Name: India: Flood in Himalayas: BBC News Review
Uploaded: 2021-02-09T18:05:36.000Z
Duration: 11 min 25 s
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Hello and welcome to News Review from BBC Learning English.

Gerund

I'm Catherine and joining me today is Tom. Hello Tom.

Hello Catherine and hello to our audience. Today's story is from India,

where there has been a serious flood in the north of the country.

Yes, and to test yourself on the vocabulary today,

there is a quiz on our website: bbclearningenglish.com.

Let's hear more about this story from this BBC report:

So, there has been a huge flood in northern India.

There are, at the time of recording, at least 14 people dead

and 150 people missing. Many of the people who are missing

and the Indian government has sent the army

and you picked out three words and expressions

that are popping up on all these stories, haven't you Tom?

'bursts', 'devastating' and 'raised the alarm'.

'Bursts', 'devastating' and 'raised the alarm'.

Can we have a look at your first headline please?

Of course. My first headline is from at home, from the BBC. It says:

'Bursts' – breaks suddenly. Now, this is a verb, isn't it Tom?

The verb is 'to burst' – B-U-R-S-T –which means to break suddenly.

It is, yeah. 'Burst' is an irregular verb, so verb one is 'burst',

verse – excuse me... verb two is 'burst' and verb three is also 'burst',

...Burst, burst, burst. Yes, that's easy! Burst, burst, burst.

And it's to do with containers, isn't it? When we talk about the meaning.

Yeah. So, there's two things about the meaning

We use – as you said, we use 'burst' for containers.

So, in this case we're talking about a dam:

And when the dam breaks, or 'bursts' – you know, it has...

it breaks suddenly and the water comes out.

That's what's caused this mass flood in India.

Got it. And it's only about water coming out of things,

So, any container that holds something can 'burst'.

So, for example if you go to a children's birthday party,

there might be a balloon and if you 'burst' the balloon it will pop:

the air will come out or 'burst' out, which is the phrasal verb,

Got it. So, that bag of sugar I dropped the other day on the kitchen floor:

that 'burst' open and all the sugar came out.

Exactly, yeah. A bag of sugar is a bag which contains sugar.

If it 'bursts', then you're going to get sugar everywhere.

So 'burst' – there's really this idea that it's full...

And we can use this in fixed expressions.

For example, if we laugh, we can 'burst into laughter'.

And if something sets on fire quickly, we can say it 'bursts into flames'.

So, it's all this idea that something happens quickly or suddenly.

Interesting. And those are emotions as well,

so it's not just about actual material things;

so you can 'burst into tears' and 'burst out laughing' as well.

Yeah exactly. That was a very good point – I didn't notice that.

Yeah. So, it has a figurative use as well.

Great. Thank you very much. So, let's see a summary:

So, this is not the first dam story we've covered here on News Review, is it Tom?

No. Dams, for obvious reasons, often make the news.

There's one from 2017 about a dam in America, which is at risk of bursting,

and you can find it by clicking the link.

Thank you very much. Now, let's have a look at your second headline.

My second headline, from here in the UK again,

What can you tell us about this one, Tom?

It's an adjective: D-E-V-A-S-T-A-T-I-NG – 'devastating'.

And 'devastating' defines – excuse me...

'Devastating' describes the effects of the flood, which are very, very bad:

they've caused, you know, a huge amount of damage.

OK. So, it's all about damaging – damage and disaster, isn't it?

Yeah. So, if it's... if the, you know, the water or the flood is 'devastating',

it creates damage. We could say that the things

that receive the effect of that – we can use the '-ed' form.

So, we could say, 'Below the dam, villages have been devastated.'

You know, they've been destroyed – is another good word.

We can also use the noun form, which is 'devastation'.

'Devastation' – if there's damage everywhere there is 'devastation'.

So, we could say, 'The flood has created scenes of devastation.'

Great. So, 'devastating', 'devastated' and 'devastation'.

No, it's not. I chose this word because actually we use this

in our, sort of, personal lives a lot – quite a lot as well.

It's quite a serious word, 'devastating', but we could use it

for a very bad personal news, for example.

OK. So, things like, sort of, death or serious illness...

...or, kind of, divorce and things like that.

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India: Flood in Himalayas: BBC News Review

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