North Korean murder mystery: BBC News Review reviews

November 11, 2022



North Korea and Malaysia have got into an argument over the murder of Kim Jong-un’s half-brother. Neil and Catherine look at the language the world’s media is using to discuss this story – and show you how you can use it in your everyday English.

Key words and phrases:

tit-for-tat
describes actions taken as revenge

boils
gets very angry

blasts
criticises strongly

Test how well you have understood this lesson by taking the quiz here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningenglish/english/course/english-you-need/unit-5/session-2

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MONDAY: Exam Skills
TUESDAY: News Review – discover the language used by news organisations to explain the news
WEDNESDAY: Pronunciation in the News. You can also follow three news stories with LingoHack
THURSDAY: Teachers’ Room
FRIDAY: Learners’ Questions

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33 Comments
  1. revenge
    boils=get angry tit-for- tat =hit for hit
    blasts=citicised strongly

  2. Oh my God, I'm so happy I found you… I love your channel, the news are so interesting and also it's an excellent oportunity to improve my English day by day…

  3. Thank you BBC

  4. Reply
    소보로빵사와라아아아앜 November 11, 2022 at 2:21 am

    Text: 0:28

  5. It would be great if
    you also mention the part of speech of the word.

  6. tit for tat

  7. Words review is forget by Neil…😄

  8. I’ve not realize 5 minutes podcast is available on YouTube now.

  9. Where can i find the transcript?

  10. I like your shirt, Neil

  11. Never bored with BBC English.
    Thanks a lot to the great team.

  12. Thanks

  13. plz update everyday

  14. 5:43 where is the difference?

  15. it is good story

  16. This is, awesome

  17. Thanx British 🇬🇧

  18. Does the word Blast have same meaning as Slam if these are on news headlines?

  19. tip for tap in Spanish: ojo por ojo, diente por diente

  20. HI BBC NEWS. I have been listening to this program for a long time, therefore, I strongly recommend for all people who want to learn English as a second language that it would be a great source in the world .

  21. hello thanks to BBC news Review , i am in Somalia east africa i tried hard to learn english more , But yet i am not as i respected so i joint to your programm now i am feeling rising of and more growth to my vacapulery and prononciton . thanks to you more.

  22. thanks so much, it's very fun to study E

  23. 👍👍👍👍👍👏👏👋👋 hi from Colombia a Venezuelan

  24. waching english vedios make me blood boil if I don't understand but it well doen then as a tit for tat I thank you alot

  25. I'm so grateful for giving this useful and authentic language to help us improve our English on daily base.😘❤😍👏

  26. Thanks, beautiful lesson

  27. Well done

  28. great efforts thanks A lot we need more videos

  29. Hello and welcome to News Review the program where we show you how to use the language from the laetest news stories in your everyday English.

    Hi, I'm Neil, joining me today is Catherine. Hi, Catherine? "Hi, Neil?"

    What's our story?

    Our story today is about Revenge

    Revenge! Ok, let's find out some more from this BBC World service News bulletin.

    So, last month, kim jung nam who is half brother of the north korea leader kim jung un was killed in Kuala Lumpur airport in Malyasia
    Now Malaysia has not directily blamed North Korea for this,
    but there's a strong suspicion world wide that pyung yang was responsible for his death. now whereas north korea has denied being involved in this.
    the argument between the two countries has got worse since the death.
    and it's got to the stage now if you're north korean living in Malaysis ,you're not allowed to leave Malaysia and if you're Malaysian living in North Korea, you're not allowed to leave North Korea.
    and that's what situation we're in now.

    Ok, you've been looking the various news websites for this story.
    and picking out the words and vocabulary needed to talk about it.
    and what have you come up with?

    We have three great phrases ,first one is tit-for-tat. then we have boils and finally blast.

    How are they appearing in the headlines?

    Ok, start with BBC News and we have "Kim jong-nam death: Malaysia and N Korea in tit-for-tat exit bans."

    tit-for-tat describes actions taken as revenge.
    and it's a strange word , isn't it?

    It is a strange word, I believe Neil you've been doing some research, so you can tell us origin , ( ) origin of tit-for-tat.

    That's right. yes obviously it's quite a strange sounding word made up of three words. the origin maybe tip for tap ,now these are two different ways of hitting someone ,so ( ) hit for hit

    so, I hit you. you hit me, tip-for-tap, tip-for-tap.

    and that becomes tit-for-tat.
    and that's what it means. isn't it? it's revenge ,sort of a quick bit of revenge.

    yeah. revenge for revenge. North Korea has done something to Malaysia, so Malaysia has done something to North Korea. and they do something back.
    and goes back and forwards and it often doesn't end or produce any useful results.

    and it's neither formal or informal, is it?

    so, it can be used to talk about very important or serious situation like this one, or something silly.

    for example , yeah, actually. you stole some biscuit off my desk the other day,Neil
    I wasn't happy about that.

    No, I did steal some biscuits from your desk but that's because you stole my coffee.

    Neil, I didn't steal your coffee. I took some coffee from your desk because you took some coffee from my desk the day before.

    I don't think that's possible. because ( ) pointing me in stealing your coffee,
    because I have nothing to drink it from. cause you stole my mug.

    Neil, I didn't steal your mug. you broke my mug, so I had to use your mug, Neil.

    This is all tit-for-tat, isn't it?

    I'm gonna get you. believe me I'll get you back.

    and that's the explanation of the tit-for-tat.

    moving on to our next word.

    Ok, let's go to the Reuters now. "North Korea bars Malaysians from leaving as murder row boils."

    boils here meaning gets very angry.

    yeah, it does. and it's an interesting word because actually the first meaning of boil, it makes us think of water.
    if you heat water or any other liquid, it gets really really hot ,it gets very sort of ( ) lots of movement, it's dangerous, you stay away from it, it's kind of ,you know it expresses idiomatically we can use its idea of heat and fire and danger to express the anger that we're dealing with here.
    so the murder row , row being argument, boils. it's used to describe extreme anger.

    yea, although this is very short and dramatic word which as we know headline writers love, we can use it in our everyday English.

    We can, I mean, in the headline it's used in present simple tense.
    we can use it to say ,we often use it in continuous tense to describe very angry feeling. so you can say he was boiling with anger, or boiling with rage.

    It intensify for to describe anger and rage.

    like when you stole my coffee, I was boiling with fury.

    no, I was boiling with anger when I discovered that you broke my coffee cup, Neil.

    Let's go back to tit-for-tat.

    tit-for-tat will happen.

    Our next headline we have. blast.

    yes. BLAST as is my pronunciation,

    Can I say , blast, BLAST, what's the difference?

    I'm from north, you're from south.

    and that's the end of it.

    That's end of that. alright. let's go to the headline. The Telegraph.
    "North Korea bans Malaysians from leaving country as prime minister blasts Pyoungyang for 'holding citizens hostage'

    yes, blast meaning criticizes strongly now it can look like there are lots of different meanings of the word.

    yup. you can use it in a lots of different situations.
    you can blast music , if you turn up the volume really loud that you can say you're blasting a music.

    and we can use it to describe hor air from your hair dryer.
    you can blast a hot air.

    an explosion , bomb blast.

    yup, and common things that all of these have is power and force.
    and we're using it here to describe in this headline, prime minister blasts pyoung yang, it's talking about the force of the prime minister's anger. the Malaysian's prime minister's anger.

    in this particular use in this headline is quite journalistic ,isn't it?

    it's something that we'd be unlikely to use in our everyday speech,
    although we can use the word blast.

    We can, we'd be unlikely to say that Neil blasted, Catherine blasted Neil for stealing her coffee.

    but we can use it in other situations, you know blast of music, blast of hot air.

    yeah, it's also got very positive meaning to describe a fun situation.

    oh, yes, Christ max party.

    Christ max party , that was a blast.

    We had a blast.

    I've got the photographs to prove it.

    we're not going back tit-for-tat. we covered that. thank you.

  30. it is so funny to learn with you 😍😄

  31. fantastic story , new words , new information
    Thanks a lot BBC

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