🏆 Read An Article From The BBC With Me | Advanced English Vocabulary Lesson (FREE LESSON PDF)

Are you ready to read an article from the BBC with me? When you learn English with the

news, it's a great way to learn advanced vocabulary, complex sentence structure and advanced grammar

and natural pronunciation in a really fun and engaging way. And make sure you watch

right until the end because I'm going to read the article in full at the very end, so you

can practice along with your pronunciation and I'll also share the link where you can

download the PDF all the lesson that we reviewed today. Welcome back to JForrest English training.

Of course I'm Jennifer and this is your place to become a fluid confident English speaker.

Let's get started.

Welcome to our article. So first I'm going to read the article in full so you can follow

along with my pronunciation and get an idea of the content of the article.

And then we'll do a step by step analysis of the article so you can learn a lot of advanced

grammar vocabulary and sentence structure. So let me read the article in full. Now, China

urges calm over spy balloon in US aerospace. China has urged cool-headed handling of a

dispute over a giant Chinese balloon heading for the Eastern US US Secretary of State Anthony

Bliken earlier called off a visit to Beijing saying the surveillance balloons presence

was an irresponsible act. Later the US reported a second Chinese balloon

floating over Latin America. China expressed regret over the balloon over the US saying

it was a weather airship that had blown China expressed regret over the balloon over the

US saying it was a weather airship that had been blown a strain.

It was last spotted over Missouri. It is expected to reach America's east coast near the Carolinas.

This weekend the US has decided not to shoot down the high altitude airship due to the

danger of falling debris. The incident comes amid freeing tensions between

the US and China. In a statement on Saturday, the Chinese foreign ministry said Beijing

never violated the territory and aerospace of any sovereign country.

It said its senior foreign policy official Wang Ye had discussed the incident with Mr.

Blaken over the phone stressing that maintaining communication channels at all levels was important,

especially in dealing with some unexpected situations in a calm and reliable manner.

It added that Beijing would not accept any groundless conjecture or hype and accuse some

politicians and media in the United States of using the incidents as a pretext to attack

and smear China. According to US officials, the airship floated

over Alaska and Canada before appearing over the US state of Montana, which is home to

a number of sensitive nuclear missile sites. The incident anger top US officials with Mr.

Blaken saying he had told Beijing the balloon's presence was a clear violation of US sovereignty

and international law and an irresponsible act.

He called it unacceptable and even more irresponsible coming on the eve of a long planned visit.

Now let's review the article in more detail and I'll explain some of the key vocabulary

grammar and sentence structure. So first our headline China urges Calm over

Spy balloon in US airship. So here's the apparent spy balloon. So this word may be new to you

to urge. This is a verb to urge it's conjugated in

the present simple. And I know that because it has an S, which means it's conjugated with

the subject China, which is it He she it. So we add that S in the present simple. Now

to urge this is a verb and this means to strongly advise or recommend.

You can think of it as recommend as well. This is a very common verb. For example, I'm

sure you've heard something like my, let's say, Here's an example sentence, my teacher

urged me. So you can urge someone to do something. So

that's the sentence structure. And notice our verb is in the past simple because it's

a completed action, my teacher urged me to practice my speaking skills.

So it's a strong recommendation or strongly advise you should do this. And it's a strong

recommendation. So very commonly used. So China is strongly suggesting that everybody

stay calm. <laugh> over the spy balloon. Let's continue on again, we see our urge this time.

What verb tense is it? In urge. You might think it's the past simple because you see

this ed, but you have to look because we have an auxiliary verb has, which means it is the

present perfect. China has urge present perfect and it's being

used because it's a past action. China already did this. It's co completed action, but there's

a result in the present. The result in the present is right now I want

you to remain calm. China has urged, cool-headed, cool-headed. This is an adjective.

Now to remain cool headed is another way of saying calm because we describe someone who

has a quick temper. So someone who gets angry very quickly and easily, we call them hot

headed. Hot headed, so cool headed. And this is head

in the sense of your head. Cool headed is someone who remains calm, but in this case

we're using it to describe how you're going to handle the situation.

So it's literally another way of saying calm. So that is cool headed. So you probably know

someone who is hotheaded and you probably know someone who is cool-headed as well.

China has urged cool-headed handling of a dispute over a giant Chinese balloon heading

for the Eastern us. So here's the balloon. The spy balloon heading is another way of

saying going, going, going in a particular direction. So it's going from one location

to another location. It's heading is going towards the direction

of the eastern US. US Secretary of State Anthony Blaken earlier called off a visit to Beijing.

When you call something off, this is a frail verb, very common frail verb and it means

to cancel a plan or an arrangement. So the Senate Secretary of State had already

planned to visit Beijing, but I'm calling it off. You're canceling that plan you already

had. So you might have planned to go to a conference

at work, but then the conference was called off. The conference was called off.

This is in the passive because I'm not specifying who called off who canceled the conference.

I could say the organizers called off the conference.

So that's a example in the active sentence. So again, to cancel, but you already had a

plan or an arrangement to do something. So you can use this with vacation plans, business

plans as well. Seeing the surveillance balloon's presence was an irresponsible act.

So this is the reason why the Secretary of State called off canceled the visit because

of the spy balloon. Okay, let's continue on. Later. The US reported a second Chinese balloon.

Oh floating over Latin America. So float. That is the action that a balloon does.

It floats in the air to float China expressed regret over the balloon over the us. This

is kind of an awkward sentence structure because we have over and over again, but it's required

because you have regret over something. That's the preposition we need with regret.

So you might say she felt a lot of regret over calling off the wedding.

Ooh. So she had planned a wedding, her wedding, and then she called it off, she canceled it.

I'm not getting married anymore. And then she has regret over that action.

This is just the preposition choice we use to connect regret with the clause in the sentence,

what you regret. Now, just to show you to focus in on the word

regret, because we often use this just as a verb as well.

She regretted and then this is a gerund verb, which means our verb that follows needs to

be in the i n G form. She regretted calling off The wedding. So

notice this sentence structure, these two sentences have the exact same meaning, but

in this example the verb is felt. Regret is being used as a noun. A lot of regret

as a noun it's a something. But in this case, regret is the verb.

So we don't need a preposition over for the verb because it's not a phrase verb. It's

just a verb, but it is a gerund verb. So you need an ING that follows it. And this

is the noun. You can feel regret. You can have regret.

She had a lot of regret over canceling or sorry, calling off the wedding. So both of

these are common verbs. So you can practice having regret as a noun

and regret as a verb in the comments below. So that's why we have over right here, it's

required. Now this over is talking about location or

distance. So the US is here and then the balloon is physically in terms of distance located

over the us. And remember it's floating in space. It's

over the US. So that's why we have two prepositions. They're being used in totally different ways,

saying it was a weather air ship. So this is a weather air ship all the way

from China in the US <laugh>. That's what they say that had been blown astray.

Astray is an adverb and We, when something goes astray, it means it's no longer in the

correct location. So to straight to go or move in a different location from intended.

So you have the location you want it to go. That's the intended location. But then it

went astray. It blew astray. It moved astray. It went in a different location.

That's what astray means. I don't think you'll use it too much in your vocabulary to be honest,

but just to understand what it means here, it was last spotted over Missouri.

Missouri is a state in the United States. Spotted is another way of saying to see, to

notice, to locate something specific. So if you are looking for stars, you might

say, oh wow, I spotted the Big Dipper, a consolation of stars.

I saw, I noticed I located the Big Dipper. So last spotted, last seen or noticed over

Missouri. It is expected to reach America's East coast, near the Carolinas this weekend.

Carolinas is plural because there are two states. There's North Carolina and South Carolina.

So it's commonly referred to both of them as the Carolinas, which represents North and

South Carolina. The US has decided not to shoot down the high

altitude airship due to the danger of falling debris. So the high altitude airship, that

is what they're calling the floating balloon. The spy balloon, the high altitude airship,

okay, debris. Let's say you're in a car accident, so your car is in one piece, right?

But then your car hits a wall and some pieces of your car fall off. Now those pieces could

be metal, plastic, glass, and all of those pieces would be called debris.

Debris. Notice the pronunciation, debris E I'm not pronouncing this S at all. Debris,

debris, debris. So I would say this is broken or small pieces from one, from one hole object.

So right now this balloon is a whole object, but if they shoot it, it's going to go in

all these little pieces. Some of those pieces might have metal, might

have glass, might have objects, debris that could harm. Harm people that could harm buildings,

animals if it fell from the sky, right? So that's why they're not shooting it down.

Okay? The incident comes amid freeing tensions between the US and China. Amid is a reposition

preposition and it means in the middle of, In the middle of, or surrounded by depending

on the context. So amid, now let's look at the rest of it.

Fraying tensions. Fraying in this case is being used as an adjective to describe the

tensions. Now the amid freeing temp Amid freeing tensions.

Free frame is when you become increasingly upset or annoyed, increasingly upset or annoyed.

And tensions, when there is tension between two people, it's uncomfortable is is some

anger, some negative emotion. And those negative emotions are increasing.

That's what the fraying means. And Amid is in the middle of. So we have these tensions.

There's us, there's China, they're both kind of angry, upset, annoyed.

And then the incident happened. The balloon happened in the middle of these tensions.

So that's what the sentence means there. So let's continue on in a statement. On Saturday,

the Chinese foreign ministry said Beijing never violated the territory and airspace

of any sovereign country. So they're defending themselves. It said it's

senior foreign policy official Wang ye. So this it is the statement. The statement.

That's what this it represents. The statement said it's senior foreign policy official.

Wang Li had discussed the incident with Mr. Blaken over the phone stressing that maintaining

communication channels at all levels was important. So when you stress something, you highlight

it, you emphasize it, you want the person to pay attention to it.

So we often say, I can't stress enough how important practicing Your speaking skills

is. So we generally say, I can't stress enough, and then we have a clause.

It's just my way of saying your speaking skills, practicing your speaking skills is extremely

important. And I want to emphasize this point. I want to highlight this point. I want to

stress this point. So you can stress a point or opinion, which means to emphasize it.

And what they're stressing here is that we need to maintain communication at all levels,

especially in dealing with some unexpected situations in a calm and reliable manner.

Remember we learned another way of saying calm in a cool headed in a cool headed and

reliable manner. Remember we learned another way of saying calm, which was cool, headed

in a cool headed and reliable manner. Let's continue it again. The statement it

added that Beijing would not accept any groundless conjecture or hype conjecture. This is basically

conjecture is when you guess without proof. So, and groundless means you have no evidence

to support. So that accusation is groundless. There's no evidence to support. So I'll write

that as well. Groundless. This is used a lot in legal situations

because they deal a lot with evidence, right? So your accusation, your claim is groundless,

no evidence And accuse some politicians and media in the United States of using the incidents

as a pretext to attack and smear China. When you smear someone, it's when you try

to damage their reputation. So two smear, this is a verb, two smear a verb, and two

smear. And it means two damage, one's reputation.

And this is done on purpose. You're not accidentally smearing someone, you're doing it on purpose.

So one politician will attempt to smear another politician maybe by releasing some photos

of them doing some something inappropriate. And they do that to smear that politician,

to damage that politician's reputation. According to US officials, the airship floated

over Alaska and Canada before appearing over the US state of Montana, which is home to

a number of sensitive nuclear missile sites. The incident anger top US officials with Mr.

Blaken saying he had told Beijing the balloons presence was a clear violation of US sovereign,

the incident anger top US officials with Mr. Blaken saying he had told Beijing the balloon's

presence was a clear violation of US sovereignty and intern Sovereignty. Sovereignty, sovereignty,

sovereignty. The incident angered top US officials with

Mr. Blaken saying he had told Beijing the balloon's presence was a clear violation of

US sovereignty and international law and an irresponsible act.

He called it unacceptable and even more irresponsible coming on the eve of a long planned visit.

So the eve of is the day before, the day before. Most people know this because of Christmas

Eve. This is a, a holiday Christmas Eve and it's December 24th, which is ooh, which is

the night before Christmas. So the eve of is the night before. I'm not

sure if I said day or night earlier, but it's the night before, the night before, the night

before. That's the eve of the night before. That's

the eve of. So I might say I am planning a nice dinner the eve of my wedding.

So it means the night before your wedding. So we generally use the eve of with large

events, life events, business events, world events.

But we don't usually use it just to talk about the night before a regular day. We usually,

we use it more with special occasions or special events, the eve of, and that is our article.

Amazing job with this lesson. Now I've left the link to the PDF where you can review all

the vocabulary the sentence structure the grammar, right in the description. So if you

look in the description of this video, you'll see the link. And if you found this video

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