ฝึกพูดภาษาอังกฤษด้วยเทคนิค Shadowing จากวิดีโอ: Read the NEWS in English 🌐 Advanced Vocabulary and Grammar from CNN

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.

This advanced lesson will focus on the essential vocabulary and grammar you need to know not only to fully understand this article,

but to participate in the culture of the English-speaking world.

We will analyze each paragraph.

I will take detailed notes,

and you can download a free PDF of these notes by clicking the link in the description.

Finally, at the end of the lesson,

I will read the article one more time a little faster at a natural speed

so you can focus on my pronunciation and intonation.

Let's get started.

Here's the title of today's article.

Sony to lay off 900 at PlayStation as tough times for the video games industry persists.

Here we have the phrasal verb, lay off.

This means to stop employing someone because there's no work for them to do.

This is different than when someone gets fired.

Usually you get fired because you've done something wrong.

You get laid off if a company decides to close or downsize to reduce costs.

We have a grammatical structure that's very common in news articles.

Sony to lay off 900.

It's very common to omit the verb be in the titles of news articles.

So this is a reduced form of Sony is to lay off 900.

This sentence uses be plus the to infinitive as a formal way to announce

that something is planned to happen in the future.

It sounds more official and professional than just saying,

Sony will lay off 900.

Some more examples would be,

the president is to make an announcement this week,

or the author is to publish a new book next month.

Tough times is an adjective noun collocation.

A collocation is a group of words that are frequently used together.

In this case, the adjective tough and the noun times create a very common phrase.

Tough times usually refer to a difficult economic period.

Persist is a very useful verb,

which in this context means that something bad continues to exist or happen.

If you're a fan of video games like me,

then you are aware that tough times persist for many companies in this industry right now.

Let's read the first paragraph.

Electronics giant Sony announced on Tuesday that it will be cutting 900 jobs or 8% in PlayStation's global workforce.

The layoffs will impact all regions for Sony Interactive Entertainment.

According to the PlayStation press release,

with its in-house London studio responsible for the competitive singing video game SingStar closing entirely.

Here, a giant refers to a large successful company that is well known in its industry.

Sony is a giant in the field of electronics.

In this context, cut means to reduce the amount of something.

We're using the future continuous tense here.

We'll be cutting.

We're emphasizing that the action will happen over a longer period of time,

not all at once.

Well, hopefully not all at once.

A workforce is the group of people who work in a particular company.

Layoffs should look familiar because we've already seen the phrasal verb to lay off.

A layoff is the event or occasion when this action happens.

A press release is a company's official statement that gives information to newspapers,

TV programs, and radio stations.

If something is in-house or if something is done in-house,

That means it's created by the employees in the offices of a company.

Unfortunately, these days it's rare to find a company that does everything in-house.

It's usually cheaper to contract out certain tasks.

Let's keep reading.

These are incredibly talented people who have been part of our success,

and we are very grateful for their contributions,

wrote Jim Ryan, president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment.

However, the industry has changed immensely,

and we need to future-ready ourselves to set the business up for what lies ahead.

Another common collocation, this time with the adverb incredibly and the adjective talented.

The adverb immensely means very much or a lot.

For example, we enjoyed the performance immensely or the company has become immensely popular.

Future ready is a verb in this context.

It means to make or plan something so that a company can quickly identify changes and respond to future challenges.

You'll often see this as an adjective, to be future ready.

Basically, Sony wants to make sure that it continues to make as much money as possible,

even if there are big industry changes in the future.

Hello!

I like money!

Here we have a common phrasal verb,

set up, which means to prepare.

Usually you set something up for something.

In some formal contexts, the verb lie plus an adverb or a preposition means to exist.

So lie ahead, another collocation,

means exist in the future.

No one knows what lies ahead.

Next paragraph.

The workforce reduction follows the company's slashing sales forecasts for the year,

and Naomi Matsuoka, Sony's senior vice president,

saying the PlayStation 5 console was approaching the latter end of its life cycle, according to Bloomberg.

Bloomberg is another popular news company in the US.

Slash is a verb that you hear a lot in advertisements and newspapers.

The literal meaning of slash is to cut something with a knife or a sword in a very violent way.

But here, slashing means to greatly reduce an amount or a price.

A forecast is a prediction of what will probably happen in the future based on current information or data.

Most of the time, this word refers to a weather forecast or an economic forecast.

Here we have a formal adjective,

latter, which means close to the end of a time period.

For example, the couple plans to get married in the latter half of next year.

Next, Ryan had already announced in September plans to retire in March as Sony Group Corporation president.

Hiroki Totoki, the chief operating officer and chief financial officer,

will take the reins as interim CEO.

Had already announced.

This is the past perfect tense.

100

This is typically a comparative tense.

101

The focus is on the relationship between two events in the past.

102

One event is a reference point.

103

The event that happened further in the past,

104

or the event that happened first,

105

is stated in the past perfect tense.

106

In this sentence, we are comparing when Ryan announced his plans to retire with our reference point,

107

which is Sony's recent layoff announcement.

108

This emphasizes the fact that Ryan's plans to retire happened at an earlier time in the past.

109

It's important to note that in American English,

110

the past perfect tense is much more common in formal writing.

111

In this situation, native speakers often use the simple pass in everyday conversation.

112

Saging Ryan already announced is perfectly natural.

113

If you're interested in a more detailed lesson on the differences between the simple tenses and the perfect tenses,

114

please let me know in the comments.

115

The expression take the reins means to take control of an organization or a government.

116

Reins are the straps that you put on a horse's head to control it.

117

Interim means temporary.

118

An interim president or an interim solution is one that is only used until something final can be made.

119

Next, the new CEO will be facing an entire tech sector

120

in upheaval as industry giants laid off 5,500 workers within the first two weeks of 2024 alone.

121

This is a very important verb for speaking and writing to face.

122

If you face a difficult situation,

123

that means that a problem is going to affect you and you must deal with it in a direct way.

124

A sector is a specific area of an economy.

125

There's the tech sector, the tourism sector,

126

the agricultural sector, etc. An upheaval is a major change that causes a lot of problems,

127

anger, and confusion.

128

You often hear this word in collocations like social upheaval,

129

economic upheaval, massive upheaval, etc. We have an interesting use of the word alone as an adverb.

130

This is a more formal way to say only or without including anything else.

131

For example, it's impossible to learn how to speak another language with textbooks alone.

132

Let's keep going.

133

Specifically, the video game industry has been seeing jobs hemorrhage from 2023 into this year as well,

134

with Epic Games cutting 830 jobs last September and Tencent's Riot Games laying off 11% of its workforce in January.

135

Has been seeing.

136

This is the present perfect continuous tense.

137

So this started in the past,

138

continues today, and will probably continue for a while into the future.

139

Okay, this is a very interesting word.

140

A hemorrhage as a noun is a serious medical condition in

141

which someone is bleeding a lot and they can't stop or control it.

142

But in this context, we're obviously not talking about blood.

143

The verb to hemorrhage means to lose a lot of people

144

or a lot of money very quickly and you can't stop this from happening.

145

Echoing the leadership of those other game companies,

146

Ryan wrote in his email to employees,

147

we had to step back,

148

look at our business holistically,

149

and move forward focusing on the long-term sustainability of the company and delivering the best experiences possible for our community.

150

Usually, if a sound echoes,

151

you hear the sound again.

152

Echo!

153

Echo!

154

Echo!

155

Echo!

156

But in this context, to echo something means to repeat what someone else has done

157

or to be similar to something that happened before.

158

Step back.

159

This phrasal verb means to stop doing something so you can think about it clearly and make a better decision.

160

If you do something holistically,

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you consider something or someone as one whole, not as separate parts.

162

So the CEO wanted to make a holistic decision that would benefit the future of the entire company.

163

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.

165

The opposite would be short-term.

166

Sustainability is a noun that comes from the adjective sustainable.

167

If something is sustainable, it is able to continue for a long time.

168

We have another verb being used in an interesting way.

169

Deliver.

170

If you do something that you promised or something that other people expected or wanted,

171

then you deliver.

172

Or deliver on something.

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For example, our boss gives us a lot of freedom,

174

but he expects us to deliver on our project.

175

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.

179

A stock is the percent of a company that someone owns.

180

You can buy and sell stocks.

181

Also, if the value of a stock increases or decreases,

182

then we say that the stock rises or the stock falls.

183

Now I'll read the whole article at a natural speed,

184

from start to finish.

185

Use this as an opportunity to read along with me and practice your listening and pronunciation.

186

Sony to lay off 900 at PlayStation as tough times for the video games industry persist.

187

Electronics giant Sony announced on Tuesday that it will be cutting 900 jobs,

188

or 8%, in PlayStation's global workforce.

189

The layoffs will impact all regions for Sony Interactive Entertainment,

190

according to the PlayStation press release with its in-house London studio responsible for the competitive singing video game SingStar closing entirely.

191

These are incredibly talented people who have been part of our success and we are very grateful for their contributions,

192

wrote Jim Ryan, president and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment.

193

However, the industry has changed immensely and we need to future ready ourselves to set the business up for what lies ahead.

194

The workforce reduction follows the company's slashing sales forecasts for the year and Naomi Matsuoka,

195

Sony's senior vice president, saying the PlayStation 5 console was approaching the latter end of its life cycle,

196

according to Bloomberg.

197

Ryan had already announced in September plans to retire in March as Sony Group Corporation president.

198

Hiroki Totoki, the chief operating officer and chief financial officer,

199

will take the reins as interim CEO.

200

The new CEO will be facing an entire tech sector in

201

upheaval as industry giants laid off 5,500 workers within the first two weeks of 2024 alone.

202

Specifically, The video game industry has been seeing jobs hemorrhage from 2023 into this year as well,

203

with Epic Games cutting 830 jobs last September and Tencent's Riot Games laying off 11% of its workforce in January.

204

Echoing the leadership of those other game companies,

205

Ryan wrote in his email to employees,

206

we had to step back,

207

look at our business holistically,

208

and move forward focusing on the long-term sustainability of the company and delivering the best experiences possible for our community.

209

Sony Group Corporation stock fell less than one percent following the news on Tuesday.

210

Now I have some homework for you.

211

Use some of today's vocabulary words to answer the following questions.

212

Number one, why are so many companies in the tech sector facing low sales and laying off their employees?

213

Number two, what do you think lies ahead for Sony and other video game companies?

214

Leave your answers in the comments.

215

Remember to download the free PDF to get the article and all of today's notes.

216

If you enjoyed this lesson,

217

please like this video and subscribe to my channel.

218

Thank you so much for watching.

219

I'm Gina, this is Your World in English,

220

and I'll see you in the next lesson.

221

Bye!

222

you

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