Learning English Podcast - Musk’s pay, Sanké mon, Apple AI, Present Perfect Lesson - Bilingual Subtitles
Welcome to Learning English, a daily 30-minute program from the Voice of America.
I'm Ashley Thompson.
And I'm Mario Ritter Jr.
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.
This is what you will hear on today's program.
Katie reports on a big pay package for Tesla chief Elon Musk.
Ashley has a report on an ancient fishing tradition in Mali.
Brian reports on a new tool from Apple, then the lesson of the day.
But first, here's Katie.
Tesla shareholders recently voted by a large majority to approve company chief Elon Musk's 10-year pay plan.
The plan, valued by the company in April at $44.9 billion, was even more valuable earlier in the year.
However, Tesla's stock price has fallen about 25% since then.
The board and shareholders first approved which gives Musk special shares of stock in 2018.
It aimed to reward Musk for reaching goals that include raising Tesla's market value, pre-tax income, and revenue.
But in January, a Delaware judge halted the plan.
She said the process for approving it was deeply flawed.
The court ruled that Musk controlled the company's board.
and that shareholders were not fully informed.
But the company said Musk should get the pay because he turned Tesla into the top selling electric vehicle maker in the world,
increasing its market value by billions of dollars.
Even with the reapproval vote, Musk will not get the stock plan just yet.
Tesla is expected to ask the judge to reconsider her decision.
If the judge does not revisit the decision, the company probably will appeal the ruling to Delaware's Supreme Court.
The process could take months.
Musk's pay plan is the largest to accompany chief of a U.S.
public company.
It is far above what has been given to other chief executives.
Here is how the package compares.
The Associated Press partnered with Equilar, a company that researches pay for business chiefs, to study pay for CEOs, or Chief Executive Officer.
The study found that the median pay package for an S&P 500 CEO in the U.S.
last was 16.3 million dollars.
If you multiply that by 10, to get $163 million for 10 years of work, Musk's earnings would be 275 times greater.
In her January ruling that struck down the package, Delaware Chancellor Kathleen St.
Jude McCormick wrote that Musk's package, then about $56 billion, was 250 times larger than the median peer CEO's pay plan.
The top earner in the AP study was CEO of artificial intelligence company Broadcom Inc.
His package, mostly consisting of stock was valued at about $162 million when given to 10 in 2023.
Because the company's stock rose in value, Broadcom in March valued the CEO's pay package, including earlier awards at $767.7 million.
That amount is much smaller than Musk's possible pay package of 304 million shares worth almost 45 billion dollars.
Other CEOs identified by AP to have high prices.
include William Lansing of Fair Isaac Corporation and Tim Cook of Apple.
Tesla says it did not pay Musk anything last year,
but if courts permit his paid Musk's pay in-company stock will be in the billions.
Company documents from this year say the median yearly pay of Tesla employees, not including the chief last year, was $45,811.
I'm Katie Weaver.
Thousands of fishermen holding nets stood side by side.
They waited for the signal.
Suddenly they rushed to a large area of water, and threw in their nets, dropping to their knees in the mud.
Soon after, one held up a fish the length of his arm.
For several hundred years.
Others, people have gathered in the town of Song in southern Mali for Songke-mou, a collective fishing right.
It begins with animal sacrifices and offerings to the water spirits of Songke-pou.
The right, with dancers and traditional costumes, is on UNESCO's list of intangible cultural traditions.
The list is meant to honor important places and activities to cultures around the world.
The event celebrates the town's founding and marks the beginning of the rainy season.
But some people say climate change and heat waves are interfering with the tradition.
Sanke Pond is starting to disappear.
said a village chief, Mamadou Lamintrawe.
A heatwave in Mali, this year, has also led to deaths.
The heatwave began in March, when many people in the Muslim-majority country observed the Islamic holy month of Ramadan with fasting.
Fasting means to deny oneself food for a period.
The Cross Red Crescent Climate Center said that limited data in Mali makes it impossible to know the number of heat-related deaths,
but the group still estimates that the have likely been in the hundreds, if not thousands.
World Weather Attribution is a non-profit science group that looks at the effects of extreme weather.
In April, the group released a study.
It said, the latest heatwave in the Sahara Well, the area of Africa south of the Sahara Desert is extreme.
The researchers said climate change has made high temperatures in Burkina Faso and Mali hotter by 1.5 degrees.
Experts have warned of more hot weather.
At the latest, Sankemon collective fishing activity, men felt hot as they cooked chickens.
A national flag waved on a weathered flagpole along the edge of the pond.
This tradition was already established before I was born.
born, said Amadu Kula Bali, who remains faithful to it, although there are growing difficulties.
When the right was added to the UNESCO list in 2013,
There were plans to dig deeper into the pond, to prevent it from filling up with dirt, Troe said.
But since then he explained, nothing was done, and the pond is starting to create problems.
He said the pond's disappearance would threaten not just the ancient fishing activity, but also the town's economic survival.
I'm Ashley AI tools on iPhones and other personal devices.
Company officials have described the new offerings as a newly developed technology called Apple Intelligence.
The announcement happened during Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference.
The event took place last week at the company's headquarters in Cupertino, California.
Apple Chief Tim Cook said at the conference that the AI tools will be supported by technology developed by ChatGPT Maker OpenAI.
The release of ChatGPT in 2022 led to the launch of a new generation of AI tools that aim to perform at human levels.
Such tools,
also known as chatbots or generative AI, are designed to interact smoothly with humans and perform high-level writing and other kinds of creative work.
Cook noted that Apple's new offerings are designed to improve on previous AI technologies, including the company's 13-year-old personal assistant Siri.
its personal intelligence, and it is the next big step for Apple," he said.
Open AI Chief Sam Altman also attended Apple's conference.
He said in a statement the partnership with Apple aims to make it easier for people to benefit from what AI can offer.
Apple officials said that in addition to adding OpenAI's technology, Siri was also receiving major upgrades.
The upgrades are designed to make the tool more personable and expand its uses.
The new AI tools are designed to assist users across different areas.
This includes help with text messages,
emails and calendars,
as well as with many third-party One example demonstrated at the conference was the ability of the upgraded Siri to fully
write emails and change its voice.
Apple officials have said the AI tools are designed to suggest to users when it might make sense to use Apple Intelligence technology in addition to Siri.
The new offerings will only operate on more recent models of the iPhone, iPad and Mac.
This is because the AI tools require powerful processors earlier models do not have.
For example, iPhone users will need to have last year's iPhone 15 Pro or by the next model expected to be released later this year.
Craig Federiki is Apple's senior vice president of software engineering.
He told reporters that all users will have the ability to turn off any AI tools.
They do not want on their device.
Apple has long claimed it values personal privacy by building tools into its operating systems that seek to protect user data.
The company said it had taken the same steps to provide privacy protections for its new AI tools.
Frederike said the new AI tools will aim to provide a highly personalized service to give users intelligence that's most helpful and relevant for you.
And it protects your privacy at every step.
One way Apple has tried to reduce concerns about its privacy policies moving forward is by stating that most AI tool activity will process on the device itself,
rather than at remote data centers.
Such centers are known as cloud centers.
Technology experts said this policy should also help Apple save money since AI processing through the cloud is far more costly than on a device.
Apple officials said when users make AI demands requiring computing power beyond what is available on the device,
the activity will be processed by a private cloud.
That system, the company says, is supposed to protect personal user data.
Federiki explained the process by saying Apple's AI will be aware of your personal data without collecting your personal data.
I'm Brian.
And now we have Brian Lin to talk more about his technology report.
Thanks for joining me, Brian.
Of course, Mario, glad to be here.
This week you reported on new AI tools Apple plans to release on its devices.
After these plans were announced, some noted that Apple chose to wait much longer to add these tools than its major competitors.
What can you tell us about that?
Yes, some experts did point this out.
Microsoft, for example, launched a new AI product called Copilot last February, and this release made OpenAI's technology available to people
using multiple Microsoft products,
including computers,
other and it's being searched Google has been investing in AI development for several years and,
in fact, released its own chatbot called Gemini late last year.
Gemini has long been a part of Google's Pixel smartphones.
So, while Apple did wait longer, this is quite common for how the company has handled other new releases in the past.
We know Apple has historically placed great importance.
on protecting the privacy of its users.
How did company officials deal with this issue when explaining how its new offerings will work?
Yes, Apple has explained one of its top security features is to have the majority of AI processes
completed on the device itself rather than having information sent to remote servers.
And it is worth noting other companies take this privacy step as well.
But Apple does say that when more server capacity is needed, say to complete more complex operations, some processes may be run through.
private cloud servers.
But again,
it says these special servers have been designed to not save personal data and that they carry a very low risk of internet attacks.
Thanks for that additional information, Brian.
We're looking forward to the next technology report.
You're welcome, Mario.
Thank you.
Hello.
My name is Anna Mateo.
My name is Andrew Smith.
And I'm Jill Robbins.
You're listening to The Lesson of the Day on the Learning English Podcast.
Welcome to the part of the show where we help you do more with our video series Let's Learn English.
This series shows Anna Mateo in her work and life in Washington, D.C.
Today we're going to look at the language in Lesson 48 of the series.
In this lesson, Anna meets a tourist visiting Washington and helps her find some places to visit.
Hello, I have lived in Washington DC for a long time now, and I have done a lot.
I feel that I know this city pretty well.
Wait, that's the wrong way.
Where is it again?
Excuse me.
Can I help you?
Have we met before?
I don't think so.
So, I've just flown in from Boston.
My is Jean.
Hi, Jean.
I'm Anna.
I feel like we've met before.
Anyway, how can I help?
I want to see an interesting museum, but I don't know which one.
I can help with that.
I've lived in Washington, DC along I think I've seen all the museums.
Wow, thanks.
So me, which museums are good?
Well, they are all good, but they're all different.
There are science museums, and history museums, and art and culture museums.
I want to see an unusual museum.
I like the sculpture garden.
Have you ever seen sculptures in a garden?
It is really artistic.
I have never seen a garden of sculptures.
I'll write that on my list.
I noticed in this part that both Anna and Jean are using the present perfect tense to talk about their experiences.
It's common to hear that in this kind of situation.
That's right, we use the present perfect tense to talk about an action in the past that is important in the present.
For example, we heard Anna say, I have lived in Washington DC for a long time now.
The present perfect may be confusing for learners because we use it to talk about a past.
It is called present perfect because speakers use it to stress the importance of a past event in the present.
You know, we hear another example a little later when Jean says, I've just flown in from Boston.
The sentence, I've just flown in from Boston, stresses the present effect of a past event.
The travel from Boston.
The time of the travel is not important.
To form the present perfect, we use two verbs.
A main verb and an auxiliary verb.
The auxiliary verb is HAB.
And the main verb is in something we call the past participle form.
For regular verbs, that just means you add D or E-D to the base form of the verb.
Yeah, like live and lived.
Let's give another example.
Have you ever lived in another country?
I have lived in another country.
I've lived in France for a little while, and I've also been lucky because I've visited many different countries.
So those verbs visited, lived, they followed the rule and just add D or ED to the base form.
but for irregular verbs, you might find different forms for the past participle.
For example, the past participle of fly is flown, just like the past participle of sea is seen.
For example,
we can say,
another way you can hear the present perfect in this conversation is with the
adverbs ever and never listen again to this part I like the sculpture garden
have you ever seen sculptures in a garden it is really artistic.
I never seen the garden of sculptures.
I'll write that on my list.
The sculpture garden is a beautiful place just a few blocks away from our office.
I noticed there that Jean used the negative adverb never.
Which, of course, means she hasn't had the experience of visiting that place.
I sometimes hear English learners saying, I have ever, when they want to say they have had an experience, but that's not correct.
Is it, Jill?
No.
No.
I've heard that.
I think the way to understand this is to remember we usually only use ever in a question formed with the present perfect,
not in a statement or an answer to a question.
You know, Andrew, something else stands out for me and what Gene said here.
What's that, Jill?
She says she'll add the sculpture garden to her list.
In each of these lessons, we have included a different learning strategy to guide people to be more effective language learners.
In this particular lesson, the strategy is focus attention.
By making a list, Jean is helping herself remember the places she wanted.
And, she can prioritize her time, too.
By seeing that she has five places to visit in one day, she can decide how much time to spend at each one.
prioritize means to decide which things are more important than others.
But Jill, our listeners might want to know why Anna said Jean looks familiar to her.
Oh, that's easy.
The same member of our staff played a genie in another episode of Let's Learn English.
She magically changed Anna's costume for Halloween.
Ah, yes, that's right.
I remember.
So this is what we might call an inside joke because the creators of Let's Learn English know that the same person was playing the same role.
Now, let's find out what other places in D.C.
honor recommends.
Do you have any other suggestions?
Well, if you like plants, you can visit the U.S.
Botanic Gardens.
It's very organic.
I have always loved plants.
I'll write that on my list.
Wow, you know so much about DC's museums.
Well, I have lived here for over a
You're so lucky to live in such a beautiful city filled with so many museums and a zoo.
What?
DC has a zoo?
Yes, and it's beautiful.
You've lived here for so long and you haven't been to the zoo.
I've never been to DC's zoo.
I've never been to any zoos.
You have never seen zoo animals?
I up on a farm, Jean.
I've known farm animals my whole life.
but the zoo has leaned and elephants and zebras if you have never seen a real
light elephant you must they are so majestic I will I there.
I've written my own must-see zoo animal list.
Have fun at the zoo and thanks, Anna.
Have fun at the museum's, Jean, and thank you.
We heard about two more unique places on the National Mall, the Museum of the American Indian and the Botanic Gardens.
And I noticed that Anna is making her own list of places to see now.
Jill, what is your favorite museum in Washington, D.C.?
Ooh, that's a tough question.
I love the American Indian Museum, and they have a great cafeteria.
But the spy museum is a lot of fun, too.
Well, it's funny you should mention that because we're going there in our next lesson of the day, Operation Spy.
Have you ever visited a museum, a zoo, or a public garden?
Where was it?
What did you see there?
What would you tell a tourist to see in your hometown?
You can email us at learningenglish at voenews.com or put your comments on our YouTube video for this podcast.
And it'll be great if you share the lesson of the day with your friends and family.
Remember that you can also find us on YouTube, Instagram, and Facebook.
Thanks for listening.
I'm Andrew Smith.
And I'm Jill Robbins.
And that's our program for today.
Join again tomorrow to keep learning English through stories from around the world.
I'm Ashley Thompson.
And I'm Mario Ritter Jr.
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