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  • he's a review from BBC Learning English Hello and welcome to News Review The program where we show you how to use the language from the latest news stories in your everyday English.

  • Hi, I'm nail Joining me today is Dan.

  • Hello, everybody.

  • What's our story today, Dad?

  • Well, our story today is about a divorce, but not the regular kind of a divorce.

  • This one is an international affair.

  • Sounds intriguing.

  • Let's find out more from this.

  • BBC World Service News Bulletin.

  • The British government has confirmed a date when it will officially begin the process of leaving the European Union following a referendum vote to do so.

  • Last year.

  • The spokesman for the prime minister, Theresa May, said she would trigger the relevant treaty clause known as Article 50 on the 29th of March.

  • So back in June last year, the British people voted by a very small majority to leave the European Union.

  • What has become known as Brexit?

  • That doesn't mean that Britain leaves the EU immediately.

  • It's actually a two year process, but what's new is that the British prime minister has given the date of March 29th to begin the process.

  • OKay, that's next week.

  • The process starts its right written to leave the European Union known as Brexit.

  • And you've been scanning the news websites looking at this story.

  • What are the three expressions people need to know to talk about it?

  • Okay, So are three words and expressions this week are trigger kicking off and invoking So that 1st 1 trigger, what's the headline you've got?

  • Ok, so the headline comes from the BBC News, A website, and it says article 50 Theresa May to trigger Brexit process next week.

  • Okay, trigger meaning, make something start.

  • That's right.

  • But I got a question for you.

  • Go for it.

  • I thought a trigger was something on a gun.

  • It is this something on a gun?

  • Which part?

  • The bit that you pull and what happens after you pull it?

  • The gunfire is good.

  • So in the same way that a trigger makes a gunfire to trigger something as a verb means to cause it to happen or make it begin.

  • I see.

  • And this is very popular in in headlines is absolutely because he very dramatic brings to mind pictures of guns and explosions and things like that.

  • So it sells newspapers very well.

  • Not so common in everyday speech, but you can use it in some circumstances.

  • For example, Neil, what happens to you in springtime?

  • In springtime, I get very happy because there's Ah, sunshine and it's light and it's been a long, dark winter.

  • Any thought bad?

  • But yes, pollen flies around from the plants and flowers, and that triggers an allergic reaction.

  • And I get a rodeo difficult to understand what I'm saying.

  • Exactly.

  • So in the same way that the pollen triggers an allergic reaction in you, you're an allergic reaction can be triggered or made toe happen.

  • Buy something.

  • Okay, great.

  • And your next headline.

  • Our next headline comes from the mirror, and it says Theresa May sets date for triggering Article 50 and kicking off Brexit process so we have triggering, which we've already looked at, but also kicking off had triggering guns.

  • Then we've got kicking off football.

  • Okay, what's going on?

  • Well, as everybody knows, the kickoff in football is the first moment when the ball strikes.

  • Excuse me when the foot strikes the ball and begins the game, so kicking off is used much more figuratively to mean start or make something.

  • Excuse me to start eso.

  • It's very common as well as it's extremely common.

  • It's Fraser verb.

  • So it's used in everyday speech.

  • Is very, very informal.

  • Andi.

  • It's an interesting fact.

  • It's been used in a figurative way for a long time.

  • 50 years more than that 118 seventies.

  • Wow goodness.

  • May 18 seventies.

  • Yes.

  • So for a long time, people have been using kick off just a mean start something.

  • So kickoff kicked off in the 18 seventies?

  • Absolutely.

  • OK, how do you like to kick off your weekend?

  • Oh, say, with a large cup of coffee and a visit to the gym, I find that if I work out in the morning, it means the rest of my weekend goes very, very smoothly.

  • Very good.

  • And there is another meeting.

  • Is there is a night meaning quite different.

  • Yes, completely different.

  • So it can mean to react suddenly with violence or anger.

  • You might ask somebody why you kicking off at me on something else we can say is if you were in a particular place and a fight begins, you could say it's kicking off in here.

  • Let's get out.

  • Yeah, You started kicking off in the studio last week.

  • I certainly did, yes.

  • What was wrong?

  • You were correcting my pronunciation and I didn't like it.

  • I was just thinking of the audience.

  • Death Moving on.

  • Moving on Final Headline Our final headline.

  • It comes from The New York Times and it says U K to start Brexit on March 29th by invoking Article 50.

  • So invoking here meaning using a law to achieve something.

  • Exactly.

  • This is using Article 50 to start a process which achieves Brexit, but it has a wider meaning.

  • This particular meaning is quite specific, but there is a wider meaning.

  • Your religious man, you I'm not, but many people are many people are, and those of us who are would say that they might invoke the name of their god or deity.

  • I e.

  • Call on the their god or deity in order to improve or make a situation better on.

  • It doesn't have to be, ah, religious figure.

  • It could be somebody that you respect or has taught you exactly.

  • You practice martial art.

  • That's right.

  • When, ah, well, when I when I'm trying to fight when I'm trying to win a fight and I'm not doing very well.

  • I might invoke the spirit off my sense.

  • A and try and remember, everything has taught me so that I can fight a little bit better.

  • Doesn't always work, right.

  • I'm glad.

  • I'm glad you didn't invoke the spirit of your sense.

  • A when you were kicking off last week.

  • Your pronunciations.

  • All fun between friends.

  • Okay, before you recap, we have, of course, our Facebook challenge.

  • We've been discussing the verb to trigger other things.

  • Here are some more gun related expressions.

  • We asked which one means to do something too soon.

  • Is it a to jump the gun, be all guns blazing, or C to be gunning for somebody?

  • That's right.

  • And I'm looking at a raft of correct answers.

  • In fact, everybody on this piece of paper has got the answer right.

  • The correct answer is A to jump the gun so well done to Rahmat don I ham racks.

  • Pity Boom, Nadine.

  • Shoddy tens name.

  • And I could go on and on and on because you're all such clever people.

  • Well done.

  • Okay.

  • Can you now just give us a recap of the words we've looked at today?

  • Certainly the first word was trigger.

  • That's to make something start.

  • The second is kicking off.

  • That means starting and finally we have invoking, which is using a law to achieve something.

  • If you'd like to test yourself on today's vocabulary, there's a quiz that you can take on our website BBC Learning english dot com, where you can find all kinds of other videos and activities to help you improve your English.

  • Thank you for joining us.

  • Do join us again soon.

  • Good bye, Good bye.

  • He's review from BBC Learning English.

he's a review from BBC Learning English Hello and welcome to News Review The program where we show you how to use the language from the latest news stories in your everyday English.

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