Learn English Through Story | Improve Your English | English Listening Skills

One of the best ways to improve your English fluency is by reading.

And when you read, you improve all areas of your English at the same time, which makes

it so effective.

So that's what we'll do today.

We'll read a news article together.

Welcome back to JForrest English.

Of course, I'm Jennifer.

Now let's get started.

First, I'll read the headline New Year's Resolutions, Statistics 2024.

So let's talk about the grammar of all these s s that you see.

So here New Year's.

The S is possessive because the resolutions belong to the New year.

But this S is plural form because there are more than one resolutions.

Let's compare these sentences.

Did you set a New Year's resolution?

So notice we have an article because it's a singular noun.

Did you set any New Year's resolutions And I could get rid of the article here.

Did you set New Year's resolutions?

Because when you use a plural noun, you don't need an article or a modifier, but I can add

any to emphasize that it's more than one.

So here is talking about resolutions in general, and here is specifying 1.

Now notice the verb you use.

You set a New Year's resolution.

And right now, if you don't know what a New Year's resolution is, it's simply a goal.

But it's a goal that you begin on January 1st, the new Year.

So what about you?

Did you set any New Year's resolutions share?

Yes I did.

Or no, I didn't in the comments.

And this, As for statistics, is because there's more than one statistic, so it's a plural.

Now don't worry about taking these notes because I summarize everything in a free lesson PDF.

You can look in the description for the link.

Now let's continue.

The start of a new year serves as an opportunity for many to set new goals.

So same thing here you use the verb set with goal.

And notice goals is in plural, so we don't have an article, but if you used it in the

singular, you in need an article.

You could also say for many to set a new goal, but if you don't want to use that article,

you can just turn it set.

Well, as you see in the article here, set new goals, you just add the plural form so

both of them are grammatically correct.

It just uses slightly different grammar of course.

So we need that as here, because there is no article and you set a goal, you set a New

Year's resolution.

Now remember, is only called a New Year's resolution if you start it on January 1st.

Any other time of the year, we just call them goals and notice here the start of a new year

but before in our headline it was capitalized.

Now everything is capitalized in the headline, but even if it wasn't notice in my example,

I still capitalized it because it's a proper name, is a proper noun.

So that's why it's capitalized, because it's a statutory holiday in North America.

But here they're just talking about the New Year in general.

They're not talking about New Year's, which is December 31st, New Year's Eve.

And then New Year's Day is January 1st, And New Year's Day, as I said, is a statutory

holiday in North America.

The start of a New year serves as an opportunity for many to set new goals and commit to better

habits.

But what happens when the energy and excitement after the ball drop wears off?

Let's talk about this phrasal verb here wears off.

When something wears off, it means it is no longer in effect.

It's no longer usable.

For example, if I had a headache and I took a pill, but then later, five hours later,

I could say, oh, I think my pill is wearing off, it means I no longer have the effect

of that pill.

And in this context, they're talking about the energy, the excitement of the New Year,

when that gradually disappears, when that wears off, and how many New Year's resolutions

fail to come to fruition.

If something fails to come to fruition, it simply means fails to happen.

That's the come to fruition happen fails to come to fruition.

For example, our dream vacation finally came to fruition because the expression uses the

verb come and this is in the past simple came to fruition.

So our vacation happened.

We went on vacation.

Our dream vacation finally came to fruition.

So we use this expression more when we want to emphasize something really positive happening.

Then we would use it.

But notice how we also use it in the negative.

Oh, my dream vacation didn't come to fruition.

It didn't happen.

And if I really want to emphasize that lack, so I added that negative here.

How about you?

Have you ever set a New Year's resolution?

But it didn't come to fruition?

It didn't happen?

Well, as we'll see in this article, that's a very common thing, Setting a New Year's

resolution.

Remember, we can use goal.

Setting a goal is an incredibly common practice, especially in the US.

Are you enjoying this lesson?

If you are, then I want to tell you about the Finely Fluent Academy.

This is my premium training program where we study native English speakers from TV,

the movies, YouTube, and the news so you can improve your listening skills of fast English,

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Now let's continue with our lesson.

A 2022 poll indicated that 37% of Americans said they had a goal or resolution they wanted

to achieve in 2023.

So 37% of people.

And that was in 2022.

Now a poll.

This is a survey.

So when they ask a large group of people and notice here after you set a goal, when you

set a goal is when you establish that goal.

But after you set it, then you can just use the verb have to talk about possession.

I set my New Year's resolution on December 31st.

I have an amazing New Year's resolution that I'm working towards because I want it to come

to fruition.

So that's how you can use, set and have together.

I wrote this example here for you.

Now let's continue.

Interestingly, I like this as a transition word.

Adding transition words is a great way to sound more advanced, professional and fluent.

So before you're about to say something interesting, you can start your sentence with the adverb

interestingly, and then you can deliver some piece of interesting information.

So let's find out what this interesting information is.

Interestingly, another study found the practice of resolution setting.

Again, we're seeing that you set a resolution.

So here they're just talking about it as an activity of resolution setting.

You could also say of setting resolutions.

Remember, if you put it in the plural form, you don't need an article.

If you put in the singular, you would have to say the practice of setting all resolution.

And it makes sense to put it in the plural form because it's very common for people to

have more than one resolution, more than one goal.

I wrote that here for you.

The practice of resolution setting may be more common in the US, as similar polls in

Sweden found just 12% to 14% of people's set goals for the new year.

OK, so if you're in Sweden or whatever country you're in, let me know in the comments.

Is it common practice in your country to set New Year's resolutions?

You can say yes it is, Yes, it is common practice, or no, it isn't.

No, it isn't common practice.

So you can put that in the comments.

I'd love to know.

Let's continue.

If you find yourself in the camp of setting lofty goals, OK, I love this adjective, A

lofty goal, my favorite type of goals.

A lofty goal is simply a big goal, but some people might describe it as an unrealistic

goal.

So let's say a realistic goal is you want to become fluent in 12 months.

So then someone who likes to set lofty goals would say cut that time in half, do it in

six months.

So whatever you set as your goal, either reduce the time it takes or increase the goal.

A lot of people also call these stretch goals because they stretch you, they stretch your

abilities.

So I've heard lofty goals.

I've also heard stretch goals.

Now if you find yourself in the camp of, we use this to say, oh, there's a camp of people

here and there's a camp of people here, and they have different preferences or different

points of view.

So if you're in the camp of setting lofty goals, it means you like setting lofty goals.

But then it also implies there's a group of people who don't like setting lofty goals,

so they're in a different camp.

That's just an expression we use to say that people are divided, Opinions are divided.

All right, so let's read this again.

If you find yourself in the camp of setting lofty goals for the new year, only to find

yourself falling off the wagon just months or weeks later, when you fall off the wagon,

it means you go back to your old behavior.

So let's say your lofty goal was to eat no sugar.

So not a realistic goal might be to reduce your sugar intake by 50%.

But you you're in the camp of setting lofty goals, so you say you know what?

0 sugar.

That's your lofty goal.

So if you so a week, two weeks, no sugar, 0 sugar.

But then you have a cookie, or a piece of cake or a chocolate bar.

So you fell off the wagon because you went back to your old behavior so only to find

yourself falling off the wagon just months or weeks later.

Rest assured that you're not alone.

In fact, failing at New Year's resolutions is so common that there's even a slew of unofficial

dates commemorating such failures.

Slew of this is simply a large number of listen to that pronunciation.

Slew, oh, slew.

A slew of dates.

So a large number of dates, many dates and commemorating is when you recognize it and

sometimes even celebrate it.

So recognize or celebrate.

Now going back to slew, you could say there's a slew of people at work who cut out sugar.

So this is their New Year's resolution.

When you cut out something, it means you eliminate it.

So who cut out sugar?

Well, let's learn about this slew of dates.

Some sources cite ditch New Year's Resolution Day as January 17th.

I've never heard this before.

What about you?

Did you know there's a ditch New Year's Resolution Day?

OK, let's talk about ditch.

Ditch.

Here is a verb, and when you ditch something, it means you get rid of something that's no

longer wanted.

So let's say sugar.

Sugar is no longer wanted.

So maybe a friend might tell you A friend decided to set a lofty goal to cut out sugar

entirely, and then they think you should do the same.

So they say to you, you should ditch sugar.

You should get rid of sugar because it's no longer wanted.

So ditch New Year's Resolutions Day.

That means getting rid of your New Year's resolution, throwing it in your in the garbage

on January 17th.

Come on people, that's only two weeks later.

Oh, people give up on their goals so quickly.

While others denote the 2nd Friday in January as Quitters Day again the 2nd Friday.

That's two weeks.

All right, let's talk about Denote.

Denote means represents and listen to that pronunciation.

The denote denote so it's a very unstressed.

It's not denote.

Denote others denote the 2nd Friday in January as quitters day.

So the 2nd January and Friday represents quitters day, which means the day that people quit.

This was an example in the dictionary.

I really like it.

The color red denotes passion or danger.

02 very different things.

So the color red represents passion or danger.

Let's continue.

One survey found that the average resolution lasts just 3.7 four months.

Only 8% of respondents.

Respondents.

Those are the people who respond to the survey or the poll.

So here it was a survey but before we saw poll.

And it's just people who respond tend to stick with their goals for one month.

When you stick with something, it means you continue doing it.

And we often use this to encourage people to continue doing something difficult or uncomfortable,

like a lofty goal.

Here's an example.

I know cutting out sugar isn't easy, but you should stick with it.

So you should continue doing it.

Because remember, we use this with something difficult.

Continue doing something difficult.

You should stick with it.

So respondents tend to stick with their goals for one month, while 22% last two months.

So they stick with their goals for two months, 22% last three months.

So again, they stick with their goals for three months and 13% last four months.

Now, I know you, you're dedicated, you're committed, You're going to stick with your

goals until you finish them, right?

Until they come to fruition.

You've got this.

I know you can do it.

All right, let's continue.

But the beauty of goal setting is you don't need a ball drop to signal a fresh start.

Do you get the significance of this?

You don't need a ball drop because remember, this article is about New Year's resolutions,

which people start on January 1st and in North America we denote the ball.

We denote the new year with the ball drop.

So in New York Times Square the ball drops.

I don't know if in your country you have your own ball dropping tradition or a different

tradition, but this denotes the new year.

Notice how I've been using denote.

This denotes the new year in North America.

The ball drop when everyone counts down 1098 as the balls dropping.

All right, so that's what they're saying.

You don't need a ball drop to signal a fresh start, which means you don't need to wait

until January 1st to set a goal.

You can set a goal today, right now, anytime of the year.

You can recommit to your resolutions at anytime.

So recommit.

We're adding RE here, which means you're committing again.

You committed on January 1st, but then you didn't stick with it.

But that's OK because you can recommit on May 2nd or September 21st.

It does not matter.

Anytime.

Let's continue.

In fact, June 1st is unofficially known by many as New Year's Resolution Recommitment

Day.

Never heard this in my life before.

I hadn't heard about Quitters Day.

What was the other one?

There was Quitters Day.

Ditch New Year's.

Oh, yeah, Ditch when you get rid of something no longer wanted.

Ditch New Year's Resolution Day.

Quitters Day.

Never heard of them.

And New Year's Resolution Recommitment Day.

Which recommitment?

It means the day you're saying I'm doing this again, you're recommitting to your lofty goals.

June 1st.

Never heard of it?

What about you?

OK, so that's New Year's Resolution Commitment Day, giving you the perfect opportunity to

take stock of where you are.

This is a great expression.

When you take stock of where you are, it means you assess your current situation and this

is a great thing to do in your professional life, Your personal life, your family life,

your social life, all areas of your life is good to take stock of where you are.

For example, after taking stock of my diet.

So after examining my diet, assessing my diet very carefully, after taking stock of my diet,

I realized that I need to cut out sugar.

So eliminate sugar from my diet, giving you the perfect opportunity to take stock of where

you are with your resolutions and hit reset if necessary.

So if you hit reset, it means you start again.

So you might take stock of your goals and realize that maybe your goal was a little

too lofty and you need to be a little more realistic.

You still want to stretch yourself, but maybe a little more realistic, and then hit reset.

All right.

And that's the end of our article.

So what I'll do now is I'll read the article from start to finish, and this time you can

focus on my pronunciation.

New Year's resolutions, Statistics 2024.

The start of a new year serves as an opportunity for many to set new goals and commit to better

habits.

But what happens when the energy and excitement after the ball drops wears off?

And how many New Year's resolutions fail to come to fruition?

Setting a New Year's resolution is an incredibly common practice, especially in the US.

A 2022 poll indicated that 37% of Americans said they had a goal or resolution they wanted

to achieve in 2023.

Interestingly, another study found the practice of resolution setting may be more common in

the US, as similar polls in Sweden found just 12% to 14% of people set goals for the new

year.

If you find yourself in the camp of setting lofty goals for the new year, only to find

yourself falling off the way again just months or weeks later, rest assured that you're not

alone.

In fact, failing at New Year's resolutions is so common that there's even a slew of unofficial

dates commemorating such failures.

Some sources cite Ditch New Year's Resolutions Day as January 17th, while others denote the

2nd Friday in January as quitters.

Day one survey found that the average resolution lasts just 3.7 four months.

Only 8% of respondents tend to stick with their goals for one month, while 22% last

two months, 22% last three months and 13% last four months.

But the beauty of goal setting is you don't need a ball drop to signal a fresh start.

You can recommit to your resolutions at any time.

In fact, June 1st is unofficially known by many as New Year's Resolution Recommitment

Day, giving you the perfect opportunity to take stock of where you are with your resolutions

and hit reset if necessary.

So did you like this reading lesson?

Do you want me to make more lessons where we review articles together?

If you do, then put lofty goals.

Put lofty goals in the comments and that's also a reminder to you to set lofty goals.

Why not shoot for the stars?

And of course, make sure you like this video, share it with your friends and subscribe so

you're notified every time I post a new lesson.

And you can get this free speaking guide where I share 6 tips on how to speak English fluently

and confidently.

You can click here to download it or look for the link in the description.

And you can keep improving your English with this lesson where we focus on your listening

skills.

You can watch it right now.