Hello and welcome to News Review from BBC Learning English.
I'm Rob and joining me today is Catherine. Hello Catherine.
Hello Rob. Hello everybody. Yes, if you're a fan
of Harry and Meghan, we've got just the story for you
because they have teamed up with streaming giant
Netflix to produce a range of programmes and they may
even appear in some of them.
Very exciting. Well, you need to test
yourself on the vocabulary that we're going to talk about today.
On our website, there's a quiz at bbclearningenglish.com
but don't go there yet. Let's find out more about this royal signing
in this BBC News report:
So yes – it's just six months since Prince Harry
and his bride Meghan Markle stepped away from the spotlight
and now we find they've signed a deal with media giant
Netflix, although we don't know how much money
they're going to make from this deal.
And we've got three words and expressions that you can use to talk
about this story, haven't we Catherine?
Yes, we have. We have: 'mocked', 'land' and 'impactful'.
That's 'mocked', 'land' and 'impactful'.
Great. OK – well, let's start with your first news headline, please.
Yes, of course. We're heading first to the Daily Express,
here in the UK – the headline:
So, that's the word 'mocked' – laughed at; made fun of.
Yes. Now we spell this word M-O-C-K-E-D – 'mocked'.
It's the past tense and the past participle
of the verb 'to mock' – M-O-C-K.
Now, if you 'mock' somebody, you laugh at them:
you make jokes about them. You make – you have fun at their expense.
Is it quite a cruel way of making fun of somebody, or is it something
you can do together and have a laugh together?
Yeah, it's not really about having fun together. If you mock somebody you're
just being a bit unpleasant, really.
It's something we talk – like kids do it a lot at school.
It's about teasing somebody.
Yeah. In a bit of a, kind of, unpleasant way. So, it's when you laugh at somebody because they
can't do something properly or because – in this case because the...
People are saying, 'Harry and Meghan said they wanted a quiet life, and here they
are making programmes with Netflix,'
so people are laughing at them about this.
Yeah. I know all about mocking because
when I was at school, when we did sport, we played football.
People used to pick the teams and I was
always the last one to be picked because I was so bad at football.
Oh Rob! That's such a shame! And what did the other kids say?
Well, they just said I was rubbish: they mocked me. They were mocking me all the
time because of my terrible skills.
Oh dear Rob. I'm so sorry to hear that.
That's awful! Kids shouldn't mock you Rob. We would never mock you...
even if you are bad at football, I don't care.
OK. Well, let's see a summary of that word:
So, we talked about the word 'mocked' but
'mock' has more than one meaning, doesn't it Catherine?
Yes, it does. If you want to know about the meaning and use
of the phrase 'to mock up' just click the link
and we'll tell you all about it. Down below.
OK. It's time now to look at our second headline, please.
Yes, and we're going now to 'Hello!' website – the headline:
So the word is 'land' – get; achieve something you wanted.
Yes. Now this is a verb. It's spelt L-A-N-D – 'land'.
You know what 'land' is, don't you Rob?
Well, I'm standing on land, or sitting on land now. Land is all around us.
Yes. It's basically the earth and that as a noun isn't really where
we're going with this, but if you think about an aeroplane,
when it flies a long way and it goes closer and closer and
closer to the ground, and eventually it touches the ground: it lands.
So, after a long effort – a long flight – finally it achieves its destination
and that's the meaning of 'land' here. If you
'land' a deal, it means you've been working towards a deal,
a contract, an arrangement, and finally it's happened: the deal has been signed.
You've agreed. You've shaken hands or you've signed a contract.
You have landed the deal. You've done the work. It's finally happening.
That's the idea of 'land' here.
You have achieved something, yeah. OK.
So, you could land a job, for example. Land a position, yeah?
Yeah, absolutely. Yes, you land a deal:
that's a very strong collocation. Those two words go very strongly together.
But you can land a job, you can land a promotion,
you can land a place in a team – like you never really landed a place in
the football team at school, did you Rob?
Well, no – going back to my school days, no
I didn't get picked for the football team,
but I did land a place in the chess team that we had.
Well done! What did you have to do to land a place in the chess team?
Well, I had to do some practice and I had to have a test before I was accepted
into the team. Then I landed that place and then we went off and did
chess tournaments all over the country.
Nice!
Success at last!
Not bad, being bad at football then? There's compensation.
I achieved something, didn't I? I landed something.
Yeah. And the idea is you did a lot of practice and preparation to land your
place on the chess team.
Indeed. Right, OK.
Well, let's have a look at a summary of the word 'land':
So, we're talking about Harry and Meghan today and it's not the first time we've
talked about this couple, is it Catherine?
No. We've followed them
right through from their meeting, to their wedding, to the baby coming along
and we also covered the story of when they decided they wanted out
of the royal family. And to find out more about
that programme, click the link.
OK, Catherine. It's time to hear about our next headline, please.
Yes. We're going to The Telegraph, here in
the UK – the headline:
So, the word is 'impactful' – effective; influential.
Yes, that's right. It's an adjective: I-M-P-A-C-T-F-U-L – 'impactful'.
And it comes from the verb and noun 'impact'.
Now, you know what 'impact' means, don't you Rob?
Yeah. When you hit something, you make an impact, don't you? Like that: bang!
Exactly. And it's that bang if you hit something.
The bang – often it kind of hurts if you
have an impact with something, doesn't it?
If you have a car accident – heaven forbid.
A lot of injuries can
happen when you have a car – an impact on another car, yeah.
Yes. Caused by the contact between one thing moving and
another thing moving: will have a – that's called 'impact'.
It will have a strong effect. If there's an impact in a
car crash, you'll be hurt. So, 'impact' means
strong effect, in this sense. If something's
'impactful', it has a strong effect: it has a lot of influence.
Now, what we know about Harry and Meghan is
they've both said how keen they are to help
with things like education, with public health.
They are very keen on their charity work: Harry's influential in the disability
arena. So, we can guess that these are the kind of
programmes they want to make, and they want these programmes to be
effective, to make a difference in the world, to change people's lives. In other
words, they want these programmes to be impactful.
Yes. And they're quite high
profile names so it's probably quite obvious that they're
going to make an impact – is that what we say?
We do, yes. If something is impactful we can say: 'It makes an impact.'
It means it affects or influences people.
Or we can say: 'It has an impact.'
When was the last time, Rob, you had an impact
on somebody?
Well, I tried. I mean, working at home and having the family
here, the house gets very very messy, so I had to sit the kids down
and talk to them about this mess and I – it was almost like a speech.
I said to them, 'Look, you've got to keep the house tidier.
A tidy house means a tidy mind. We can't live in this mess.'
So, I thought my talk was quite impactful and they would listen.
Yeah. Guess what happened.
Err... they tidied their room straight away?
Quite the opposite: nothing!
The house has got messier, in fact.
What could be the opposite of 'impactful'?
'Impact-less' maybe?
Maybe. I don't know. But that's a shame.
So, you didn't have an impact on the kids this time?
No, I tried but – Try bribery: offer money.
OK. I'll remember that one. Thank you.
Right, let's have a summary of the word 'impactful':
OK, Catherine. It's time now to have a recap of the vocabulary that we've
talked about today, please.
Yes. We had 'mocked' – laughed at, made fun of.
We had 'land', which means get or achieve something you wanted.
And 'impactful', meaning effective or influential.
Now you can test yourself on this vocabulary that we've talked about
today in a quiz that's on our website
at bbclearningenglish.com. Don't forget there's lots of other things you can
learn about on our website and we're also
all over social media. So, thanks for joining us
today and see you again soon. Bye bye!
Bye!