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You're listening to Luke's English podcast. For more information, visit teacheluk.co.uk.
Hello listeners, welcome back to Luke's English podcast. This is episode number 880.
And in this one, I'm going to read an article to you, a news article which I've found.
It's all about the Olympic Games in Paris. I'll read the article to you. We're going to discuss
some of the ideas that it talks about and then I will explain loads of vocabulary to you.
Okay? So the Olympics is coming to Paris in less than a hundred days and at the moment,
the city is trying to get itself ready for this and there are various arguments going on about
whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. What do what will the games reveal about
French society or life in Paris? There's a lot of interesting things to discuss here.
And so that's what we're going to be doing this time. What will the Olympics be like here?
Will there be a triumph or a total catastrophe? What are the residents of Paris really afraid of?
That's what we're going to talk about and that's what we're going to find out about and you're
going to learn loads of vocabulary in the process. Before I get started, I just wanted to say
premium listeners, did you notice that I published premium series 59 parts one to three?
They all three parts are available for premium subscribers right now. Hopefully you've added
LEP premium to a podcast app on your phone and you've got those episodes in your episode list.
If you haven't done that, just sign into your Acast account, teachelug.co.uk slash account,
and then just sign into your account and that's how you can add the show to a podcast app on your phone.
P59 parts one to three, it's a big vocabulary review of words and phrases which came up in the
episode about the MBTI personality test. So loads of useful vocab for talking about personality traits
behavior, ways of thinking. Now you heard me use the vocab naturally in the episode,
but in this premium series, I'm going through it all again, talking about the vocab,
highlighting certain things, teaching you and reminding you of all those useful words and phrases,
going through it again because repetition is so important, reviewing language is so important,
it's all part of a process that I use, a teaching method that I use to help you to expand your
vocabulary. So that's available for premium subscribers. P59 parts one to three, check it out right now.
What else? Thank you if you attended my online Zoom talk about learning vocabulary recently.
There were lots of people in the Zoom talk and it was really nice to kind of have a bit more of
a connection to my listeners than I normally would when recording a podcast and people said very
nice things and it was just very lovely and I did my talk and so thanks for joining, I hope you
enjoyed it and if you did sign up but you couldn't attend, then you should have received an email
from Claire with the link to the video of my presentation. So if you signed up, you should be able to
see the video. Maybe hopefully I'll be able to publish that video, that video recording of my
presentation. Hopefully I'll be able to publish it on my YouTube channel or my podcast at some point.
If I can't do that, I might kind of re-record it and make an episode about it anyway because I think
it was full of really useful and important points about how to learn vocabulary properly and the
various ways in which you can really make sure that you understand, remember, recall and use
new vocabulary which is so important for achieving a good level of English. So there you go, those are
my announcements. Let's get started then with this episode and there are notes that you'll find
on the website page for this episode, okay, and I'm going to read from those notes right now,
including the link to the article. So episode 880 is Paris Ready for the Olympic Games 2024
article plus vocabulary. So here's the sort of intro to this. I'm in Paris and it's less than 100
days until the Olympic Games begin here and the city is still getting ready. I mean, it's still not
ready. They still don't entirely know exactly how they're going to do the opening ceremony, where
it's going to be, what it's going to be like. It sounds so stressful. It sounds like the organizers
are really sort of doing it all a bit last minute. They've had years to prepare, but I mean to be
fair, there are lots of factors involved which might affect the way that they can do the opening
ceremony. We're going to be talking about this. So is the city ready? Well, not really yet, but we'll see.
Let's read an article on the subject. So I found this article on the week.com. I don't know if you're
familiar with this website the week. It's a newspaper. It used to be a magazine. I used to
subscribe to when I lived in England and every Friday I'd get a new copy of the week and it's
just a really great magazine. I think it still is published as a sort of little newspaper magazine.
I learned about this from the private secretary to the prime minister of Norway,
bizarrely enough. Is it the prime minister of Norway? Prime minister of Norway? Yeah, okay.
Right. So not the president of Norway, but the prime minister, of course, because they've got a royal
family, haven't they? Anyway, I learned about this from the private secretary to the prime minister
of Norway. So when I used to teach English in London, one week we got this very high profile,
very important client, a student who came to improve her English for a week or two. And she was
given to me. I was given the task of teaching her. And it turned out she was, yeah, the private secretary
to the prime minister of Norway. I keep saying that, but what does that actually mean? That's
basically the sort of extremely high level person in the government, a very high level civil servant,
someone who works right next to the prime minister. So she was in this incredibly high level position
working directly with the prime minister of Norway. And so it was really interesting for me to spend
a week with her, helping her with her English, and also just learning so much from her, very,
very intelligent, very worldly person. And she recommended that I subscribe to the week because she
was reading it. And the good thing about the week is that it's basically a sort of a summary
of what all the other newspapers are saying about the top stories of the moment. So instead of
having to read all the papers, you just read the week because it summarises what all those other
papers are saying very neatly and concisely. And it's available on the internet now, the week.com
also they've got a really good email newsletter, which basically sort of collects their top stories
of the moment and just puts them straight in your inbox. This episode is not sponsored by the week.
I'm just saying it's genuinely, I find it a good thing to read. So I found this article on the week.com.
There's the US version and the UK version. So I'm going to read the article to you, then explain
and discuss what is written. I'll also go through vocabulary from the article and there is plenty.
So it's going to be like this. Topic, we'll do reading and listening. Then we'll move on to
vocabulary and discussion. Maybe I'll do the discussion before the vocab or all of it at the same time.
So before we read the article, here are some questions to get you thinking. If you like, you can
stop the podcast and discuss these questions for some speaking practice. So question one, what are
the benefits and costs for a city hosting the Olympic Games? Why would a city want to host the
Olympic Games? What are the good things you get? What are the benefits? But also what are the downsides?
Okay, second question. Has the Olympics ever been held in your country or city? Have you ever had
the Olympics where you live? And how did people feel before, during and after the games?
What was the mood before it? What happened during the games? What was the legacy after the games?
Were people positive about it? Did it have a positive effect on the city? Was it? Did it have a
positive legacy? And thirdly, a hundred days before the Olympics are due to happen, what do you
think people are worrying about? What is it that Parisians are worried about or even scared about?
So I've got some comprehension questions but we're going to skip through those and get
straight to the article here. Okay, so here we go. So the week.com, I'm using the British version,
Olympics 2024 is Paris ready to party. The subheading is this. And by the way, so I'm going to read
through the article just from start to finish and then I'll go through and deal with vocabulary
and probably discuss things as we go. So if there are bits that you don't understand,
if there are phrases, words and things that you don't understand or you generally don't really
understand exactly what's being said in the article, don't worry because I'm going to go through it
bit by bit and explain every single thing for you. So build up to this summer's games
marred by rouse over national identity, security and pollution.
So the lighting of the Olympic torch today comes amid a dampening of enthusiasm for the Paris
Games in an increasingly fractious France commentators warn. We're ready for this final
straight said Paris Olympics Chief Organiser Tony Estonge at a press conference to mark the 100
day countdown. But the French capitals often hard to please residents appear in no mood for a party
yet said France 24. Security threats and fecal pollution is a kind of subheading with the clock
ticking down until the games kick off. On the 26th of July, France's bitter politics and gloomy mindset
are dampening the mood among a fractious public said the Japan Times. The build up has been marred by
rouse that go to the heart of a bitter national debate about identity and race.
Herve le bras, a sociologist told the paper that the games threatened to underline the
major fractures in France, notably the fracture between Paris and the rest of the country.
Anodexia pole of more than 1,200 Paris region residents last November found that 44%
thought the games were a bad thing and that 52% were planning to leave the city during the 16-day
event. One Parisian told the BBC that staying would be unbearable with the games making it
impossible to park, impossible to move around, impossible to do anything.
Security fears are also growing amid mounting global tensions. In a break from the tradition of
opening the games in the main stadium, the organisers have devised a grandiose ceremony
centered around a parade of barges on the river Sen, said Le Monde. The original plan
was for as many as 600,000 spectators to watch from the river banks, but security and logistical
concerns have led the government to progressively scale back the plan, with the spectator numbers
reduced to 300,000. And President Emmanuel Macron said yesterday that the ceremony might be
moved to a new location if the authorities decide that the risk of an attack, potentially by drones,
is too great. There are planned b's and planned c's. He said, including holding the opening at
the city's Stadde-France, he told television interviewers. Asked if the Kremlin would seek to
disrupt the Olympics, Macron said that he had no doubt. Another potential threat is sewage pollution
in the Sen, where swimming events are due to take place. In an analysis by the Surf Rider Foundation,
only one out of 14 water samples from the river were found to be safe for swimming.
Bacteria, including pollution of fecal origin, remains dangerously high in the river,
said the nonprofit environmental organisation. And it's clear that athletes would be swimming in
polluted water and taking significant risks to their health. Games boss Estonge said last week that
if water quality levels worse, there could be a final decision where we could not swim.
Mountains of skepticism. The Switzerland-based International Olympic Committee has mountains of
skepticism to dispel in France and beyond, said the Associated Press. The $13 billion cost of the
2021 Tokyo Games and the unfulfilled promises of beneficial change for 2016 host Ryo de Geniro
triggered widespread anger and the 2014 winter games in Sochi were tarnished by Russian doping.
But some previous predictions of Olympics doom have proved incorrect. In the run-up to the London
2012 Games, the army was drafted into bolster the security presence provided by private firm G4S,
amid fears of a repeat of the riots that had broken out in the city in 2011.
Journalists amid cyclical, loud buzzing noises before every set of summer games, said George
Vexe in the New York Times in 2004. Reporters will continue to fret on schedule because it's in our
job description. Estonge acknowledged last week that before this kind of big event, there are
always many questions, many concerns, but the Paris edition would make his nation proud, he said.
Okay, so there you go. That's the article. Maybe what I should do is kind of go through each
paragraph and just summarize each paragraph before I go into slightly more detail. So we've looked
at the whole article. Let's close in on a bit more and I'll just help you understand it a bit by
bit and then we'll close it, we'll narrow down even further to look at specific individual phrases.
So the lighting of the Olympic torch today comes amid a dampening of enthusiasm for the Paris Games.
So the the Olympic torch was lit today when this was published last week,
but this happened in the middle of a situation in which people are getting less enthusiastic about
the Games and this is you know, wider social context in which there's some disagreement generally
and discord conflict division in French society. So the the Olympics is taking place in the context of
a divided nation in which there are various different arguments taking place. So the the
Olympics organizers said we're ready for this final straight. He said this has a press conference
to mark the 100 day countdown. Right, so when 100 day countdown started there was a press conference
and Tony Estonge, whose name hopefully I'm pronouncing correctly made various statements.
But the French capitals often hard to please residents appear in no mood for a party yet,
said France 24. So sort of maybe perpetuating the stereotype that perision people are uninfusiastic
and moody is this a stereotype or is it just true? This appears to suggest it's true. Perision
residents are not in a mood for a party. So people are not feeling very happy about it and I've
noticed the same thing to be honest. I asked my students, I asked my audiences in standup,
I do standup jokes about the Olympics. I talk about it quite a lot with French people
and the vast majority of people are a bit kind of about it. You know, there are no one's that
enthusiastic about it. With the clock ticking down until the Games kick off on the 26th of July,
France is bitter politics and gloomy mindset are dampening the mood. So the mood, meaning the feeling,
right, whether people feel happy, enthusiastic excited, or whether their feeling sort of like
unhappy, depressed, annoyed, you know, so the mood, the politics apparently is killing the mood
and also the mindset, the attitude of people in Paris or maybe France,
all of these things are contributing to a sort of a bad feeling among a public which disagrees with
itself. And the preparations for the Games, so the build up has been marred by rouse that go to the
heart of a bitter national debate about identity and race. This is what the Japan Times has said apparently
that the preparations for the Games have been sort of spoiled by arguments that go all the way to
the heart of a sort of national disagreement about identity that apparently France is suffering
a sort of identity crisis. What does it really mean to be French? Who are the holders of French
values? What direction is the country going in and how do people feel about that? Now at this point,
the article mentions this and that's a very strong thing to say. The heart of a bitter national
debate about identity and race, the disagreements about the Olympics reveal something profound about
France's identity crisis, but it says this, but then the article here doesn't actually give us any
tangible examples of this happening. It doesn't really illustrate this bitter national debate about
identity and race, which is a little bit annoying. Where are my notes? Here they are. I threw them over
my shoulder earlier, but I've got other stuff written here. Although the article doesn't mention
things about this bitter national debate about identity and race, I just noted some things down that
it might be referring to. But it's interesting that that's mentioned, but they're not actually
detailed. I'm not entirely sure what this, how the Olympics is central to this debate. Now I
understand the debate in France about identity and race. I'm familiar with this and the main
idea is behind it. It's related to things like immigration and national identity and race
relations and so on. The changing face of French identity in the aftermath of French colonialism
and then following that in sort of reparation for that. France is welcoming of immigrants into
the country and how that's changed things and how local people, sort of French people, feel about
this and also the difference between how Paris feels about things and how the rest of the country
feels about things. There are various divisions, which is fairly common in any sort of western
democracy these days. This is a sort of social pattern which has happened. I have to say also
that I feel like the narrative on this, on national identity in response to things like immigration.
The narrative of this is also kind of pushed by certain factions who want this to become more
of a problem than it really is. You talk about influences or political influences or fake news
outlets that really try and push this story hard because it's in the best interests of certain
sort of groups or certain nationalities, nations or states or whatever to emphasize the fact that
like the UK, France, Europe, the United States are somehow crumbling under their inability to
deal with race relations. The whole story has been weaponized to an extent. It's interesting
that this article mentions it but then doesn't actually detail it. I wonder to what extent the
Olympics is really a problem in this regard. Anyway, here are some ideas of how it could be an
issue. Race and immigration. How will this actually come up in the Olympics? Several possible ways,
and I'm speculating here and feel free to give your comments, especially French listeners,
if you've got a better understanding of how the Olympics is at the heart of a debate about race
relations. One thing is that the authorities in France have been under a lot of pressure to ban
certain religious symbols and clothing at the Olympics because France is a secular nation.
This means that in certain public spaces or public institutions, it's actually against the law
to where religious symbols or to display religious iconography or to display things that represent
your religious beliefs because it's a secular country. There's separation between church and state,
so any of these big public things. For example, in public schools, there's no crosses on the wall.
People teach us not allowed to wear a cross, for example, around their neck, but also this relates
to things like the hijab, which is the headscarf. There's been pressure for Paris to ban the hijab
at the Olympics. I think it's actually followed through with that pressure and I think the hijab
has been banned. Let me just check. I want to just check that I'm getting it right that I know
exactly what a hijab is. The hijab is the headscarf, not the facial covering, just the scarf that
covers the hair basically. According to the BBC, in September, the International Olympic Committee
made clear that athletes in Paris can represent themselves and their faith as well as their country.
So this is where there's a divide. The normal way in France, which is controversial,
is to say that these sorts of things are not allowed. The intention there is to try to create
a secular situation where there's no real representations of religious affiliation, which is supposed
to be an egalitarian thing. It's supposed to be an equality thing. But what actually happens is
that to an extent, this is kind of like maybe state-level racism, which is somehow how it ends
up happening that certain people get targeted, certain things get targeted. And the hijab
is like part of that. Is this France just being secular and non-religious, or is this the country
targeting Muslims and their culture? So for the Olympic Village, the International Olympic
Committee rules apply. And IOC spokesman told Reuters, there are no restrictions on wearing the
hijab or any other religious or cultural attire. So according to the Olympic Committee rules,
the hijab is fine. The French team, though, as the French Olympic athletes, have been told
something different. The ban on the hijab, a type of headscarf that covers the head and neck,
but leaves the face clear, is the consequence of two discriminations. It's Islamophobia,
but also gender discrimination, says Veronica Nosega, who plays football for le dégueur mousse,
a Parisian football club set up to fight discrimination. But Waiterman, is the hijab banned at
the Olympics? Okay, all right, so I've worked it out. I've worked it out. So it seems, it seems that
the French team have banned the hijab. Very controversial stuff, of course. It's all very controversial
stuff, but I'm just giving examples of how debates about identity and race could be revealed by
the games. And this seems to be a point of disagreement. So there's that. But then also,
there's the idea of arguments about who is French. And when you look at athletes in the Olympic team,
you can have a look at their ethnic origins and so on. And it's the same story with the football team
that certain people feel a bit unhappy because they feel like their team doesn't really represent
France or especially from outside of the country. Because for the football team, a lot of the players
are of African descent, but they're French. I mean, they're French. That's why they're playing in
the French team. But a lot of people from outside of France look at the French team and say,
well, they don't look very French, do they? Well, you know, they are French. That's just the nature
of France as a country. And due to its history and how it responded to its colonialism. And as a result,
you know, it's sort of like France was involved in African nations. And as a result, a lot of African
people came and settled in France and they became nationalized as French people. And so, you know,
that's that's it. That's it. It's pretty simple, really. But anyway, there are certain debates about
about that. I don't really understand how that's an issue because like, you know, these people
taking part in the Olympics are French. If they're in the French team, they are legally French. So, you
know, that's that's surely the end of that. Also, the Olympics represents something about a division
in French life between the rich and the poor. And this is also arguably a sort of Paris
France division as well because a lot of the wealth is centered in Paris. And so there's that sense of
the Olympics is part of a rich bourgeois big business Paris centric thing. There's a lot of money
involved in the Olympics. Where is that money going? Is it going to, you know, people in French
society or is it just going to go into the pockets of people who have control of all these things?
And Hidalgo, the mayor of Paris has been criticized for her spending choices.
People have been arguing that she's using public money in the wrong way, spending public money
on the wrong things, focusing on this arguably very sort of visual thing, something which is very
very much about the image of France and the image of Paris, putting on a putting on a great show
for the world, spending all this money on it, meanwhile, actual French people probably living
outside of Paris are suffering and they need investment and they need support. But instead,
you know, all this focus is on pouring money into the Olympics in a way that is perhaps not
sustainable or beneficial for the future. You know, those are the usual debates around the
Olympics, I think. Those are normally the issues that people have, you know, about where's the
money going and how's the money being spended? Spended? That's not English. What happened?
How's the money being spent? And what will the long-term benefits be?
So there you go, that's just an idea of some of those possible problems that are referred to here
about a national debate, about identity and race. There's also maybe another issue, which is
that sort of idea of wokism, which is a word that I don't love to use, to be honest, it sort of
makes me cringe a little bit. The idea of wokism, which is a sort of essentially, it refers to a
kind of progressive form of identity politics, which seeks to be inclusive and to include positive
representations of groups that normally have been sidelined, you know, ethnic minorities, women,
different sexual, you know, different gender, different sexual preferences and so on.
And the way that potentially the Olympics in Paris, and Paris as quite a kind of progressive
culture, especially the administration, which is running Paris at the moment, is kind of progressive
and therefore is seeking to promote those forms of cultural identity. That approach, it might be
at odds with the viewpoints of people in other parts of the country who have a more conservative,
more traditional view of French identity. And so that might also be another clash, that the way
that the Olympics is being presented as this diverse sort of celebration of diversity
might not fit with the views of other people in the country. So there you go. I mean, that may be
some of the details about this bitter national debate about identity and race.
Herve-le-Bra, the sociologist said that the games threatened to undermine the major
fractures, underlying the major fractures in France, the fracture between Paris and the rest
of the country. I've just mentioned that. And Odex, a poll of more than 1,200 Paris,
region residents last November found that 44% thought the games were a bad thing. That's a large
number of people who think the games are a bad thing. That's a strong thing to say. And that 52%
were planning to leave the city during the 16-day event. This makes me laugh because
clearly Parisians have been asked, what do you think of the games? I think it's good or bad,
and a lot of them have said, oh, it's bad. Probably some of them will like, no, it's great,
and a lot of them will pull up, I don't really care. And what are you going to do? 52% of them
said, well, I'm just going to leave the city. Well, of course, you're going to leave the city.
It's August. Everyone in Paris leaves the city in August, or at least half the population
leaves Paris in August anyway. So that makes me laugh because that doesn't mean that they're
leaving because of the Olympics. They're going to leave anyway. Like most of these people aren't
even going to be there. So I don't know what the problem is there. 52% were planning to leave
the city. Yeah, of course, they're going on holiday. One Parisian told the BBC that this is so
typically Parisian this bit. And sometimes I talk about the sort of Parisian attitude of
a, or say, papalcy, they're normal. Sometimes I talk about that attitude. And sometimes I think
to myself, am I being unfair? Maybe I'm being a bit unfair. I don't mean to be unfair about
Paris or to represent sort of stereotypes. But then I read this and I'm like, actually,
it's exactly that's exactly how it is. One Parisian told the BBC that staying would be unbearable.
So I'm going to, I'm going to remember I'm going to break down the vocab afterwards.
But staying would be unbearable, apparently. With the games making it impossible to park,
impossible to move around, impossible to do anything, which is basically like the Parisian
person just go, oh, say papalcy. Which is often the reaction to most things. I mean, to be fair,
it's, it could definitely be really difficult to do a lot of things.
Whether it's going to be completely impossible, I don't know. It's already difficult to park
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of what big wireless does. They charge you a lot. We charge you a little. So naturally,
when they announce they'd be raising their prices due to inflation, we decided to deflate our
prices due to not hating you. That's right. We're cutting the price of Mint Unlimited from $30
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Maybe security fears are also growing amid mounting global tensions. So it's not just these
identity issues, but actual security issues relating to things like maybe potential attacks
or other forms of, you know, other forms of interference. In a break from the tradition of
opening the games in the main stadium, the organizers have devised a grandiose ceremony centered
around a parade of barges on the river Senn. So I mentioned this and a lot of these things I'm
saying are kind of mentioned briefly in the Walk and Talk Paris episode that I did recently,
that the opening ceremony, the big plan is to have all these barges on the river. Barges are like
long boats used for carrying materials. So the plan is to actually have this grandiose ceremony,
a sort of a ceremony that's going to have a big ambitious plan to be big and fancy, but it might
not work. So the plan is to have a ceremony on the river, which if it works would be absolutely
fantastic and beautiful, but this is also not sure because it would be, there'd be a lot more risk
of attack. It's a lot more vulnerable and open to problems, right? That situation, whereas having
it in the in the Stad de France, the big stadium is a lot more, it's not safer, it's a lot easier
to control, easier to manage the crowds and the people, right? I mean, it's way, way better from
a health and safety point of view compared to just having it in the middle of the city on the river.
Also, there are questions about how do you prepare that area next to the river, the streets,
the river banks? How do you prepare all that area? There are actually people who have their
businesses there, cafes, little restaurants and bars and also little book shops. I don't know
if you've been to Paris, but it's a famous part of life in the centre of the city on the river banks.
You get these little independent book shops, which are essentially like these green boxes that
sit on top of the wall next to the river and these boxes have been there for decades and decades
and they sell literature and cards and tourist gifts and things like that. But the people who run
these during the Olympics, they're going to have to move all their stuff, they're going to have
to move these old green metal boxes and some say that they can't move them, that they will break
apart, you know, they're unmovable now because they're quite old and, you know, so as usual with
the Olympics, when you move the Olympics into an area, you have to move other people out and
that's always controversial. So anyway, this grandiose ceremony on the river with these boats moving
going up and down the river, probably with like the different Olympic teams on different boats and
stuff and whatever, it's quite a vulnerable in various ways, health and safety wise, but also
vulnerable to different kinds of maybe terrorist attack or something. The original plan was for
as many as 600,000 spectators to watch from the river banks, but security and logistical concerns
have led the government to progressively scale back the plan. So not only are they considering
moving it to the stadium, they've just reduced the number of spectators. President Emmanuel Macron
said yesterday that the ceremony might be moved to a new location if the authorities decide the
risk of an attack, potentially by drones is too great. I mean, that would be absolutely horrific,
if you can imagine, the opening ceremony on TV and everything, thousands of people out in the
centre of Paris and drones come in. I mean, that would just be a total tragedy. So if the authorities
decide that there's too much risk if the risk of attack is too high, then they'll move it.
And at the moment, the risk of attack is very high. What's going on in the world, you know, the
the extremely high levels of tension that are happening in the world due to the Israel Hamas war
and also the Russian invasion of Ukraine. And normally the world is in a pretty tense
condition, but especially at the moment with ISIS continuing to do what it does. So it's a very
difficult time. So they are considering moving the ceremony to a different place. There are plan Bs
and plan Cs, including opening the state, holding the opening at the city's Stadde-France,
he told television interviewers, asked if the Kremlin would seek to disrupt the Olympics.
Macron said that he had no doubt. Okay, so, you know, as ever, there's always stories of how
the Kremlin tries to interfere with these sorts of things. I mean, I sort of touched on that idea
earlier. How would the Kremlin do it? I don't know if they would directly, you know, send
sending attacks or anything. That's not necessarily the way they operate in Europe.
But what you do get is that they will attempt to destabilize and so the seeds of disagreement
and discontent, you know, which we've seen, you know, time and time again. I think, you know,
I don't think anyone can doubt whether this is actually happening. I think it's well known.
I'm talking about things like the spread of fake news. And the general sort of manipulation of
people's feelings and their attitudes, the stoking up of arguments and things like that.
And this has been proven to be true. And of course it is. I mean, we're still in a form of
Cold War. It's not even that much of a Cold War, is it? Which is obviously terrible.
You know, I know I've got lots of Russian listeners and, you know, it's just sad, isn't it? It's just
a tragedy when the governments of our countries are at war with each other, even if it's a proxy war.
You know, and it's horrible because it puts everyone in a difficult position because you've got
to decide where you stand and what you're going to do about it. And then on the other hand,
there are the people who are actually in the direct firing line, including the people in Ukraine
who are being, you know, attacked and civilians who are being killed. I mean, it's just
horrendous situation. And it makes me very sad. But would the Kremlin seek to disrupt the
Olympics? Macron thinks that there's no doubt about it, that the Kremlin will somehow. How will it
do it? I don't know, but maybe by, you know, it's often it's about misinformation.
And remember, remember the story about the bed bugs in Paris? Do you remember that?
I talked about it a while ago, a few times. There was this trending story a few months ago
that there was an infestation of bed bugs in Paris and that they were not only in people's beds,
but they were on the metro, on the trains and in cinemas. And so everyone's panicking and stuff like
that. And there's a theory, and it's not even necessarily a theory. I think it's, I think even,
like, in manual Macron said this, that that story was planted by sort of a Russian fake news outlet.
As a sort of insidious way to damage France's reputation.
Right? Bed bugs in Paris, Russian. Let's just put that in.
This is from Le Monde, which is a major French newspaper. Bed bug panic was stoked by Russia,
says France. France shut several schools in October last year over concern about bed bug infestations.
France has blamed the Kremlin for spreading misinformation about the pests.
It's hard to know, really isn't it? It's hard to know what's going on.
The comments by Europe minister Jean-Noël Bâro followed growing warnings about France,
from France, about the dangers of Russian disinformation, particularly aimed at undermining support
for Ukraine as it fights the invasion. The issue of bed bugs was artificially amplified on social
networks by accounts that have been established to be of Russian inspiration or origin. He told TF1
television it was very largely amplified by accounts linked to the Kremlin he added.
Oh dear, oh dear. Well, I mean it's sad this whole subject and I'm sure that some people are
feeling, some people are very strong feelings about this. Let's move on. Another potential threat
is sewage pollution. This is much more, what's the word for it? Much more fun? I don't know about
that, but another potential threat is sewage pollution in the sen sewage and I'm going to be going
through all this vocab. You know, as I said, we start with a big context. We get a bit more specific
as I give my comments to explain things and then we get into the details like individual words.
But sewage is basically the stuff that you flush down the toilet. You flush all your poo and urine
down the toilet and it goes into pipes underground. The stuff that flows through those pipes we call
its sewage. Those pipes underground, those are sewers. You know where the teenage mutant ninja turtles
live. They live in the sewers, right? Sewage pollution, basically poo in the sen, in the river.
This is another potential threat. The swimming events are due to take place in the river. Now,
whose idea was this? Whose idea was it to do the swimming events in the river? I can't understand
how that's going to be done when you consider which swimming events. I wonder if it will be
the major swimming races. Surely they won't happen in the river because you've got the current
of the river, right? The river flows. So how are you going to do a race in the river when the water
is flowing? Surely it won't be the major normal swimming events. Maybe they'll be doing other forms
of swimming event. But there's that. But then also the quality of the water. I mean, don't swim in
the river. Sen. Just don't. It's dirty. I mean, it's definitely a lot cleaner than it used to be.
There's no doubt about that. But I wouldn't want to swim in it. And it seems that sewage pollution,
or, you know, fecal matter, which is another word for poo, in the water. It's not like it's full of
shit. You know, that's not the case. But there's enough traces of it in the water for it to be a
health hazard. You wouldn't want to, for example, swallow any of it. It can make you very sick. In
an analysis by the Surfrider Foundation, only one out of 14 water samples from the river were found
to be safe for swimming. So it's like only one case out of 14 was safe for swimming. How are they
going to fix that? There's no way they can fix that in just a few weeks or months. Bacteria,
including pollution of fecal origin, meaning pollution that comes from poo, feces, remains dangerously
high in the river, said the nonprofit environmental organisation. And it's clear that athletes would be
swimming in polluted water and taking significant risks to their health. I wonder if the swimming
is really going to happen in the river. Games, boss, Eston Gays said last week that if water quality
levels worse, and there could be a final decision where we could not swim. So if the water conditions
get worse, but surely even if they stay the same, Eston Gays, the boss of the games is saying,
well, we'll decide not to swim in the river. So who knows? I mean, maybe it's going to be a case
of France or Paris saying, here's going to be our Olympics. It's going to be wonderful. We've
like come up with really cool things where we're going to have the opening event on the river.
We're going to do swimming events on the river. And then they're like, oh, actually no, we'll do it
in the stadium. And the swimming will be in a swimming pool. You know, the reality of it will be
a lot more sober and modest than the kind of initial vision. The Switzerland based an international
Olympic committee has mountains of skepticism to dispel in France and beyond. So skepticism,
which is basically like a sense that people don't really believe in the Olympics. People are unsure
about it doubtful. Right. So people are not the mood about the Olympics at the moment,
not just in France, but in the whole world is a little bit negative and people have got their
doubts and their concerns. So the Olympic committee has to dispel a lot of these bad feelings.
Here are some of the reasons why the $13 billion cost of the 2021 Tokyo Games. I mean,
that is an extraordinary amount of money, extraordinary. It costs $13 billion. Why did it have to cost
that much? I mean, maybe COVID was something to do with it. But still, I mean, in this day and age,
when we have such terrible poverty in the world and such a terrible division between the rich
and the poor, that this kind of amount of money can be splashed out on the Olympic Games.
Naturally, people end up being a bit skeptical about this and they start to think, it sort of erodes
people's, what's the word for it? It's just erodes people's belief in the games, doesn't it?
Also, the unfulfilled promises of beneficial change for 2016 host Rio de Janeiro.
So the games were in Rio in 2016 and there were promises like this is going to change the city,
it's going to improve life in this city significantly. There's going to be all these benefits,
beneficial change, but this was unfulfilled. So all these promises just came to nothing,
apparently. And this triggered widespread anger. So basically, people everywhere,
just like angry with the Olympic Committee. It's a bit like the way we feel about FIFA
and the World Cup. And you know, all you need to do is look at that Netflix documentary about
FIFA and you just like see the levels of corruption on display and the cynicism at the heart of that.
You know, it's kind of sad again, sad aspect of our world these days is that we love football,
we love sport, right? And that is wholesome and that's pure and that's good. And because we love
that so much, all these forces have come into squeeze as much money and take as much from this
as possibly. This has been exploited. Our love for sport for football is completely exploited
by these selfish greedy bastards basically. And so all this stuff basically changes the mood
that we have about the Olympics. Wide spread anger. And the 2014 winter games in Sochi were
tarnished by Russian doping. So there's also doping as well, which refers to the use of illegal
performance enhancing drugs. So all these things make people cynical and skeptical about the
Olympics. But some previous predictions of Olympics doom have proved incorrect. In the run-up to
the London 2012 Games, the army was drafted in to bolster the security presence provided by
private firm G4S amid fears of a repeat of the riots that had broken out in the city in 2011.
So I mentioned before in the Walk and Talk episode the 2012 Olympics in London, which were in
the end a huge success. Certainly during during the games and in terms of the way that they made us
feel about ourselves in the UK and London and the way that the rest of the world saw the London
2012 Games, I think overall it was positive and it left a positive impression that people felt
proud to be British when they saw that opening ceremony. The British Olympic team did well. I think
we came third or fourth in that particular Olympics. And generally it was like good. And beforehand
though, a bit similar to the situation in Paris, in the months before the London Olympics, people
in London were not happy about the Olympics either. And I was living there at the time and I remember
we were all quite cynical about it. We were all concerned that the city would be unbelievably
crowded, that it would be impossible to travel in the end. It wasn't that bad. I think part of
the reason for that though is because the Olympic village was out in the east of London in a kind of
slightly more remote area in the east of London. London's a huge city and the eastern parts.
There's quite a lot of areas there which are really far away from the centre of London really.
And that's where most of the activity happened. The Olympic village was there and the rest of it.
In Paris, it's all going to happen in the centre of the city. These major places in the centre that
all Parisians have to travel through on a daily basis. The Olympics is going to be dumped right
on top of it. But anyway, in London people were cynical about it and concerned about it, but in
the end it was a huge success. I don't know if economically financially in terms of living standards
and poverty and stuff if it really fulfilled its promises of beneficial change. But anyway,
for the most part, the London Olympics was great. But as it says in the article, in the run-up
to the London 2012 Games, the army was drafted in. So the army was brought in to bolster the
security presence provided by private firm G4S. So it was felt that more security would be needed
at the Olympics to deal with a possible riot. So a riot is when there's lots of people in the
street all fighting, probably fighting with the police, damaging public property and fighting
with the police. That's a riot. And in 2011, so that's the year before the 2012 Games in the summer,
there were riots in London and other cities in the UK. It was really extraordinary actually.
It was a response to the killing of a man in North London by police. There was a standoff with
this guy who the police thought was a dangerous criminal. It's a bit like the George Floyd
situation. If you know about that in the United States, when the police killed a man who was
suspected of shoplifting, I think, certainly not the sort of crime that would justify an immediate
execution. I mean, that's in any case, that's completely illegal anyway. But anyway, this man,
the police were in a standoff with him. They thought he had a gun. He didn't have a gun. He was
killed. And the community went completely bonkers in response to this because they saw it as a
completely unjustified assassination, essentially, of someone from their community. And it there was
protests. There were protests in the streets. Those protests became violent. They became riots.
The riots actually spread around the city. So even in areas of West London where I was living,
there were riots in shops were getting burned. It was extraordinary. I talked about it on the podcast
a couple of times. If you go back to episodes from 2011, maybe you might hear some accounts of
that, including the one with Aiman. The episode I did with Aiman, which was called Setting the World
to Rights, around about episode 100. And you can listen to Aiman's account of how he actually
locked his doors and armed himself with a baseball bat in order to protect his kids from potential
rioters who might break into his house. So it was very scary time. So there were these riots the
year before. And so everyone was concerned that there might be riots again in 2012. And so the army
were brought in as a measure. But in fact, there were no riots. There were no problems really.
I mean, in Paris, people who are nervous about protests and riots as well, I mean, there are
often riots here. But you know, we might see something like that. We might see like public protests.
There might be strikes. There might be riots. Some of the events are going to happen in parts of
northern Paris, which are normally sort of like problematic areas for crime. And certainly a lot of
poor areas there with housing estates, which are considered to be sort of no-go areas for some people.
And you know, that's going to be close to the where the Olympic events are happening. So who knows?
Who knows what's going to happen? I mean, there was like a Liverpool football game at Stad
de France a couple of years ago. And loads of like people, loads of kind of, I don't know how to
describe them really, just kind of criminals came in. And there was like almost like an attack
outside the stadium. The Liverpool football fans were blamed, but actually they were, everyone was
attacked by sort of gangs who came in to the crowd. So there's always that potential for these
sorts of things to go on. But anyway, in London 2012, the army was brought in. Everyone was
worried that there might be riots, but there weren't riots. It was fine. And journalists emit
cyclical, loud buzzing noises before every set of summer games. So basically journalists are
always expressing the cynical, loud, dissenting voices before every games. And reporters will
continue to fret on schedule. They will continue to worry and express their concerns every time.
Because it's in our job description. That's their job, isn't it, to express those ideas.
Eston Ghe, the organizer of the games, acknowledged last week that before this kind of big event,
there are always many questions, many concerns. But the Paris edition would make his nation proud,
he said. He might be right. He might well be right. We'll see. We'll see how the Olympics go.
Obviously, fingers crossed, it'll be a great success. There won't be any problems. There won't be
any fighting or anything like that. No security issues. And hopefully we will get something similar
to the 2012 games, something that will genuinely make French people feel proud to be French.
And we'll make the rest of the world look at France or look at Paris and go, good, good one,
guys, that was great. How is that going to happen? I don't know. But certainly, what Paris wants to do
is use its major assets and put them right on display. And that's why they want to do this thing
on the river, because that's where you get all of those incredible tourist spots. The full beauty
of the city can be shown if you do something on the river with the beautiful architecture down there.
You've got the Eiffel Tower in the background. You've got the bridges. You've got the Notre Dame,
which is still being reconstructed. And other incredible landmarks, the Grand Palais and other
things, the Louvre and so on. So if they can display all those things, if we get good weather,
and if there are no issues, then it could be a huge win for France. But of course,
some people don't want that to happen. And also, who knows, it might just rain the entire time.
No one expects that from around the world, but Paris weather is a lot like London weather.
So who knows, it might just piss it down for the entire time. It's not unknown for July to be quite
rainy in Paris. So we will see what happens. Right. So how are you doing, everyone? Are you doing okay?
Shall we go through some vocab? Yeah, let's have a look at some vocabulary then. Okay, so what I've got
here in my notes is a set of extracts from that article. And we're going to look at vocabulary
from those extracts. Okay, I'll try and do this quickly because we've been going for an hour.
So I'll try and get this wrapped up without it being incredibly long. Let's try and make this
less long than the Olympic games itself. Let's see if that's possible. So first of all,
the build up to this summer's games is being marred by rouse over national identity security and
pollution. I should say, by the way, is the build up to this summer's games is being marred? Why is
it is? Because you've got games here, which is plural, and some of you might think games are. No,
well, no, it's not. It's because it's the build up, which is singular. The build up is being marred.
It's which build up the build up to this summer's games. That's why it is here. But anyway, the build up,
this refers to the period before something happens, a period in which preparations are being made,
a period in which things are increasing. Okay, right. So before any big moment, before any big event,
there's always a build up and it's a build up of a build up of excitement. So if something builds up,
it means it gets larger in increases. So you've got the build up in terms of anticipation,
expectation, but also build up in terms of preparations. So the build up means the period before
something happens, the period in which things develop and increase. So the build up to this summer's
games is being marred. Okay, so marred is, let's say, a direct synonym of spoiled. So to mar something
is to spoil something. Spoil is a much more common word, but marred is used here because it's
definitely much more of a newspaper word. Spoiled is more just normal general English, but in
the newspapers, they like to choose a slightly different tone, sometimes slightly different
vocabulary. And it's a sort of a journalist or a kind of a journalistic style.
Newspapers don't always use more formal language. Sometimes they use a lot of informal language,
like build up and rouse, but they also, they just tend to use certain words, which is another reason
why you've got to be careful when you're learning English from the news because they speak in
news language. In general, English, I would say spoiled. Okay, so for example, spoil something.
If you spoil a cake, it means you let's say put too much salt in the cake and then
in a card, you put too much salt in it, you spoiled it. Okay, in this case, the build up to the
games is being spoiled by arguments and disagreements. Rouse, a rouse, and that's pronounced rau, row, row,
w, right, to rau and a rau is an argument, a disagreement. Okay, also we've got the verb,
which is what you do in a boat and that's to row. Row your boat, a rowing boat when you've got
oars in the water, including in the Olympics. Britain is quite good at rowing in the Olympics,
and that's to row, that's r, o, w, right, that's same spelling as rau, but the pronunciation is row.
Yeah, sorry, English. What are you going to do? So the build up to this summer's games is being
marred or spoiled by rouse or arguments over national identity security and pollution. Second,
extract, the lighting of the Olympic torch, so the lighting of the torch, meaning when the
torch is lit, so it's to light, lit, lit, okay, so the torch was lit a few days ago, the
lighting of the torch, that's the sort of noun form, the gerund form. Okay, I also wanted to point out
other words that are similar to that, so we've got, let's see, we've got to light something and to
light something up. We also have light lighting, lightening, lightening,
oops, lightening and lightening, okay, what's the difference between these things? So let's start
with to light something, is to make something on fire, you light a cigarette, you light a candle,
you light the Olympic torch, okay, so that's to make something burn, you light it with a match,
with a lighter, the light something up means to illuminate it, okay, so for example the Notre Dame
Cathedral is lit up at night, is it still lit up at night at the moment? Certainly that the
Eiffel Tower is lit up at night, to be lit up, right, so that's light, lit, lit, okay everybody,
light, lit, lit, the Eiffel Tower is lit up, meaning it's illuminated, there are lights in the
ground that shine up at the tower to make it look visible and wonderful, okay, so that's to light
something and light something up, lighting, lighting is the lighting of the torch, right, lightening
means making something lighter, right, lighten is the verb here to lighten something, for example,
to lighten your load, okay, so if you're carrying a lot of stuff, you, I might say hey, hey,
let me take some of those things, let me lighten the load for you and then lightening is what happens
during a storm, okay, lightening is what happens during a storm, the electricity that comes down from
the ground, let's see if I can find an emoji for that, yeah, there we go, so lightening is the
actual electrical shock that comes from the sky, that's lightening, the sound that comes with
lightening is thunder, so thunder is the sound and the electricity is the lightening, so anyway,
this is the lighting, the lighting of the Olympic torch today comes amid a dampening of enthusiasm,
so amid means in the middle of or while something is happening and again this is very common in
newspapers because it's a neat short word which is quite formal which means while something is
happening because you know in newspapers they often talk about something that happens while
something else is happening, right, so this happens in the context of this, so amid is the
is the word you use, so the lighting of the torch comes amid a dampening of enthusiasm,
it's always amid a noun, right, so amid, so the the appointment of a new mayor comes amid a bitter
disagreement about identity politics, right, in the middle of or while blah, blah, blah is happening,
that's what amid means, definitely something you'd see in newspapers, it comes amid a dampening of
enthusiasm to dampen something is to make it lower, now you can, no actually damp, there's
several meanings here, damp, the adjective damp means a little bit wet, like after you've had a
shower you dry yourself off with your towel, you put your towel back and the towel is damp, right,
but also to dampen, that's the verb with EN on the end, it doesn't just mean to make something a
bit wet, but it means to kind of reduce something or soften something, for example you would dampen
the noise of something by covering it up, right, so if you've got a speaker which is making a lot
of noise you can put a cushion on it and it'll dampen the sound, damp to dampen the shock of something,
you might put like a rubber insole in your shoes to dampen the shock, if you do a lot of running
on asphalt, on concrete or on roads, that's a lot of shock for your knees, so you might put a rubber
insole in your shoes to dampen the shock of every step you take, every move you make, every breath you
take, sting, what are you doing? So a dampening of enthusiasm, meaning enthusiasm has been reduced or
absorbed, right, in an increasingly fractious France, fractious means that people are disagreeing,
people are getting upset easily and disagreeing, a fracture is a crack, so for example if you break
your arm, there's two ways you can break your arm, you can completely break the bone where clearly the
two parts are separated, a clean break and you can have a fracture which is just a crack in the bone,
so a crack in the bone is a fracture, if something is fractious, fractious, it just means that it's
kind of breaking apart and if a country is fractious it means people are disagreeing with each other,
there are lines of disagreements which are causing arguments, right, so a situation can be fractious,
fractious, fractious, a situation can be fractious, a country can be fractious,
moving on, we're ready for this final straight said the Paris Olympics Chief Organiser,
Tony Estonge, final straight, now this refers to, I reckon it probably refers to a race and a
race track, so you've got the straight parts of a race track and then you've got the curved parts
on the ends, so if you're doing I don't know the 800 meters, you go around the track a few times
and the final straight is that final 100 meters sprint that you have to do at the end, that's the
final straight, so it's the final section, the final straight section that you have before,
you reach your destination or before you reach the end of the race, the final straight, so it's the
final section in the preparation for or the build up to something, okay, right, in this case it's
like these last 100 days of preparation, this is the final straight before we get to the end,
number four, to mark the 100 day countdown, so this is that they organized a press conference to
mark the 100 day countdown, if you mark something you just sort of do something to
mark the occasion, like for example if it's your birthday you might have a party to mark the
occasion, if it's your anniversary you'd go out for dinner to mark the occasion, so to mark the
occasion to mark the countdown is just to have an event to recognise the importance or significance
of something, in this case a press conference to mark the fact that the 100 day countdown has started,
I also wanted to point out, well a countdown, I think you know what a countdown is, like 10,
9, 8, 7, 6, that's a countdown, in this case it's a 100 day countdown, I wanted to just point out,
as I always do when this comes up, because this is a common mistake that I see from learners of
English, that one of my students might say a 100 days countdown, right, a six days event,
a five minutes walk, but those are not correct, in fact it's a 100 day countdown, a six day event
of five minute walk, because this is an adjective phrase, 100 day is an adjective phrase to tell
us about the word countdown, which is a noun, okay, and in English adjectives don't get pluralised,
so it's a 100 day countdown, a six day event, a five minute walk, a six year old girl, a five
pound note, a four star hotel, okay, it's worth noting that, number five, with the clock ticking
down, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock, right, the clock is ticking down, meaning time is
gradually getting shorter and shorter, with the clock ticking down until the games kick off
on the 26th of July, so kickoff is a nice phrasal verb, it sort of has a sporting
sense to it, so the beginning of a football match, you kick off,
beep, the referee blows his whistle, and you kick, you know, the first team kicks the ball,
it's called the kickoff, and the game kicks off at three o'clock, so kickoff means start,
basically, the games kick off on the 26th of July, france is bitter politics and gloomy mindset
are dampening the mood, there's that word dampening again, but bitter politics, if something is bitter,
so it refers to a taste, but also in this sense bitter feelings refers to disagreements where people
hold onto a bad feeling, resentment and negativity holding onto a bad feeling, that's bitter, bitter
resentment, bitter hatred, bitter politics where people just sort of feel bad, a lot of
disagreement, france is bitter politics and gloomy mindset, I guess the bitter politics refers to,
you know, the political fractures in the country, and the fairly passionate disagreements that
people have about the national identity, as I mentioned before, and this is exemplified by the
fact that, for example, Marine LePander, the right wing politician has got a lot of support,
you know, and there's actually a huge divide, just like there is in a lot of nations,
you see this in the United States with a Trump supporters versus like everyone else, and in the UK,
the kind of Brexiters versus like the normal people, it's very bitter, yeah, gloomy mindset,
if something's gloomy, it means it's kind of, well whether is often gloomy, if it's grey,
the sun can't come through, it's kind of grey and a bit dark, so gloomy today, but your mindset,
your mood, your feelings can be gloomy as well, meaning kind of sad, depressed.
bitter politics and the gloomy mindset are dampening the mood, among a fractious public,
there's that word again, said the Japan Times, it's not that bad, you know, I don't think it's
that bad, I don't think the mood is that gloomy, to be honest with you, I think this is a little bit
unfair, it's not quite as dramatic as that, in my experience anyway, I mean, I don't know,
I can't speak for everyone in this country, but you know, you get a sense that,
so even though in the UK there was a similar feeling before the Olympics, but I don't think the
commentators around the world were describing our mood as gloomy at that time, you know, but the
French often get criticised for being a bit moody and a bit gloomy, especially the Parisians,
but this is maybe an example of like that confirmation bias that happens, where because people think
that the Parisians are gloomy, that they interpret these events and they emphasize the gloominess,
this is not entirely fair. Number seven, the build up has been marred by rouse, so I've
I've already done these words, marred by rouse, like spoiled by disagreements, to go to the heart
of a bitter national debate, okay. Hervé Le Bras, whose name I probably mispronounced a sociologist,
told the paper that the game's threatened to underline the major fractures in France,
threatened, if you threaten to do something, normally a person threatens another person, for
example they'll say, give me all your money or I'll break your legs, right? A very basic threat,
you do X or I will do Y, if you don't give me all your money I will break your legs sunshine,
alright, some some cockney gangster, alright listen to me, son, right? Listen to me, son,
if you don't give me the money by 3 p.m. I will personally come down here and I will break
both of your legs, because I am a cockney gangster in a, who's that director? What's his name?
You know the one, go richy, I'm a stereotypical cartoon and I've become Michael Cain suddenly,
I've become a little bit more Michael Cain all of a sudden, now you're a big man but you're out of
shape now sit down or I will break both of your legs, I thought you were Michael Cain, I was for
a moment but the accent slipped, anyway to threaten someone, you do, you give me the money, you give
me the money, you son of a bitch, now I've become Robert De Niro, give me them, you're talking to me,
you're talking to me, you give me the money or I'll break your fucking legs, well this, what's
going to happen to this video on YouTube, I might have to beep that swear word out, because YouTube
is a bit sensitive about swearing sometimes, anyway to threaten someone, now the, in this case it's
the games which are threatening to do something, they're threatening to emphasise the problems in
French society, so the, the Olympics are like, you know, you better organise these Olympic games,
you better do a good job, you better good joke, because if you don't, if you don't do a good
job I'm going to show the world, threatening to undermine, underline the major fractures in
France, to underline, like draw a line underneath to emphasise, underline something, a bit like what
you do when you're making notes, right, if you're reading a newspaper article you might underline
words, they're like, interesting words, I will underline the word underline, I will underline it twice,
underline the major fractures in France, these are these cracks that can cause breaks, you know,
notably the fracture between Paris and the rest of the country, if something's notable or notably
it's like worth noticing, or something clear or obvious, especially, right, it could mean especially,
the games threaten to underline the major fractures in France, especially or notably the fracture
between Paris and the rest of the country, and Odexa, pole of more than 1,200 Paris region
residents, a pole, P-O-L-L, this is a sort of survey to work out public opinion, often before an
election you have poles, this is where people are asked, maybe before they're going into the election
booth or people are asked to say who they're going to vote for, and then before the election
results come in or before the election happens you get a pole which sort of gives you a prediction
of what the result might be, in this case it's a survey of people's opinion, right, and Odexa,
Odexa is the company that does this survey, so an Odexa pole of more than 1,200 Paris region,
residents last November found that 44% thought the games were a bad thing and 52% were planning to
leave the city, well they were going to do it anyway because it's August, during the 16-day event,
look there's another one, 16-day event, not 16-days event, it's a 16-day event, one per
isian told the BBC that staying would be unbearable, anyone who was part of my Zoom workshop recently
will have noticed this, if you can't bear something it means you just can't stand it,
and for you it's unbearable, like the example I would give is like very hot weather,
I find it to be unbearable, even if it's above about 30-35 degrees or more, it's just unbearable
for me, it's too hot, I can't do anything, I can't stop sweating, I can't move anywhere, it says
it's completely unbearable, for this perision staying in Paris would be unbearable with the
games because it would be impossible to do anything, a papo seed, impossible to park your car,
move around, do anything, number 11, security fears, so people's worries or how people are afraid
related to security, these security fears are growing amid mounting global tensions,
there's the word amid, meaning in the middle of or while something is happening, followed by a
noun, mounting global tensions, tensions in relationships between different countries are becoming
tense, meaning they're becoming very nervous and strained and not relaxed at all,
like, mountain global tensions, right, as I mentioned before, the fact that nations,
different nations are not, the diplomacy is breaking down, things are getting very tense between
different nations of the world, as I mentioned before, this is mounting global tensions,
mounting is a bit like building up, basically getting bigger, like a mountain, they're mounting,
getting larger, building up, security fears, so people's fears about security are growing
in the context of growing global tensions, in a break from the tradition of opening the games in
the main stadium, the organizers have devised a grandiose ceremony, they've devised it, meaning
they've thought of it, they've planned it, right, they've had the idea and created it and planned it,
okay, in this case they've planned a big ceremony, a grandiose ceremony, if something's grandiose,
it means normally of a plan, plans are grandiose, a plan that is big and fancy and wonderful, but
might not work, so like over ambitious, a sort of over ambitious, big fancy project,
that's grandiose, something that's going to look fantastic and look wonderful, but actually
might not be possible, so it's a sort of a slightly negative, slightly negative sense to it,
in that it's, you're saying that something is maybe a bit too over ambitious and maybe a bit
showy, like a bit flashy, a grandiose ceremony centered around a parade of barges on the river
Sen, which means that the parade of boats on the river will be the center of this ceremony,
and everything will will will be organised around this main central feature, which will be the
parade of boats on the river, if that comes off, if that if they pull that off, it will be amazing,
the original plan was as many as 600,000 spectators, these are people who are spectating,
watching an event, 600,000 spectators to watch from the river banks, I think it's clear,
isn't it really the sides of the river, but security and logistical concerns, that's like worries,
doubts, fears, concerns, you know, sort of concerned thoughts that people have, have led the
government to progressively scale back the plan, to scale something back, nice phrasal verb means to
make it smaller, the scale refers to the size, and if you scale something down or scale something
back, it means just make it smaller, make the general scale, general size of the event smaller.
President Emmanuel Macron said yesterday that the ceremony might be moved to a new location,
if the authorities decide that the risk of an attack, potentially by drones is too great,
potentially means it's possible it might be by drones, so if something's potential,
it's just something that might happen, okay, so if you see the difference between saying an attack
by drones means that it's definitely an attack by drones, attack potentially by drones means that
there will be an attack, but we don't know, it could be by drones, it could be by something else.
Blubble blah blah, asked if the Kremlin would seek to disrupt the Olympics, Macron said he had no
doubt, notice the pronunciation of doubt here, the B is silent, right? No doubt, he said he had no doubt
that the Kremlin would seek to disrupt the Olympics, seek to would be like try to look for a way to
try and find a way to disrupt the Olympics, just means make the Olympics disrupted, disturbed,
cause problems with the organisation, cause problems with the running of the Olympics,
cause disruptions. Another potential threat, so there's that word potential, it's a threat
that might happen, a threat is a danger, something that could cause problems, right? We had threatened,
which was like give me the money or I'll break your legs, you know, come on, do the right thing,
it's a threat, if you don't do that, I'll do that, that's to threaten someone and you also make a
threat, like you know, you better watch out and I'll break your legs if you don't pay me. Also,
another thing could be a threat that something that causes potential problems, in this case,
sewage pollution in the river. Sewage I mentioned before, this is the stuff that flows through the
sewers, it's basically all the human waste, it's disgusting, why did the turtles choose to live
down there? I don't know, maybe they mutated, didn't they, the ninja turtles, that they mutate
because of the sewage, cause all of those hamburgers and all the terrible American foods,
that those New Yorkers were eating was going eventually going down into the sewers and the
turtles just like, they just mutated and they became heroes. Sewage pollution in the
sewn, where swimming events are due to take place, meaning that they are planned to take place,
right? 17, bacteria, including pollution of fecal origin, what a lovely phrase, pollution of
fecal origin. So this is kind of like more medical language, slightly more formal language,
which is more appropriate for, let's say, you know, the organizer of the Olympic Games or
a public institution or an organization that researches the cleanliness of water and delivers
reports for the government, they're not going to say poo, they're not going to say shit,
you know, they're going to say feces and fecal is the adjective for feces. So pollution of
fecal origin, oh, what you mean shit, shit in the water or at least bacteria that comes from that.
How lovely. Number 18, Games Boss, Estonge said last week that if water quality levels worse and
there could be a final decision where we could not swim, worsen means to get worse, right?
Wersen, so you know worse, you know bad, worse the worst, but the verb is to worsen,
okay? Good, better, best, the verb there would be to improve. So improve, opposite, worsen,
worsen, worsen, worsened. Number 19, the Switzerland-based International Olympic Committee has
mountains of skepticism to dispel skepticism, as I mentioned before, this is that sense of doubt,
I don't believe it, I don't think it's true, I don't think it's going to happen, right? To dispel,
if you dispel skepticism, if you dispel myths, if you dispel fake news, dispel misinformation,
you prove it to be wrong and you make it go away. And it's dispel myths, dispel skepticism,
dispel misinformation. So you prove it to be wrong, huh? Who? Prove it to be what?
Prove it to be wrong and then make it go away. Right, so this is what the Olympic Committee has to
do, they've got to try and fight back against all of these doubts and misproved, you know,
disprove them and then make those doubts and skepticism senses of, you know, feelings of skepticism
go away. Number 20, the 13 billion cost of the 2021 Tokyo Games and the unfulfilled promises
of beneficial change, unfulfilled promises, the promises were not fulfilled, means they didn't
happen. So your dreams can be fulfilled or unfulfilled, your expectations can be unfulfilled,
promises can be unfulfilled, means they weren't delivered, they didn't happen.
Something that you, in some vision you have of the future can be fulfilled or unfulfilled,
your ambition can be unfulfilled, your potential can be unfulfilled as well. If someone's
like, this kid's going to go far, you're going to watch this kid, he could play for England one day
and then no, didn't happen, his potential was un-unfulfilled. In this case, promises of change
in Rio de Janeiro, those promises were un-fulfilled. What kind of change? Beneficial change,
right? Change for the better, for the better? No. What's happened to my mouth today? Come on.
Beneficial change, change for the better. Benefits refer to good things that people get.
I understand in some languages you use the word benefits to mean profits, like the money that you
make at the end of a business transaction, but benefits in English just means any good things
that you get from doing something. In the case of Rio de Janeiro, the Olympics, it would probably be
an improved, improved living standards, improved infrastructure, right? But apparently, those
promises were un-fulfilled. Were they Brazilian listeners? Let me know. If you know about this, let me know.
Those un-fulfilled promises triggered widespread anger. So anger, we know what this is.
Wide spread anger just means anger everywhere over a spread over a wide area.
Right? So lots of people everywhere were angry about this, not just people in Rio,
but it was widespread anger everywhere. Okay? It triggered anger. To trigger is to make something
happen. Like on a gun, you have a gun. There's the handle of the gun. There's the barrel of the gun.
There's the trigger of the gun, which is the bit that you pull in order to make the gun fire.
That triggers the mechanism. That's the trigger. But so to trigger something is to basically make
something happen. And you can trigger people's feelings. Trigger anger, trigger.
I don't know what trigger. It's normally anger, to be honest. Normally, when someone feels triggered,
they're like, ah, look on the internet. If you feel triggered. Like, you know, what I said about
about Russia earlier on, probably triggered a lot of Russian listeners who are blowing the dust
off their fingers to type me some something. Or maybe not. I don't know. That's not my intention
anywhere. I'm not out here. I'm not here to trigger anyone's feelings. Okay? I'm not. That's not
my intention. I'm here to just talk sincerely and talk about the way things are from my position.
Okay? I'm not here to trigger your feelings. So, you know, that's that's that. The 2014 winter games
in Sachi were tarnished by Russian doping. Tarnished. It's similar to those other words that we had before
spoiled and marred. But tarnished really means when, for example, something that previously was shiny,
like a metal shiny thing. If it gets damaged, then the shine comes off. You could say it's been
tarnished. So it's basically when something less looks less good. It looks less shiny. Right?
Metal gets tarnished, scratched and damaged and there's doesn't shine anymore. So that's tarnished.
So in this case, the winter games in Sachi were tarnished. So many of the shine was taken off
by Russian doping. Doping, yeah, meaning the use of performance enhancing drugs.
But some previous predictions of Olympics doom doom and gloom. Doom is basically like a really
bad thing that's going to happen. Right? That's basically it like the end of the world or something
like that. Just a really bad thing that's going to happen. So predictions of Olympics doom would be
where people say it's going to be a disaster. There's going to be riots. People are, you know,
it's going to all the money is going to go in the wrong places. Life in the city will be disrupted.
French people will be like, our lunch is going to be interrupted. No, I might not be able to get
baguettes. These are predictions of Olympics doom, but previous predictions like this have been
proved incorrect, like the one in London, where the army was drafted in, to draft in the army,
meaning they were brought in to work or big wasp. There was a big wasp flying around outside my
open window, but I think I managed to prevent him from coming in. That was a dramatic moment on
the podcast. Why am I talking like this? Why have I suddenly started talking like Liam Neeson? I
don't know. I don't know who you are. I don't know why you want to come into my bedroom. It's not
my bedroom. Why did I say that? I don't know. Anyway, the army was drafted in. Basically, the army
was ordered to come in to do something. The word drafted refers to when someone is ordered to
join the army or when the army is ordered to come in and do something. The army was drafted in,
brought in to bolster the security presence. Bolster means support, basically. Bolsters would be
large wooden supports or props that would be put in place to make something stronger. For
example, if there's a wall in your garden that looks like it might fall down, you would put
wooden bolsters, wooden supports to bolster the wall to stop it from falling down. In this case,
the army was brought in to bolster the security presence to support, make stronger. The
presence, the security was provided by Private Firm G4S. A firm is basically another way to say a
company. It's not exactly the same. There's like a legal difference between a firm and a company.
A firm is technically a partnership, a different legal arrangement, but essentially for all
intents and purposes is the same thing. But a firm is a company. Normally, we say like a legal firm,
a law firm, a security firm as well. A mid fears of a repeat of the riots that had broken out
in the city in 2011. I mentioned the riots before. Riots break out. If something breaks out, it suddenly
suddenly starts and arrives. So a riot can break out. War can break out. And maybe the epidemic
of a disease can break out. I mean, it starts and suddenly goes around everywhere. A bit like
people can break out of a prison. A break out. A prison break out. That's where the prisoners
escape from the prison and then they're everywhere. The prisoners have broken out. A riot broke out
in the prison. And then the prisoners broke out of the prison. Number 23, we're nearly at the end.
Journalists emit or they produce this sound to emit a sound. What sound is it that journalists
emit or produce at this time while they produce cyclical loud buzzing noises? All right. What kind of
noises? Buzzing noises. Like that. Loud buzzing noises. Cyclicle loud buzzing noises.
Cyclicle means going round in a cycle, going round and round and round. So repetitive,
annoying, critical sounds. A bit like the sound of a fly buzzing around in your room.
This is journalists around the Olympics. They start to go round and round in circles,
making the same kinds of loud negative sounds. They emit cyclical loud buzzing noises before every
set of summer games said George Fexy in the New York Times. Reporters will continue to fret on
schedule. I say schedule because I'm from the UK. That's British English, schedule in American
English, but I say schedule. Reporters will continue to fret on schedule. Fret means worry,
basically, to worry about things. Oh no, it's going to be bad. It's going to be terrible. They're
going to be riot. They're going to be drone attacks. All the swimmers are going to die from
typhoid. Typhoid? No. All the swimmers are going to get cholera. You know, no. The
bubonic plague will come back. It's going to be the end of days. Oh no, worrying. Fretting.
I'm fretting about my exam next week. I'm fretting about the thing I've got to do. Stop fretting.
Just relax. Okay. Reporters will continue to fret on schedule. Meaning they'll just worry
at, you know, based on a schedule. In this case, when the Olympic Games happen. Why? Because it's
in our job description. Your job description is basically all of the duties that you have
to perform as part of your job. Right? Your job description is all the things you have to do.
For example, as an English teacher, my job description is to plan lessons and teach lessons
and do some admin, you know, recording attendance and doing some assessments for students.
This is my job description. Okay? So it's in, if something's in your job description, it means
it's your job. It's one of your duties that you have to do as part of your job. So,
reporters will continue to worry about these things every time because that's their job.
Estonge acknowledged last week that before this kind of big event, there are always many questions.
If you acknowledge something, this is a nice verb. It means you sort of, you admit or show that
you think something exists or that something is true. So to acknowledge, in this case, he acknowledged
that there are always many questions and concerns. He's like, yeah, fair enough. If this is true
before every big event like this, there are always concerns worries, questions and things like
that. This is true. So that's he acknowledged that this was true. So acknowledge that something
is true. It could be for many different things. It acknowledged that. Right. And let's get some
examples. Let's find some examples here. And how am I going to do that? I'm going to go to
ChatGBT. Right. Can you give me some examples with the word act no led G?
The question mark go. Sure, here are some examples of sentences using the word acknowledge.
She refused to acknowledge his presence in the room. That means she ignored him. He was in the
room, but she just like, didn't say hello to him. Just ignored him. She didn't show that she knew
he was in the room. She just ignored him. The company sent a letter to acknowledge receipt of
the complaint. So I complained to the company. Like, I don't know what the company was. Dear,
dear coffee company. The coffee that you sent me was in fact decaffeinated coffee when I wanted
fully caffeinated coffee. And so please find this letter as complaint and blah, blah, blah. Right.
And the company wrote back saying, dear Mr. Thompson, I'm terribly sorry. We are here at the coffee
company. We're terribly sorry to have sent you decaffeinated coffee when you wanted fully
caffeinated coffee. And it must be terrible for you not to have caffeine when you need it.
So please find enclosed in this package three packs of fully caffeinated coffee as our apology.
So they acknowledged the receipt or as we received your complaint, they acknowledge receipt
of the complaint. It's important to acknowledge your mistakes and learn from them, which would be like,
yeah, okay, fair enough, I made a mistake there. That was my fault. So you acknowledged it.
Compared to like not acknowledging it, which would be like, someone made a mistake. Who was it?
Well, it wasn't me. Me? Make a mistake. No, I don't think so. No, not me. No, that's, you didn't
acknowledge that he made a mistake. But in this case, yeah, okay, it was me. I made a mistake. Sorry.
You know, the professor acknowledged the students insightful comment during the lecture.
So like the lecture professor was giving his lecture, blah, blah, blah. And the student said
something, um, professor, blah, blah, maybe sort of an important point here that, and the professor
was like, hmm, certainly very interesting point. Well, made. He acknowledged the insightful comment.
Okay. So I think you get the idea. In this case, a stongay acknowledged that before this kind of
event, there are always big questions, many concerns or worries. But the Paris edition would make
his nation proud to make your nation proud, meaning make them feel proud. Hopefully this will be
true and the Olympics will make French people proud because, you know, France is, France is
all right. You know, it's great. It's lovely place. Beautiful country. It is. And sometimes French
people can be a little bit sort of, I don't know, depends on the person. I think it depends on
the person that you talk to, but maybe a bit modest or a little bit gloomy, maybe, not the
no, want to perpetuate any stereotypes. But I don't know. I don't feel like French people are always
that happy to acknowledge how great France is. Although actually saying that, this is not true
because there's loads of French people who are like, ah, France is number one. So I don't know what I'm
talking about. But anyway, I hope you found that to be an interesting article listeners. And at
this point, I'd like to get your responses. Okay, obviously in a measured way. Okay, just write
something nice, write something thoughtful, write something sincere in the comments section,
either on YouTube or on my website. Okay, teachelook.co.uk. What do you think about the Olympics
this year? What about previous Olympic games? Do you think that, how do you feel? Are you cynical
about the Olympics? Are you looking forward to it? If you are cynical about it, why? If you're not,
if you are looking forward to it, why? Are you French? Where do you stand on all the things I said?
And have, do you live in a place that's had the Olympics in the past? And how was it for you
before, during, and after? Okay, all those notes and stuff, you can find them on the page for this
episode on my website, teachelook.co.uk. In the episode archive, find this episode 880, you'll
find those notes there. Okay, premium subscribers, don't forget P59, parts 12, P59, parts 12,
just became Barack Obama for a moment. P59, parts 12, three are available to you now. Just make
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one. You get the PDF links and video links in the show notes for each premium episode. That's it
for me. Okay, I'll speak to you again very soon on this podcast and have a lovely day
morning, afternoon, evening or night. Thank you for all the nice comments that I've been getting
recently. I'm glad everyone enjoyed the last episode with Matt Abraham's. Brilliant, wasn't it?
Full of insights. Really interesting. Even though I was blushing during the conversation,
it didn't matter at all. It was quite nice to read comments from other people who also
blushing similar situations. What can you do? There's not really much you can do about it. It's
not worth worrying about, is it really? B.O. it was just I guess proof if you need it that I'm not
a replicant from Blade Runner. I'm a human being and not some sort of cyborg or Android.
Okay, thanks for listening. Species you next time, but for now, goodbye. Bye. Bye. Bye.
Thanks for listening to Luke's English podcast. For more information, visit teacherluke.co.uk.
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