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  • Hello.

  • I'm Margot Politis. Welcome to Study English, IELTS preparation.

  • In this series, we look at the skills you'll need to write formal, academic English, and

  • you'll have the chance to listen to people talking about topics you'll find at colleges

  • and universities.

  • In today's episode were going to hear someone talking about a new type of crime - electronic

  • crime.

  • Listen carefully to this police officer.

  • Then we're going to look at word families, and do some spelling.

  • It is a new frontier, and there are old, traditional forms of crime being committed electronically,

  • and via computers and the internet, but there are also new crime types emerging.

  • Electronic crime really does cross over a whole range of different crime types.

  • You can imagine stalking offences that may be facilitated via email, harassment, threatening

  • emails, small-scale fraud offences, right up through to large-scale frauds committed

  • via the internet.

  • OK, so let's have a closer look at that clip.

  • We're going to focus on vocabulary building, and word groups, but first, listen again to

  • this sentence. See if you can hear the keyword, the main

  • subject of the sentence.

  • It is a new frontier, and there are old, traditional forms of crime being committed electronically,

  • and via computers and the internet.

  • He says there are old, traditional forms of crime being committed electronically.

  • The keyword is crime. That's what the sentence is about.

  • Crime is a noun.

  • We say that a crime is committed, or done.

  • To commit a crime is to do something illegal.

  • Let's have a closer look at the word crime.

  • In English, many words can change to have different uses. In this way, they form word

  • groups.

  • Learning words groups is an excellent way to build your vocabulary.

  • You should write them down in a table like this showing adjectives, nouns, verbs, and

  • adverbs.

  • Of course, there are often at least 2 different sorts of nouns - nouns for things, and nouns

  • for people.

  • Let's have a look at the crime word group.

  • Crime is a noun. It's a thing.

  • A criminal is a person who commits a crime.

  • Criminal is also the adjective. We can describe something by using the word

  • criminal before the noun. That was a criminal act.

  • And we have the adverb criminally. To behave criminally is to behave in an illegal

  • way.

  • There's no verb from crime. We have to use the phrase to commit a crime.

  • OK. Well come back to our table a bit later.

  • Right now, listen to what sort of crimes are being committed these days - and listen for

  • an -ly adverb.

  • It is a new frontier, and there are old, traditional forms of crime being committed electronically,

  • and via computers and the internet.

  • He says there are old forms of crime being committed electronically.

  • Electronically is an adverb. It means in an electronic way, or using electronics.

  • Electronics is the study of electricity and the things that use electricity.

  • Listen to the way electronic is used here

  • It is a new frontier, and there are old, traditional forms of crime being committed electronically,

  • and via computers and the internet, but there are also new crime types emerging.

  • Electronic crime really does cross over a whole range of different crime types.

  • Electronic crime really does cross over a whole range of different crime types.

  • He uses the phrases electronic crime, and committed electronically.

  • Notice that electronic, the adjective, comes before the noun crime, but that the adverb

  • electronically comes after the verb committed.

  • Let's look at the table again. We have electronic the adjective, electronically

  • the adverb, and electronics, the noun.

  • You'll notice that not all words take all these different forms. But where they do exist,

  • you will be able to see patterns emerging.

  • For example look at the adverbs criminally and electronically.

  • They both end in -l-y, -ly.

  • OK, so we've looked at electronic and its word family.

  • These days, electronic is often used to mean relating to computers, or new technologies.

  • It sometimes gets shortened to e.

  • We have e-mail: electronic mail, e-business, electronic business.

  • So we could call these electronic crimes e-crimes: crimes committed using computers and the internet.

  • But what sorts of e-crimes are being committed? Listen for the two main types of crimes that

  • he mentions.

  • Electronic crime really does cross over a whole range of different crime types.

  • You can imagine stalking offences that may be facilitated via email, harassment, threatening

  • emails, small-scale fraud offences, right up through to large-scale frauds committed

  • via the internet.

  • He mentions two main types of crimes: stalking offences and fraud offences.

  • An offence is another word for a crime.

  • Notice how you can build your vocabulary by looking at words on a theme.

  • An offence is a crime, and offenders are criminals.

  • But look at some other crime words. We've got robbery and robbers, burglary and burglars.

  • And there are lots more - you should try to learn words in themes like this. See how many

  • words you can find for different types of crimes and criminals.

  • OK, now let's have a quick look at some spelling.

  • Spelling is very important in formal writing, but English spelling is very difficult. They're

  • aren't too many rules, and most of them can be broken.

  • Notice that many words can have doubled letters, but you can't tell by just listening to the

  • words.

  • In today's story we've seen the words committed, electronically, different, cross,

  • harassment and offences.

  • They have all got doubled letters.

  • There aren't really any rules for spelling these words - you have to learn them all one

  • by one.

  • When you come across new words, try writing them down a few times, and spelling them out

  • loud.

  • Notice in Australia and England, we spell doubled letters out by saying the word double

  • before them. Double f, double s.

  • But in the United States, they just say the letter twice - f-f, s-s. So you can choose

  • either way, but you should learn to recognise both.

  • Listen to this: Different: d-i-f-f-e-r-e-n-t, different

  • Harassment: h-a-r-a-s-s-m-e-n-t, harassment

  • Electronically: e-l-e-c-t-r-o-n-i-c-a-l-l-y, electronically

  • Notice that even though English spelling can be very difficult, it's very important to

  • make sure you spell words correctly.

  • It makes your writing look bad if you misspell words in essays.

  • So you'll need to work hard at it!

  • So our lessons for today are: write down new words you find.

  • Check the spelling in a dictionary, to make sure you've spelt them correctly.

  • See if you can find other words that belong to the same family - can the word be used

  • as a noun or verb?

  • Write all the word forms in your word family table.

  • Don't forget that it's very useful to keep your words listed according to topics - like

  • crime words, or business words, or computer words.

  • And that's all we've got time for today.

  • I'll see you for the next episode of Study English! Bye

  • bye.

Hello.

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