I'm tom And joining me this morning is Katherine.

Good morning Catherine.

Hello tom Hello everybody.

Today's story is about athletics and it's from the Tokyo olympics.

And don't forget if you want to test yourself on the vocabulary that we study today.

There is a quiz at the website BBC learning english dot com.

Now, let's hear more about this story from a BBC radio news report.

The New Zealand weightlifter, Laurel, Hubbard is set to become the first transgender athletes to compete at the Olympics.

The country's Olympic Committee has named her as part of the women's team for the Tokyo Games, Hubbard competed in men's competitions before transitioning in 2012.

So an athlete from New Zealand is to enter the Tokyo olympics.

Lauren Hubbard is a weightlifter, she is also transgender, she was born male and identifies now as female.

Hobart is in the news because this is the first time a transgender athlete has competed in the olympics, Herbert will be on the new Zealand women's team.

In the past, Herbert has competed on men's teams, but this year it will be the women's team.

Now we've got three words and expressions from the world's media that we can use to talk about this story.

Right?

Yes, we have trans bruise and polarizing trends, bruise and polarizing.

Okay, let's get going.

Catherine, can we have a look at your first headline please?

Yes, we're starting here in the UK with the Guardian, the headline.

Trans weightlifter laurel Hubbard set to make history at Tokyo olympics trends, transgender.

Very important word for today's story.

Katherine.

What can you tell us?

Okay, Trans T R A N S, yep.

It means transgender.

It's a short way of saying transgender.

Let's look at trans is wider meaning is over across all through we use it as a prefix.

So you can talk about something like a transatlantic flight.

If you take a plane from europe to America or America to europe, that's a transatlantic flight, it crosses the atlantic ocean.

If you travel across Russia by train, you're probably on the trans Siberian express, the train that traveled all the way across Russia and we use it in words like transfer or transmit to talk about going from one place to another.

So back to transgender, if you change your gender or you have agenda, a sex that you feel is not the one you were born with.

So you're a man who then lives as a woman or you were born a woman and you live as a man, you are transgender.

Now, that's a very simplified way of explaining transgender.

There are a lot of details and issues around transgenderism, which we don't have time to go in today, but trans is short for transgender and that's a brief summary of what it is.

Okay, so transgender people, they kind of feel that their true nature or gender identity doesn't match the sex that they were given at birth.

Can you give us some examples of when we could use trans or transgender there in a sentence.

Catherine.

Sure.

So in the case of laurel Herbert, we can say laurel Hubbard is a transgender athlete or we can shorten it and say laurel Hubbard is a trans athlete.

Or we can say laurel Hubbard is transgender or just laurel Hubbard is trans.

So trans is an objective.

We could have it now like athletes.

So laurel Hubbard, transgender athletes or we could just say laurel Hubbard is transgender.

Okay, let's move on to our summary slide.

Mm.

Mhm mm.

Okay, we're talking about the Tokyo olympics.

They're everywhere at the moment.

We did another broadcast on the Tokyo olympics recently.

Right.

Catherine.

We did talking about the effect of climate change on the temperature in Tokyo and the result on athletes potentially.

So just click the link to watch.

Just click the link to watch.

Great, Okay, Catherine, let's have a look at your second headline today, please.

And we're in Canada now with cbc, the headline.

Polarizing topic sides grapple with fairness of trans women competing on female teams.

Polarizing.

Very divisive.

Catherine.

Tell us about polarizing please.

Yes.

It's spelled P O L A R I S I N G.

If you're in the UK, if you speak american english, it's spelled with a Z as it is in this headline, but the disease is an S in british english.

So if something is polarizing, it's very, very divisive.

Let's talk about the word polar to start with Now, tom if you go as far north as you possibly can on this planet, where will you be?

I suppose I would be at the north pole, You would and if I go as far south as I possibly can, I will be at the South Pole and can we go further apart?

We could not physically be any further apart.

Okay, we'll be as far apart as it's possible to be.

And I guess this is where we get the figurative use right?

Exactly that.

So if you are polar opposites was just a common expression, you have completely different opinions.

There's nothing you can agree on about this particular topic.

So if something is a polarizing topic, it makes people really have very, very, very different opinions.

And this is an example of laurel Hubbard and competing on a female team when her sex at birth was male, people have very very strong opinions.

Very different opinions.

So this is a very polarizing topic and we can use the verb as well can't we?

To polarize like a topic has the power to polarize people.

Put them in different positions.

Can you give us any more examples when we could use a polarizing or polarize?

Well, I mean there's many, we often see it in politics.

So you could say that donald trump was a polarizing character.

He polarized lots of people with his opinions.

He had lots of polarising policies.

We can talk about current situations and arguments over you know, Covid and the vaccine and the lockdown.

All those are very polarizing topics.

Recently we had Brexit and there was very strong and very different opinions about Brexit.

So in politics and in your personal life we can talk about things that polarize people.

It means it makes them have really, really different opinions.

Brilliant.

Okay let's not polarize.

Let's bring everything together.

And let's have our summary slide for this piece of Lexus please.

So arguments in sports can be polarizing.

They can create strong opinions.

We have another news review about an argument in sport.

Right?

We do this all.

It's all about Nike and advertising.

To find out what happened.

Just click the link.

Just click that link.

All right, excellent.

Catherine.

Let's have a look at your third piece of language for today please.

Yes, we are now going to India were in the Indian Express and the headline is controversy brews over transgender weightlifter set to create history at Tokyo olympics.

Okay, bruise become stronger Catherine.

What can you tell us about the word bruise?

It's a verb, B R E W S and if something bruise it becomes stronger now.

Tom you, you are fond of a cup of tea on you.

I have a cup of tea right now.

Yes.

How do you like your cheese?

We go strong.

I mean it depends.

Sometimes I leave the tea bag in to brew to brew.

That's right.

So if you make a cup of tea and you leave your tea bag or your tea leaves in the water for a long time, the T bruise for longer and longer gets stronger and stronger.

So brewing is the process of creating T.

Or we also use it with beer.

You can brew beer, the alcoholic drink and the longer you leave it, the stronger it gets.

Now.

Bring that back to the idea of arguments, controversial topics.

If a controversy is brewing it's getting stronger.

And I guess we when we make beer or when we make tea we add heat as well don't we?

So we could say it's getting more heated as well.

It can be yes I think you definitely need heat when you make tea and a little bit of won't for beer.

But yes it's that idea of getting hotter and stronger and developing over time.

So we use it in everyday english for negative things controversy arguments, disagreements when you know that they're coming and they're getting stronger and people are talking about it and you know and arguments about to develop and explode.

You could you get that feeling that it's coming it's brewing?

Okay fantastic.

That's the verb to brew.

And we also have a noun form don't we Which is a bit more basic and slightly different cooper t let's have a brew.

Let's have a brew.

Yeah a brew it just means a hot drink in the U.

K.

So you could say make me a brew or it's not grammatically correct.

But we always say make us a brew which just make us a brew particularly in the north of England I think in the southwest.

So particularly in our homeland.

Hey Catherine.

Yeah go go a nice brew.

Okay I'm gonna go make a brew.

Well I do that.

Let's have that summary slide please.

Mhm.

Mhm.

Mhm mm.

Okay.

Catherine can we have a recap of today's vocabulary please?

Yes we started with trans which means transgender.

Then we had polarizing meaning very divisive and we finished on bruise which means becomes stronger.

Fantastic.

Thank you Catherine.

Okay that's all from us today.

Thanks for being here.

See you next time and good bye bye.