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  • Hello and welcome to News Review from BBC Learning English.

  • I'm Neil. Joining me is Catherine. Hi Catherine.

  • Hello Neil. Hello everybody. So, the Euros 2020 football

  • tournament kicked off this weekend and there were shocking

  • scenes as Danish player Christian Eriksen collapsed on the field.

  • If you would like to test yourself on any of the vocabulary

  • you hear on this programme, there's a quiz

  • on our website at bbclearningenglish.com.

  • Now, let's find out more about the story from this BBC News report:

  • So, Danish footballer Christian Eriksen collapsed on the football

  • field just before half-time. Many of his fellow players were in tears,

  • absolutely shocked at what was happening.

  • He was treated on the football pitch and then taken to hospital.

  • He is recovering now and the Danish team doctor said he had actually

  • suffered a cardiac arrestthat's a heart attack to you and me.

  • So, very serious situation.

  • Yeah, he is fortunately recovering now

  • and the game actually went on, didn't it Catherine?

  • Yes, it did. It was abandoned temporarily so they stopped playing,

  • but once all the players realised or were told that he was awake,

  • they decided to continue the game,

  • which was eventually won by Finland by one goal to nil.

  • OK. Well, you've been looking around the various headlines about this story

  • and you've picked out three really interesting words and expressions.

  • What have you got?

  • Yes, today we are looking at: 'stable','heartfelt' and 'eye-opening'.

  • 'Stable', 'heartfelt' and 'eye-opening'. So,

  • let's start with your first headline, with that word 'stable', please.

  • Yes, we're at Sky first of allthe headline:

  • 'Stable' – fixed; not likely to change.

  • Yes, we have an adjective here. It's spelt S-T-A-B-L-E

  • and it refers to physical things,

  • which are fixed in position and they don't move.

  • So, for example, Neil, your camera is not wobbling at the moment, is it?

  • You've got a very, very secure, still picture.

  • Yes, I'm using a tripod to make sure that the pictures here are 'stable'.

  • If I didn't have it, it would wobble. I'm now wobbling my tripod.

  • Right. That's very 'unstable'. You've got an 'unstable' picture there.

  • Yes, I have, yeah. So, 'stable' is used to talk about

  • physical things like this tripod, but we can also use it, like many...

  • like many items of vocabulary, in figurative way.

  • Yes, absolutely. So, 'stable' here is referring to his physical

  • conditionhis medical conditionsaying that if something's...

  • if you're 'stable' medically, it means you are not changing:

  • you're not getting worse. You're probably not getting better,

  • but it means that your condition is not changing so it's not as

  • worrying as when your condition is critical or deteriorating.

  • It basically means very little change.

  • Yeah. And we can use it to talk about, sort of, situations in general.

  • For example, the economy can be described as 'stable'.

  • Yes, when there's not great periods of economic change, where investments

  • aren't changing too much, things aren't going up and down too much,

  • we can say: 'It's stable.' You can talk about other things, like...

  • you can be in a 'stable relationship'.

  • That means the kind of relationship where there isn't lots of drama,

  • you're not arguing and breaking up and getting back together;

  • you just have a strong, solid, reliable relationship.

  • Yeah. And you've already mentioned it,

  • but the negative of 'stable' is 'unstable'.

  • That's right, yes. So, if you're in an 'unstable relationship',

  • you're doing lots of breaking up and arguing.

  • If the economy is 'unstable',

  • it means there's lots of ups and downs with the economic situation.

  • Now, like with most words in most languages, there are different

  • versions of the word. We've been looking at the adjective...

  • we've been looking at the adjective.

  • We can also turn this into a noun: 'stability'.

  • Yes, we can... yeah. So, that would be 'stability'.

  • That's S-T-A-B-I-L-I-T-Y

  • and the negative of that is 'instability',

  • so starting with an 'in-', the prefix 'in-',

  • is the opposite of 'stability' as a noun.

  • So, we've got 'unstable', but 'instability'.

  • Yes! Different prefix there: from 'un-' to 'in-'.

  • And it gets worse, I'm afraid...

  • I'm afraid it does, yeah.

  • ...because the verb form of this word 'stable' is 'stabilise'.

  • Yes. And the opposite of that is...?

  • 'Destabilise'. Yeah.

  • So, we've got all the different prefixes: we've got 'unstable',

  • 'instability' and 'destabilise'. And just to make it slightly more

  • complicated, there are two ways to say... to spell 'stabilise'.

  • If you're here in the UK, you spell it with an 's' in the middle.

  • If you're speaking American English, it's with a 'z'.

  • Yeah. I would like to apologise on behalf of the English language

  • for the complicated collection of prefixes connected to this word.

  • Yeah... sorry everyone.

  • Let's get a summary:

  • If you are interested in stories about football,

  • we have a really interesting one about the European Super League.

  • That didn't go very well, did it Catherine?

  • No, didn't last long at all.

  • But you can find out what happened by clicking the link.

  • OK. Let's have a look at your next headline.

  • Yes, in the UK with Hello and the headline:

  • 'Heartfelt' – sincere.

  • Yes, we've got two words here: H-E-A-R-T.

  • The second word: 'felt' – F-E-L-T.

  • But we put them together without a space and we have one word:

  • 'heartfelt'. Now, the meaning of this word is kind of,

  • very much related to the two words that it's made of. 'Felt' – if you

  • 'feel' something in your 'heart', we're talking about emotions.

  • So, thinking of the heart as a place where you feel love, or happiness,

  • or grief, painall of those emotional things – 'heartfelt'

  • means it's very strongly felt: a strong emotion, a deep feeling.

  • So, we often use the word 'heartfelt' as an adjective

  • to describe a noun such as, in here, a statement.

  • A 'heartfelt statement' means a really deeply emotional statement.

  • Or we can talk about 'heartfelt apologies',

  • when you say you're sorry. and you really, really mean it.

  • Yeah. You often hear a 'heartfelt speech' at a wedding.

  • You do, yes. Yes, when they're... when the groom's kind of saying

  • how much he loves his wife and he's crying with emotion.

  • Yeah, you can say: 'That's a heartfelt speech.'

  • Yeah. And just to say again,

  • we're talking about 'heart' in the poetic sense:

  • we know this is a story about an illness

  • and somebody's heartthe physical organ, the heart

  • but I don't think there's a connection here in this headline.

  • No, I think it's just a coincidence.

  • Yeah. OK. Let's get a summary:

  • OK. How about this for 'heartfelt'! We have a story about a TV producer,

  • who proposed to his girlfriend live on TV at the Emmys.

  • What do our viewers have to do, Catherine?

  • Just click the link down there and you'll go straight to the show.

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

  • Yeah. Next off, we're at givemesport.comthe headline:

  • 'Eye-opening' – revealing in a surprising way.

  • Yes. Another two-word expression.

  • This time the two words are joined together with a hyphen – a little,

  • short line between both words. The first part is 'eye' – E-Y-E.

  • The second word: 'opening' – O-P-E-N-I-N-G.

  • If something is 'eye-opening', it surprises you because you

  • learn something you didn't know beforeoften something that's

  • quite unexpected, or impressive even.

  • Yeah. And it's just another example of how figurative the language is

  • that we use. You know, if you want to see something better, what do you do?

  • You 'open' your 'eyes'... really wide.

  • Yeah... open your eyes wide.

  • Open... yes. So, that's not really what it means here, but it does

  • have a kind of connection. It's the idea of making you surprised,

  • making you kind of wonder, giving you some amazement: impressive.

  • So, if you watch a TV programmeyou know

  • those nature documentaries, Neil? Yeah.

  • Where you watch something about, like, a little spider that

  • you never even think of, and then you discover this spider has this amazing

  • world of all these wonderful things it can do in its lifetime: you know,

  • the trials and difficulties it has, and the way it overcomes them.

  • Those documentaries can be really 'eye-opening'

  • because they teach you things you didn't know.

  • Yeah, absolutely. Sometimes you hear about someone

  • who spent an evening in an Accident and Emergency ward in a hospital.

  • It's a real 'eye-opener' for them.

  • Yes. Nice noun phrase there, yeah. If something is an 'eye-opener',

  • it teaches you or surprises you with things you didn't know previously.

  • And you're rightthe word 'real' often comes with 'eye-opener':

  • a 'real eye-opener'.

  • OK. Well, let's get a summary of that:

  • Time now for a recap of our vocabulary please, Catherine.

  • Yes, we started with 'stable', which means fixed; not likely to change.

  • Then we had 'heartfelt', meaning sincere.

  • And we finished with 'eye-opening' – revealing in a surprising way.

  • Do not forget to test yourself on the vocabulary;

  • there's a quiz on our website bbclearningenglish.com.

  •   And we are all over social media

  • just look for us. Thanks for joining us and see you next time.

  • Goodbye. Bye!

Hello and welcome to News Review from BBC Learning English.