– English Lyrics

Lyrics & Translation

[English]

Welcome to Learning English,

a daily 30 minute program from the Voice of America.

I'm Ashley Thompson.

And I'm Mario Ritter junior.

This program is designed for English learners,

so we speak a little slower, and we use words and phrases,

especially written for people learning

English.

Today

you will hear stories from Bryan Lynn and John Russell.

Later, Jill Robbins presents an everyday grammar lesson

that centers on one punctuation mark

the possessive apostrophe.

Finally, Caty Weaver and I take you on a journey

to Crater Lake National Park.

But first.

An international group

of astronomers has joined efforts seeking to establish

a separate time zone for the moon.

The French based International Astronomical Union

IAU recently approved a resolution on the matter

during the group's General Assembly

meeting in Cape Town, South Africa.

The resolution calls

on space organizations around the world

to cooperate on establishing

a standard UD clock for the moon.

The Moon's orbital movements around Earth

make one day on the lunar surface equal

to 29.5 Earth days,

and because the moon has less

gravity compared to Earth, time moves slightly

faster there, about 58.7

microseconds quicker each day.

Susan Stewart is an astronomer

with the US Naval Observatory.

She helped create the resolution

at the IAU conference.

Stewart told the Associated Press

the aim of the measure is quite simple

to work together to establish a standard time.

Currently, moon operations run on the time of the country

that is launching spacecraft.

But supporters of creating a separate time zone

say this method will have to change

more countries and private space companies

are starting to launch their own moon missions.

Last year, the European Space Agency

ESA pushed for the creation of a lunar clock.

And earlier this year, the white House directed

the US space agency, NASA and other agencies

to come up with a timekeeping plan for the moon

by the end of 2026.

As noted, communication

and navigation systems built for the moon

will perform much better if they use the same timescale.

In addition, a separate time zone

will support the many other crewed and uncrewed missions

planned for the future, ESA said.

In the past, NASA also considered establishing

a separate time zone for the International Space Station.

I.s.s., but the agency decided against it.

Instead, the I.s.s.

runs on Coordinated Universal Time or UTC,

which is based on time capped by atomic clocks.

NASA officials say this system helps ease

the time difference between NASA and the Canadian Space Agency,

as well as other space partners in Russia, Japan and Europe.

The international

team looking at establishing a lunar time zone

has said it is still deciding whether a single organism mission

should be chosen to set and keep time on the moon.

Vagina's paddler is a physicist at the US Commerce Department's

National Institute of Standards and Technology.

He told the AP that astronomers are still deciding

on how a lunar clock would work.

Pat La said, I think the community has realized

that this needs to be done, and this is the beginning.

I'm Bryan Lynn.

A plan to build a huge

solar farm in Australia is a step closer.

After the Australian government gave environmental approvals

for the $19 billion project.

Recently.

Australian company Sun Cable plans

to build a 12,400 hectare solar

farm in a remote area of northern Australia.

The farm will

send electricity to the city of Darwin via

an 800 kilometer overhead transmission line.

Then the power will be transported

to large industrial customers in Singapore

through a 4300 kilometer submarine cable.

The Australia Asia Power Link project

aims to deliver up to six gigawatts

of green electricity each year.

Such a project.

Australian Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek suggested, would help

turn Australia into a renewable energy superpower

and boost its economy.

Plibersek said in a written statement

it will be the largest solar precinct in the world.

The project was first backed

by Australian mining businessman Andrew Forrest

and Atlassian co-founder Mike Cannon-Brookes.

The plans were discussed during a state visit

by then Singapore Prime Minister

Lee Hsien Loong and Australian

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese,

as part of a green economy agreement in 2022.

In January 2023,

the project collapsed when Sun Cable was involved

in a financing dispute between Forrest and Cannon-Brookes.

By May of that year, a group

led by Cannon-Brookes Grok Ventures acquired the company,

finalizing the takeover.

In September 2023.

Sun Cable Australia's managing director, Cameron Gardens

Worthy, said it was pleased to have cleared a major legal issue.

He added that the company will now put its efforts into the next stage

of planning to work towards a final invest decision

targeted by 2027.

The company said electricity supply

would begin in the early 2030s.

Energy has been a politically charged issue

for nearly 20 years in Australia.

The country depends on coal and gas,

as well as money from exporting those fuels to help support its economy.

This dependance on

fossil fuels has historically made it

one of the world's worst greenhouse gas emitters.

On a per capita basis.

Australia's main opposition party in June

announced plans to build the country's first nuclear power plants

as early as 2035.

The announcement ensures the major parties will be divided on

how to reduce Australia's greenhouse gas emissions

at elections due within a year.

The parties have not gone to an election with the same carbon

reduction policies since 2007.

I'm John Russell.

The battle for the white House is set.

As Vice President Kamala Harris

officially accepts the Democratic Party nomination on Thursday

to run against former President Donald Trump.

The Republican nominee.

However, another fight is just starting among grammar

nerds over where to put the possessive apostrophe after her name.

Is it Harris apostrophe

or Harris apostrophe? S?

Eric Turk quits.

A New York lawyer called the debate Apostrophe Hill on the social media

website X.

It has since received more than 2 million views.

The Associated Press Stylebook

says use only an apostrophe for singular proper names

ending in the letter S, such as Dickens's

That's Dickens Apostrophe book.

Hercules is Hercules apostrophe.

Labor's, or Jesus's

Jesus apostrophe.

Life.

So for Harris, it is Harris,

followed by an apostrophe, as in Harris's policy.

The AP Stylebook is widely

used as the standard by American news organizations.

But not everyone agrees.

Three large U.S.

newspapers, The New York Times, The Washington

Post, and The Wall Street Journal all use.

Harris followed by an apostrophe and the letter

S, as in Harris's policy,

adding to the confusion.

They all agree that the singular possessive for Harris's running mate.

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz is Walz.

Apostrophe s.

As for the plural possessive,

it is Harris's

apostrophe or Harris's.

As in Harris's family home.

And w alcs apostrophe

s in Walz's cats.

Benjamin Dreyer is a retired

editor who worked for the publisher random House.

He wrote Dreyer's English and Utterly

Correct Guide to Clarity in Style.

He told the AP there is widespread agreement

that the lazy apostrophe s is correct.

But many flooded him with questions about what to do with the apostrophe.

After Harris

added the apostrophe and the letter S, Dreyer said

to set the apostrophe S

is just simpler, and then you can take

your valuable brain cells and apply them to more important things.

The American Dictionary publisher, Merriam Webster, joined

the debate with this reminder for names

that end in an S or Z sound.

You can either add apostrophe s

or just an apostrophe.

Going with apostrophe s is the more common choice.

The car that belongs to Jones,

John s apostrophe s car,

or John s apostrophe car.

Amanda Barrett is AP's vice

president for news standards and inclusion.

She said while the AP style has evolved over the years,

there are no plans to change the guidance

on the possessive apostrophe. S

Barrett added we do know

that the conversation is out there and people make different choices

when it comes to grammar and that's all fine.

Everyone makes a choice that works best for them.

Timothy Pouliot teaches linguistics at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire.

He said that until the 17th or 18th century,

the possessive of proper names ending in the letter S,

such as Jesus or Moses, often was simply the name

itself, with no apostrophe or additional s.

Eventually, the apostrophe

Jesus apostrophe or Moses apostrophe

was added to mark the possession,

although the pronunciation remained the same.

That became kind of the standard that I was taught and adhered to,

even though in retrospect I don't think it's a great standard, he said.

Pulu expects most people will use the apostrophe

followed by the letter S form over time.

As long as people are communicating successfully,

we say language is doing what it's supposed to be doing, he said.

If you can read it whichever

way is written, then it seems like it's working for people.

Michael Dukakis of

Massachusetts was the last US presidential candidate

whose name ended with the letter S.

Dukakis told the AP that he does not remember

any similar discussion when he was a Democratic nominee,

but he agrees with the AP.

It sounds to me like it would be s apostrophe

and that's it, he said.

If Harris wins in November,

she would become the fourth US president,

with a last name ending in the letter S

and the first since Rutherford B Hayes,

who was elected in 1876.

The Harris campaign has yet

to take a clear position.

Press releases issued by the campaign talked about Harris's.

That's with an apostrophe s puzzle division

and Harris's S apostrophe.

Seventh trip to Nevada.

I'm Jill Robbins.

Jill Robbins is here now

to talk more about that everyday grammar lesson.

Hi, Jill. Thanks for being here.

I'm always happy to talk with our podcast listeners.

I was wondering if we could talk a bit more

about the punctuation question in this week's Everyday Grammar?

Sure.

It is a question that has come up because the Democratic nominee

for president and vice president both have names that end with a sound

that's similar to our possessive in English. Yes.

So that would be Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.

And we usually add an apostrophe, a little mark next

to the last letter of a name and the letter

S to show possession.

Exactly.

The problem is you end up with two sounds that are the same next to each other.

Take my name Jill Robbins.

Using my first name is okay.

Jill's book is easy.

Jill apostrophe s, but add the apostrophe after my last name

and you get Doctor Robbins's class.

I'd write that Robbins apostrophe.

I noticed you added another sound after your name.

Robbins is.

The issue is, how do you write that?

We used to follow the rule that you just add

the punctuation, mark the apostrophe, and when you say it,

you add the reduced vowel sound up before the s sound.

But now people have started applying the rule

where you write another s after the apostrophe.

So it would be written r o b b

I and s apostrophe s.

That's it.

Similar to how I said I'd write my first name with an apostrophe s.

Jill's book.

It's just another example of how language

changes and people start to make new rules.

Well, thanks for being with us today, Jill,

and thanks for explaining the possessive apostrophe.

It's always a pleasure.

Ashley.

On our national parks journey,

we travel to the northwestern state of Oregon.

Here you will find a huge deep lake.

Its waters seem impossibly blue.

It is the deepest lake in America.

And one of the deepest lakes in the world.

Its water is among the clearest

and purest found on earth.

Around the lake runs the

wall of an extinct volcano.

In the middle of the lake,

a small island rises over

230m above the surface.

Welcome to Crater Lake National Park.

The lake's beauty inspires artists,

photographers and nature lovers.

That beauty was born

from the violent burst of Mount Mazama,

about 7700 years ago.

Hot liquid, called magma

rose from deep under the mountain,

causing it to collapse.

The powerful burst destroyed the surrounding area.

Huge amounts of ash fell on the land.

The burst also left an enormous

circular hole in the mountain's center.

Scientists call this a caldera.

Over the next hundreds of years, rain

and snow filled the hole with water.

Rainfall and snowfall

are the lake's only source of water.

It has no connections to the rivers and streams around it.

That is what keeps its waters so pure.

As water collected,

plants began to grow in the area again

and animals returned,

science to say it took about 250 years

for the lake to rise to its current water level.

Crater Lake is 592m deep.

It is one of the ten deepest on Earth.

But its depth is not

the only remarkable quality.

People are odd by its water

color and clarity.

Crater Lake is so clear that on most days

you can see nearly 30m below the surface.

The lake takes on its intense

blue color because of the water's clarity.

Sunlight reaches deep into the water.

Crater Lake gets its name from.

Geology.

A crater is a large bowl

shaped area on top of a volcano.

The crater that formed the lake

sits within the larger caldera.

Native Americans were in the area

even before the lake's formation.

Researchers have found artifacts buried under layers

of ash and dust from Mount Mazama.

Huge eruption following the burst,

Native Americans considered Crater

Lake to be a holy place.

Ancient Native American stories

describe the eruption of Mount Mazama.

European explorers and settlers

did not arrive in the area until the middle 1800s.

In 1865,

a hunter became one of the first non Native Americans

to reach the shores of Crater Lake.

In 1870,

a boy in Kansas read a newspaper article

about the strange lake in Oregon.

The story about Crater Lake

fascinated the young William Gladstone Steele.

He promised himself he would one day

see this lake.

In 1872,

Steele's family moved to Portland, Oregon.

About 375km north of the lake.

13 years later,

Steele honored his promise and visited Crater Lake.

Its beauty moved him greatly.

He began a 17 year fight

to preserve the area as a public park.

Steele was a writer.

He described one of his first visits

to Crater Lake in 1886.

In the west shore Magazine.

Not a foot of the land about the lake

has been touched or claimed.

And over mastering conviction came to me

that this wonderful spot must be saved, wild and beautiful,

just as it was for all future generations.

His proposal of creating a national park

did not please nearby sheepherders and miners.

But his efforts succeeded anyway.

On May 22nd, 1902,

Crater Lake became the country's

fifth national park.

It remains the only national park in Oregon,

and William Gladstone Steele

is called the father of Crater Lake.

Crater Lake National Park

covers 740km².

The lake itself makes up

less than 10% of the park.

It also includes surrounding

mountains and thick forests.

The trees shelter many kinds of animals,

from black bears to elk to spotted owls.

About 480,000 people

visit Crater Lake National Park each year.

They explore by car, bicycle or on foot.

Roads that encircle Crater Lake usually are open

from July through October, depending on whether

they provide breathtaking displays

of the lake's unusual blue color,

as well as the forests around it.

Crater Lake National Park

also has more than 140km of hiking trails.

The Clete Wood Cove Trail drops more than 200m

down to the edge of Crater Lake.

It leads to a spot where swimming is permitted.

The water is extremely cold.

Most swimmers cannot stay in

for more than a few minutes.

Crater lake's average water temperature

is just three degrees Celsius.

In summer, the lake's surface warms

to about ten degrees Celsius.

Visitors can also catch a boat

from the end of Clete Wood Cove Trail.

Park rangers lead visitors

on boat rides around the lake.

Visitors can also take boats to Wizard Island.

The piece of land sits

in the western part of the lake.

Volcanic eruptions formed Wizard Island.

It rises over 760m

above the lake floor.

However, most of the island

about 500m is underwater.

At Wizard Island, visitors can hike,

swim, and fish.

It is also a wonderful place

to relax and enjoy nature.

But such extraordinary places

can be found all over the park.

Discovering one's own is part of the magic

to experience at Crater Lake National Park.

I'm Ashley Thompson.

And I'm Caty Weaver.

And that's our program for today.

Join us again tomorrow to keep learning

English through stories from around the world.

I'm Ashley Thompson.

And I'm Mario Ritter Jr.

Key Vocabulary

Vocabulary	Meanings
astronomers əˈstrɒnəmərz B2	noun - scientists who study stars, planets, and other celestial bodies
establish ɪˈstæblɪʃ B1	verb - to set up or create something officially
resolution ˌrezəˈluːʃən B2	noun - a formal statement of a decision or expression of opinion
cooperate koʊˈɒpəreɪt B1	verb - to work together to achieve a common goal
orbital ˈɔːrbɪtl C1	adjective - relating to the path of a celestial body around another
lunar ˈluːnər B2	adjective - relating to the moon
gravity ˈɡrævɪti B1	noun - the force that attracts objects towards the center of the Earth
microseconds ˈmaɪkrəʊˌsekəndz C1	noun - one millionth of a second
observatory əbˈzɜːrvətɔːri B2	noun - a place where stars, planets, and other celestial bodies are observed
spacecraft ˈspeɪskræft B2	noun - a vehicle designed to travel in space
missions ˈmɪʃənz B1	noun - an important task or journey, especially involving space travel
timescale ˈtaɪmskeɪl C1	noun - a system of measuring time
navigation ˌnævɪˈɡeɪʃən B2	noun - the process of planning and following a route
uncrewed ˌʌnˈkruːd C1	adjective - not having a crew or people on board
caldera kəˈlɜːrə C1	noun - a large depression formed by the collapse of a volcano
artifacts ˈɑːrtɪfækt B2	noun - objects made by humans, typically of cultural or historical interest
preserve prɪˈzɜːrv B1	verb - to keep something in its original state or prevent it from being damaged
breathtaking ˈbreθˌteɪkɪŋ B2	adjective - extremely beautiful or amazing