Learn Advanced English Vocabulary with the News | Reading and Listening Method

Hello my amazing students! Today you are going to improve all areas of

your English and you're going to do that in a fun and engaging

way, we're going to read an interesting article

together. Welcome back to JForrest English,

of course I'm Jennifer now let's get started

First I'll read the headline no rope no gear

3,000 feet of granite one man's amazing feet up El Capitan

El Capitan is the name of this mountain that you can see in the picture

and this man right here in the picture is climbing this mountain with no rope and

no gear that is crazy right

gear if you didn't know this is another word for equipment

most commonly used in the athletic and sports world

using this you could say I love soccer which in North America that's what we call

football because we have American football

so it's a little confusing I love soccer because you don't need a lot

of gear now American football

which we just call football in North America you actually do need a lot of gear

but soccer which if you're outside of North America

you call football you don't need a lot of gear

so this is how it's commonly used in the sports world

now to repeat look at this image again this man is climbing this 3,000 foot mountain

without gear without a rope what is an adjective that comes to your mind

when you look at this picture and you know that he does

not have a rope or any gear what adjective comes to your mind

put it in the comments right now as for me all negative adjectives came to my mind crazy

insane terrifying petrifying which means extremely terrifying

so it sounds a little bit stronger petrifying that's petrifying now

perhaps there are some positive emotions that came to your mind exhilarate

thrilling riveting so those could be some positive emotions

now don't worry about taking any of these notes

because I summarize everything in a free lesson PDF

you can look for the link in the description now let's continue and learn about this crazy

insane exhilarating story L Capitan is a legendary

granite now it was in the headline

but notice my pronunciation Granite granite granite and granite is just the

the type of stone the type of rock in North America

it's commonly used for kitchen counters can be made out of granite

granite El Capitan is the legendary granite monolith

monolith monolith means very large or very powerful

in this sense of course it's very large we commonly use this

to describe companies or organizations for example Google is a monolith

they're very large and also because they're very large

they're very powerful so all monolith it's a something a noun

so El Capitan is a legendary granite monolith that towers 3,000 feet 900 meters from its

base the base is the bottom to its summit

this summit is the top where this man is trying to go without a rope

which is absolutely crazy or exhilarating ha ha whatever your preference is

overlooking Yosemite National Park so this is where English spelling and pronunciation

you can't learn the pronunciation from the spelling

so just ignore the word listen to my voice Yosemite Yosemite Yosemite

Yosemite National Park is a very famous national park in North America

I have not seen it myself but I would love to one day

have you seen it if you have let me know in the comments

I wrote how I think it sounds phonetically feel free to write it down

how you think it sounds phonetically as well just remember Yosemite Yosemite

let's continue last year Alex Arnold chalked up his hands

and set off up its vertical face in a bid to realise his

dream so here he chalked up his hands

this is literal he literally put chalk on his hands

because that is necessary for mountain climbing now the type of mountain climbing he is doing

here is called free soloing

free soloing and that's when you climb without ropes

and without gear now I have never been mountain climbing in

my life in fact I am afraid of heights

so it is not an activity I would want to do but I Learned this

because I watched the documentary called Free Solo so this is the name of the documentary

which tells the story of this man's feet and this documentary came out in 2018

and it won an Academy Award it's a really amazing documentary

so I highly recommend you watch it it is exhilarating is also terrifying

watching this documentary at the same time alright let's continue on

so here he chopped up his hands so that is literal

and I stressed that this is literal because there is a figurative meaning

with the phrasal verb to chalk something up to something

this is to say that something causes something for example Google chalked up

now in this case the something is the layoffs so they chalked up the layoffs to something

else to the poor economy which I spelled incorrectly

ha ha economy Google chalked up the layoffs to the poor

economy so this is saying the poor economy caused

the layoffs but this is in Google's opinion

so generally when you wanna share your opinion that something causes something

you can use this expression so Alex Arnold chalked up his hands and set

off up his vertical face

so we have another phrasal verb here to set off

when you set off you start a trip or journey in this case

the phrasal verb up does not belong to the expression

it's the preposition you needed to show the relationship to the

distance so he's literally going up the mountain

but I could say tomorrow we're setting off so here are phrasal verb to set off

it's in the present continuous because it's a planned action

tomorrow we're setting off for Florida so I'm using 4

because that's our destination for Florida setting off up its vertical face

so this is the direction of vertical so horizontal

vertical it's vertical face in a bid to realise his dream

in this case a bid to realise think of it as an attempt

in an attempt to realise his dream and be the first human to reach the top

remember there is another word for top when it comes to a mountain

to reach the summit so you can say the top the summit without using any ropes or safety

equipment and there was another word for equipment

when it comes to the sports world which was gear are you enjoying this lesson

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now let's continue with our lesson all that separated him from a lonely death

was his climbing skill and his ability to keep calm in situations

that would leave most of us jibbering wrecks you've probably never seen jibbering wreck

before I'm assuming so notice the pronunciation Ju

it's a j sound jibbering jibbering when you jibber

this is a verb is when you speak very quickly and nobody can understand you

so what you're saying is incomprehensible either because of the speed

or because you're not connecting your ideas very well

and this is because you are terrified you're petrified remember that very

very scared afraid you're petrified usually something traumatic

happened so we'll have to take her statement

after she stops jibbering so maybe someone is talking to the police

they were in an accident or some terrible event happened

and they're trying to explain what happened but they're jibbering

they're speaking in an incomprehensible way so that you can imagine

if you were on the top of that mountain without a rope

you would be a jibbering wreck I certainly would be now

a wreck is someone who is in bad physical or emotional condition

to describe someone as a wreck is quite common jibbering is not very commonly used

but is very common to say for example she was a wreck after she lost

her job so at any point in your life

where you're having a difficult time either physically or emotionally

you can use this oh I was a wreck after this happened

or I'm a wreck because of this so a wreck to be a wreck let's continue

he followed a route called Free Rider first climbed 20 years earlier by brothers

Alex and Thomas Huber in the eyes of the climbing community

climbing it without ropes was impossible an instant death sentence

not that it deterred Hornald okay so let's look at here when something deters

someone it causes that person to not want to do the

activity so the fact that everybody said it was impossible

that didn't deter Arnold so we use this to deter someone

we use it in both the positive and the negative oh

that would deter my students that wouldn't deter deter my students

let's look at this example making mistakes deters some students

some students from speaking in public from using their English in public

so this is the something making mistakes and is conjugated as it

that's why we have the s here it deters some students

this deters some students but this it doesn't deter others

so that's how you can use it and we do commonly use it

both in the positive and the negative now if it's positive it does deter you

it means you don't do the activity whereas if it's in the negative

it doesn't deter you it means you do the activity not that it deterred Honold

with his spooky level of self confidence perhaps you know what spooky means

it means scary or strange you might use it to describe a movie

or that movie was spooky or maybe there's a dark street

and you don't wanna walk on that street you say oh

that street's too spooky scary strange now notice here

they're seeing a spooky level of self confidence a strange scary level because the self confidence

you will need to climb a 3,000 foot mountain without ropes is

perhaps a little or a lot spooky as I said a little crazy perhaps

and famously calm demeanor let's look at the pronunciation here demeanor

demeanor so again I wrote it out phonetically

at least how it sounds to me demeanor demeanor one's demeanor is one's way of behaving

so I could say from his demeanor I had no idea he was upset

so later I find out he was upset but he was acting behaving in a very calm

normal way so from his demeanor from his way of behaving way of acting

I had no idea he was upset so this climber has a famously calm demeanor

I imagine you would need to have a calm demeanor to attempt something like this man did

when free soloing remember free soloing to free solo

that's the activity which not many people do

for obvious reasons the activity of climbing a mountain without

ropes and without gear without equipment

when free soloing hard roots and this is an activity to free solo

so that's why the soloing is in the ing form because when is a preposition

so when doing the activity when running when swimming

when free soloing so this is a verb to free solo

let's continue it's not like he could play it safe either

the climbing on Free Rider is so hard that some of it requires very committing

dynamic moves such as the karate kick boulder problem

okay when you play something safe it means you approach an activity

or you approach a task in a very cautious way

which when your mountain climbing seems like a very smart thing to do

so in this context it makes sense that playing it safe is a positive

thing being cautious being careful

but in other context not necessarily a positive thing

you shouldn't go your entire life or career playing it safe

at some point you need to take some risks so a friend or co worker might say to you

don't play it safe you should ask for a raise so you need to take a risk

you need to go outside of your comfort zone and ask for a raise so we also use this as

the negative don't play it safe so it depends on the context

the climbing on Free Rider is so hard that some of it requires very committing

dynamic moves such as the karate kick boulder problem

if the high kick across the void misses or your foot slips as it lands

then you're falling through space and what happens

if you fall through space without a rope you die so this is a way of saying

you die without just saying it bluntly because that can sound just very blunt

you die so they're trying to say it in a more evasive

maybe perhaps poetic way but the ultimate result is you die

now this one you have to kinda use your imagination

so imagine someone doing a karate kick you can't see my feet so I'll just do it with

my hands a karate kick

but he's doing this while climbing a mountain so

you have to do this while you're climbing a mountain

without a rope you have to kick out your leg and then I guess

secure it to another part of the rock now if your foot slips

so when something slips it means the grip so right now this is grip

I have a good grip but then the lack of a grip is when something starts

slipping and then eventually it falls

so it starts slipping and then it falls which is obviously

what we don't want to happen in this situation so again when I think of doing a karate kick

while climbing a mountain at 2,000 feet in the air without a rope crazy

insane I guess some people think it's exhilarating riveting and thrilling so again

those positive and negative adjectives as he tells us free soloing

remember this is the activity of climbing a mountain

without ropes without gear equipment free soloing for Arnold and remember

this is in the jaron because they're talking about it as an activity

you could say as he tells us swimming

and then you would talk about it as the activity running speaking

any activity there so that's why it's in the ing free

soloing for Arnold is an expression of mastery both of climbing and himself

given his skill and sheer audacity oh I like this sheer audacity

audacity this is confidence or courage but that most find shocking or rude

so generally it's used as a negative this is a very common statement

she had the audacity to tell me my cooking is terrible

but if you look at it on that other hand let's say my cooking really is terrible

and I serve everyone food that just does not taste good

and one person has the courage the confidence to say Jennifer

your cooking is terrible so although that seems rude or impolite

it's really on the other hand perhaps courageous that she did that

but we generally say this as a negative thing she had the audacity to tell me my cooking

is terrible so someone has or had in the past

the audacity to usually say something or tell someone something

or do something she had the audacity to quit after I gave

her a raise something like that but very common expression

so do some examples to get comfortable with it

now in this case given his skill and sheer audacity

cheer doesn't really contain any meaning is just there to emphasize audacity

to make it sound greater or more important so it's just there to emphasize audacity

it wouldn't be there on its own it only emphasizes given his skill and sheer

audacity you might be forgiven for thinking that

Arnold is a climbing automaton without fear or nerves

an automaton this is a robot a machine so a machine could climb the mountain

because it doesn't have emotions it doesn't have feelings

but how could a human climb a 3,000 foot mountain without ropes who does that

so that's why you might be forgiven for thinking that

he's an automaton for describing him as as more like a machine someone who lacks the

fear emotion or the other emotions

that would prevent someone from doing such a crazy

exhilarating feet now notice this sentence structure here

you might be might is a modal verb and then we always use the base verb you might

be so not might to be and you don't conjugate

it so it's just the base verb

might be modal plus base verb let's continue but as he admitted to us

he gets scared on climbs now here when you get scared

that's another way of saying become scared so it's that transition from not scared to

scared we use get but then when you are that emotion

you use the verb to be I am scared now I always get scared

when I climb mountains without ropes and gear which makes sense I would be scared in that

situation we'd never recommend what is this

what does this stand for what word does this represent

we never recommend what is this do you know we would never recommend so don't miss this

this is wood native speakers will always use this as the

contraction in spoken English so it can be hard to hear

it but the sentence structure tells you that

it's required we'd never recommend free soloing

now here again we have the activity in the Gerrand form

because recommend is a gerrand verb so you need the gerrand verb following it

in a sentence you could say

I recommend practicing English for 20 minutes a day

you could also say I would recommend so in this case it's just subject verb recommend

in this case it's using wood so the conditional I would recommend

practicing English for 20 minutes a day these are very similar in meaning

but the second one to me it sounds softer more of a gentler recommendation

I don't know if it's the exact advice for you

or maybe you're not specifically asking me so I'm delivering it in a

a softer way but this one sounds a little more authoritative

I recommend I'd recommend this one sounds softer

we would never recommend free soloing to anyone you'll die so here they didn't say it in a

poetic way they were very blunt direct

so notice here I said blunt to be blunt is when you deliver information

very simple clear concise

without trying to make it sound softer than it is

you'll die your cooking is terrible that is being very blunt very direct

but there are valuable psychological lessons to be Learned

from how Hanald calmed his mind to focus on his ultimate dream

without paying the final price so again this

now they're being a little more poetic what would be the final price that he paid

well he attempted to climb this mountain he did the karate kick

his foot slipped and he fell to his death he died that would be paying the final price

because obviously when you have no gear no ropes if you make one mistake

you die so that's the final price and that is being very blunt and direct

so that's the end of the article remember that this is from a movie

the movie well documentary movie called Free Solo

although I think this is absolutely crazy in my opinion

the documentary is excellent and I do recommend it

now what I'll do is I'll read the article from start to finish

and this time you can focus on my pronunciation no rope no gear

3,000 feet of granite one man's amazing feet up El Capitan

El Capitan is the legendary granite monolith that towers 3,000 feet

900 meters from its base to its summit overlooking Yosemite National Park

last year Alex Arnold chalked up his hands and set off

up its vertical face in a bid to realise his dream

and be the first human to reach the top without using any ropes or safety equipment

all that separated him from a lonely death was

his climbing skill and his ability to keep calm

in situations that would leave most of us jibbering Rex

he followed a route called Free Rider first climbed 20 years earlier by brothers

Alex and Thomas Huber in the eyes of the climbing community

climbing it without ropes was impossible an instant death sentence

not that it deterred Honold with his spooky level of self confidence

and famously calm demeanor when free soloing hard roots

it's not like he could play it safe either the climbing on Free Rider is so hard

that some of it requires very committing dynamic moves such as the karate kick boulder

problem if the high kick across the void misses

or your foot slips as it lands then you're falling through space

as he tells us free soloing for Arnold is an expression of

mastery both of climbing and himself

given his skill and sheer audacity you might be forgiven for thinking that

Arnold is a climbing automaton without fear or nerves but as he admitted

to us he gets scared on climbs

we'd never recommend free soloing to anyone you'll die but there are valuable

psychological lessons to be learnt from how Donald calmed his mind

to focus on his ultimate dream without paying the final price

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