Vanessa: Hi, I am Vanessa
from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com. Can you read the news in English? Well, let's talk about it.
Let's imagine this scene. You are in Asheville, North Carolina visiting me,
and we are about to meet at a cafe. While you're sitting at the cafe waiting for me, you notice a
newspaper sitting on the table. Yes, real physical newspapers still exist. You pick up the newspaper,
and you see an article and think, "Oh, this is so interesting." But then you start to read it
and think, "Ugh, I don't know half of the words in this. I get the general idea, but goodness,
there's so much in this that I don't understand." Well, never fear. Today, I'm here to help you.
In this lesson, we are going to go over this article from a real newspaper here in my city,
Asheville, North Carolina. I will help you to break down some of the key advanced phrases and
vocabulary that are used in this article and that are often used in the news, so that you
can read other news articles with no problem. And like always, I have created a free PDF
worksheet to help you remember everything that you are about to learn, all of the vocabulary,
definitions, sample sentences, and I will include a link to this original article,
so that you can see it in its entirety and you could read other articles on this news
website if you would like to test your skills. You can click on the link in the description
to download the free PDF worksheet today. All right. Let's get started by reading this
article that has to do with helping the homeless population here in Asheville. Let me read the
beginning to you. "As Asheville City Council ponders the idea of purchasing a hotel to provide
housing for the homeless, the company that owns the neighboring shopping center prepares for a
legal fight." You heard this verb, to ponder. The Asheville City Council ponders an idea. Can you
guess what this might mean? It's a deeper meaning of wondering, thinking deeply about something.
Have you ever pondered what it might be like to be a fluent English speaker? This verb, to ponder,
is more often used in formal situations, and it's a great example of a word that would be
used in the news, this advanced vocabulary, compared to just a regular old TV show.
You also saw this word, the homeless. This is talking about the general population of
people who don't have somewhere to live. They might be living on the streets. They
might be living in a shelter provided by the government, but they don't have a home. You
can use it like this. Several organizations give coats to the homeless during the winter.
And now we have our drama, this word legal fight. We can imagine that the local company
who owns the neighboring shopping center is not happy because they are going to get into a
legal fight. This is not a fist fight. Instead, they're taking legal action to push against the
initiative to give housing to the homeless in a local hotel. You can use this phrase like this.
The court case will be dropped because the costs involved in the legal fight are just too high.
All right. Let's read the next part of the article. "The city is looking at a Ramada
near River Ridge Marketplace, which is home to 26 businesses, including Best Bride Prom & Tux. Owner
Dennis Knapp feels a homeless shelter and a retail area would be anything but an ideal marriage. She
says Horne Properties, which owns River Ridge, is ready for a legal fight." You just saw this word,
a homeless shelter. This is a temporary place where people can live if they don't have a
home. You could say he stayed at the homeless shelter until he found a job and could afford
an apartment. A retail area is another term for a shopping center, so you might say shopping is
a lot more convenient now that there's a new retail area in our neighborhood. This is a
formal term that you're more likely to see in a news article than to use in real conversation.
And next we have this lovely expression, anything but, and then we have added on an ideal marriage.
So we were just talking about a store that sells clothing for brides, for weddings, so it's a
little bit clever to use this ideal marriage. Of course, a marriage is when two people get married,
but we can also talk about two things that go well together is an ideal marriage. For example,
ketchup and french fries is an ideal marriage. It goes together really well. But what about
the beginning part of this expression? Because that's really what takes it to the next level.
Anything but an ideal marriage. This is the opposite. It is not an ideal marriage. Take
a look at this sentence. Keeping our cat and dog inside in our small apartment is anything
but an ideal marriage. Our cat and dog don't get along very well, and to stay inside in that small
apartment, it's not a good idea. It's anything but an ideal marriage. And in the article, the author
said that having a homeless shelter and a retail area in the same spot is anything but an ideal
marriage. It's not a good idea, in her opinion. Let's go on to the next part of the article.
"Folks at Beauty Bar Asheville say The homeless population has already caused
concerns about safety and trash. So if the city moves forward with the project at River Ridge,
the fear is that things could get even worse." This section used this lovely expression, to move
forward. We're not talking about physically moving forward. The cars moved forward in traffic slowly.
That's physically moving forward, but this article is using it in a more advanced way, a little bit
more figurative. They said if the city moves forward with the project. This means they're
progressing or they start to do the project. Well, they think there's going to be some problems.
Let's take a look at how you could use this expression in another sentence. We won't be
able to move forward with the loan until you get approved. This is a very advanced,
very formal expression that you will often hear, for example, at the bank when you're trying to
get a loan. I'm sorry, we can't move forward with the loan. That means we can't approve of the loan
or make progress on it. Or you might hear this in news articles like you just saw, to progress
All right. Let's read the next part. "'I'm not happy about it at all,' says stylist
Susan Shepherd. 'It's been an influx the past few months of trash in our parking lot.'" Susan uses a
wonderful advanced word, influx. She's concerned about there being an increase in trash in the
parking lot and in that area. And then if they add a homeless shelter to that same retail area,
well, she fears that it might get even worse. Let's take a look at this sentence. "With this
sudden influx in rain, our crops are growing rapidly." This is quite formal, quite advanced,
and a great thing to use is in a news article. Let's read the next section. "The need for such
housing for the homeless heightened recently. Last week, 50 homeless people moved out of the Red Roof
Inn on Smoky Park Highway. The city partnered with the chain to give them temporary refuge during the
pandemic." You just heard this expression, to partner with a chain. Okay, so when you partner
with someone, you're working together, but to partner with a chain, are we talking about this
metal linking device? No. This is just another way to talk about similar restaurants or hotels that
exist globally or at least all over your country. So for example, McDonald's and Starbucks are
popular chains. Or we could say they are popular chain restaurants, or Starbucks
is a popular chain coffee shop. So let's use both of these expressions together. You could
say our local charity is partnering with the McDonald's down the street to raise some funds
for their project. That means McDonald's is giving a percentage of their money from that day to the
local charity. They're partnering together. All right. Let's read the next part of the
article. "The nonprofit Homeward Bound will soon close on the purchase of the Days Inn
to help address the need, but the executive director tells News 13 that space may not
be available for residents until late 2022." The term nonprofit is used for a business or company
that earns money for helping a social cause. They're legally a different type of business,
and this business, Homeward Bound, helps homeless people to move forward with their
lives, to use that expression, and to be able to not be homeless anymore. It helps
them to have a job and find somewhere to live. You also heard this wonderful advanced expression,
to close on something. Yes, you can close the door, but this is a little more metaphorical.
For example, when we bought this house, we had to close on the house. It didn't mean that we closed
the door. It meant that we had to sign a ton of papers to make it official. So you can close on
a house. You can close on a purchase. You can use a sentence like this. After the inspections
were complete, we closed on the purchase immediately. We were so excited to live there.
All right. Let's read the next part of the article. "Folks we spoke to at River Ridge
say the city's project would create more problems than it solves. We don't want that
in our community. 'We don't want that in our backyard. I know that our city council doesn't
want it in their backyard,' Knapp said." Here's where it gets controversial. So the people who
work in that retail area are saying, "This is not going to be good for business." And the people
who are making this project, well, they're not the ones who have their business here,
and if it came down to it, they would not want a homeless shelter by their business. They use
a great term in our backyard, in their backyard. In the US, this is the term that we use to talk
about the land behind your house. Usually this is an area where you can play. You have a garden.
This is the backyard. It's something very private and intimate. It's just for your family. It's
your own property. But they were using this a little bit more figuratively. They were using
it to mean the area close to their business, but it implies a certain level of intimacy or privacy,
like this is our area, and you don't have our permission to create a homeless shelter here. It
will actually cause more problems than it will solve. Quite controversial. Very interesting.
All right. Let's read the next part of the article. "'It's hard to conduct a business
and keep a good reputation when that's in your parking lot every day coming in,' Shepherd said.
The sale of the Ramada property has not yet been finalized. We reached out to the
City of Asheville for an interview about the matter, but the city declined our request."
The businesses in this area are worried about keeping a good reputation or keeping up a good
reputation. This means they want customers to feel comfortable and confident going to their
businesses. But if there are homeless people all over the parking lots, maybe drug needles,
these types of problems, then they're not going to go to those businesses. But what are
those homeless people supposed to do? How can we really help them? Is this helping them? Is there
another solution? It's quite controversial. Let's take a look at how we can use to keep
up a good reputation. You might say, "Well, if that business owner keeps yelling at customers,
he is not going to be able to keep up a good reputation and his business might close." It's
not a good idea to yell at your customers. Congratulations on reading through this
entire news article with me and learning some key advanced English expressions along the way. Now,
I have a question for you. What's your opinion about this news article? It's quite controversial.
Should they put the homeless shelter in the same area as the retail businesses? Should they do
something else? What's your opinion? Let me know in the comments, and don't forget to download the
free PDF worksheet for today's lesson. You will get the entire article plus a link to the new
site where you can find it, all of the vocabulary, sample sentences, definitions, and you can answer
Vanessa's challenge question at the bottom of the worksheet. You can click on the link in the
description to download that worksheet today. Well, thank you so much for learning English
with me, and I'll see you again next Friday for a new lesson here on my YouTube channel. Bye. The
next step is to download the free PDF worksheet for this lesson. With this free pdf, you will
master today's lesson and never forget what you have learned. You can be a confident English
speaker. Don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel for a free English lesson every Friday.