News for the week of March 22-28, 2020:
- Boris Johnson tests positive for coronavirus [spp-timestamp time="00:00:41″]
- An update on the Covid-19 situation around the world. [spp-timestamp time="00:01:18″]
- A cat tests positive for coronavirus in Belgium. [spp-timestamp time="00:02:04″]
- Confinement and violence against women. [spp-timestamp time="00:02:44″]
- Tunisia puts a woman on its banknotes.[spp-timestamp time="00:03:10″]
- Daylight saving time:[spp-timestamp time="00:04:00″]
- Explanation of the week's vocabulary [spp-timestamp time="00:04:41″]
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Transcription
Hello,
Welcome to HelloFrench's press review, the podcast that immerses you in the news of the week, to help you improve your French.
On the front page for this week of March 22-28, 2020:
- Boris Johnson. First head of state to test positive for coronavirus.
- An update on the situation of Covid-19 around the world.
- A cat tested positive for coronavirus in Belgium.
- Confinement and violence against women: an increase of 32 % in France
- Tunisia puts a woman on its banknotes.
- Daylight saving time will be introduced tonight, March 28-29.
Boris Johnson tested positive for coronavirus on Friday. The British Prime Minister had [tooltips keyword="tardé à " content="to take a long time to do something"] taken steps to prevent the [tooltips keyword="épidémie " content="epidemic"] from [tooltips keyword="se propager " content="to spread"]. Today, he is one of the first leaders to be officially affected by the disease. His symptoms, however, remain [tooltips keyword="light" content="light"]: cough and fever. Confined to his home, he continues to lead the country by videoconference to [tooltips keyword= "combattre " content= "to fight "] the crisis. Since the start of the crisis, Great Britain has [tooltips keyword="recense " content="To identify sth., to count sth."] 578 Covid-19 deaths and over 11,500 official cases, including Prince Charles.
Let's continue with an update on the Covid-19 crisis worldwide. With over 100,000 cases in the United States, the country has become the most affected nation in the world. In Italy, the center of the crisis in Europe, almost 1,000 deaths were recorded in 24 hours. The country [tooltips keyword= " bat " content= "beats (to beat) "] thus set a [tooltips keyword= " triste " content= "sad "] record, with the total number of deaths exceeding 9,100. This week, new countries have gone into [tooltips keyword="confinement" content="the lockdown"] total lockdown. These include Greece, Ireland, South Africa, Rwanda, Tunisia, Colombia and India, which has put 1.3 billion people under lockdown for three weeks. Today, almost half of humanity is under lockdown. Unprecedented.
A [tooltips keyword="chat " content="cat"] tested positive for coronavirus in Belgium. Infected by his [tooltips keyword="maître " content="master"], he is said to have developed symptoms, explains the faculty of veterinary medicine which took charge of the [tooltips keyword="animal domestique " content="pet"]. This is therefore a case of human-to-animal contamination. The authorities have stated that this is an isolated case. The Conseil national de protection animale (National Council for Animal Welfare) has reiterated that [tooltips keyword="pets" content="pets"] are not vectors of the disease. It hopes to prevent this [tooltips keyword="rumor" content="the gossip"] from spreading further. Since the beginning of the epidemic, the SPA, which takes in abandoned animals, has noticed a boom in pet abandonment.
With the ban on going out, [tooltips keyword="violences conjugales " content="Domestic violences"] increased by 32 % in one week in France. In Paris, the figure has even risen to 36 %. To help these abused women, a warning system has been set up in pharmacies. The authorities have invented the code "Masque 19", which women can tell their pharmacist. The pharmacist can then alert the police.
A woman on Tunisian [tooltips keyword="billets de banque " content="the bank notes"]. This Friday, the Tunisian central bank put a new banknote into circulation. The 10-dinar bill, equivalent to 3 euros, now features the portrait of Tawhida Ben Cheikh, the first woman [tooltips keyword="médecin " content="doctor"] in the Maghreb. Vice-president of the Tunisian Red Cross, this doctor died in 2010 at the age of 101. Last year, she was chosen to honor Tunisian women in science. It's also a nice way of saluting the work of doctors in these times of health crisis. The reverse of the bill features [tooltips keyword="bijoux " content="the jewel"] and [tooltips keyword="la poterie " content="the pottery"]. These illustrations are a tribute to [tooltips keyword= "l'artisanat " content= "the craft "] women in Tunisia.
At two o'clock in the morning, it will actually be three o'clock in France. It's daylight saving time tonight, March 28-29. The consequence? One hour less of [tooltips keyword="sommeil " content="the sleep"]. However, this is one of the last times Europeans will change the time. In 2018, the European Commission organized a major online consultation in which 84 % of Europeans voted in favor of ending the time change. Each state could then choose between summer and winter time by 2021. From March 2021, France will be on summer time all year round!
Vocabulary of the week
Enrich your French vocabulary, download our list of key words for the week of March 22-28, 2020.
| Testing positive | We take a test to detect a substance in our body. When you "test positive", the test has shown that the substance is present in your body. We can be tested positive to a disease, to a drug... |
| Delay (verb) | To take time to do something, to hang around to do something. |
| The epidemic | It is a disease that spreads, that spreads. |
| Spreading the word | To spread, to spread. The disease spreads, it spreads, it affects more people. |
| The symptom | It is the way in which a disease will show itself, manifest itself in our body. It is thanks to a symptom that we can discover that we have a disease. |
| Light (adjective) | Not very important, not very heavy, weak. |
| Being confined | You have to stay at home, not go out. |
| Containment | The fact of staying locked up at home, of not going out, of staying inside. |
| Fight (verb) | To fight against something, to oppose something. |
| Beat (verb) | To have the upper hand over something or someone. To win. |
| To count (verb) | Counting. Evaluate a number of people, objects, cases... |
| Sad (adjective) | It's the opposite of happy. It's when a situation or someone is not happy. It is painful, there is sadness. |
| The record. For example: "Break a record". | This is something that has never been achieved before. This is the "best" performance that has been done to date. |
| The cat | It is a pet that many people have in their homes. It is a feline. |
| The master | This is the person who owns a pet. |
| The pet, the pets / The pet, the pets | It is an animal like a cat, a dog... It has been adopted by a master. It is not wild, it lives with a person. |
| The banknote | It is money printed on paper. It is a liquid means of payment. |
| Vector of | When someone or something is a "vector", it causes something, it transmits. |
| The rumor | Something that is told. We don't know if it's true, there's no proof. It's just gossip. |
| The boom | It is a sudden growth, an increase that comes all at once. |
| Abandon/be abandoned | Leaving someone, something or an animal. Not wanting it anymore. |
| Domestic violence | In a couple, one of the two people hits, beats the other person. One of the people in the couple is therefore violent with the other. |
| The authorities | It's the government, the people in charge, the people with power. |
| The Pharmacy | It's a store, a store where you go to get medicine to treat yourself or hygiene products like soap, skin creams... |
| The code | This is a password. |
| The portrait | The image of someone, the representation of a person. It can be a drawing, a photo, a painting... |
| The doctor | He is a doctor. The person who looks after us, who heals us when we are ill. |
| The jewel | It is a small object that we put on ourselves to decorate: a bracelet, earrings, necklace ... A jewel can be gold, silver ... |
| The pottery | It is a way of making objects with clay. Generally, a pottery is a dish: a plate, a bowl, a cup... |
| The craft | It's all the craftsmen. They are people who work with their hands. They have a manual know-how. For example: a shoemaker, a chocolate maker, a heating engineer, a watchmaker... |
| Sleep | It is the fact of sleeping, when you are lying in a bed. We sleep, we rest. |
| The consultation | It's when you ask someone or some people for their opinion. You want to know what they think. This consultation will usually help leaders make a decision. |
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