Hey everyone, welcome back to our Channel, this is me Meera. We have always been saying
on our Channel, that learning English has to be fun. So what do we do? We learn via
books, videos, movies, songs etc. right? And isn't that great? Well reading is one of the
mediums to learn English and when we talk about reading learning via newspapers has
been an old method and I still use it. And that is exactly what I have got for you, learning
English with the help of news. Well news has been a very helpful source. But these days
we read news on our phones, right? Especially me, especially with such hectic schedules,
you do not have time for the paper, phone is my only Savior when it comes to news. The
truth is newspapers are too lengthy and TV news is too biased with advertisements. The
good articles are usually behind the expensive pay walls so, I like to read headlines and
mostly bite-sized news and then decide, if I want to read the whole article further or
not. So what I was doing was I was surfing on the net for an app that will give me the
whole story in small paragraphs so I do not have to read the complete news and I still
get to understand what is happening around me and be updated with, right? So I found
this app called "Compass News" and I quickly downloaded it to see how it works and if I
like it. So basically what I realized is that it is a journalism app and the website is
actually worth reading. With this app I actually found what I was looking for so then I went
ahead and we contacted them. Let me tell you about this app at the end of the video, but
basically we are going to learn, how to learn English through news reading and on "Compass
News" make sure that you're listening and observing I would be narrating few articles
and you have to listen to me properly to understand what are we going to learn today. So let us
take a look at what we're going to do, come on. So let's go ahead, I'm going to open my
"Compass News" app right here, okay as you can see, I have already prepared my profile
which is right here and what I have is my news for today, which is Tuesday, you might
be reading this a little later but you can catch up with me, right? So, well I have a
lot of news right here, that's my first page, that's my main page, today's headlines, I
have five main headlines, North Korea is probably building new missiles. Trump offers to meet
Iran's president. Well since I'm interested in this news, I'm going to quickly open this
and I have a very short news but a wholesome news I'm sure, right here. I'm going to get
you, I'm going to run you through the article, I'm going to read out to you, you have to
listen carefully of the way I'm reading and then we will go ahead and learn few words
and few sentences, okay? So here goes, Trump offers to meet Iran's president. A week after
his all-caps rant at Iran, US president Donald Trump has offered to meet Iran's leaders with
no preconditions and anytime they want. He told reporters at the White House that he
believed in meetings and would meet with anyone. Well this is a quick story, you have a backstory
with it to understand what is it about, okay? Last week, Trump angrily tweeted to Iranian
president Rouhani never ever threaten the United States again or you will suffer consequences.
The likes of which few throughout history have ever suffered before. We are no longer
a country that will stand for your demented words of violence and death. Be cautious.
Iran's relationship with the US is particularly hostile at the moment. Trump left the Iranian
nuclear deal in May. Now as you can see there are a lot of words and phrases that Trump
has used and article has used. So I have shortlisted few words which I think will help you understand
English and the article better. So let's take a run-through and take a look at these words.
Well our first word is or the phrase is "all caps rant". Where rant is a verb used to describe
the action of talking or arguing about a topic in a very passionate way. While typing all
caps is short for all capital letters as you can see Donald Trump seems to love to tweet
in caps or capital letters therefore the term all caps rant is another way of saying that
Trump took to, took to making his argument or rant in all caps which is in capital letters.
So it was a strong point expressed again in capital letters on social media which was
Twitter for example in a simple way in English if you want to say it to anyone, "don't do
it" and you say it in a very forceful way that will become all caps rant, okay? Moving
ahead the next one that I've sorted shortlisted for you is, "no preconditions" preconditions
mean that certain criteria or conditions have to be fulfilled for a certain thing to happen.
For example, you don't have to wait at the doctor's office, on the precondition that
you book an appointment. So the term no preconditions simply means that you don't need any criteria
or condition for a certain thing to happen. It is something that can take place in the
independent of any other factor. Another example in simple English, there are no preconditions
to participate in this competition, right? Just made it simpler. Let's take a look at
another one, "suffer the consequences" well this is a phrase which is used to describe
that one might face a bad or unpleasant experience because of doing something, anything. Trump
here wants Iran that they will face or suffer an unpleasant outcome or consequence if they
threaten the United States like we saw. Moving on the next one I found for you is, "demented".
This is a word used to describe behavior which arises from a medical condition called dementia.
People with this condition behave irritationaliy due to anger, distress or even excitement
for that matter. Well here Trump has used a word as strong as demented to emphasize
that Iran is displaying an attitude that he considers to be very violent and morbid even.
Next up we have is, "believed in meetings". This phrase used here is to be taken in context
to show that a person who believes in meetings is someone who believes in talking matters
or discussing things cordially to come to an agreement, right? Trump has used this phrase
as a way of saying that he believes in sorting problems by taking the diplomatic approach
that is what he said here. Well with this, I will move on to another word which is "hostile".
This word can be used to describe those who are, who are unfriendly, right? Or aggressive.
For example, "the airport authorities had turned hostile towards the man who disobeyed
rules." Okay, so these were the shortlisted words out of the first article. What I want,
what I'm going to do is, I'm going to shortlist another article for you just so that you understand
better and I will make sure of that. Okay, so I'm going to go back to my main page as
you can see we have a lot of things here before we move to the next article, let's take a
look at what we have in the, over here on the app. Okay, so I have another, there's
another place where they have put in a lot of journalism articles out here like you can
see umm... here, here they have "The New Yorker", then they have articles from like you can
see, "The Economist", which is, which is one of the best again. You have "Refinery", oh,
they also have "The New York Times" now you can see how simple it was a short article
yet a concise, concise information and as you can see over here they have something
called as 30-second summary. What does that mean? They have literally three points and
that you can read in 30 seconds. Now that is something that I really wanted guys, that
because, because of the time that I have, I just hardly have any. Yet I get to know
just in 30 seconds what is the news exactly about. Which is very, very easy for me. Alright,
then if I go on my search button, there are so many things like there's, okay look at
this page they have Science, Politics, Technology, American Politics, European Politics, Economy,
magazine let me just quickly click on Magazine, okay? And now I get to see a complete set
of articles from different, from different magazines all around the world, which is really
classic because this one app can get me to all the possible articles from different magazines.
And if I like something, I can also read it offline there are certain articles which you
like and want to read further so I can quickly press the hot button click on the hot button
and it will be saved offline. So this is something that is, that this app is all about. Um, we're
going to move on to our next article, let me quickly search, okay, alright we're going
to read about 4 million people excluded from list of citizens in India, okay? Around 4,
4, 4 million people have been excluded from the final draft list of citizens in the Indian
state of Assam. This threatens to strip all of these people of their citizenship the government
says that the list the National Register of citizens is designed to combat illegal Bangladeshi
immigrants. But many have seen it as a state sanction cracking down on minorities. Rajnath
Singh India's Interior Minister, said that people whose names were missing from the list
shouldn't worry since everyone would get a fair chance to appeal. Other officials echoed
this sentiment emphasizing that there was time for people to appeal and being left off
this of the list wouldn't result in immediate deportation. Now this was a very, very quick
article as well and yet again I have shortl, shortlisted certain words, let's quickly understand
these words as well alight? Starting with "final draft" list of citizens well a final
draft is a term used commonly in written documents it is a final version of the document after
a lot of editing and rewriting. In this article this phrase is used to show that a final draft
of the list of citizens in the state of Assam was created after a lot of thinking and consideration
it's also another way of saying that no changes can be made to the document anymore, okay?
Moving on to the next phrase, sentences "threatens to strip" threatened means to scare, pressurize
or terrorize someone to do or not to do something. The word strip means to remove, right? Well
in this article the phrase threatens to strip means that the people of Assam were frightened
that the final draft of citizens would strip or remove their citizenship that they dearly
value. I have another word for you which is, "combat". This word is used to say what that
the one is taking action to reduce or prevent something bad or undesirable even. Well in
this particular article they are combating illegal immigrants. In other words they are
doing everything they can to prevent illegal immigrants from residing in their state. Well
in simple English you can use, "I learned karate for self-combat" okay? Moving on, "cracking
down" this is again a strong phrase used to talk about taking strict measures. Especially
in enforcing obedience to laws or regulations. In this article you can see how some people
view the strict, strict enforcement of the law against illegal immigrants as a way of
cracking down on minorities. Alright, moving on we have "A fair chance". This is a phrase
to describe that everyone gets an equal chance to do something. For example we must give
the both, we must give both the candidates a fair chance to win. What I realized is that
this app Compass News, is an app that, that it really made it easy to be well informed
about the world. It doesn't matter that, how much time I have? Or how much money I have?
Even if I have 30 seconds, I can get a quick 30 seconds summary and that's the fact that
I really like about this. It's very time-saving and they do have such summaries with single
articles from different magazines and newspapers with short background story which is story
so far. Making it so much more easier and simpler. What I understood is that they understood
that the sources cannot be completely neutral, right? So they put viewpoints from different
places. As you can see I have a premium account over here that means I've taken membership
for a year. Which costed me about $10. If you go through this app you would see that
this costs you just $1 per month but just because you are Let's Talk subscribers, it
would only cost you $5. Well here is time to mention that you will start with 7 days
of free trial before you even get to that. And you know what I really think and I would
like to suggest this that it is so much more easier to sign up for a, for a yearly trial,
for a yearly membership just because the news and the whole idea of learning English through
news, make Compass News makes it so much more easier and so much more simpler and if you
see it's just a cost of two burgers. So what I would like you to do is, I would definitely
suggest you to go ahead and check out the free trial, make sure you go through the app
and then sign up for it if you like it. Until then I'm going to come back for you with another
interesting topic, probably something else that I found interesting on the web for you
guys to learn English, till then make sure you practice. Make sure you're smiling. This
is me Meera signing off for the day, bye-bye