in today's English lesson we're going to read a CNN news article together this Advanced lesson will focus on the essential vocabulary and grammar you need to know not only to fully understand this article but to participate in the culture of the English-speaking world we will analyze each paragraph I will take detailed notes and you can download a free pdf of these notes by clicking the link in the description finally at the end of the lesson I will read the article one more time a little faster at a natural speed so you can focus on my
pronunciation and intonation let's get started here's the title of today's article Sony to lay off 900 at PlayStation as tough times for the video games industry persist here we have the phrasal verb lay off this means to stop employing someone because there's no work for them to do this is different than when someone gets fired usually you get fired because you've done something wrong you get laid off if a company decides to close or downsize to reduce costs we have a grammatical structure that's very common in news articles Sony 2 layoff 900 it's very common
to omit the verb be in the titles of news articles so this is a reduced form of Sony is to lay off 900 this sentence uses B plus the two infinitive as a formal way to announce that something is planned to happen in the future it sounds more official and professional than just saying Sony will lay off 900 some more examples would be the president is to make an announcement this week or the author is to publish a new book next month tough times is an adjective noun collocation a collocation is a group of words
that are frequently used together in this case the adjective tough and the noun times create a very common phrase tough times usually refer to a difficult economic period persist is a very useful verb which in this context means that something bad continues to exist or happen if you're a fan of video games like me then you are aware that tough times persist for many companies in this industry right now let's read the first paragraph Electronics giant Sony announced on Tuesday that it will be cutting 900 jobs or 8% in PlayStation's Global Workforce the layoffs will
impact all regions for Sony interactive entertainment according to the PlayStation press release with its in-house London Studio responsible for the competitive singing video game singstar closing entirely here a giant refers to a large successful company that is well well known in its industry Sony is a giant in the field of electronics in this context cut means to reduce the amount of something we're using the future continuous tense here will be cutting we're emphasizing that the action will happen over a longer period of time not all at once well hopefully not all at once a Workforce
is the group of people people who work in a particular company layoffs should look familiar because we've already seen the phrasal verb to lay off a layoff is the event or occasion when this action happens a press release is a company's official statement that gives information to newspapers TV programs and radio stations if something is inhouse or if something is done inhouse that means it's created by the employees in the offices of a company unfortunately these days it's rare to find a company that does everything inhouse it's usually cheaper to contract out certain tasks let's
keep reading these are incredibly talented people who have been part of our success and we are very grateful for their contributions wrote Jim Ryan president and CEO of Sony interactive entertainment however the industry has changed immensely and we need to Future ready ourselves to set the business up for what lies ahead another common collocation this time with the adverb incredibly and the adjective talented the adverb immensely means very much or a lot for example we enjoyed the performance immensely or the company has become immensely popular Future Ready is a verb in this context it means
to make or plan something so that a company can quickly identify changes and respond to Future challenges you'll often see this as an adjective to be Future Ready basically Sony wants to make sure that it continues to make as much money as possible even if there are Big Industry changes in the future hello I like money here we have a common phrasal verb set up which means to prepare usually you set something up for something in some formal contexts the verb lie plus an adverb or preposition means to exist so lie ahead another cocation means
exist in the future no one knows what lies ahead next paragraph the workforce reduction follows the company slashing sales forecasts for the year and Naomi matsuoka Sony's senior vice president saying the PlayStation 5 console was approaching roing the latter end of its life cycle according to Bloomberg Bloomberg is another popular News company in the US slash is a verb that you hear a lot in advertisements and newspapers the literal meaning of Slash is to cut something with a knife or a sword in a very violent way but here slashing means to greatly reduce an amount
or a price a forecast is a prediction of what will probably happen in the future based on current information or data most of the time this word refers to a weather forecast or an economic forecast here we have a formal adjective latter which means close to the end of a time period for example the couple plans to get married in the latter half of next year next Ryan had already announced in September plans to retire in March as Sony group Corporation president hiroi totoi the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer will take the Reigns
as interim CEO had already announced this is the past perfect tense this is typically a comparative tense the FOC focus is on the relationship between two events in the past one event is a reference point the event that happened further in the past or the event that happened first is stated in the past perfect tense in this sentence we are comparing when Ryan announced his plans to retire with our reference point which is Sony's recent layoff announcement this emphasizes the fact that Ryan's plans to retire happened at an earlier time in the past it's important
to note that in American English the past perfect tense is much more common in formal writing in this situation native speakers often use the simple past in everyday conversation sing Ryan already announced is Perfectly Natural if you're interested in a more detailed lesson on the differences between the simple tenses and the perfect tenses please let me know in the comments the expression take the Reigns means to take control of an organization or a government rains are the straps that you put on a horse's head to control it interim means temporary an interim president or an
interim solution is one that is only used until something final can be made next the new CEO will be facing an entire Tech sector in upheaval as industry Giants laid off 5,500 workers within the first 2 weeks of 2024 alone this is a very important verb for speaking and writing to face if you face a difficult situation that means that a problem is going to affect you and you must deal with it in a direct way a sector is a specific area of an economy there's the tech sector the tourism sector the agricultural sector Etc
and upheaval is a major change that causes a lot of problems anger and confusion you often hear this word in collocations like social upheaval economic upheaval massive upheaval Etc we have an interesting use of the word alone as an adverb this is a more formal way to say only or without including anything else for example it's impossible to learn how to speak another language with textbooks alone let's keep going specifically the video game industry has been seeing jobs Hemorrhage from 2023 into this year as well with epic games cutting 830 jobs last September and 10
cense Riot games laying off 11% of its Workforce in January has been seen this is the present perfect continuous tense so this started in the past continues today and will probably continue for a while into the future okay this is a very interesting word a hemorrhage as a noun is a serious medical condition in which someone is bleeding a lot and they can't stop or control it but in this context we're obviously not talking about blood the verb to Hemorrhage means to lose a lot of people or a lot of money very quickly and you
can't stop this from happening echoing the leadership of those other game companies Ryan wrote In His email to employees we had to step back look at our business holistically and move forward focusing on the long-term sustainability of the company and delivering the best experiences possible for our community usually if a sound Echoes you hear the sound again echo echo echo but in this context to Echo something means to repeat what someone else has done or to be similar to something that happened before step back this phrasal verb means to stop doing something so you can
think about it clearly and make a better decision if you do something holistically you consider something or someone as one whole not as separate parts so the CEO wanted to make a holistic decision that would benefit the future of the entire company here we have the adjective long longterm a long-term plan or a long-term goal is something that considers what will happen in the very distant future the opposite would be shortterm sustainability is a noun that comes from the adjective sustainable if something is sustainable it is able to continue for a long time we have
another verb being used in an interesting way deliver if you do something that you promised or something that other people expected or wanted then you deliver or deliver on something for example our boss gives us a lot of freedom but he expects us to deliver on our projects or maybe you watched the first movie in a series and you loved it but then you watched the second movie and it didn't meet your expectations it failed to deliver Sony group Corporation stock fell less than 1% following the news on Tuesday a stock is the percent of
a company that someone owns you can buy and sell stocks also if the value of a stock increases or decreases then we say that the stock Rises or the stock Falls now I'll read the whole article at a natural speed from start to finish use this as an opportunity to read along with me and practice your listening and pronunciation Sony to lay off 900 at PlayStation as tough times for the video games industry persist Electronics giant Sony announced on Tuesday that it will be cutting 900 jobs or 8% in PlayStation's Global Workforce the layoffs will
impact all regions for Sony interactive entertainment according to the PlayStation press release with its in-house London Studio responsible for the competitive singing video game singstar closing entirely these are incredibly talented people who have been part of our success and we are very grateful for their contributions wrote Jim Ryan president and CEO of Sony interactive entertainment however the industry has changed immensely and we need to Future ready ourselves to set the business up for what lies ahead the workforce reduction follows the company slashing sales forecasts for the year and Naomi matsuoka Sony's senior vice president saying
the PlayStation 5 console was approaching the latter end of its life cycle according to Bloomberg Ryan had already announced in September plans to retire in March as Sony group Corporation president heroki totoi the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer will take the Reigns as interim CEO the new CEO will be facing an entire Tech sector in upheaval as industry Giants laid off 5,500 workers within the first 2 weeks of 2024 alone specifically the video game industry has been seeing jobs Hemorrhage from 2023 into this year as well with epic games cutting 830 jobs last
September and 10 cents Riot games laying off 11% of its Workforce in January echoing the leadership of those other game companies Ryan wrote In His email to employees we had to step back look at our business holistically and move forward Focus in on the long-term sustainability of the company and delivering the best experiences possible for our community Sony group Corporation stock fell less than 1% following the news on Tuesday now I have some homework for you use some of today's vocabulary words to answer the following questions number one why are so many companies in the
tech sector facing low sales and laying off their employees number two what do you think lies ahead for Sony and other video game companies leave your answers in the comments remember to download the free PDF to get the article and all of today's notes if you enjoyed this lesson please like this video And subscribe to my channel thank you so much for watching I'm Gina this is your world in English and I'll see you in the next lesson [Music] bye
