hi i'm lisa
my goal with every video i make for this
channel is to take advanced learners of
english to the final level of fluency i
want to help you understand the
vocabulary in newspaper and magazine
articles and i want you to be able to
use that vocabulary in both spoken and
written english i also want to make sure
that you can pronounce those words and
expressions correctly in this video we
will read another article from time
magazine and you will have a chance to
repeat after me so that you can practice
speaking with the good accent
[Music]
some of the words and expressions you
will learn in this video include to
quell or the expression on the heels of
or another expression to bring someone
up to speed
and you will learn the noun behemoth
and brokering and third party
there are many more that i will teach
you in this video and then at the end of
the video i will show you a list of the
words that you learned and that way you
can test yourself to see how many of
them you remember
the article is from time magazine it
discusses the problem of fake amazon
reviews
when you want to buy something online
i'm sure you often read the reviews from
previous buyers
reviews are comments from people who
already bought that product but can we
be sure that those reviews are real
in some cases somebody was paid to write
those reviews let's read the article
together and let's find out what amazon
is doing to fix the situation
the title of the article is
amazon's new weapon against fake reviews
a lawsuit aimed at thousands of facebook
groups
it was published on july 19 2022 the
link to the article is in the
description below the first paragraph is
pretty easy to understand but it has
some words that my students commonly
mispronounce so let's take a look at it
it says amazon is suing more than 10 000
facebook group administrators for
allegedly orchestrating review fraud on
amazon marketplace as the war on fake
reviews continues to heat up
let's look at the pronunciation of suing
to sue
in british english that u is pronounced
like this
cu it has a little u sound but in
american english it's pronounced like
this
su
so in british english it's suing and in
american english it's suing and that's
similar to the word suit
in british english it's suit in american
english it's what
suit
let's look at the pronunciation and the
meaning of allegedly this word is word
number two in my online course the 400
advanced words you must know for fluent
english let's listen to my explanation
directly from the course and you will
notice that i pause and i give you a
chance to repeat and also in the course
i talk a lot about pronunciation and
connecting words together and stressing
the right words let's listen
alleged
alleged means suspect doubtful
without proof
something illegal happened but you don't
have any proof
so the word alleged is an adjective but
we have an adverb that's pronounced this
way allegedly
the ed is pronounced as a separate
syllable
listen again
alleged
li
allegedly
the police arrested a man who allegedly
stole the money
make sure you're connecting arrested a
man
let's say that again
the police arrested a man who allegedly
stole the money
the student failed the test after the
teacher alleged that he cheated on it
in this case we don't say alleged we say
alleged
and let's link the words cheated on it
cheated on it
the student failed the test after the
teacher alleged that he cheated on it
all seven hours of the video course are
also available on downloadable audio so
you can listen wherever you are
plus there is a downloadable list of all
the words including sample sentences and
quizzes to test your knowledge along the
way and you have a chance to practice
your accent because i talk a lot about
the important rules related to the
american accent if someone alleges
something it means that someone says it
happened but maybe it hasn't been proved
we don't know for sure that it happened
it's just alleged we can say the alleged
crime the alleged murder the alleged
victim
let's look at the pronunciation of the
word fraud
that a you is pronounced like this ah
ah
fraud fraud is a crime of using
dishonest methods to get something
valuable from another person we can say
he's going to jail for fraud
or i saw some fraudulent charges on my
credit card statement
the article talks about review fraud
reviews are customers comments about a
product so review fraud is fake comments
they're not real buyers they were
probably paid to write the reviews
to heat up means to increase to grow in
intensity
let's read the sentence again and this
time you'll be able to understand it i
will pause and i will give you a chance
to repeat and practice your
pronunciation
amazon is suing more than 10 000
facebook group administrators
for allegedly orchestrating review fraud
on amazon marketplace
as the war on fake reviews continues to
heat up
let's look at the next paragraph and
learn some more vocabulary
the online retailing behemoth filed a
lawsuit in seattle's king county
superior court on tuesday accusing the
people in charge of these facebook
groups of brokering fake reviews for
third-party amazon sellers in exchange
for money or free products
the groups are set up to facilitate
incentivized and misleading product
reviews
across amazon stores in the us
uk
germany
france italy spain and japan
the company said in a press release
let's look at the word behemoth
a behemoth is a huge creature a beast a
scary monster from the bible and from
greek mythology but we also use this
word metaphorically when something is
huge especially a powerful organization
like amazon or apple or microsoft an
organization that makes you feel small
and powerless when you have to deal with
them
the sentence says the online retailing
behemoth filed a lawsuit so amazon is
the online retailing behemoth because
it's huge
and to file a lawsuit it means to start
a process by which a court of law makes
a decision to end a disagreement between
people or organizations
to take someone to court to sue them
another word in this paragraph was
brokering and the verb is to broker the
paragraph said brokering fake reviews
for third-party amazon sellers in
exchange for money or free products to
broker is to arrange a deal or agreement
between two or more groups
we can say
john brokered a multi-million dollar
deal between the two companies
or the foreign ministers have failed to
broker peace between the two countries
and what is a third party a third party
can be a person or a company other than
the main two that are involved someone
who is not one of the two main people
involved in a legal case or an agreement
but they're somehow affected or involved
we can use third party this way the two
companies will meet with the neutral
third party to resolve the disagreement
or we can say this product needs to be
tested for safety by an independent
third party
let's listen to the way some other
people used third party the ability of a
third party to prosecute a crime
commercial properties owned by a third
party they collect it they accumulate it
and then later on they sell it to a
third party the sentence says accusing
the people in charge of these facebook
groups of brokering fake reviews for
third-party amazon sellers in exchange
for money or free products
let's look at the verb to incentivize
in the sentence it's used like this the
groups are set up to facilitate
incentivized and misleading product
reviews across amazon stores
to incentivize is to provide someone
with an incentive
an incentive is something that motivates
you to work harder or to take some kind
of action
if you give someone an incentive you
give them a reason to do something
especially by offering some kind of
reward we can say a salary increase will
give the employees incentive to work
harder
and now let's use the verb to
incentivize we can say the company is
trying to incentivize its employees by
giving them a bonus
let's listen to how some other people
used it it doesn't incentivize anybody
to really solve the problem the teachers
who are doing well incentivize and give
them bonuses
so there's an incentive to perform well
you can use the markets to incentivize
good behavior to incentivize good
outcomes
incentivized product reviews that means
that they were probably being paid to
write the reviews they were given an
incentive to do it and the incentive was
probably money
let's look at the word misleading the
groups are set up to facilitate
incentivized and misleading product
reviews across amazon stores
if something is misleading it makes you
believe that something is true but it's
not true
we can say this advertisement is
intentionally misleading
or it would be misleading to say that
the economy has improved
misleading is an adjective and the verb
is to mislead and the past tense is
misled we can say you misled me and that
means you told me something that wasn't
true
or in the passive voice we can say i was
misled to believe that he was an honest
person
let's look at the whole paragraph again
and you will be able to understand it i
will read it and i will pause so that
you have time to repeat after me
the online retailing behemoth
filed a lawsuit in seattle's king county
superior court on tuesday
accusing the people in charge of these
facebook groups
of brokering fake reviews for
third-party amazon sellers
in exchange for money or free products
the groups are set up to facilitate
incentivized and misleading product
reviews
across amazon stores in the us uk
germany
italy spain and japan
the company said in a press release
let's look at another sentence from the
article to learn more vocabulary
through the lawsuit amazon says it aims
to identify the fraudsters who operate
these fake review schemes and shut them
down
look at the word fraudsters
fraudsters are people who commit fraud
being deceitful and lying to get
something it could be something very
serious or not so serious
it's generally a crime
let's look at the word scheme
scheme
that s c h is pronounced like this sk
scheme
a scheme is a clever plan especially to
do something that is bad or illegal we
can say
they created a scheme to steal money
from elderly people
scheme is also a verb we can say to
scheme to plan to do something illegal
or bad
for example we can say they were
scheming to rob the bank
or john's colleagues were scheming to
get him fired
let's read the sentence again and i will
pause so you have time to repeat
through the lawsuit
amazon says it aims to identify the
fraudsters
who operate these fake review schemes
and shut them down
you understand the meaning of that
sentence now right let's go on to the
next paragraph and let's learn some more
vocabulary
our teams stop millions of suspicious
reviews before they're ever seen by
customers
and this lawsuit goes a step further to
uncover perpetrators operating on social
media
says dharmesh mehta amazon's vice
president of selling partner services
let's look at the meaning of the word
perpetrator
a perpetrator is a person who does
something harmful illegal or immoral
basically someone who has committed a
crime we can say the witness saw the
perpetrator stealing the car
or the perpetrator of that horrible
crime must be found and punished
let's listen to how some other people
used perpetrator and if a perpetrator
lives outside the country
where a victim lives then you may not be
able to insist that the perpetrator come
into local courts to face justice the
line between victim and perpetrator is
extremely blurry let's look at the
paragraph again and i will pause so you
can repeat
our teams stop millions of suspicious
reviews
before they're ever seen by customers
in this lawsuit goes a step further
to uncover perpetrators operating on
social media
says darmesh mehta amazon's vice
president of selling partner services
i'm sure you understand that paragraph
better now let's look at the next
paragraph
amazon's new legal filing comes on the
heels of renewed governmental efforts to
quell the widespread fake reviews
industry
which influenced around 152 billion
dollars in global spending last year
according to a report from the world
economic forum
the uk government announced new plans in
recent months to make fake reviews
clearly illegal
while the u.s federal trade commission
proposed to tighten related guidelines
to bring them up to speed with the
modern digitized economy
let's look at the expression on the
heels of
and that means to happen soon afterwards
or to happen close behind for example we
can say the drop in housing prices comes
on the heels of rising interest rates
or this new disaster comes on the heels
of the earthquake
let's look at the verb to renew renewed
governmental efforts to renew is to
begin again
to happen again after a pause
or to begin again with more energy and
enthusiasm for example we can say
after the movie about elvis was released
there was a renewed interest in his
music let's look at the verb to quell
to quell means to reduce to suppress
to crush completely
usually it means to reduce something bad
for example we can say to quell the
violence to quell the riots to quell the
demonstrations to quell the panic
police were called to quell the violence
let's look at that sentence again
amazon's new legal filing comes on the
heels of renewed government efforts to
quell the widespread fake reviews
industry
look at the words titan and guidelines
to tighten means to make something
tighter right and guidelines are rules
or instructions about the best way to do
something
we can say the accident occurred because
they didn't follow safety guidelines
so to tighten the guidelines means to
make the rules more strict
the next expression is to bring someone
up to speed or to be up to speed to be
up to speed means to have the most
recent and accurate information or
knowledge and to bring someone up to
speed means to give someone the latest
and most recent information about
something i was away from work for two
weeks
please bring me up to speed on the
latest developments
let's look at the sentence again the u.s
federal trade commission proposed to
tighten related guidelines to bring them
up to speed with the modern digitized
economy let's look at the paragraph
again and i will pause so you can repeat
amazon's new legal filing
comes on the heels of renewed
governmental efforts
to quell the widespread fake reviews
industry
which influenced around 152 billion
dollars in global spending last year
according to a report from the world
economic forum
the uk government announced new plans in
recent months
to make fake reviews clearly illegal
while the u.s federal trade commission
proposed to tighten related guidelines
to bring them up to speed with the
modern digitized economy
i'm sure you learned a lot of words and
expressions
let's review them i will show you a list
of those words so you can test yourself
to see how many of them you remember
you can also pause the video after each
word to make your own sentences
and if you don't remember the meaning of
the words watch the video again
here are the words
to sue
suing
allegedly
fraud
heat up
behemoth
to file a lawsuit
brokering
third party
incentivized
misleading
fraudster
scheme
perpetrator
on the heels of
renewed
to quell
guidelines
to bring up to speed
how did you do you have learned a lot of
advanced words don't stop keep reading
newspaper articles and you're going to
feel a lot more confident about being
truly fluent in english
thanks for watching and keep practicing
your english
to get the two courses the american
accent course and the 400 advanced words
you must know for fluent english
go to accurateenglish.com