[Music] hello everyone and welcome back to another Edition here at English pod my name is Marco and my name is Katherine and today we've got a great upper intermediate level lesson for you all about animal and human rights right so it's a very debatable topic people want to protect animals mistreatment of animals and this is what we're going to talk about today protecting animals and giving them rights do you think animals have rights eh well you know I think we could leave that for the end I don't want to you know influence the argument here
in today's dialogue but uh yeah as you've said I think it's very much a topic that people can go both ways on mhm so why don't we listen to our dialogue as two people discuss animal rights and let's get their opinions on things you should have seen the TV show that was on last night the topic it covered was really interesting animal rights do you really believe in that if they're going to focus on something they should do it on civil rights yes but we can't deny that animals are vulnerable defenseless and are completely at
the mercy of human beings I understand your point but we continue to have transgressions against human rights if so much attention weren't devoted to the topic of animals we would then concentrate more on saving a human being instead of protecting a koala you can't compare apples and oranges I believe believe that both topics are important and that we can't ignore them the mistreatment of animals can cause a great environmental imbalance I believe that governments should prohibit activities like poaching well you are right on that point this is the reason that I don't buy leather and
I try to buy synthetic product at least you're doing your part my contribution is to have a pet in the house that I treat like a member of the family as long as you don't treat it better than your wife it's fine all right we're back and both of them have good points right in favor and against and as you said they also talk about human rights which is also a very important topic but before we discuss this topic why don't we take a look at the language that was used now in language takeaway language
takeaway all right so in language takeaway our first word today is vulnerable okay vulnerable is a great word it's a way to describe something and so uh something is vulnerable if it can't really protect itself mhm so you are in danger of being hurt exactly right so you're a You're vulnerable now uh this isn't only used for animals right it can be like an army is vulnerable if they don't have strong defenses on the on the border or something right or my emotions I'm feeling vulnerable because I just had really horrible week and I'm really
depressed and I'm emotionally vulnerable okay very good so vulnerable and they also talked about transgressions against human rights all right so a transgression is a thing it's a noun and transgression is like doing something harmful to or um against someone against someone or something so a transgression it's a noun so it is it doing something in a bad way or exactly it's a bad thing it's always negative you can't it's not positive right right and so in many prayers for example in the Christian faith you say you know Lord forgive me for my transgressions for
having uh kind of crossed the line from doing good things to bad things so you're doing bad things very good so that's a good uh way of putting it to cross the line to kind of go beyond where you should all right so transgressions and now another very serious problem in the world is poaching and that's one of the things that they said they should control poaching all right you might have heard this word in a different context because it does have another meaning but I'm just going to explain the one meaning here that we're
talking about which is uh killing animals especially for sport or for selling their skins and their first right so that's poaching um what's the difference between poaching and hunting uh hunting can be legal poaching is illegal okay so that's the main difference hunting is usually for sport you hunt either for food or for sport right legal hunting but poaching is usually you want to sell like you said the fur or the skins or something or the tusks on uh rhinos or something like that exactly all right so poaching and then they talked about synthetic products
so what is what is a synthetic product well synthetic product is something that is man-made so it's not natural in that it doesn't come from the Earth uh cotton is a natural product and plastic for example is synthetic or um another example nylon nylon is a really good synthetic product and so people who don't want to use animal products like wool or leather they prefer to use synthetic products mhm and I think maybe you've heard this in clothing it's called synthetic fibers right like nylon or polyester exactly these are all the words that we have
for language takeaway today so why don't we move on now to a couple of very interesting phrases that we saw in the dialogue now influency Builder fluency Builder Okay this first phrase is uh well it's a common one but uh it's definitely not used in very happy circumstances we say that something or someone is at the mercy of someone else okay so animals are at the mercy of human beings what does this mean exactly mercy so basically it means that the animals in this case are don't have control of what's going on so human beings
are the ones that control everything so if I decide to to to kill them then they are at my Mercy at my will at my whim exactly and so you could say I'm at your mercy Marco please just like help me out with this it's like you're the one in control you're the one who can help the situation will you help exactly I'm at the mercy of someone and then uh they were talking and debating this thing and and an interesting comp comparison came up you can't compare apples and oranges all right you're going to
hear this all the time in English it's it's not just a a funny little phrase that the person uses it's a very common idiom and so we say it's like apples and oranges or you can't compare apples and oranges and this is essentially saying these are two different things completely different completely different so uh I can't compare him and her because it's apples and oranges they're two different things two different people right cuz that's what in the movie you said they were like peas and carrots they go together is does that make sense not really
Forest gum was a little bit strange like that but I I think the meaning is that if I say that's a big apple and I say that's a small apple they're all apples so I can compare compare them but I say this is a really big orange and that's a really big apple well they're they're different you just you just can't compare them all right and um and towards the end the person said that uh you're doing your part mhm you're doing your part yeah so uh this is this is a hard one to understand
sometimes because it's not like a part in a play it's more like a part in society you're helping make Society or culture or civilization better so you're contributing exactly so for example what so what would be an example of a person doing their part towards Society well for example I don't own a car I ride my bike and it's my way of doing my part to help the environment okay very good because I can't obviously I can't buy a factory that's you know very green or I can't do all these things to change the world
so I'm going to do small things that's my that those are my way of doing my part okay so like another example would be recycling that's doing your part or in this case the person bought only synthetic uh products nothing made from nature mhm all right very good so very interesting phrases um why don't we listen to our dialogue for the last time and then we'll be right back [Music] you should have seen the TV show that was on last night the topic it covered was really interesting animal rights do you really believe in that
if they're going to focus on something they should do it on civil rights yes but we can't deny that animals are vulnerable defenseless and are completely at the mercy of human beings I understand your point but we continue to have transgressions against human rights if so much attention weren't devoted to the topic of animal we would then concentrate more on saving a human being instead of protecting a koala you can't compare apples and oranges I believe that both topics are important and that we can't ignore them the mistreatment of animals can cause a great environmental
imbalance I believe that governments should prohibit activities like poaching well you are right on that point this is the reason that I don't buy leather and I try to buy synthetic products at least you're doing your part my contribution is to have a pet in the house that I treat like a member of the family as long as you don't treat it better than your wife it's fine all right so a debatable topic animals and animal rights um what do you think well I'll say this I would be a hypocrite if I said that it's
bad to hurt animals because I'm meat a meat eater I like to eat meat and I like to wear leather U but I do think it's bad to mistreat animals so I really I try to buy um you know freerange chicken or for um meat from places I know that treat the animals well and I definitely disagree with poaching and with using animals especially in dangered animals um for money and cash purposes and so that's my position but uh well serious I mean I know you eat eat meat too no yeah of course and uh
I think even though protection of animals is a very important topic and you don't want um the mistreatment of of these little creatures that are very vulnerable to to us because we're we're smarter than them in the end M um but I think also it has to do a lot with uh Superstition sometimes and kind of mystical and magical things for example people killing rhinos because they believe that the Rhino horn has a amazing curing Properties or you know or the same thing with elephant tusks and stuff like that so it also it involves this
certain aspect that people almost don't know any better they just they truly believe that these things actually work or that they will help them so they don't consider the the like in the dialogue said the the imbalance that they create in in the environment or the the consequences or there might be some very serious evolutionary consequences that we cannot even imagine and so you know things things change kind of over time sometimes quickly and sometimes slowly but if we force change really quickly uh who knows what the results are going to be it might be
really negative for us exactly and that's what we want to know now what do you think um about these topics because in the end the environment animals it they're all conned if you wipe out all the foxes in in in a forest then you're going to have like you're going to have too many snakes running around right so uh what do you think come to english.com and you can where you can leave all your questions comments or suggestions and we're always there to help out so we hope to see you there and until next time
everyone goodbye [Music] bye the English pod audio review listen to the meaning then say the vocabulary word the rights people have civil rights capable of being decomposed by natural means biodegradable easily hurt or harmed vulnerable a prolonged period of time during which no rain falls drought defenseless defenseless a severe shortage of food famine in a position where you can be harmed at the mercy of the part of the Earth's surface and atmosphere inhabited by living things biosphere something that is not allowed transgression a general term for the research activity that creates a copy of some
biological entity cloning an unfair comparison of two different things apples and oranges to illegally hunt protected animals poach not natural synthetic to help accomplish a goal do your part let's try that faster the rights people have civil rights the part of the Earth's surface and atmosphere inhabited by living things biosphere something that is not allowed transgression easily hurt or harmed vulnerable an unfair comparison of two different things apples and or oranges in a position where you can be harmed at the mercy of to illegally hunt protected animals poach defenseless defenseless a severe shortage of food
famine capable of being decomposed by natural means biodegradable not natural synthetic a general term for the research activity that creates a copy of some biological entity cloning to help accomplish a goal do your part a prolonged period of time during which no rain falls drought now say the word and hear it in a sentence vulnerable the wound is vulnerable to infection vulnerable a dry forest is vulnerable to fires vulnerable the spawning salmon is vulnerable to Predators at the mercy of the city is at the mercy of the forest fire at the mercy of the Lost
Sailors were at the mer mercy of the vast ocean that lay ahead of them at the mercy of our city is at the mercy of criminals and gangsters something must be done transgression all transgressions of the law will be severely punished transgression she was guilty of the worst moral transgression transgression there are legal consequences for those that transgress the law apples and oranges you can't compare Batman and Superman it's like apples and oranges apples and oranges the two operating systems are so different they're like apples and oranges apples and oranges you can't compare those two
authors it's like comparing apples to oranges do your part do your part don't Litter do your part your wife looks so tired you haven't been doing your part around the house do your part do your part to prevent climate change and try riding your bike to work [Music]
