Name: Natanz: Iran blames Israel - News Review
Uploaded: 2021-04-13T16:45:05.000Z
Duration: 11 min 8 s
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Hello and welcome to News Review from BBC Learning English.

I'm Neil. Joining me is Catherine. Hello, Catherine.

Hello, Neil. Hello, everybody. The story we're looking at today is of a

cyber attack, which has happened on an underground nuclear facility in Iran.

If you want to test yourself on any of the vocabulary you

hear in this programme, you can test yourself

on our website at bbclearningenglish.com.

There has been a cyber attack on an underground nuclear facility in Iran.

Now, they'd just started using new, advanced machines called centrifuges

and now those machines no longer work. The Iranian minister...

the Iranian Foreign Minister has blamed Israel for the attack

and says his country will 'take revenge'.

Now, Israel hasn't commented, but Israeli public radio has said that

yes, this was an attack by Mossad. Now, Mossad is the...

the Israeli – excuse me – the Israeli Intelligence Service.

OK. Well, you've been looking around at this story.

You've picked out three really useful words. What are they?

Yes, today we are looking at: 'sabotage', 'outage' and 'ironclad'.

So, let's have a look at your first headline, please.

Yes, we'll start here in the UK with the BBC – the headline:

'Sabotage' – deliberate destruction of something

Yes. Now, the spelling is: S-A-B-O-T-A-G-E.

'-age' with that 'zjuh' sound at the end.

Yes, that lovely 'zjuh' sound that you get in 'television'

'sabotage' is a noun, often used as a verb as well.

Frequently, we use 'sabotage' as a verb and we can often use it in

the passive to say somebody or something 'has been sabotaged'.

Yes, and there's a nice little fixed expression

for when it's a noun: an 'act of sabotage'.

Yes, an 'act of sabotage'. So, if you do something that will

stop somebody else performing to their required standard or ability,

or if you do something that makes something else stop working properly,

you are 'sabotaging' it or you are committing an 'act of sabotage'.

Now, this word is neither formal nor informal.

and also things which people might not think are very serious.

Yes, absolutely. I mean, this nuclear facility – to stop a nuclear facility

working deliberately is a very severe act of sabotage, but you can

also use it in, kind of, domestic situations or personal situations.

Imagine you've got two children entering a colouring competition,

and one of them hides the red pen so that the other one can't

finish his or her drawing. That's an 'act of sabotage'.

Not a serious one – there's not going to be any massive consequences,

but it's still about deliberately stopping something happening the

way it should be, because they're a competitor, sometimes as revenge,

or because you just don't want them to finish or succeed.

Yeah. There is a very British word for this as well,

a very colloquial British word, which has a similar meaning.

Yes, 'to nobble'. Now, 'nobbled' means sabotage.

It is mostly used in British English – and if you 'nobble' something,

again, you stop it being successful often in competitions or races.

I believe you're quite fond of betting on the horses,

aren't you Neil? You like a horse race and a bet.

Well, yes, there's a really famous horse race in the UK

called the Grand National that happened at the weekend.

My horse was completely useless, but I'm sure it must have been 'nobbled'.

Or just... maybe you just picked the wrong horse, Neil?

If you are interested in stories about cyber attacks, we have the

perfect one for you. Where can our viewers find it, Catherine?

OK. Let's have a look at our next headline.

Yes, we are now at arabnews.com – the headline:

Yes. Now, the spelling for this one is: O-U-T-A-G-E.

It's a noun. The pronunciation is 'outage'.

Yes. Interesting pronunciation again here. It ends in '-age',

just like 'sabotage', but we don't say 'zjuh', do we?

No. In fact, it's '-tage', so we say 'sabotage',

It is a kind of French pronunciation for 'sabotage',

but a much more English, British English, way of saying 'outage'.

Yeah. And the clue is in the word 'out', isn't it?

Yeah, if something's out, it's not available, is it? So,

if the power is 'out' or if there is a 'power outage', there is no power.

Usually something's gone wrong. So, you should have power,

but you haven't got it. Then you have a 'power outage'.

Yeah and, as you said there, 'a power outage'. It's a countable noun.

you will have several 'power outages' during one short period of time.

Yeah. Now, as you've said, it's often used with power: 'power outage'.

It can be on its own, though – just an 'outage'.

But there are some other expressions that have the same meaning.

Oh yeah, we can say 'power cut'. You can... there can be a 'power cut',

there can be a 'blackout', and both of those have a similar

meaning to an 'electrical outage' or a 'power outage'.

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Natanz: Iran blames Israel - News Review

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