This is the Business English Podcast, Episode 119.
How to bring up breaking news at work in English.
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Hey, Aubrey, I have a question for you today.
Oh, okay. Let's hear it. Well, have you been reading the news lately?
Do you have a habit of reading the news or any news podcast, anything?
Yes, absolutely. Not as often as I should probably.
I like true crime podcasts, but I do read the news.
So you have a specific question. Quiz me.
I do. I do. Okay. Well, there was recently something in the news about AI discovering a super bug and we are all so tuned into bugs now because we know what happened with coronavirus, right?
Yes. We know how that just changed the world.
So did you read about that or did you hear about that?
Yes, I did see that. I was very interested because I recently had a conversation with a neighbor who was saying that antibiotics don't really work for him anymore.
And they think it's because he did several courses of antibiotics and he only took like the first few days and then started feeling better.
So he didn't do the full 10 course, 10 day course of antibiotics.
And they said that can create super bugs in your system that are resilient to antibiotics.
And then antibiotics don't work for you anymore.
I'm like. Whoa, that's scary. Okay, good reason to finish your course of antibiotics every time.
Yes, right? And so then when I saw this, it made me think of that.
I'm like, oh, I wonder if this is one of those superbugs that was created because people aren't doing the full 10 course of antibiotics.
I don't know. I don't know. But what I do know is we're engaged in an interesting conversation about something somewhat meaningful, right?
It's the news, it's meaningful. And there's interesting discoveries, especially in science.
Science news is always so good. New stuff happening all over the world.
I feel like this would be a good way to build a rapport with a coworker.
What do you think? Absolutely. And especially these articles are about how AI was used to discover these superbugs.
That's super interesting. Like if you're going to ask someone about AI, you don't want it to be, I feel like a lot of people are having conversations about chat GTP and-
AI taking over jobs, that conversation maybe has already been had by your coworkers.
But if there's a brand new article, this is breaking news about the medical field using AI.
Okay, that's interesting, right? Let's talk about it.
Yeah. And I think for a lot of our listeners, if you guys, if you feel like, oh, maybe you're still in that perfection mentality where we try to flip it over to connection, but this is a way you can take yourself out of the frame of being worried about being wrong, making a mistake in English.
You're the interesting person bringing up this topic you read about this morning.
And then your mistakes become a little bit irrelevant, don't they?
Absolutely. Right. And if the answer is no, I haven't heard that.
Tell me about it. That's also good. Right.
Yeah. Both read it and you'll have this amazing conversation or maybe they haven't.
They're still going to be super interested to learn about this breaking news that you're introducing them to.
Yeah, so in a sense, bringing news conversations, as long as we kind of tread lightly around politics, this is not politics, bringing news kind of opens up a whole new frontier for you guys at work.
Yes, absolutely. I agree. There are some things that are maybe too fraught, too controversial to bring up at work, but most news articles are going to be perfect.
Well, especially like I said before, if you go into science, you know, history, archaeological discoveries, these are just things everyone finds fascinating and it's not going to divide people necessarily.
Exactly. Aubrey, would you read our students question, our listener who wrote in today?
Yes. So the listener is Jeff Wu. And recently we answered part of his question about chat GPT phrases to be able to chat about that.
But another part of his question, he said, please discuss recent breaking news.
So we're doing that today with this article that we both saw.
We're going to chat about it a little bit and we're going to give you phrases to ask coworkers about recent news in English at work.
Yeah, exactly. We're not just going to leave it at us discussing this.
We're going to show you guys how to turn around and do the same thing to get that ultimate connection, which is what we all want as human beings at work and in life.
Absolutely. Yes. And if you missed episode 2009, that was the first part of his question about chat GPT.
So you can check that one out. Be sure to hit follow on the podcast so that you never miss an episode.
I love it. I love it. Okay, well, where do we take this then from for our listeners?
Where are we starting today? Yeah, so AI is everywhere in the news right now.
Right now we're in the middle of a writer's strike in the United States, because AI is taking over some jobs is taking over writing, and writers are striking about that.
And so this is very newsworthy, right? It's interesting and people are going to want to share their opinion and know what you think.
And there will always be new articles about AI in lots of different fields.
Like today, we're talking about the medical field.
Oh my gosh, it's in language. I know there's some conversations I'm having with other creators, ESL creators right now in our forums around using AI and ESL.
It's going to apply. It's going to touch every part of our lives.
Yeah. Right. So this is a great skill to have.
So. All right, Aubrey. So what's next here?
OK, so we're going to dive into this article and I have a little bit of a test for you, Lindsay, because diseases and bacteriums and are can be very difficult to pronounce.
Often they're Latin words. So this deadly pathogen is difficult to pronounce.
I'm highlighting it here. Give it a shot.
How would you are you serious? I don't know either.
I didn't look up like phonetic. Wow. Your guess is as good as mine.
I'm pretty sure that some of our listeners are scientists and they're going to cringe when I try this, but let's give it a try.
Okay. I'm going to sound it out like I used to tell my niece when she was six.
Absolutely. What else can you do? Acinetobacter baumani.
That sounds right. Acinetobacter baumani.
You just got to say it quick, right? So it sounds like you know...
I know. I love that. Yes, that is the pathogen, right?
It can live for a year on a hospital wall without any food or water.
And so then it can infect patients and resist antibiotics. as well as our immunity, like our built-in infection-fighting immunities, right?
So the WHO, the World Health Organization, has named this as one of the top three pathogens that are in need of curing, right?
Of therapies, of figuring out, you know, vaccines and things because this is dangerous.
Well, they probably have a new sense of urgency post-COVID, right?
They need to be more proactive rather than reactive.
Exactly. Do we need to know anything else about who's working on this or anything?
Yeah, I think it's good to give a shout out to who discovered it, right?
Because if something like this remains undiscovered, it can mutate and create bigger problems.
So it was discovered using AI by a team at Macquarie University, which is in Australia.
And it was Dr. Ram Maharjan. He studied at Changzhou University in China.
And then associate professor Amy Kane from the US.
And they discovered how this superbug can survive harsh environments.
And they used AI to narrow down some things, right?
Something that would have just taken humans years and years and years.
AI was able to make more simple and quick.
Wow, that's incredible. That's pretty cool.
I love that. Good to know. So now what are we going to do?
So we know this exists, right? So we know it exists, right?
It's something interesting to talk about.
We do want to be able to talk about recent news here on the podcast.
I love that Jeff brought this up, like talk about recent news.
We want to hear these conversations in English.
And also you guys want to be able to bring up these conversations at work.
So we want to give you some, first I'm going to give just a couple of little vocab phrases about this specifically, right?
Medical. We mentioned that this is a critical threat.
What does that mean, Lindsay, for something to be a critical threat? means in terms of time well in terms of intensity and time right in my mind when I hear critical threat it means it's imminent like it could be very important very soon and it could be extremely dangerous so exactly and this is an interesting word critical because you guys have likely heard it to mean sort of a negative feedback someone's being critical about something I did right and Right.
This is a different meaning where it means extremely important and urgent.
Right. If something is critical, you'll hear this on medical shows.
If the doctor is saying surgery is critical or this wound is critical.
Right. It's very serious and deadly. We need to do surgery right away.
Right. Or you say someone's in critical condition.
You hear that a lot when people are taken in from an accident.
Yeah, exactly. Right. So something like that, that's the type of vocabulary that might come up when you bring up this conversation, especially if it's specifically about, you know, AI in the medical field or something you saw in the news about, you know, something with the medical field.
But what we would now want to give you guys is words. vocab and phrases to be able to bring up a conversation about breaking news, recent news you've seen.
But any breaking news. And we could, for our listeners, we could actually do another episode in the future, bring these phrases back in to remind our listeners and bring in a new topic.
That would be actually kind of cool as a reminder, kind of a little quiz for our listeners.
But Absolutely. Guys, these will work for pretty much any topic.
Is that right? Would you say? Yeah, for sure.
Right? Love it. Yeah. Okay. So should I go ahead and share the first one?
Sure. All right. So here it is. Number one, have you seen anything in the news recently about X, right?
About companies using AI? In a few episodes ago on All Ears English, the other podcast, we talked about the debt ceiling.
Have you seen anything in the news recently about the debt ceiling negotiations?
Exactly. Right. And this is very similar to what we you know, the question we use just at the top of the episode here.
Right. You want to be able to ask about any whatever breaking news you have seen, whatever the most recent article you have read.
So this is pretty open ended. You can just say, have you seen anything in the news recently about this?
Yeah. I like this one. Yeah. And I like this one as well as the next two we're going to share because they're a bit non-biased.
Inevitably, you're going to insert your own biases in any news topic.
There's no way to get around it, but at least you're opening it up in a way that's not showing your bias or your opinion, in other words.
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Exclusions apply. See details online. Okay, Aubrey, what would be our second option?
All right, then you can just say, have you read anything interesting recently about blank?
So about AI, about the medical field, insert anything, whether it's something you've seen recently or just something you know that comes up in the news a lot. right exactly i mean you know lately i've been hearing about a new ceo for twitter right so have you read anything interesting about the new twitter ceo right elon musk has named someone new to kind of head up the company so that's kind of interesting are they going to be able to get their advertisers back right this could be a vibrant conversation for sure yeah absolutely and then you have options right if someone asks you this you can either say yes i just saw that and go from there or no have you right Both.
Perfect. Simple. No, have you? Right. I love it.
So easy. So good. Third one, Aubrey, are we ready for it?
Yes. You can just say, what do you think about blank?
And then fill that in with something specific.
What do you think about AI in the medical field?
Right. What do you think about Twitter's new CEO?
Yeah. Right. You fill this in with anything that's been in the news lately.
Right. Or what do you think about the writer's strike in Hollywood, in Los Angeles?
Very interesting. So these are just like you said, these are useful for any topic, really.
You can use them this way to ask specifically about the news.
Sure, you can use them for any topic. They're going to be very useful, no matter what you're asking about.
So these are worth practicing, you guys, so that you're ready to start a conversation.
Yeah, I find that writer strike really interesting.
Are they just they're just stopping entirely?
Is that correct? They're just not writing any new scripts?
Is that true? It's been really interesting.
I listened to a podcast that's talked about it a few times, and I can tell that they are are sort of, um, fence sitting where I have a feeling that they know writers who are striking and they know writers who have kept working and they're trying to support both and really straddling that line, that fence.
It's difficult to know. And because they're both actors and they want to keep working, but they also want to support the writers who write what they use for scripts.
Right. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. AI is just going to open up so many complicated moral, legal, ethical issues.
I don't know. I hope we're ready for this as a society, how it's going to impact so much.
Yeah. Tricky. All right. Let's do a role play where at work we could have this very natural conversation.
You want to start us out? Yeah, for sure.
Hey, what do you think about AI being used to illustrate books?
Oh, I hope people don't start using it for that.
I have a huge appreciation for artists and illustrators.
The AI is definitely worse quality. For now, yeah, but it might not always be.
I'm worried it'll keep being improved and illustrators will be out of a job.
Well, let's hope not. Yeah, that's tough.
That's another tough. Yeah, hard. Well, the cool thing is that this brings us together, right?
A lot of us are just kind of confused where this is going to go.
So we, most of us probably share a similar perspective and we're excited about it, but we're also nervous about it.
Most people fall in that mixed feelings, right?
Excited, but concerned. Right. You know what I love about this and the phrases that we are giving you guys is, of course, there's nothing wrong with always chatting with coworkers about movies you're watching, TV shows, what are you doing this weekend?
But this, I feel like shows your intelligence and it shows your thoughtfulness about what's happening in the world.
If you're willing to start this conversation and show that you are engaged in the world and what's happening.
I love that in a person, not that I judge anyone who just wants to talk about TV because I'm there too sometimes.
But sometimes I do want to have these conversations and you do get a little deeper when you're willing to share your thoughts on something like this.
Yeah, it's kind of that same feeling we get from traveling.
Just sort of we need to open our minds a bit.
There's more to the world than just ourselves and the TV characters that we watch, right?
There are real things going on. And yeah, that will bring that'll also kind of if you are that kind of person, I would just say that'll kind of help people self-select and you'll connect with someone that wants to have that conversation and then you'll have a work friend.
Absolutely. Right. And it doesn't have to be that every time because everyone's avoiding because you only want to talk about the news and they would rather talk about the show they watch.
Yeah, let's have a balance. Let's have a balance.
That's being dynamic, right? Yes, absolutely.
So should we go back and go through the role play here?
Yeah, so we just used that phrase. Hey, what do you think about?
And then you can follow this with anything, right?
I'm talking about illustration and books, but anything that you've seen in the news lately, you ask someone's opinion about it.
Yeah, so good. So good. All right. So what's the takeaway today, Aubrey?
Yeah, it's first of all, AI is becoming a huge part of the public discourse, right?
And lots of different ways. So with today's discussion with these tips and phrases, you'll be ready to start a conversation in English about it or anything that's happening recently in the news.
Yeah, so good. So important and a nice little avenue to build that connection.
When you know, it's really about what happens, not necessarily when you're doing the work, it's around the work, right, Aubrey?
Right. It's in between the work is where those relationships get built.
So yeah, so true, right? You got to think about everything in between as well.
Don't miss those moments. Yeah, so good.
All right, Aubrey, thanks for coming on the show.
And one more time, I want to remind our listeners, guys, hit follow on this Business English podcast if you love this show.
We drop three episodes a week for you, and it's a really good way to develop real modern English to build those business relationships.
Good stuff. Yes. Awesome. I'll see you next time, Lindsay.
All right. Talk soon. Bye. Bye. Thank you for listening to Business English, a podcast just for you, the high achieving global professional.
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