Shadowing Practice: Read a NEWS Article in English 🌐 Advanced Vocabulary [FULL LESSON] - Learn English Speaking with Video

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In today's English lesson, we are going to read a news article together.
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You're going to learn a lot of advanced vocabulary in context for formal and informal situations.
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We will analyze each paragraph line by line.
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After that, I'll go back to the beginning and read the entire article from start to finish at a more natural speed.
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Then at the end of the lesson, I'll have some homework questions for you to practice your writing.
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And as always, I've created a free PDF for you.
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You can download all of today's notes by clicking the link in the description below this video.
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Okay, let's start with the headline or the title of today's news article.
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Starbucks loses $50 million lawsuit after driver burned by hot tea.
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Ouch.
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First, let's start with a very important word here, lawsuit.
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A lawsuit is a problem or a disagreement that two people or two organizations have,
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and they bring this problem to be solved in a court of law
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and the court makes the decision to end the disagreement.
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So there are some common collocations in legal situations that use the word lawsuit.
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A person or an organization can file a lawsuit, so they start or initiate this process.
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You can win or lose a lawsuit.
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Or sometimes there are situations where you want to end a lawsuit before the court makes a decision about it
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and that's when we can use the verb settle.
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You can settle a lawsuit.
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So now we have the verb to burn.
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To burn means to destroy or damage something with fire or heat.
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In this case, we have the passive form to be burned means that something or someone receives a burn injury.
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So, So yes, burn can also be a noun.
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Headlines usually don't follow normal grammar rules and they typically don't use complete sentences.
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So this is not how we would typically say or write this information.
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A complete sentence would sound like Starbucks lost
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or has lost a $50 million lawsuit after a driver was burned by hot tea.
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In another lesson, I explain exactly why all of these changes are happening in headlines,
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so I highly recommend that you watch that lesson after this one.
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Now, notice that there's a difference between how we say dollar amounts and how we write them.
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So when I'm pronouncing this, I say $50 million.
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I'm not adding the S at the end of dollar.
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I'm not saying $50 million lawsuit because this is really functioning as an adjective to describe the type of lawsuit.
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And in English, we don't have plural adjectives.
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So this is a $50 million lawsuit.
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Now, if we delete the word lawsuit and we only describe the amount of money, then we can say $50 million.
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Okay, let's look at the first paragraph.
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A California delivery driver has been awarded $50 million in damages
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after a scalding hot Starbucks tea spilled onto his lap at a drive -thru,
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causing severe burns and life -changing injuries.
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A Los Angeles County jury found Starbucks responsible for the incident, ruling in favor of Michael Garcia,
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who filed a negligence lawsuit against the coffee giant.
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Okay, here we have the present perfect tense has been awarded.
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So it happened in the past and it is relevant to this current situation.
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So has been awarded.
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So to award someone something typically means to give someone something, such as a prize or money.
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In legal contexts, this is a formal decision.
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So in this case, a judge awarded this amount of money.
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Another example in a different context would be the company will
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award a bonus to the employee with the best performance this year.
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Okay, and here we have a compound adjective.
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So we already know hot, but what does it mean if something is scalding hot?
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We use this to describe a liquid that is so hot that it can cause a burn to your skin.
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A scalding hot Starbucks tea spilled onto his lap.
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To spill means to cause a liquid to accidentally flow over the edge of a cup or a container.
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So the liquid goes beyond the limits and it falls onto a surface.
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When the object is a surface, then we usually use the preposition onto.
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Sometimes we can use on as well.
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So the tea spilled onto his lap.
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That implies movement.
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So your lap, this is the flat area created by the top surface of your upper legs
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when you're in a sitting position.
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So that's why it's called a laptop because it's something that can sit on the top of your lap.
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Okay.
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Next, we have a very useful adjective, severe, severe.
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Stress on the second syllable here
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so severe burns it just means very bad very serious
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or intense and in the case of burns severe burns means
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that it causes a lot of pain a lot of difficulty or damage
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so severe burns all right in the next sentence we know the city of los angeles california you want be really careful.
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This is not country because there's no R here.
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This is just the word county, county.
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And notice that in my particular dialect of American English, I do not pronounce this T after the N.
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So a county is one of many areas or districts inside a state in the United States a Los Angeles County jury.
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A jury is a group of people who are selected to listen to all of the facts during a legal trial.
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And the jury then makes a decision about whether a person is guilty or not guilty.
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Okay.
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So what did the jury decide here?
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Here we have the verb to rule.
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To rule means to make an official legal decision.
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You can rule in favor of a person or an organization, and that means that your decision supports that person.
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So the jury is ruling in favor of Michael Garcia.
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Now, the opposite of ruling in favor of someone is to rule against someone.
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And we've already talked about this.
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Michael Garcia is the delivery driver who filed a lawsuit.
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Hi, this is teacher Gina from the future.
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I am currently editing this video and I realized that I forgot to explain what type of lawsuit this is.
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This vocabulary word is very important.
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This noun is negligence.
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Negligence.
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And in a lawsuit, negligence means that someone did not take proper care to prevent harm.
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And because of that, another person was hurt or another person suffered damage.
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It's kind of like saying, you weren't careful and because of that, I got hurt.
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That's negligence.
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Against the coffee giant.
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So here we're using giant as a noun.
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In this context, a giant is a large successful company that is well known in its industry.
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So Starbucks is a giant in the coffee industry.
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Okay, let's read the next paragraph.
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The accident took place on February 8th, 2020, when Garcia, a delivery driver,
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stopped at a Starbucks drive -thru in Los Angeles County to pick up a venti -sized hot tea.
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According to court records, a Starbucks employee handed him the scalding drink in a takeout tray.
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Moments later, the cup tipped over, spilling its boiling hot contents onto Garcia's lap and groin area.
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Okay, here we have a very common phrasal verb that we use to talk about when and where events happen,
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and that is to take place.
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Here we're using this in the past tense, took place, because this happened February 8th.
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Notice my pronunciation of the date here, February 8th, 2020.
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In American English, we put the month first, then we put the day, and then we put the year.
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February 8th, that's the ordinal number, like first, second, third, seventh, eighth.
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We don't always write the TH, but we always say the TH.
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And the year 2020.
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Just like that pronunciation of county here, I don't pronounce the T after the N in 20.
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All right, so next we have another verb.
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You can also consider this a phrasal verb.
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You can stop at a place.
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You can also stop by or stop in a place.
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And this basically means to pause or end a journey or an activity for a short time.
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Starbucks was not the final destination.
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They were just stopping at Starbucks because they wanted to get a drink.
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Fast food restaurants like Starbucks, McDonald's, Burger King, etc. They all have drive -thrus in the United States.
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So why did he stop at the Starbucks drive -thru?
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Well, to pick up something.
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To pick up something or to pick something up.
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In this context, this means to go and get something that is waiting to be collected.
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So you can pick up someone, like for example, you can pick up your daughter from school, or you can pick up something.
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Garcia decided to pick up a venti -sized hot tea.
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So at Starbucks, there are three different sizes that you can order for your drink.
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You can order tall, which is really the smallest size, grande, which is medium, and venti.
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That is the largest size that you can order at Starbucks.
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So that size is only specific to Starbucks, but in other places you would just say small, medium, and large.
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Okay, next we have court records.
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So these are the official documents,
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transcripts, and all of the papers that a court keeps to help decide this legal case.
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To hand someone something is basically the same thing as to give someone something, but it's more specific because you are using your hand.
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So a Starbucks employee handed him the scalding drink, right?
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The very seriously hot drink in a takeout tray.
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So you've probably seen one of these if you've ordered food from a fast food restaurant before.
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So if something tips over, that means that it falls onto its side.
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So it was in an upright position, but it tipped over, boiling, boiling hot contents.
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If water is boiling, that means the water becomes very hot and it creates bubbles and those bubbles turn into steam.
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You often have to boil water when you're cooking something.
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So in this case, maybe the water is not literally boiling, but it's close.
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It's very, very hot.
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So the word groin, we use this to describe this part of your body here.
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And obviously you do not want boiling hot water near your groin.
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Okay.
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Let's go to the next paragraph.
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Garcia's legal team argued that the accident could have been completely avoided
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if Starbucks employees had taken proper precautions when handing over the drink.
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The lawsuit specifically claimed that the worker who served Garcia his tea failed to wedge the cup securely into the takeout tray,
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making it prone to tipping over.
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So in regular situations,
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the verb to argue typically means to have a disagreement and to fight about that disagreement using very angry words, right?
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Two people can argue with each other.
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In this context, to argue means to give reasons for something or against something.
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So you're trying to change someone's opinion about what is true or about what should be done.
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The legal team argued.
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So what did they argue?
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Well, they argued that the accident could have been completely avoided.
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I know this looks a little scary, but let's talk about the grammar here.
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Okay, so first we have the modal verb could.
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The function here is that this expresses possibility that did not happen.
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So an unreal situation.
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This is using the perfect aspect because we have have,
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we have have, and then we have the past participle form of the verb be, been.
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After have been, we have another very useful verb, to avoid something.
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This can mean a couple of different things.
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It can mean to stay away from something, but it can also mean to prevent something from happening, especially something bad.
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So in this case, if something could have been avoided, that means it was possible to avoid the accident in the past,
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but it was not avoided.
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It happened.
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Okay.
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We have a very useful legal collocation here, and that is to take precautions.
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In this case, take proper precautions.
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So what are precautions?
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So these are actions that you take in advance,
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actions that you take before something to prevent something dangerous or unpleasant or problematic from happening.
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So you take precautions.
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Remember that collocation.
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You should always take safety precautions when working with electrical equipment.
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Okay.
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So to claim something is to say that something is true or that something is a fact,
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even if there is no proof or there's no evidence.
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For example, he claims that he saw a shooting star, but no one else did.
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To wedge, to wedge something into something else.
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And this just means to force or fit something tightly into a small space.
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So for example, she's trying to wedge the last book into the already full bookshelf.
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Okay, next, a very, very useful adjective phrase,
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to be prone to something or to be prone to doing something.
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This means that someone or something has a natural tendency to do something
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or to be affected by something or to suffer from something.
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And usually the something is negative or unpleasant.
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I am prone to making mistakes when I rush my work.
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This is very, very true.
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Some people are prone to illnesses in the winter.
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So in this case, because the cup of hot tea was not wedged securely into the takeout tray,
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there was a higher chance that it would tip over.
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So it was more prone to tipping over.
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Let's go to the next paragraph.
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Following the jury's decision, Starbucks issued a statement expressing sympathy for Garcia's injuries,
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but maintained that it was not at fault for the accident.
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We disagree with the jury's decision that we were at fault for this incident and believe the damages awarded to be excessive.
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Here we have a very useful collocation to issue a statement.
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This is a formal way for organizations or maybe even celebrities to communicate official announcements or official information.
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When you issue a statement, it's often in writing to the public or to the media.
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What was included in the statement from Starbucks?
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Well, sympathy.
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So this is a noun, a feeling of understanding and caring about another person's problems or sadness.
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So you can express your sympathy to someone, or you can also have sympathy for someone.
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It was not at fault.
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It is referring to the company Starbucks.
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If you are not at fault, that means that you are not responsible for a mistake or an accident or something bad that has occurred.
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So especially in legal contexts, you can be at fault or you can be not at fault.
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But the last sentence here in this paragraph, we see that there are quotation marks.
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So this means that this is a direct quote.
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These are the direct words that were in the statement that was issued by Starbucks.
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Okay.
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So the jury decided that we were at fault.
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We disagree with this and believe the damages awarded to be excessive.
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This is a really great adjective to know.
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That means it's.. too much.
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It's much more than reasonable, much more than necessary to be excessive.
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Okay, almost done here.
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Let's look at the last paragraph together.
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Given the high financial stakes of the case, Starbucks has confirmed that it will appeal the verdict,
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hoping to overturn or reduce the $50 million awarded to Garcia.
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The appeal process could take months or even years.
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But for now, Michael Garcia's legal victory stands as a major challenge to the coffee industry's handling of customer safety and liability.
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First, I want to talk about what it means if something is high stakes.
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Here we have financial between these words, But if something is high stakes, that means that there is a situation or a game
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or a contest where there is a lot to be won or to be lost.
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So the result is very important and there could be significant consequences.
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This is very common when people talk about poker.
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So it was a high stakes poker game with thousands of dollars on the table.
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So this is a high stakes lawsuit.
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Starbucks has confirmed that it will appeal the verdict.
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First, I want to talk about the word verdict.
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So in a legal context,
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a verdict is the official decision that is made by a jury or a judge in a court of law.
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How is Starbucks going to respond to this official verdict?
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Well, they are going to appeal the verdict.
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So in a legal context, to appeal something is to make a formal request to a higher court to review
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and change the decision made by a lower court.
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And this especially happens when one person or organization believes that the original decision was incorrect or maybe excessive. To overturn.
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This is a verb.
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Legally, this means to officially reverse or cancel a decision or a verdict.
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Okay.
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So that is to overturn something.
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Um, I want to talk about the word handling here.
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Usually to handle means to manage or to deal with or control a particular situation or problem or person, right?
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So you can handle something, you can handle someone.
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Usually it's something difficult that you have to handle.
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We're using the gerund form,
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the coffee industry's handling of the situation or the way that the coffee industry typically handles this.
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The public criticized the government's handling of the economic crisis.
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Effective handling of customer complaints is crucial for business success.
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Okay.
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And the last word here, this is a noun, liability, liability.
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This is basically legal responsibility for something,
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especially for paying money that is owed or for an injury or for damage.
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For example, if you rent an apartment, you have liability for any damage that you cause in the apartment.
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It's very common to see this word with the collocation full liability.
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The driver of the other car accepted full liability for the accident.
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All right, I'm going to go back to the beginning of the article.
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I'll read everything one more time.
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I want you to use this opportunity to practice your pronunciation,
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practice your listening skills, and you can also slow down the video if you need to listen at a slower speed.
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Starbucks loses $50 million lawsuit after driver burned by hot tea.
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A California delivery driver has been awarded $50 million in damages
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after a scalding hot Starbucks tea spilled onto his lap at a drive -thru, causing severe burns and life -changing injuries.
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A Los Angeles County jury found Starbucks responsible for the accident, ruling in favor of Michael Garcia,
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who filed a negligent lawsuit against the coffee giant.
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The accident took place on February 8, 2020, when Garcia, a delivery driver,
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stopped at a Starbucks drive -thru in Los Angeles County to pick up a venti -sized hot tea.
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According to court records, a Starbucks employee handed him the scalding drink in a takeout tray.
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Moments later, the cup tipped over, spilling its boiling hot contents onto Garcia's lap and groin area.
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Garcia's legal team argued that the accident could have been completely avoided
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if Starbucks employees had taken proper precautions when handing over the drink.
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The lawsuit specifically claimed that the worker who served Garcia his tea failed to wedge the cup securely into the takeout tray,
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making it prone to tipping over.
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Following the jury's decision, Starbucks issued a statement expressing sympathy for Garcia's injuries, but maintained that it was not at fault for the accident.
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We disagree with the jury's decision that we were at fault for this incident and believe the damages awarded to be excessive.
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Given the high financial stakes of the case, Starbucks has confirmed that it will appeal the verdict,
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hoping to overturn or reduce the $50 million awarded to Garcia.
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The appeal process could take months or even years,
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but for now, Michael Garcia's legal victory stands as a major challenge to the coffee industry's handling of customer safety and liability.
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Okay, now I have two homework questions for you.
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Number one, who is at fault in this situation, the company or the customer?
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And number two, do you agree or disagree with the $50 million verdict?
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Let me know what you think and write your answers in the comments.
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I'm looking forward to reading them.
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If you enjoyed this lesson, please like this video and subscribe to my channel.
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Thank you so much for watching.
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I'm Gina, this is Your World in English, and I'll see you next time.
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Bye!

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Read a NEWS Article in English 🌐 Advanced Vocabulary”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: Starbucks, lawsuit, hot, legal, decision. This video has 296 sentences and 3443 words to shadow. The speech runs for 27:06. The speaker talks at a steady 127 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. 82% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.

Key vocabulary in this video

The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:

WordPronunciationMeaning
lawsuit noun/ˈlɔˌs(j)ut/In civil law, a case where two or more people disagree and one or more of the parties take the case to a court for resolution.
verb noun/vɝb/A word that indicates an action, event, or state of being.
verdict noun/ˈvɜː.dɪkt/A decision on an issue of fact in a civil or criminal case or an inquest.
boil verb/bɔɪ(ə)l/To heat to the point where it begins to turn into a gas.
precaution noun/pɹiːˈkɔ.ʃən/Previous caution or care; caution previously employed to prevent misfortune or to secure good.
scald verb/skɔld/To burn with hot liquid.
spill verb/spɪl/To drop something so that it spreads out or makes a mess; to accidentally pour.
prone adjective/pɹəʊn/Lying face-down.
paragraph noun/ˈpæɹəɡɹæf/A passage in text that starts on a new line, the first line sometimes being indented, and usually marks a change of topic.
liability noun/laɪəˈbɪlɪti/An obligation, debt or responsibility owed to someone.
adjective noun/ˈæd͡ʒ.ɪk.tɪv/A word that modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes a noun’s referent.
takeout noun/ˈteɪkaʊt/Food purchased from a takeaway.
wedge noun/wɛd͡ʒ/One of the simple machines; a piece of material, such as metal or wood, thick at one edge and tapered to a thin edge at the other for insertion in a narrow…
tray noun/tɹeɪ/A small, typically rectangular or round, flat, and rigid object upon which things are carried.
stake noun/steɪk/A piece of wood or other material, usually long and slender, pointed at one end so as to be easily driven into the ground as a marker or a support or stay.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

WordMeaning
pick up verbTo lift; to grasp and raise.
go back to verbTo stem from; to originate in.
hand over verbTo relinquish control or possession of something to someone.
look forward to verbTo anticipate, expect, or wait for, especially with a feeling of approval or pleasure; to be excited or eager to.
slow down verbTo decelerate.

Sentences worth repeating

Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:

  • Let's go to the next paragraph.
  • Let's look at the last paragraph together.
  • Usually it's something difficult that you have to handle.
  • I'll read everything one more time.
  • I'm looking forward to reading them.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

StructureIn the video
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters nowI've created · has lost · has been awarded
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does itbe solved · be burned · was burned
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thingpeople who are · tall, which is

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 27 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, don't, I'll. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

  • The “th” sounds: sympathy /ˈsɪm.pəθ.i/, eighth /eɪtθ/
  • The “sh” and “zh” sounds: precaution /pɹiːˈkɔ.ʃən/, collocation /ˌkɑ.ləˈkeɪ.ʃən/, pronunciation /pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/, bookshelf /ˈbʊkˌʃɛlf/, preposition /ˌpɹɛpəˈzɪʃən/
  • Long words — get the stress right: liability /laɪəˈbɪlɪti/, collocation /ˌkɑ.ləˈkeɪ.ʃən/, disagreement /dɪsəˈɡɹiːmənt/, pronunciation /pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/, vocabulary /vəˈkæb.jə.lə.ɹi/

How to practise with this video

  1. Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
  2. Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
  3. Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like lawsuit, verb, verdict.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →