Improve Your English Vocabulary, Grammar, Pronunciation with this Learn English with the NEWS Lesson

Would you like to improve your English reading  skills? In this lesson we're going to read a  

newspaper article together. So you can learn  a lot of advanced vocabulary, complex grammar,  

complex sentence structure and natural  pronunciation in a very fun and engaging  

way. As at the end of this lesson, I'll share  a link to a free PDF that summarizes everything  

that you learned in this lesson. I'll also  read the article in full right at the end,  

so make sure you watch right till the end. Welcome  back to JForrest English training. Of course, I'm  

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

Welcome to the article. Today we're talking about  Beyonce and the Grammy Awards which recently took  

place. So first, I will read the article in full  and you can pay attention to my pronunciation.  

So let me read it now. Beyonce arrived  fashionably late to the 2023 Grammy Awards.  

She was stuck in LA traffic. Beyonce, his highly  anticipated appearance at the 2023 Grammy Awards  

was delayed due to you won't believe it. Los  Angeles traffic. I mean, where was her helicopter.  

Over an hour into the ceremony, the Renaissance  singer finally made it to the crypto.com arena,  

as confirmed by pot bass. Once she took her seat  host Trevor Noah pan to your table, where we got  

a first glimpse of her look. The Grammy winning  artists who tied the record for the most all time  

wins with her husband, Jay Z. wore a strapless  beige core set top with a silver metallic skirt  

by Gucci accessorized with black leather gloves.  For beauty she opted for a soft bronze look, her  

honey gold hair cramped and worn down. Now let's  review the article in more details so you can  

learn some of the advanced vocabulary and grammar  concepts from this article. This is a very short  

article. It's a very light hearted topic light  hearted means not serious topic. We're talking  

about Beyonce, we're focusing on her clothes, and  we're talking about the Grammys. So let's read the  

title here. Beyonce arrived fashionably late to  the 2023 Grammy Awards. So of course, I can say  

Beyonce arrived late to the Grammys. When I add  the word fashionably fashionably, it means that  

she was late, but in a positive way. We use this  a lot in North American culture, because let's  

say you're invited to a party and the party starts  at eight o'clock PM, nobody goes to the party at  

eight o'clock PM. Because it's not fashionable.  Fashionable means popular at a specific time. So  

let me write that down for you fashionable, we'll  talk about that a little bit more fashionable,  

popular, but at a specific time. So first,  let me give you an example of fashionable. And  

this is an adjective. So right now since COVID.  Actually, I would say it's fashionable to wear  

casual clothes, too to the office, casual clothes  meanings, jeans, jeans and a cotton t shirt to  

the office. It's fashionable, which means it's  popular right now. And I could say before COVID  

Before COVID it was fashionable to wear suits  to the office. Now I'm sure some some places  

it's still fashionable to wear suits.  And that's the thing with fashionable.  

It really depends on where you are in the world  because fashion trends change around the world,  

right? So this could not apply to where you live  or the office you work in. So that's fashionable.  

So going back to our example the party starts at  eight o'clock PM. It's not fashionable to arrive  

at eight o'clock PM. everybody shows  up fashionably late, so ever everybody  

shows up, which is another way of saying arrive.  It's just a more casual, familiar way of saying  

it using the phrasal verb to show up. Everyone  shows up fashionably late, which is probably  

between 815 to 8:45pm for a party, so they're  saying Beyonce was late, but in a positive way,  

she was fashionably late. Now, sometimes we use  this. If someone says you're late, and you might  

reply back, just in a fun way, no, I'm fashionably  late. I'm fashionably late, which is just trying  

to make a light hearted way of saying, I'm sorry  for being late. I'm fashionably late. But keep  

in mind, this isn't the case with appointments  like a doctor's appointment or a job interview,  

you must show up at the scheduled time. In fact,  you should show up early. So notice I've been  

using show up. So that's a great phrasal verb to  add to your vocabulary, which just means arrive.  

Okay, let's continue on. And doesn't  she look gorgeous at the Grammys.  

This is the reason why she was fashionably late,  she was stuck in LA traffic. So this is a great  

expression to add to your vocabulary, because you  can use it. When you're late. You can say Sorry,  

I'm late. I was stuck in traffic, obviously,  you could say I was stuck in a meeting.  

I was stuck at an appointment. So it doesn't have  to be traffic. But traffic is probably the number  

one most common reason when you're late. But  this is very common as well, oh, I was stuck  

in a meeting. When you use the verb stuck to be  stuck notice our sentence structure to be stuck  

to be stuck. And that's why our verb to be is  conjugated in the past simple here, I was stuck.  

That means you're unable to leave to be stuck to  be unable to leave. And the reason why you can't  

leave that meeting is because you're talking to an  important client or you're talking to your boss,  

you can't just walk out and leave. You  have to stay to be unable to leave.  

So keep this in your vocabulary  for the reason why you're late.  

Beyonce is highly anticipated appearance at the  2023 Grammy Awards was delayed due to you won't  

believe it LA traffic Los Angeles traffic.  So this is saying the exact same thing as  

up here. They're just basically repeating  it. I mean, where was her helicopter? This  

is just a little joke. I don't think it's that  funny. Maybe you do. And you can tell that this  

is written in a very casual way. Because in a  professional writing context, you would never  

have a double exclamation. You we have a double  punctuation story. We have an exclamation point,  

which is right here. And we have a question mark.  This is very commonly used in casual writing,  

but it is never used in professional writing  and Professional Writing. You only have one  

punctuation, so either the question mark or  the exclamation point. But this is very common  

in casual writing. When I write text messages  to friends, I often do multiple punctuations,  

sometimes in my text messages, I'll have lots I'll  you know do things like that. But most commonly  

I stick to three, two or three is quite common in  casual writing, and it's just really to emphasize,  

but again, casual writing only. Let's take a  look at highly anticipated when something is  

anticipated. It means that people are looking  forward to it or expecting it. And then highly  

is just used to emphasize that highly anticipated  they're very commonly used together. So to look  

forward to or to expect something or someone. For  example, since we're talking about music, I'll use  

Taylor Swift Taylor Swift's last album was highly  and participated. So before she released that  

album, a lot of people were looking forward to  it. Oh, I can't wait, I can't wait for that album,  

or they were just expecting it. Oh gosh, I bet  she's going to release an album soon, I bet is  

going to happen next month. This is exciting.  So you're looking forward to or you're expecting  

something with positive emotion, we'll could  use this for an upcoming vacation, for example,  

or even a job interview, it could be a really  highly anticipated meeting. Because something  

amazing could happen as a result, you could get  your dream job. So this is a good adjective. This  

is an adjective a good adjective to add to your  speech. And they're saying that her appearance,  

people were looking forward to her appearance,  mainly because they wanted to see what she was  

going to wear. Or maybe she was performing and  they wanted to know what song she was going to  

perform. It was highly anticipated. Okay, and  then we talked about the reason why she was late,  

in this case, they just use was delayed  delay is another way of saying late.  

And we know the reason why she was stuck in  traffic. Okay, let's continue on, over an  

hour into the ceremony. So over an hour into the  ceremony means the ceremony the Grammy Awards,  

has already taken place for 65 minutes, or more  than one hour. And then the Renaissance singer,  

I guess this is the name of a song or an album  by Beyonce finally made it to the arena, when you  

make it to a location is simply is another way of  saying arrive arrive. We usually use this when you  

have some difficulty arriving. For example, you  might say, I can't believe I made it to the job  

interview in time I was stuck in traffic for  20 minutes. So even though you were stuck in  

traffic for 20 minutes, you still arrived in time.  And I'm using made it as a replacement to arrive  

justice suggests there was some struggle involved  in arriving. So she finally made it to the arena  

as confirmed by pop bass. All right, once she  took her seat host Trevor Noah pan to her table.  

This is just a photography term. If you're not  a photographer, just ignore it. When you pan  

this is the camera okay? Right now, sorry,  my microphones in the way I'll move back.  

That means pan when you move the  camera slowly and then you might  

focus on something specific. So in this case,  they focused on beyond say's table that's pan,  

you can ignore it if you're not in the photography  industry. So it's just a photography term. Okay,  

let's take a look at the sentence structure  here. Once she took her seat, in this case,  

once means the same as after one she took her  seat. And then notice the second part of the  

sentence is in the past simple. Okay. So I could  say once I arrived, we called the marketing team.  

Once I arrived past simple, we called past  simple. So past simple, past simple, okay,  

this is a great sentence structure just to show  the sequence of the events. This happened first,  

and this happened second, but they are both past  events. So this is a great first action. Write  

that here first action and then we have our second  action. So this is a nice sentence structure you  

can add second action, and you can use this in  a casual context as well. Once you We landed in  

Cuba, let's say you're going on vacation to Cuba,  once we landed in Cuba, we went to the beach.  

So this is the first thing you did after you  land it. And both of them are in the past simple.  

The Grammy winning artist who tied the record  for the most all time wins with her husband,  

Jay Z. That's pretty awesome. When you tie, it  means you finished with the exact same score  

or result. We use this with anything  competitive. So sports, for example,  

let's say there's a game and the score was three  to three. This is a tie. So you could say it was  

a tie game. If somebody asked you who won, you  would say No, buddy, it was a tie. It was a tie.  

It was a tie, you can just leave it at that.  Or you can add game, it was a tie game. You  

might say match. If that's the word choice you  use for the specific sport, it was a tie. Now,  

if you are the opponent, and you're playing  someone else specifically, you could use instead  

of it was you could say we tied, which means my  team scored the exact same as the other team we  

tied and it could be a team or it could just be  one person against one person. So maybe Jay Z 110  

awards and Beyonce won 10 awards, so they tied it  was the exact same number that describes a tie.  

Okay, now they're talking about what she wore  because that's what they talk about at the  

Grammys right the appearance she wore a strapless  beige core set top with a silver metallic skirt  

by Gucci accessorized with black leather gloves.  Okay, so strapless. This represents strapless.  

She doesn't have any any straps right? Now,  a core set is when it's tied very tightly at  

your back usually there's some some rope and  they actually tie it very tightly at the back.  

Metallic is the color of her skirt. And then her  black leather gloves gloves of course you were  

and they used the word accessorized because  they consider gloves accessories, accessories.  

So let me write this for you. Accessories. Now  these are items added to an outfit for decor,  

like decoration for decoration.  So things like jewelry.  

Purse would be an accessory spelled that wrong  jewelry purse, I guess in this case, gloves a hat.  

What else could be an accessory? Well for men like  a watch, but that's considered jewelry as well.  

I can't think of any other accessories. So we'll  just leave it at that. So let's see. Beyonce has  

earrings. These are accessories she doesn't have  a necklace, which would be a common accessory.  

She probably has a purse somewhere, which would  also be an accessory and they're added to her main  

outfit. Her main outfit is the shirt and the  skirt. Right everything else is an accessory.  

Okay, where were we here? They're using this  as a verb, which isn't. Of course you can use  

it as a verb, but it's more common to use it  as a noun. So you might say for my birthday,  

you can buy me some accessories and then you can  specify what accessories you like maybe you like  

earrings, maybe you like rings, maybe you like  watches purses, you can specify all right. For  

beauty. She opted for a soft bronze look her honey  gold hair crimped and worn down. This is a great  

verb to have in your vocabulary. The verb is opt  to opt. Listen to my pronunciation, opt OPT. Now  

you can opt for something which is how it's used  here. There's some thing would be a noun, you  

can also opt to do something. So that is opt plus  infinitive. infinitive verb, so to do something.  

Now, what does this mean? When you  ought to do something or for something,  

it means you make a specific choice. Let me give  you an example. I opted to decline, the promotion,  

I was offered a promotion. And I chose  not to accept the promotion. So I made  

a specific choice. So we use this when you have  a choice, you can do one thing or another thing,  

you could have more than two choices, you can have  many choices. And when you want to specify what  

you personally decided, you can use the word OPT.  Now, this is a verb, which is why it's in the past  

simple because I already made the decision. It's a  completed action. Notice I'm using my infinitive.  

If I wanted to use a noun, I opted  for, what would I say I opted  

for my current job. This is a something  I made the choice to keep my current job,  

it would be more common to use an infinitive, but  I just want to show you an option where you could  

also use for so both of these sentence  structures are very common. So here,  

they're saying she opted for a soft bronze look,  I don't really know what that means, to be honest.  

But they're saying that she had other choices. So  she could have chose a different color instead of  

bronze. I guess maybe they're talking about  her her shirt, maybe is what she opted for,  

I don't know, or her makeup, her makeup like her  lipstick color is soft bronze, probably the makeup  

actually. So they she could have opted for bright  red, she could have opted for purple for Orange,  

all these different colors, but she opted for  soft bronze. Maybe they're talking about her  

hair as well. So that's a great verb to have,  as well. And notice that sentence structure.  

And finally, the last thing I'll explain is worn  down, they're talking about her hair worn down.  

I get asked a lot of questions from women about  how to talk about what to do with your hair. So  

right now, my hair is down, my hair is down.  My hair is down. I could also say I'm wearing  

my hair down. Now in general. So the present  simple, I usually wear my hair down. Okay,  

now what's the opposite of down? It's up, right?  I rarely wear my hair. Not here hair up. So this  

is up, up, down. Pretty simple, right? So  that's how you can use it with hair. And notice,  

I could say my hair is down. My hair is up. But  then we also use subject and then the verb wear  

my hair and then up or down. And that is the end  of our article. I hope you enjoyed it. And what  

about you? Did you watch the Grammys? Who was  your favorite singer from the Grammys shares  

something related to the Grammys in the comments  as well? Amazing job with this lesson. I hope you  

enjoyed the article. If you did let me know in the  comments. And what was your favorite new word from  

this article? Share that in the comments as well.  And if you look in the description of this video,  

you'll find the link to download the free  lesson PDF that summarizes everything you  

learned today. 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 JForrest English.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!