Shadowing Practice: Read the NEWS in English 🌐 Advanced Vocabulary and Grammar from CNN - Learn English Speaking with YouTube
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In today's English lesson, we're going to read a CNN news article together.
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In today's English lesson, we're going to read a CNN news article together.
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This advanced lesson will focus on the essential vocabulary and grammar you need to know not only to fully understand this article,
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but to participate in the culture of the English-speaking world.
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We will analyze each paragraph.
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I will take detailed notes,
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and you can download a free PDF of these notes by clicking the link in the description.
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Finally, at the end of the lesson,
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I will read the article one more time a little faster at a natural speed
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so you can focus on my pronunciation and intonation.
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Let's get started.
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Here's the title of today's article.
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Sony to lay off 900 at PlayStation as tough times for the video games industry persists.
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Here we have the phrasal verb, lay off.
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This means to stop employing someone because there's no work for them to do.
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This is different than when someone gets fired.
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Usually you get fired because you've done something wrong.
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You get laid off if a company decides to close or downsize to reduce costs.
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We have a grammatical structure that's very common in news articles.
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Sony to lay off 900.
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It's very common to omit the verb be in the titles of news articles.
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So this is a reduced form of Sony is to lay off 900.
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This sentence uses be plus the to infinitive as a formal way to announce
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that something is planned to happen in the future.
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It sounds more official and professional than just saying,
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Sony will lay off 900.
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Some more examples would be,
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the president is to make an announcement this week,
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or the author is to publish a new book next month.
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Tough times is an adjective noun collocation.
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A collocation is a group of words that are frequently used together.
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In this case, the adjective tough and the noun times create a very common phrase.
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Tough times usually refer to a difficult economic period.
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Persist is a very useful verb,
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which in this context means that something bad continues to exist or happen.
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If you're a fan of video games like me,
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then you are aware that tough times persist for many companies in this industry right now.
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Let's read the first paragraph.
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Electronics giant Sony announced on Tuesday that it will be cutting 900 jobs or 8% in PlayStation's global workforce.
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The layoffs will impact all regions for Sony Interactive Entertainment.
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According to the PlayStation press release,
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with its in-house London studio responsible for the competitive singing video game SingStar closing entirely.
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Here, a giant refers to a large successful company that is well known in its industry.
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Sony is a giant in the field of electronics.
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In this context, cut means to reduce the amount of something.
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We're using the future continuous tense here.
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We'll be cutting.
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We're emphasizing that the action will happen over a longer period of time,
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not all at once.
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Well, hopefully not all at once.
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A workforce is the group of people who work in a particular company.
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Layoffs should look familiar because we've already seen the phrasal verb to lay off.
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A layoff is the event or occasion when this action happens.
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A press release is a company's official statement that gives information to newspapers,
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TV programs, and radio stations.
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If something is in-house or if something is done in-house,
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That means it's created by the employees in the offices of a company.
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Unfortunately, these days it's rare to find a company that does everything in-house.
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It's usually cheaper to contract out certain tasks.
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Let's keep reading.
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These are incredibly talented people who have been part of our success,
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and we are very grateful for their contributions,
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wrote Jim Ryan, president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment.
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However, the industry has changed immensely,
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and we need to future-ready ourselves to set the business up for what lies ahead.
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Another common collocation, this time with the adverb incredibly and the adjective talented.
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The adverb immensely means very much or a lot.
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For example, we enjoyed the performance immensely or the company has become immensely popular.
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Future ready is a verb in this context.
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It means to make or plan something so that a company can quickly identify changes and respond to future challenges.
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You'll often see this as an adjective, to be future ready.
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Basically, Sony wants to make sure that it continues to make as much money as possible,
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even if there are big industry changes in the future.
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Hello!
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I like money!
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Here we have a common phrasal verb,
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set up, which means to prepare.
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Usually you set something up for something.
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In some formal contexts, the verb lie plus an adverb or a preposition means to exist.
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So lie ahead, another collocation,
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means exist in the future.
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No one knows what lies ahead.
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Next paragraph.
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The workforce reduction follows the company's slashing sales forecasts for the year,
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and Naomi Matsuoka, Sony's senior vice president,
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saying the PlayStation 5 console was approaching the latter end of its life cycle, according to Bloomberg.
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Bloomberg is another popular news company in the US.
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Slash is a verb that you hear a lot in advertisements and newspapers.
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The literal meaning of slash is to cut something with a knife or a sword in a very violent way.
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But here, slashing means to greatly reduce an amount or a price.
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A forecast is a prediction of what will probably happen in the future based on current information or data.
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Most of the time, this word refers to a weather forecast or an economic forecast.
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Here we have a formal adjective,
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latter, which means close to the end of a time period.
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For example, the couple plans to get married in the latter half of next year.
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Next, Ryan had already announced in September plans to retire in March as Sony Group Corporation president.
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Hiroki Totoki, the chief operating officer and chief financial officer,
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will take the reins as interim CEO.
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Had already announced.
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This is the past perfect tense.
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This is typically a comparative tense.
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The focus is on the relationship between two events in the past.
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One event is a reference point.
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The event that happened further in the past,
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or the event that happened first,
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is stated in the past perfect tense.
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In this sentence, we are comparing when Ryan announced his plans to retire with our reference point,
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which is Sony's recent layoff announcement.
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This emphasizes the fact that Ryan's plans to retire happened at an earlier time in the past.
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It's important to note that in American English,
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the past perfect tense is much more common in formal writing.
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In this situation, native speakers often use the simple pass in everyday conversation.
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Saging Ryan already announced is perfectly natural.
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If you're interested in a more detailed lesson on the differences between the simple tenses and the perfect tenses,
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please let me know in the comments.
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The expression take the reins means to take control of an organization or a government.
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Reins are the straps that you put on a horse's head to control it.
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Interim means temporary.
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An interim president or an interim solution is one that is only used until something final can be made.
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Next, the new CEO will be facing an entire tech sector
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in upheaval as industry giants laid off 5,500 workers within the first two weeks of 2024 alone.
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This is a very important verb for speaking and writing to face.
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If you face a difficult situation,
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that means that a problem is going to affect you and you must deal with it in a direct way.
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A sector is a specific area of an economy.
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There's the tech sector, the tourism sector,
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the agricultural sector, etc. An upheaval is a major change that causes a lot of problems,
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anger, and confusion.
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You often hear this word in collocations like social upheaval,
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economic upheaval, massive upheaval, etc. We have an interesting use of the word alone as an adverb.
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This is a more formal way to say only or without including anything else.
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For example, it's impossible to learn how to speak another language with textbooks alone.
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Let's keep going.
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Specifically, the video game industry has been seeing jobs hemorrhage from 2023 into this year as well,
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with Epic Games cutting 830 jobs last September and Tencent's Riot Games laying off 11% of its workforce in January.
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Has been seeing.
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This is the present perfect continuous tense.
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So this started in the past,
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continues today, and will probably continue for a while into the future.
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Okay, this is a very interesting word.
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A hemorrhage as a noun is a serious medical condition in
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which someone is bleeding a lot and they can't stop or control it.
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But in this context, we're obviously not talking about blood.
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The verb to hemorrhage means to lose a lot of people
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or a lot of money very quickly and you can't stop this from happening.
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Echoing the leadership of those other game companies,
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Ryan wrote in his email to employees,
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we had to step back,
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look at our business holistically,
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and move forward focusing on the long-term sustainability of the company and delivering the best experiences possible for our community.
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Usually, if a sound echoes,
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you hear the sound again.
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Echo!
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Echo!
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Echo!
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Echo!
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But in this context, to echo something means to repeat what someone else has done
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or to be similar to something that happened before.
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Step back.
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This phrasal verb means to stop doing something so you can think about it clearly and make a better decision.
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If you do something holistically,
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you consider something or someone as one whole, not as separate parts.
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So the CEO wanted to make a holistic decision that would benefit the future of the entire company.
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Here we have the adjective long-term.
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A long-term plan or a long-term goal is something that considers what will happen in the very distant future.
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The opposite would be short-term.
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Sustainability is a noun that comes from the adjective sustainable.
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If something is sustainable, it is able to continue for a long time.
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We have another verb being used in an interesting way.
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Deliver.
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If you do something that you promised or something that other people expected or wanted,
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then you deliver.
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Or deliver on something.
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For example, our boss gives us a lot of freedom,
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but he expects us to deliver on our project.
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Or maybe you watched the first movie in a series and you loved it,
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but then you watched the second movie and it didn't meet your expectations.
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It failed to deliver.
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Sony Group Corporation stock fell less than one percent following the news on Tuesday.
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A stock is the percent of a company that someone owns.
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You can buy and sell stocks.
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Also, if the value of a stock increases or decreases,
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then we say that the stock rises or the stock falls.
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Now I'll read the whole article at a natural speed,
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from start to finish.
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Use this as an opportunity to read along with me and practice your listening and pronunciation.
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Sony to lay off 900 at PlayStation as tough times for the video games industry persist.
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Electronics giant Sony announced on Tuesday that it will be cutting 900 jobs,
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or 8%, in PlayStation's global workforce.
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The layoffs will impact all regions for Sony Interactive Entertainment,
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according to the PlayStation press release with its in-house London studio responsible for the competitive singing video game SingStar closing entirely.
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These are incredibly talented people who have been part of our success and we are very grateful for their contributions,
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wrote Jim Ryan, president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment.
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However, the industry has changed immensely and we need to future ready ourselves to set the business up for what lies ahead.
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The workforce reduction follows the company's slashing sales forecasts for the year and Naomi Matsuoka,
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Sony's senior vice president, saying the PlayStation 5 console was approaching the latter end of its life cycle,
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according to Bloomberg.
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Ryan had already announced in September plans to retire in March as Sony Group Corporation president.
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Hiroki Totoki, the chief operating officer and chief financial officer,
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will take the reins as interim CEO.
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The new CEO will be facing an entire tech sector in
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upheaval as industry giants laid off 5,500 workers within the first two weeks of 2024 alone.
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Specifically, The video game industry has been seeing jobs hemorrhage from 2023 into this year as well,
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with Epic Games cutting 830 jobs last September and Tencent's Riot Games laying off 11% of its workforce in January.
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Echoing the leadership of those other game companies,
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Ryan wrote in his email to employees,
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we had to step back,
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look at our business holistically,
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and move forward focusing on the long-term sustainability of the company and delivering the best experiences possible for our community.
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Sony Group Corporation stock fell less than one percent following the news on Tuesday.
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Now I have some homework for you.
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Use some of today's vocabulary words to answer the following questions.
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Number one, why are so many companies in the tech sector facing low sales and laying off their employees?
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Number two, what do you think lies ahead for Sony and other video game companies?
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Leave your answers in the comments.
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Remember to download the free PDF to get the article and all of today's notes.
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If you enjoyed this lesson,
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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,
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and I'll see you in the next lesson.
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Bye!
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you
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Why practice speaking with this video?
Practicing English speaking with news articles, like the one discussed in this video, provides a real-world context that enhances your learning. By engaging with current events, you not only expand your vocabulary but also gain cultural insights that are vital for effective communication in English-speaking environments. This practice is particularly beneficial for advanced learners looking to refine their skills. The emphasis on natural pronunciation and sentence intonation throughout the video allows you to learn English with YouTube, focusing on how native speakers convey messages in everyday conversation.
Grammar & Expressions in Context
In this lesson, several key grammatical structures and expressions were highlighted. Here are a few to pay attention to:
- Future Plans Using 'to be' + Infinitive: The structure "Sony is to lay off 900" demonstrates how news headlines often omit the verb 'be' for brevity. This formal construction indicates planned future actions.
- Phrasal Verbs: The phrase "lay off" is a common phrasal verb in the workforce context, meaning to terminate employment due to economic reasons, rather than poor performance.
- Adjective-Noun Collocations: The term "tough times" is an illustrative collocation that emphasizes challenging economic conditions, making it vital for discussing similar topics in conversations.
- Future Continuous Tense: The phrase "we'll be cutting" exemplifies how to express ongoing actions in the future. It adds a sense of duration and is useful for discussions about processes or transitions.
Common Pronunciation Traps
When practicing your speaking skills, pay attention to specific pronunciation aspects that may pose challenges:
- Lay off: This phrasal verb is pronounced with a subtle emphasis—the 'lay' should be clearer while 'off' is softer, so it flows naturally in conversation.
- Cutting: The 't' in "cutting" can be tricky, especially in rapid speech. Practice enunciating the double 't' clearly to maintain clarity in your communication.
- Tough times: Notice how the 't' in "tough" may blend into the following word. Practice pausing slightly after "tough" to delineate the words clearly.
Utilizing the shadowing technique to mimic the speaker’s pronunciation and intonation can drastically improve your oral skills. This shadow speak approach enhances fluency by allowing you to repeat phrases in real-time, solidifying your understanding of both vocabulary and context. So, grab your headset and start practicing with the video to elevate your English speaking abilities!
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.
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