with your friends and of course subscribe.
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And this is the first video I've created in this style. So please I love to hear your
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feedback. Did you like this style of lesson did you find it useful? Is there anything
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I can do to improve this style of lesson would you like to see more lessons like this in
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the future? Share your feedback any feedback positive or negative in the comments below
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so I can keep making the best content possible for you. And before you go, make sure you
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head on over to my website JForrestEnglish.com and download your free speaking guide. In
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this guide I shared six tips on how to speak English fluently and confidently and until
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next time to be studying up
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