BBC News Review 黑猩猩像我们一样聊天

From BBC Learning English. This is

learning English from the News, our podcast about the news headlines.

In this program, how chimpanzees have conversations just like us.

Hello, I'm Phil, and I'm Beth.

In this program, we look at one big

news story and the vocabulary in the headlines that will help you understand it.

You can find all the vocabulary and headlines from this episode, as well as a worksheet, on our website, bbc learning english dot com.

So let's say more about this story.

Phil OK, so this story comes from a study that's been observing chimpanzees over many decades, and they've seen that chimpanzees gesture with their hands to communicate, yeah, and chimpanzees, or chimps, as we sometimes call them, take turns to do this, and they even interrupt each other, just like humans.

So this term taking and the time between these turns is actually very similar to the way that we do it as humans, when we're communicating.

And I have a headline here that's about the main finding of the study Chimps share human snappy conversational style.

And that's from BBC News in the UK.

Yep, again. That headline Chimps share humans snappy conversational style.

And that is from BBC news in the UK.

Now, this headline is all about the way that chimps are communicate with each other.

We have this adjective snappy, which means quick, concise and effective.

Yeah. And snap is one of these words that sounds like what it represents.

That's an on the matter pier.

And it's a very quick sound.

You can snap your fingers. A crocodile can snap its mouth shut.

OK? And here where it's describing the chimps conversation as snappy.

It means that it's quick, its concise, and each turn has impact exactly.

Now, we also have a phrase Make it Snappy, which means Be quick.

Maybe you're in a hurry, someone's forgotten their keys, and you say, come on.

Make it Snappy means be quick.

So we had Snappy, which means quick, concise and effective, e.g.

the writers managed to come up with a snappy three word slogan for their adult This is learning English from the news.

Our podcast all about the news headlines today, we're talking about a report, and it says that chimpanzees communicate in a similar way to us.

Yes. So one of the things in this study is looking at just how snappy chimps are when they communicate, and comparing that to humans.

So the average human response time in a conversation is 200 milliseconds.

That's a 5th of a 2nd, And for chimps, it's 120 milliseconds, so a little bit quicker.

Now, actually, for humans, you do get variation between different cultures.

Sometimes these turns are longer and shorter.

And actually that was also seen in different groups of chimps in this study.

So we've got another headline here, which is talking about the speed of this turntaking.

This is from The Guardian. In the UK.

Chimpanzees communicate in similar, quick fire fashion to humans, study shows.

And that headline again, chimpanzees communicate in similar, quick fire fashion to humans.

Study shows. And that is from the Guardian here in the UK.

Again, the two things in this headline are that chimps communication is similar to ours and is quick.

So we have another adjective here.

It's a compound adjective that's quick fire.

And we usually write this with a hyphen between quick and fire.

Now, some of the earliest examples of quick fire are about guns, meaning that they can fire a lot of shots quickly.

And that is still one way that quick fire is used, but that's literal.

And of course, here in the headline, it's metaphorical.

And as a metaphor, quick fire just means that things come one after another quickly in a sequence.

In fact, a common way that we use quick fire is to describe things happening in quick fire succession.

And it's often used to describe the way that people speak, particularly if someone is very talkative or if they speak very quickly.

I asked for directions the other day, and the lady gave me a really quick fire set of instructions.

She spoke very fast. So we had quick fire, very

fast one after another. E.G., the wrapper is known for her quick fire delivery of rhymes.

This

is learning English from the news, from BBC, learning English.

We're talking about a study that says chimpanzees communicate in a similar way to us.

So this study says that sometimes chimpanzees

wait for the other chimp to stop speaking, but sometimes they interrupt them.

And in fact, in this study, up to seven turns in a row were observed.

Sometimes chimps communicate to avoid conflict, and sometimes they do it to make plans to organize activities with other chimps.

And this communication can also be used to say that they want to share food, but it can be the opposites they might communicate to tell the other chimps to go away.

And we've got a headline here that refers to this communication.

Chimpanzees gesture back and forth quickly, like in human conversations.

And that's from the website Eurekalert, which is from the US.

Again, that headline, chimpanzees gesture back and forth quickly, like in human conversations.

And that's from the website Eurecolert in the US.

Okay, so here we have the idiom back and forth, which is being used to say how something happens.

It's like an adverb. Now, the word 4th is a bit old fashioned, but it has survived in this phrase.

But really, it just means forwards, doesn't it?

Yes. So if something literally goes back and forth, there goes backwards and forwards.

Think about a swing in a children's playground.

Now, here in the headline, it's not about literal movements like on a swing.

It's about the flow of conversation that goes into direction.

So from one chimp to the other and back again, and up to seven times back and forth is also often used about the conversation.

So if you want to talk about a really successful social event, you could say that the conversation flowed back and forth for hours.

So that's back and forth, which means moving in one direction and then coming back again.

The negotiations went back and forth until an agreement was reached.

That's it for this episode of Learning English from the News.

We'll be back next week with another new story.

If you've enjoyed this program, make sure you listen to Six Minute English.

And don't forget we're on social media.

So search for us and the BBC learning English.

Bye for now. Good Bye.

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