BBC 英语学习 News Review 全球经济放缓

Is the global economy slowing down?

The World Bank thinks we're heading for recession.

This is news review from BBC.

Learning

English. I'm Neil and I'm Beth.

Make sure you watch to the end to learn vocabulary to talk about this story.

Don't forget to subscribe to our channel, like this video and try the quiz on our website.

Now the

story As prices continue to rise, the global economy is getting closer to a recession.

That's according to a prediction by the World Bank.

This year, the economy is expected to rise by the smallest percentage since 1991.

Reasons for slow growth include Russia s invasion of Ukraine and the impact of the pandemic.

You ve been looking at the headlines path what's the vocabulary?

We have overcoming doom and gloom and turbulent This is news review from BBC, learning English.

Let's take a look at our 1st headline.

This is from the Daily Star in Bangladesh.

Overcoming looming economic challenges in 2023.

OK, let's start with a definition of recession, because that's what this story is about.

A recession is a period of two or more quarters, that's three month periods when the economy shrinks.

Now, in this headline, it's saying that hard economic times are coming, but the word we're looking at is overcoming, and it's made up of two parts Over and coming.

I know both of those parts, but when we put them together, what's the sense?

Well, overcome means that you successfully deal with a problem and a problem that is quite difficult to cope with.

So in this case, economic challenges.

Okay, so overcoming is similar to defeat or control.

Yeah, that's right. So if you are very shy, you might overcome your shyness, you gain control of it and become more confident.

Yeah? Or you might be playing sports, let's say football, and if you overcome the opposition, it means you beat them.

But it's not just beating with overcome.

There is a sense of real struggle.

It wasn't easy to win. Yep.

That's right. And we also use this in the passive But it has a slightly different meaning, doesn't it?

Yes, if you are overcome by emotion, it means you have a very strong reaction.

You feel it very strongly. You might have a physical reaction.

You might shake with fear or cry.

Yet. And it's not only used with negative emotions.

It's used with positive ones as well, like joy or excitement.

OK, let's look at that again.

Let's take a look at our next headline.

This is from Business Life. It's far from being all doom and gloom on the economy.

So the headline is saying that, actually, it's not as bad as you think.

It's not all doom and gloom.

Now, duman gloom is the expression we're looking at.

I like this expression. It's got two words, and they both rhyme.

But what do they mean? Well, it's a general bad feeling, really.

So doom actually means death and destruction.

Gloom is to do with darkness.

Imagine a miserable, gray, rainy day.

So it's really quite a negative thing.

But in this headline, it's saying that the opposite is true.

It's saying that it's not all doom and gloom.

Yes. And we use the expression in this way quite often to say that something isn't as bad as you think.

So, e.g., at the moment death, I'm actually not feeling very well.

It's freezing cold outside. My train was late again, but the sun is shining, so it's not all doom and gloom.

Now, a word about this expression We don't say, I'm doom and gloom.

We use it to comment on how bad a situation is.

That's right. So we can list a number of things that are bad or wrong and then comment on that by saying, it's all doom and gloom, or it's a bit it's a bit doom and gloom, isn't it?

Let's have a look at that again.

Time for our next headline. This is from The New Straits Times Global Recession imminent After turbulence 2022.

Okay, so a recession is imminent.

It means it's just about to stars.

The word we're looking at, though, is turbulent.

Now, this word, beth, reminds me of a situation you can experience on a plane.

Yeah, you're probably thinking about turbulence.

That's a noun. So if you're on a plane and the pilot says, put your seat belt on, the plane is going to

get a bit unsteady. Things might start falling down.

This is turbulence. Yes, that is turbulence.

I really don't like turbulence. The word we're looking at, though, is turbulent, which is the adjective tell us more.

So turbulent describes something that isn't calm, or it might be

unstable. Now, we often use this in relation to the state, or maybe the history of a country or a place.

So if we're describing that country as turbulent, they might have experienced some conflicts, maybe some violence.

And so the headline describes 2022 as turbulent.

Last year was very turbulent. We had the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

We had various environmental disasters. We had famine, we had lots of protests around the world.

Yeah, you're right. There were lots of issues that made it unstable or turbulent.

Yeah, let's look at that again.

We've had overcoming dealing with a difficult problem doom and gloom.

We use this to describe a generally bad situation and turbulent, not calm, unstable.

Don't forget, there's a quiz on our website at bbc learning english dot com.

Thank you for joining us. And goodbye.

扫码查看听力音频