Hi, I'm nail joining me Today's Tom.

Hello, Tom.

Hello, Neil.

Hello, audience.

Now what's our story?

Today's story is about the state of nature on a very important meeting.

Okay, sounds important.

Let's find out some more from this.

BBC World Service News Bulletin.

Scientists on diplomats from 100 and 30 countries started meeting in Paris today to examine a huge report on how human activity is crippling global biodiversity.

They'll hear how a 1,000,000 species face extinction and how most U N targets to sustain biodiversity won't be met.

So a summary of the story 130 countries are meeting in Paris there, meeting to discuss a report which points out very clearly.

The human activity is damaging nature and biodiversity.

It also says that previous targets by the U.

N to protect nature have not being met.

Okay, gloomy story.

But let's always have a look at the vocabulary that you've picked out.

I have three words today the words are groundwork, degrading and mass.

Okay, groundwork, degrading and mass.

So groundwork In your first headline, My Converse headline Neil on our Audience is from the independent Bangladesh.

It says U N to lay groundwork for nature, rescue plan, groundwork, initial work or planning, which makes future work easier.

Now there's a very sort of visual literal meaning of this isn't there, There is there.

Imagine if you make a house you read, you begin the work on the ground on the ground.

Yet you lay the foundation.

So you if you lay the groundwork, you do initial work, which allows it future work to be easier.

Yeah, okay.

But we're seeing it here in this headline, and it's used often in a figurative sense.

So we're not talking about digging up actual ground.

You know, we're talking about doing some initial preparatory work which will facilitate people to work on this report in a better way.

Yes.

On on the headline we use on headline, the authors used lay the verb So says U N to lay the groundwork for nature rescue plan yet, but we can also use do we can use do and there.

Very similar, I suppose.

Do is less formal yet.

So, for example, if I go on holiday, I do the ground work before I go, he I book my flights, I find a hotel.

I find nice restaurants that I want to visit.

I do all the work, which makes my stay easier when I'm there.

Any would sound a little bit too formal if he said I'm laying the groundwork.

Neil, if I said, can you lay the groundwork for news review today, That might be a bit too for more year.

Okay, But you did lay the groundwork for news of you today, which is why we have such a successful program.

I could, um thank you.

Actually, the most common word that we use with groundwork is not lay.

It's the present perfect form laid.

So that's interesting and revealing because this is a tense in which we often talk about this work.

Groundwork.

Yeah, say so.

I've laid the groundwork for news review today, or I've done the groundwork for news of you today means I did the planning earlier.

Here we are in the studio, benefitting from the groundwork present perfect.

The most appropriate Okay, Well, thank you for laying the groundwork so thoroughly, Tom.

And now we can move on to our second headline by next headline.

Neil is from fizz dot org's on.

The Word Is Degrading.

It says in degrading nature, Humanity harms itself, U.

N report warns.

So degrading.

Meaning making the quality of something worse or appear worse.

Used to be a teacher.

Didn't you knew?

I am a teacher?

What you think I'm doing?

I mean, you submitted your in the school in a close vote?

Yeah.

So imagine when you had homework you would grade yet the homework You would give it an A grade B grade or maybe an f grade.

It's very bad based on the quality of the work.

So it's like they're organizing things in terms of quality.

Yes, but this would has got a prefix way, had the perfect D.

It describes a drop in quality.

Okay, Eso to degrade nature is to have a negative impact on its quality.

Exactly.

Or you could say that cars, buses and motorbikes are degrading the quality of the air in London, right?

We also see this word degrading as an adjective.

We do, and that's why a different sort of meaning.

It is a slightly different meaning.

It's exactly the same word as well.

The first use was the i N G form of the verb, and exactly the same work have been objective.

Degrading, which mean which is associated with humiliation when you got a story?

Because I know how much you love to sing in public.

I don't actually another school story.

So when I was working as a teacher in schools, I love I love my job.

I was teaching English.

However, I did not love at the end of the year when you had a leaving assembly, for example, and all the teachers had to sing and do a dance.

Do you find Barry Syrians?

A bit degree was a degrading experience.

I felt degraded.

Yeah, so it means that there was a sense of embarrassment on your behalf, but also probably others felt this is not good for the exactly so something's degrading.

Or if you feel degraded, it relates to how other people perceive you in a more negative way.

Well, I'm gonna get you to sing something before the end of the program, so you could really demonstrate I degrade the quality off news of years old.

We mustn't dio.

Let's move on to our final headline.

Our final headline is from the Bangkok Post.

The word is mass.

It says mass extinction scorched global meat to probe U.

N.

Report Mass meaning on a large scale.

Yep, very large.

So we mass here is an adjective, Andi.

When it's an adjective, we always use it before.

And now the now in his extinction mass extinction means extinction on a very large scale or massive extinction.

Yes, massive is a word that people probably know which has got that word mass in it.

Meaning exactly, I would say masses more formal, the massive.

Which is why we have in these very dramatic newspaper headlines.

So we often see this connected to negative things such as extinction protest, mass protest, mass unemployment, mass hysteria.

Yeah, so that hysteria, that's not necessarily a negative thing, is it?

I mean, for example, I walked out of this building once here, the BBC in London, as a hotel opposite famous hotel, and Justin Bieber was standing there and there was mass hysteria.

You tell this story a lot.

I thought it was because I had walked out of the BBC building.

They were all there waiting for him.

So mass hysteria.

Mass I mass state of excitement?

Yes, also, we can use Mass as a noun, which means amount.

So you could say there was a large mass of people outside the hotel.

There was a large mass of people.

And we can also say the masses, referring to people at large, the general public.

So no doubt, when we finish news review, the masses will appreciate it, and we'll have the English enhanced.

Absolutely brilliant.

Okay, so now it's time for a recap of our vocabulary, please.

Okay, Our vocabulary for today.

Groundwork, initial work or planning, which makes future work easier degrading, making the quality of something worse or appear worse.

Andi, Mass.

Which is an objective means on a large scale.

If you would like to test yourself on today's vocabulary, there's a quiz you can take on our website or a masses of quizzes.

There are masses of quizzes you can take on our website.

BBC Learning english dot com will help you lay the ground, lay the groundwork for your future studies.

It will intake.

There are all kinds of videos to him.

Help you improve your English.

Thank you for joining us.

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Good bye.

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