Read An Article From The BBC With Me | Advanced English Lesson

Today we're going to read a news article together.  You're going to learn a lot of vocabulary, grammar  

and pronunciation naturally by reading this  article with me. Now, this was an article from  

the BBC. I'm sure you're very familiar with the  BBC and already use it to improve your English.  

So let's keep doing that together. Welcome  back to JForrestEnglish training. Of course,  

I'm Jennifer and this is your place to become  confident English speaker. Now let's get started.  

Welcome to our article,  the title is Anna May Wong,  

who is this woman? Does she look familiar  to you? Doesn't look familiar to me. Anna  

May Wong actress becomes first Asian  American on US currency. Now currency.  

This is another word for money. So currency is  just describing the money in the US currency  

is in dollars. Or coins in paper bills or  coins. So currency is another word for money.  

actress Anna May Wong is set to become the first  Asian American to be featured on US currency.  

Basically what the title said. Now here this is  a great expression to be set to become. So what  

do you notice here? What is this to become? This  is an infinitive and infinitive. And what kind  

of verb is this? Well, of course the verb to be  right. Now this is important because it helps you  

understand the sentence structure for expressions,  because this expression is formed with the verb  

be and then set be set. And then we have our  infinitive. Now, in this case, the infinitive is  

to become, we could change the infinitive verb to  something else. And then notice we have our verb  

conjugated with our subject. Who is the subject?  Anna May Wong? Of course, so our subject is she  

and that's why it is is she is set to become and  what does this mean be set to? And infinitive so  

this simply means, be ready to or be prepared to  so you can use it in the same way. You might say.  

For example, I'm set to present at tomorrow's  meeting. So my verb to be is conjugated with  

the subject. I, we have our verb sent, which  doesn't change and then we have our infinitive.  

In this case, my verb is present, and  the infinitive doesn't change also,  

so the only thing you're conjugating is the verb  to be on set to present at tomorrow's meeting.  

Now native speakers will frequently add the  word all for no reason at all. It doesn't add  

anything to the meaning of it. I'm all set.  I'm all set to go to the mall. I'm ready to  

go to the mall. You don't have to do that.  It's just optional. So you can say I'm set  

set to go to the airport, for example.  I'm ready to go. I'm prepared to go.  

She will appear as part of an effort  to feature notable women on American  

quarters. Wong who is considered the  first Chinese American film star in  

Hollywood is the fifth and final woman to be  individually featured on the coin this year.  

Okay on the coin, what coin are we talking about?  A little listening comprehension quiz for you. On  

the coin, the coin which coin well the coin  is here, the quarter the quarter. This can  

be tricky for you. If you're not familiar with  American currency, which again means so quarter  

is a type of coin, which is why we haven't  here and the value is 25 cents or point two  

5.25 of $1 that's the value of a  quarter. So doesn't get you very much.  

Now I want to talk about pronunciation  because I hear a lot of mistakes with  

the pronunciation of women, women. This  is well I'll ask you is this singular  

or plural singular or plural? women, women.  Notable women this is plural. So one woman,  

two women. I want you to notice my pronunciation.  One woman woke up woman, woman to wit at women,  

two women 112 Women. good pronunciation tip for  you to practice. All right now, keep in mind this  

quarter because I know there's a picture of  the quarter below so you'll get to see this  

and remember a corridor is a coin as its currency  and it's worth 25 cents or point two five of $1.  

The quarter will enter general circulation on  Monday. To enter general circulation. This is  

a very formal way of saying will be used by  people so you will get it when you go to a  

store. When you go to the bank. You will receive  it. I don't think you really need to know that  

for your vocabulary. It's quite formal, but for  listening comprehension for reading comprehension  

now you know what it means. It what does it  represent it? The quarter, the quarter that's the  

is it the quarter will feature President George  Washington on one side and long on the other. So  

we have this coin. There's two sides of the coin.  One side is the President the other side wall.  

ventures Gibson director of the US Mint,  called Wong a courageous advocate who champion  

for increased representation and more multi  dimensional roles for Asian American actors.  

No cure this is a good word to have in your  vocabulary. It's quite normal, but we use this  

often in a business context and you will see it a  lot when you're reading anything from the news. So  

you hear in this case they're using it as a now  she was an advocate. Notice I have a courageous  

advocate because right now advocate is separated  by my adjective courageous. So because of that  

this is our adjective because of that. I need my  article ah, because our goes with courageous but  

if I just have advocate and no adjective in front  of it, then I need an and advocate because we use  

and when you have a vowel sound about sound before  an advocate. So you can say she was an advocate.  

This is the noun we very commonly use  this as a verb form. She advocated for  

Asian American actors she advocated for when you  advocate for notice or preposition choice here.  

You don't advocate to advocate on advocate in  you advocate for when you're learning vocabulary,  

it's very helpful to learn the prepositions when  you learn the words because if you don't use the  

correct preposition, it will be grammatically  incorrect and it won't sound very good either.  

She advocated for Asian American actors, so you  can advocate for someone. This would be a someone,  

a group of people. You can also advocate for  something. So you might say she advocated or  

increased representation. So this is a some thing.  Our preposition doesn't change we still need  

or in both cases something something increased  representation or someone Asian American actors  

and when you advocate for someone or something,  you act as a representative for them a supporter  

for them. You want to promote their views and  you want to promote their cause whatever that  

pause may be, so you're supporting them. It's just  a more formal way of saying it a very common in a  

newspaper context. You'll hear it a lot  in the media and it is a good business.  

verb to have as well. This quarter oh, we're going  to see the quarter are you excited? Dun dun dun.  

Here's the quarter. So remember, this is worth 25  cents, or one quarter of $1 point two five of $1  

one quarter that's why it's called Porter. So this  is a coin. Remember? Coin. A coin. The name of the  

coin is a quarter there are different coins. In  American currency. And remember currency is money.  

So this is a type of currency and  the type of coin it is is a quarter.  

This is a very nice quarter, isn't it? So if  you're in the US right now you can go to a store  

go to a bank and you might receive this coin you  might receive this quarter. That would be pretty  

cool. And remember on the other side, we have  president was it George Washington, I believe  

this quarter is designed to reflect the breadth  and depth of accomplishments by Anna May Wong  

who overcame challenges and obstacles she  faced during her lifetime. She said let's  

look at breadth and depth. Now breadth is the  range so if someone has a breadth of knowledge,  

it means their knowledge is why on many different  subjects, and daps you can think of as this way so  

you have all these different subjects. Let's say  one subject is politics. And then you have your  

dabs of politics, so you know many different  subjects, that's your breadth of knowledge  

and then within each subject, you know all a  lot about that subject and that's your depth  

so that's a great expression we have we usually  use breadth and depth in terms of knowledge. Here  

you can see they're doing it with accomplishment,  so she could have a breadth of accomplishments,  

maybe accomplishments as an actress  accomplishments as a teacher accomplishments as  

an advocate. And then within each accomplishment,  she has a depth of accomplishment. So she has  

many different times that she advocated or many  different times that she was a successful actress  

let's oh, here's our lovely quarter. Again,  I really like to see one in person now. Let's  

move on. One was born in Los Angeles in 1905  1905. Notice how I'm pronouncing this as Oh,  

the number is 00123. I have $0 in my bank account,  

hopefully you don't need to say that. I  have $0 in my bank account. Hopefully not  

you. Now of course not. Is this 00123 But  I wouldn't say 19 05. I would for dates.  

Let me continue here with our date. So with date,  you pronounce it as oh that's the pronunciation  

1905 1905. That's the pronunciation here. But if  I'm telling someone my own number, I might say  

I could say 0019. If this was part of my phone  number, or oh, oh, one nine. So you can do either  

with phone number zero, or Oh, both of them are  quite common, to be honest. So with phone numbers,  

addresses even I live at  0019 or Oh one nine addresses  

and money you would say zero so for  money you would definitely say zero  

but for deeds, we would say Oh 1905 Wong was born  in Los Angeles in 1905. To Chinese immigrants. Her  

name at birth was Wong Lu some I'm not sure how to  pronounce that. But later in life, she adopted the  

stage name of Anna May Wong and I'm sure this is  exactly why she changed her name because Americans  

don't know how to pronounce that unfortunately.  Formed by joining her English and family and  

she was cast in her first role as an extra  in the film The Red lounge and continue to  

take on smaller parts and telephones.  Roll in the tool of the seat in 1922.  

You probably don't know these movies,  maybe you do. I don't know these movies.  

Let's look at this here. Did I want to show you  Okay, first of all, when you're cast in a movie  

role, this is a verb specific or the entertainment  industry so you can be cast in a TV show, a play,  

movie, anything that you perform in and that is  used for the entertainment industry. It means  

that she was hired for the job but they don't use  this vocabulary in the entertainment industry.  

This is why when you're learning a language  is so important to understand the specific  

industry you're in and then learn the terms and  the vocabulary of that industry. If you're in  

the medical industry, or if you're a lawyer or  an engineer, you're going to have very specific  

vocabulary to your industry and you need to learn  that vocabulary. So if you're in the entertainment  

industry, you should probably already know this  verb to be cast in a role. So anyone else would  

just say she was hired for the job. This is in a  regular context, not the entertainment industry.  

Okay, here we have a great phrasal verb to  take on to take on. When you take something  

on you accept responsibility for a project or a  task. In this case, she accepted responsibility  

for a part which is a part of a movie so  she was in the movie for a portion of time.  

Your boss for example, might  say can you take on this client?  

Which means Can you accept responsibility  for this client? For this job?  

Or I took on too many projects last month. So  last month, you said yes, I can do that. Yes,  

I can do that. Yes. I can do that. You accepted  responsibility for different tasks or different  

assignments, but it was too much. Or you  might say, sorry, I can't take that on right  

now. I already have a lot on my plate and  teaching you a bonus expression right here.  

The expression is to have a lot on and then one's  plate the one in this case is me. So I'm changing  

it to mine but I might say you have a lot on your  plate. She has a lot on her plate. He has a lot  

on his plate. They have a lot on their plate.  Now that means to be very busy. Do you have a  

lot on one's plate is an idiom and it means  to be very busy. So that could be the reason  

why you can't take that on that being whatever  project it is. I can't take on that project. I  

can't take that on. I have a lot on my plate.  So that's a great idiom for you to start using.  

She appeared in more than 60 movies across her  career. That's a lot of movies that's impressive,  

including silent films and one of her first one  of the first made in Technicolor interesting.  

One was also the first Asian American  lead actor in the US television show,  

the gallery of Madame Hui small in  which she played a Chinese detective  

after facing discrimination in the US she traveled  to Europe to work in English, French and German  

films. I like this expression here after  and then you have a gerund. This is a great  

sentence structure for you to use to  sound quite advanced so you can say after  

graduating, I moved abroad after  improving my English I took on more  

public speaking so you accepted responsibility for  I took on more public speaking after improving.  

Now you could absolutely say after I improved  and then everything else would be the same.  

But notice in this case, we're using a gerund verb  and in this case I'm using subject and then my  

verb is going to be conjugated in the past simple  because the action is complete. After I graduated,  

I moved abroad. After graduating,  I moved abroad. To me this sounds  

very natural. It has a nice flow to it and  it sounds more advanced than saying after I  

graduated. So I highly recommend you add this to  your vocabulary. Remember it is after plus Gerrans  

after plus Geron which is your verb in ing.  

How much do we have? Oh eight. We're  almost done here. She was awarded  

a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in  1960 and die the following year, aged 56.  

Jemma Chan, known for appearing in Crazy Rich  Asians and Marvel's Eternals is set to portray  

Wong and an upcoming biopic about the stars life.  Oh, so we're going to have a movie coming out  

about long in the near future. Now here's our  expression again is set to what does this mean?  

is prepared to or ready to. And remember, it's to  be set and then infinitive. So here our infinitive  

is to portray and our verb to be is conjugated  with he she it because what's the subject? In  

this case? Our subject is Gemma Chan. Our subject  is quite far removed from our verb which happens  

a lot in spoken English, of course, but it  happens equally in Britain English. All of  

this in the commas is just extra additional  information, but our subject is Gemma Chan,  

and our verb is conjugated with the  subject. She's ready to portray Wong  

the American women, the American women quarters  program, so this is one name of something the  

American women quarters program. Remember our  pronunciation of women with with women women.  

The American women quarters program  began this year and will feature five  

women each year until 2025. Native  Hawaiian hula teacher, Edith Kyla  

cannot go ole cannot go late, has been  named as one of the selections for 2023.  

So they're talking about a different corner so  remember our quarter so in 2023 is going to be  

the Hawaiian hula teacher who's going to be on  the quarter so you can look over to that as well.  

has been named as one of the selections  for 2023. So that was the end of the  

article. There was one other thing I  wanted to explain before we wrap up,  

which means to end before we wrap up  before we end, the following your age 56  

I see a lot of mistakes with age so you  can say she was if the sets when she died.  

So this is correct. You can also say she was 56  years old. Why when she died? Not as cracked.  

How about this one? She was it  the six years when she died?  

What do you think she was 56 years when she died?  Is this correct? or incorrect? What do you think?  

This is incorrect. You can't see that. I see this  a lot. So you have two options when seeing age.  

You can say just the number 56 She was 56 or you  can include years old. 56 years old. Those are  

your two options. This is not correct. You  cannot just say yours. You either have to  

get rid of it, or you have to add old but this by  itself is not correct. So make sure you don't say  

that one. And then is the end of the article so  I hope you enjoyed learning about our actress who  

is on the quarter. Anna May Wong and remember  you can watch that upcoming movie about her as  

going to be played by Gemma chan so that would  be quite interesting. So I hope you enjoyed the  

article. Amazing job like this lesson. Now I  want you to take one of your new expressions  

that you learn from this article and leave some  example sentences in the comments below so you  

can practice your new vocabulary and if you found  this video helpful, please hit the like button,  

share it with your friends and of course subscribe  and before you go make sure you head on over to my  

website JForrestEnglish.com and download your  free speaking Guide. In this guide I share  

six tips on how to speak English fluently and  confidently and until next time Happy studying.