English in a Minute: Take With a Grain of Salt

What does salt have to do with suspicion? Watch this week's EIM to learn all about this expression.

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January 12, 2018

A look at the best news photos from around the world.

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American Kennel Club Welcomes New Dog Breeds

  The American Kennel Club, or AKC, has increased its membership. New to the AKC pack is an energetic dog whose main interests is ducks, and a friendly dog that would rather chase rabbits. The American Kennel Club announced Wednesday that it is recognizing the Nederlandse kooikerhondje and the grand basset griffon Vendeen. They are the first breeds added to the roster in two years. The newly added breeds are permitted to compete in many dog shows this year. But they are not yet able to take part in the biggest show; they will have to wait until 2019 to enter the Westminster Kennel Club show, held in New York City. The Nederlandse kooikerhondje have been around for hundreds of years in Holland. They are called Kooikers for short. The pretty brown-and-white dogs can be seen in some Dutch Old Master paintings. D. Ann Knoop-Siderius breeds kooikers. “They're actually like a toddler that never grows up,'' she said. She describes the dogs as happy, sometimes naughty and “very playful.” Kooikers were trained to help hunters move ducks into water traps called koois. The practice fell from popularity in the 1800s and the dogs almost disappeared. There are now about 7,000 left worldwide. The first recorded American litter was born in 1999. It is still a rare breed in the country, with about 500 in the U.S. Kooikers will compete in the sporting dog group. The grand basset griffon Vendeen goes by “GBGV'' for short. The basset breed has deep roots in Europe. A smaller cousin, the petit basset griffon Vendeen, and the long-eared basset hound have been recognized by the AKC for many years. GBGVs have long, rough fur. They are native to France. They weigh around 18 to 20 kilograms and stand fairly low to the ground. They are members of the hound group. GBGVs are known for their speed, lasting energy and good-natured personalities. Megan Esherick is a dog trainer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She also owns a 9-year-old GBGV named Juno.  She says the breed is “pretty laid-back.” “They're happy to get up and do things if you ask them to, but they're not particularly busy, in terms of pacing back and forth or throwing a ball in your lap,'' she said. Juno has competed in agility, obedience and other events. Experts say GBGVs enjoy children and family life but are not easy to train. The breed might not be the best choice for a first-time dog owner. The AKC is the nation's oldest purebred dog registry. It recognizes 192 breeds, from silky Afghan hounds to the xoloitzcuintlis, also called the Mexican hairless dog. The AKC does not consider recognition of a breed unless there are at least 300 of the dogs spread across at least 20 states. Some animal-rights supporters say working to increase interest in purebreds is wrong. They say it leads to cruel breeding operations. Activists also argue that too many dogs are in public shelters already and need owners. The AKC says responsible breeding permits people to choose pets with somewhat predictable characteristics. The club also notes that mixed-breed dogs compete in many events it supports, such as agility and obedience competitions. I'm Ashley Thompson.  And I'm Caty Weaver.    The Associated Press reported this story. Caty Weaver adapted it for Learning English. Ashley Thompson was the editor.  ______________________________________________________________ Words in This Story   pack - n. a group of usually wild animals that hunt together toddler - n. ​a young child who is just learning to walk​ naughty - adj. ​behaving badly — used especially to describe a child who does not behave properly or obey a parent, teacher, etc. litter - n. ​a group of young animals that are born at a single time​ personality - n. ​the set of emotional qualities, ways of behaving, etc., that makes a person different from other people​ laid-back - adj. relaxed and calm​ particularly - adv. more than usually​ pace  - v. to walk back and forth across the same space again and again especially because you are nervous​ agility - n. ​ability to move quickly and easily​ registry - n. ​a place where official records are kept​ characteristic  - n. ​typical of a person, thing, or group​

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'A Princess of Mars,' by Edgar Rice Burroughs, Part One

American writer Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote about a man's journey from Earth to Mars and the world of strange beings he met there.

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Britain Hopes to Join Pacific Trade Deal

  British officials say they hope their country will one day join the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) trade agreement. The TPP is currently being negotiated by 11 other countries. All 11 have a border facing either the Pacific Ocean or the South China Sea. The British government hopes trade with fast-growing economies will make up for any losses that may take place after it leaves the European Union (EU). Britain’s withdrawal from the EU, known as Brexit, is expected in 2019. On a recent trip to China, Britain’s Trade Minister, Liam Fox, suggested his country might one day join the TPP. “We don't know what the success of the TPP is going to yet look like, because it isn't yet negotiated,” Fox said. “So, it would be a little bit premature for us to be wanting to sign up to something that we're not sure what the final details will look like. However, we have said that we want to be an open, outward-looking country, and therefore it would be foolish for us to rule out any particular outcomes for the future,” he added. London sits some 7,000 kilometers from any Pacific coastline. So, is geography no longer an issue in 21st century trade? Not so, says economist Jonathan Portes. He works as a professor at Kings College London. Portes says, “There has been an argument put forward that, particularly as trade in services expands, and as a result of technology, it will matter considerably less in the future, and that seems to make a lot of sense. So far at least, the actual data and evidence don’t really support this contention. For whatever reason, geography at the moment seems to matter as much as it ever did,” he added. By withdrawing from the EU’s Single Market and Customs Union, Britain will leave a free trade agreement that makes up about half of its foreign trade. By comparison, the 11 countries now negotiating the TPP combined accepted less than eight percent of all British exports last year. Portes said it will take many years for Britain to profit from other trade deals. He added that British companies have close ties with the European Union. He thinks there will likely be problems because of Brexit. The countries negotiating the TPP include Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, Japan and Mexico. The others are New Zealand, Malaysia, Peru, Singapore and Vietnam. Barack Obama, former president of the United States, was a driving force behind TPP. But the next president, Donald Trump, pulled the United States out of the deal, saying it would be bad for America. Negotiations between the 11 remaining countries continue slowly. Because of the U.S. withdrawal, “the TPP has its own internal problems,” said Portes, adding it will be a lot of work to fix those issues. But Britain’s interest in the TPP has been welcomed by some of the countries involved, namely Australia. British Prime Minister Theresa May is expected to visit Asia later this year in an attempt to strengthen relations before Brexit. I’m Susan Shand. _________________________________________________________________ Words in this Story   premature – adj. happening too soon or earlier than usual geography – n. an area of study that deals with the location of countries, cities, rivers, mountains, lakes, etc. contention – n. something (such as a belief, opinion, or idea) that is argued or stated outcome – n. results

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Researchers Find 2,700-Year-Old 'Governor Seal' In Jerusalem

  Archaeologists in Israel have recovered a seal impression that they say confirms the existence of Jerusalem governors identified in ancient religious writings. The researchers say the impression was discovered in an archaeological project in the Western Wall plaza of Jerusalem. The small clay object has a message written in the ancient Hebrew language. It says 'Belonging to the governor of the city.’ First evidence of its kind The archaeologists say the impression could have been placed on shipments from the city leader to another leader or important person. For historians, the discovery from the First Temple-period of Jerusalem is evidence that the city had a governor at least 2,700 years ago. A Jerusalem governor is identified two times in The Bible, the holy book of Judaism and Christianity. Until now, there has never been any historical evidence of such a position. Shlomit Weksler-Bdolah is with Israel’s Antiquity Authority. She says this is the first time that researchers have found evidence of the governor in an archeological dig around a structure from 2,700 years ago. The seal impression shows two men facing each other and wearing striped clothing. They are holding a round object between them, which might be the moon. Weksler-Bdolah says the meaning of the image is unclear. Archaeologists know that the moon was considered an object of worship in neighboring cultures. Yet this does not explain why the image would show the governor of Jerusalem in what appears to be a position of worship, showing respect to the moon. The archeologists discovered the clay object some time last year while they were examining dirt from the dig in Jerusalem's Old City.  An important discovery at a difficult time The seal impression does not have the name of Jerusalem on it. Yet archaeologists say the area where the impression was found proves that it shows a Jerusalem governor. They say it also proves that the city has been an important center of a Jewish state for around 3,000 years.  "The 'governor of the city' is reminded [identified] several times in the Bible in several cities. The 'governor of Jerusalem' is reminded [identified] twice, but we never found him actually in an archaeological excavation, so that's the big importance." The archaeologists are publicizing their discovery at a time of growing tension around Jerusalem. Recently, United States President Donald Trump recognized the city as Israel's capital. The official standing of Jerusalem is a sensitive issue in the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The Palestinians want the eastern part of the city as the capital of their future state. I’m Phil Dierking.   Zlatica Hoke wrote this story for VOANews.com. Phil Dierking adapted her story for Learning English. George Grow was the editor. We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page. _______________________________________________________________ Words in This Story   clay - n. a heavy, sticky material from the earth that is made into different shapes and that becomes hard when it is baked or dried​ impression - n.  something (such as a design or a footprint) made by pressing or stamping a surface​ seal - n. an official mark that is stamped on paper or on a small piece of wax to show that something (such as a document) is genuine and has been officially approved​ stripe - n. a long, narrow line of color​ worship - v. to show respect and love for God or for a god especially by praying, having religious services, etc.​

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Lesson 16: Where Are You From?

Summary Anna interviews tourists on the National Mall in Washington, DC. She learns about where they are from and the languages they speak. Speaking In this video, you can learn to say the new words. Learn how to say your country and nationality. You can also download the Activity Sheet and practice talking about countries and nationalities with a friend.​ Pronunciation ​In this video, you ​learn about how English speakers say, "a couple of."  Conversation   Anna: Hello! Washington, D.C. has many tourists! People from different countries come here. Today, my job is to interview tourists. I have to learn why they come here. This is very exciting! Excuse me. I’m Anna Matteo from The News. Do you have time for an interview? Sabrina: Sure, I have time. Anna: What is your name? Sabrina: My name is Sabrina. Anna: What country are you from? Sabrina: I’m from Bangladesh. Anna: So, you are Bangladeshi. Sabrina: That’s right! My nationality is Bangladeshi. Anna: Do you like Washington, D.C.? Sabrina: Yes! The city is very beautiful! Anna: What do you like to do in Washington D.C.? Sabrina: I like history. So, I like walking around and looking at all the monuments and memorials. They make history come alive! Anna: Washington has many monuments and memorials. The Washington Monument is behind us! Which is your favorite? Sabrina: I really like Lincoln Memorial. It is very beautiful. And it feels like Abraham Lincoln is still alive.    Anna: Awesome. Thank you for your time, Sabrina! Sabrina: You’re welcome. Anna: Let’s find another tourist. Anna: Oh! Excuse me. I am Anna Matteo from The News. Do you have time for a couple of questions? Louis: Sure! Anna: Are you from Washington, D.C.? Louis: No, I’m not. Anna: What is your name and where are you from? Louis: My name is Louis. And I’m from China. Anna: What languages do you speak? Louis: I speak Chinese and English. Anna: What do you like about Washington DC? Louis: I like the museums. I really like the art museums. Anna: Many of the museums are free. Louis: I like that too! Anna: Awesome! Thanks for your time, Louis. Louis: You’re very welcome. Bye! Anna: Now, let’s find another tourist! Anna: Hello! I am Anna Matteo from The News. Do you have time to answer a couple of questions? Mehrnoush: Sure! Anna: What is your name and where’re you from? Mehrnoush: My name is Mehrnoush. I am from Iran. I’m Iranian. Anna: What language do they speak in Iran? Is it Persian? Mehrnoush: They speak Farsi. Anna: What do you like to do in Washington DC? Mehrnoush: Well, I like learning about government and politics. Anna: Washington has many politicians! Mehrnoush: It does! I want to see the U.S. Capitol. Anna: Look, you are very near. Mehrnoush: I am! Anna: Have fun! Mehrnoush: Thanks! Anna: There you have it. Tourists from all over the world come to Washington, D.C. They all like doing and seeing different things in the city. This is Anna Matteo reporting for The News. Until next time! Anna: Is that okay? Awesome! Now, I want to do my favorite thing in the city … ride the carousel!     Writing Where are you from? What languages do you speak? What do you like to do when you travel? Write to us by email or in the Comments section. Click on the image below to download the Activity Sheet and practice writing and talking about countries and nationalities with a friend.   Learning Strategy Learning Strategies are the thoughts and actions that help make learning easier or more effective. The learning strategy for this lesson is Monitor. We monitor to check on what we hear and say when we are speaking and listening in English. Here is an example from this lesson's conversation. Anna asks, "What country are you from?" She monitors to make sure Sabrina understands the question. Sabrina answers, "I’m from Bangladesh." Now, Anna knows that Sabrina understands the question.  Anna thinks she knows how to say Sabrina's nationality. She tries it: "So, you are Bangladeshi." Anna is listening to monitor what Sabrina says. Anna is not sure: is "Bangladeshi" the right way to say Sabrina's nationality? Some people use the word, "Bengali" to say this nationality.   Sabrina answers, "That’s right! My nationality is Bangladeshi." In Anna's mind, she monitors her understanding. She thinks, "I can say Bangladeshi for the nationality of a person from Bangladesh." How do you monitor when learning English? Write to us in the Comments section or send us an email. Teachers, see the Lesson Plan for more details on teaching this strategy.   Quiz Anna asks the tourists many questions. Can you choose the right question for each person? See how well you understand the lesson by taking this short quiz.  ​______________________________________________________________ New Words ​Abraham Lincoln – n. the 16th President of the United States alive – adj. living; not dead art – n. something that is created with imagination and skill and that is beautiful or that expresses important ideas or feelings carousel – n. a machine or device with a moving belt or part that carries things around in a circle country – n. an area of land that is controlled by its own government couple – n. two (things) or a few (things) favorite – n. a person or a thing that is liked more than others free – adj. not costing any money government – n. the group of people who control and make decisions for a country, state, etc. history – n. the study of past events memorial – n. something (such as a monument or ceremony) that honors a person who has died or serves as a reminder of an event in which many people died monument – n. a building, statue, etc., that honors a person or event museum – n. a building in which interesting and valuable things (such as paintings and sculptures or scientific or historical objects) are collected and shown to the public nationality – n. the fact or status of being a member or citizen of a particular nation question – n. a sentence, phrase, or word that asks for information or is used to test someone's knowledge politics – n. activities that relate to influencing the actions and policies of a government or getting and keeping power in a government ride – v. to sit on and control the movements of (a horse, motorcycle, bicycle, etc.) tourist – n. a person who travels to a place for pleasure U.S. Capitol – n. the building in which the U.S. Congress meets in Washington, D.C. Countries/Nationalities/Languages Bangladesh – n. a country in Asia Bangladeshi – n. a native or inhabitant of Bangladesh. adj. of, relating to, or characteristic of Bangladesh or its people. China - n. People's Republic of, a country in E Asia. Chinese - n.  the standard language of China, based on the speech of Beijing; Mandarin; a native or descendant of a native of China. adj. of or relating to China, its inhabitants, or one of their languages​ Iran - n. a republic in SW Asia. Iranian - adj. of or relating to Iran, its inhabitants, or their language; of or relating to the Iranian languages. n. a subbranch of the Indo-European family of languages, an inhabitant of Iran; Persian.​ Farsi - n.​ the modern Iranian language of Iran and western Afghanistan, written in the Arabic alphabet; modern Persian.​ Persian – adj. of or relating to ancient and recent Persia (now Iran), its people, or their language. n. a member of the native peoples of Iran; the principal language of Iran and western Afghanistan, in its historical and modern forms. ______________________________________________________________ Free Materials   Download the VOA Learning English Word Book for a dictionary of the words we use on this website. Each Let's Learn English lesson has an Activity Sheet for extra practice on your own or in the classroom. In this lesson, you can use it to practice talking about nationalities  and languages.   For Teachers ​See the Lesson Plan for this lesson for ideas and more teaching resources. Send us an email if you have comments on this course or questions. Grammar focus: Nationality and language names used as nouns and adjectives Topics: Countries and Nationalities; Tourism activities Learning Strategy: Monitor (comprehension and production) Speaking & Pronunciation Focus: Talking about countries, languages, and nationalities; Saying "a couple of" quickly ______________________________________________________________ Now it's your turn. Send us an email or write to us in the Comments section below or on our Facebook page to let us know what you think of this lesson.

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What It Takes - Ray Dalio

00:00:02    Meet Ray Dalio. He's the subject of this episode of What It Takes. Ray Dalio is the most successful hedge fund manager of all time.   00:00:11    RAY DALIO: I don’t know what a hedge fund is. I really don’t know.      00:00:15    ALICE WINKLER: While Ray Dalio struggles with that one for a moment, let me remind you, What It Takes is a podcast about passion, vision, and perseverance from the Academy of Achievement's archive of interviews with extraordinary people.   00:00:29    OPRAH WINFREY: "Hattie Mae, this child is gifted," and I heard that enough that I started to believe it.   00:00:35    ROGER BANNISTER: If you have the opportunity, not a perfect opportunity, and you don't take it, you may never have another chance.   00:00:42    LAURYN HILL: It all was so clear. It was just, like, the picture started to form itself.   00:00:46    DESMOND TUTU: There was no way in which a lie could prevail over the truth, darkness over light, death over life.   00:00:54    CAROL BURNETT (quoting CARRIE HAMILTON): “Every day I wake up and decide, today I'm going to love my life. Decide.”   00:01:02    JOHNNY CASH: My advice is, if they're going to break your leg once when you go in that place, stay out of there.   00:01:07    JAMES MICHENER: And then along come these differential experiences that you don't look for, you don't plan for, but boy, you’d better not miss them.   00:01:18    ALICE WINKLER: Ray Dalio founded the investment firm Bridgewater Associates, and they manage 150 billion dollars — that's billion with a B. So what does Ray Dalio mean exactly when he says he doesn't know what a hedge fund is?   00:01:35    RAY DALIO: So it's a structure within which investors can do all different things, like a mutual fund. You might say some people are value investors. Some people invest in bonds. Some people invest in stocks. People do all different things within a structure called a hedge fund. Basically, though, it allows you to invest without much in the way of restrictions, traditional ways.   00:01:53    I can sell short as well as go long. If something's going to go — if I think something will go down, I can sell short. I can go into any market. I can go into stocks or bonds or commodities or gold or anywhere that I want to go within my agreement with my client. So I give myself the freedom to approach the world to look at whatever’s good or whatever’s bad.   00:02:27    ALICE WINKLER: In short, I think what he’s saying in this 2012 interview is, it's vague, so if you don’t quite get what a hedge fund is after all these years, you can finally stop feeling bad about it. If Ray Dalio doesn’t know, why should you? But hedge funds have made Ray Dalio a wealthy man, a very, very wealthy man. He's worth about 15 billion dollars. Dalio began investing when he was a child, literally.   00:02:59     RAY DALIO: I started trading markets when I was 12. You know, it was interesting at the time. I caddied at a local golf course, but this was very, very elite, in the sense of, you know, I caddied for Richard Nixon. I caddied for the Duke of Windsor. In fact, I caddied for very interesting people at that golf course.   00:03:23     And at the time also there was the Wall Street crowd, and this was in the '60s, and at the time, the United States was on top of the world. Stocks kept going up, and there was — everybody talked about the stock market. So it looks precocious, more precocious than it was. It was just what people were talking about, and I certainly was interested in having those conversations, and I was interested in that experience.   00:03:52     So, yes, I bought stocks — or I bought a stock, Northeast Airlines, and it was the first stock I bought. And my whole criteria were — it was the only company I ever heard of that was selling for less than five dollars a share, and I figured if I — less than five dollars a share I can buy more shares. I mean dumb — right? But it turned out that that company was about to go broke. Somebody acquired it, and it tripled or went up a lot, and I made money.   00:04:26     And then as a result of that I got interested, and it was the thing to talk about. So I could talk with Wall Street people when we were walking down the course about what stocks were good and bad and that interaction. And because I was speaking to them about the stock market and they were really nice people, we had those quality conversations, and then I began the process.   00:04:51    ALICE WINKLER: That process has continued for the five decades since, but the process Dalio is really talking about here is not how he figured out the markets and accumulated unimaginable wealth. It’s more about the process of Ray Dalio’s enlightenment. Probably the most important thing to know about Dalio, besides the financial success of his firm, is that he’s a kind of self-help evangelist. He has spent a lot of time thinking about what it takes to succeed, in life as well as in business, and he loves to share those thoughts.   00:05:27     RAY DALIO: I think for everybody, in order to be successful there are five steps that you go through essentially.   00:05:33     ALICE WINKLER: One: Figuring out your goals.   00:05:42    RAY DALIO: Everybody has their goals. What is their goal and their passion? So you have goals. And then what happens is you’re going after your goals and you encounter your problems.   00:05:53    ALICE WINKLER: Two: Encountering your problems.   00:06:03    RAY DALIO: The big difference between people is how they approach those problems. People who get bummed out by the problems don’t learn from them. Who learns from them? So those who recognize that problems are exciting, that they get into those, you know, problems or mistakes. Mistakes are learning experiences. The pain that comes from that mistake — every time you have pain, it’s an indication that something is at odds.   00:06:33    And so the people who have the pain are the people then who will go into that, realize that if they solve that pain, solve that problem, understand what that is representative of — not just the one problem. But that problem is a certain type of problem that will happen over and over and over again in your life, and how do I deal with that kind of problem?   00:06:56    ALICE WINKLER: Three: Diagnosing the deeper problem that’s behind the current problem.   00:07:08    RAY DALIO: So diagnose those problems, get to the root cause, the real root cause. The real root cause is often — is typically what people are like. Can you go to what you're like? Can you go to your mistakes? Can you go to your weaknesses? Everybody has strengths, and everybody has weaknesses. The weaknesses are the other side of the strengths.   00:07:31    So let’s say if you’re, you know, a right brain, creative person, you may not be reliable because just the way you think necessitates you to think a certain way that means you can’t think in another way. That means you're going to keep bumping into that thing that's standing in your way. But unless you can embrace “I'm not reliable,” you know, right, and deal with it, you won't get around it — right?   00:07:54    So the diagnosis to the root cause is important. So then if you diagnose it, then you have to design, what are you going to do about it that works?   00:08:06    ALICE WINKLER: Four: Designing solutions.   00:08:17    RAY DALIO: So let’s say you are very creative but not reliable. Okay, you have to find the means of, first of all, embracing that, and then saying, "If I’m not reliable, what do I do? Do I work with a reliable person? Do I learn reliability? Do I have some compensating mechanism? Because I can’t let that lack of reliability stand in the way of my goal. As long as I keep doing that, I’m going to keep running into problems."   00:08:43    So you have to design what you do about the problems, and then when you’re designing what you do about the problems, then you have to follow it through.   00:08:53    ALICE WINKLER: Five: Following through. And a summary of steps one to four.   00:09:06    RAY DALIO: So you have to do the thing you designed, and the doing the thing you designed requires self-discipline and so on. So people have to do those things in order to be successful. Right? They have to know what their goals are. They will encounter their problems. They have to diagnose those problems down to the root cause, the real root cause. They have to design ways to get around them, and then they have to have the self-discipline to follow that, and it’s a continuous iterative process.   00:09:38    So that — that’s what we keep doing — right? So you’re going in that direction. I would say that all of the shapers are doing that. They’re doing that. They’re doing that well — right? So they don’t mind the problems. That’s their adventure.   00:09:52    ALICE WINKLER: Even the most tenacious people, Dalio says, don’t necessarily rise to be “shapers,” the people who make the world go around. Mastering your subject matter is not nearly enough, he says, if you want to be a shaper.   00:10:07    RAY DALIO: It’s a very internalized learning process. It’s not a memory-based process. So none of these people — shapers — unlike the population at whole, none of these people have a desire to follow instructions — right? For most people, you go to school, they tell you what class to go to, what classes to take. This goes all the way through university.   00:10:32    They do this, do this, do this, and then you go into the class and they say, "Learn this, and this is the information," and it’s largely a memory-based, instructional-based process. This is not what these people do. So the path — what they have is a strong, strong desire to understand and make sense of reality. How does reality work? Okay. And then — so they’re all very independent-thinking and rebellious. Okay?   00:11:03    They don’t mind, you know, saying, "Screw you, I am — this is what makes sense, and I’ve got to go down that path" — right? They’re comfortable with ambiguity. They love ambiguity because that's where the discovery is — right? They love making mistakes, the process. They understand that making mistakes — you know, loosen up.   00:11:23    It's like, you know, going to ski or something. You can’t learn how to ski unless you’re falling.   00:11:28    ALICE WINKLER: Dalio believes one of the biggest problems facing individuals, companies, and even countries is ego, ego that stands in the way of people seeing their own weaknesses.   00:11:40    RAY DALIO: People are so attached to being right, and yet the tragedy is, it could be so easy to find out how you’re wrong. If you just said to yourself, "I’m not sure that I’m right, and let me go find people who have alternative points of views, and let me have quality conversations" — not to pay attention even to their conclusions, but to their thought processes.   00:12:09    So go after the person who has the most different point of view, who is the most thoughtful, and then have a conversation to see their point of view, and that process itself reduces the probability of being wrong and produces a great deal of learning. People are so hung up on being right, starting their discussion and deriving some sort of satisfaction if, at the end of the discussion, they were where they began the discussion. So that doesn’t make any sense.   00:12:45    ALICE WINKLER: And here’s an interesting extension of Ray Dalio’s thoughts on weakness and failure. If you’ve got young kids in your life, this one may speak loudly to you, as it did to me.              00:12:56    RAY DALIO: Punishment is a terrible concept. Punishment means that you made a mistake and you're being punished. I think, instead of punishment, every time somebody makes a mistake, you should say, “The only thing that you need to do to get out of your punishment is first think, ‘What kind of mistake was that? So if I’m in a situation that's like that again, how would I deal with it differently not to make that mistake?’"   00:13:24    ALICE WINKLER: But when people hire you to manage and invest their money, naturally, the stakes of mistakes are a little higher, so as Dalio puts it...   00:13:33    RAY DALIO: Just the goal is, you know, don’t be too wrong; be more right than wrong.   00:13:37    ALICE WINKLER: And how do they do that at Bridgewater?   00:13:40    RAY DALIO: First, because all of the consensus is already baked into the price, in order to be correct in the markets, in order to make money in the markets, you have to see something that the consensus doesn't see. So you have to have an independent point of view. Now in order to be different from the consensus, there’s a high risk you’re going to be wrong. So if you form — for me, if I form that point of view and I’m wrong, the probability of being wrong I’m trying to reduce, and so by having other people stress-test my thinking, it’s very practical — right?   00:14:25    So I say, "I work really hard to have this independent point of view," and then I bring that independent point of view out there, and I say, "Shoot at it."   00:14:34    ALICE WINKLER: That is a favorite Ray Dalio-ism, using “stress-test” as a verb. If you work at Bridgewater, you have to be eager to stress-test your ideas. Dalio also loves to talk about radical honesty and radical transparency. He believes in them so strongly that he institutionalized them at Bridgewater. If you go to work there, you have to adhere to his principles, laid out in a 100-plus-page book he wrote about his views on management and success.   00:15:07    RAY DALIO: Every meeting is taped and made available for everybody in the company to look at. Everybody has a responsibility — the right and responsibility to make sense of things. In other words, it's got to make sense to you, and if something doesn't make sense to you, you should bring it up. You shouldn’t talk behind somebody's back or gossip. And you know, too many people talk about the other people, what they’re doing wrong, except they don’t talk to those people about what they’re doing wrong.   00:15:38    So they don’t know whether they’re actually doing them wrong or not. They haven’t heard the other side, and they’re not being productive, so that’s terrible, and also the organizations for me in which arbitrary decisions are made are terrible. You know, a boss, two bosses, will get together, and they’ll have a conversation of what a particular person is like, and then they’ll call the person into the room, and then they’ll say, "Aw, Harry" — and then they’ll give him spin. Spin is terrible.   00:16:07    It undermines trust, and so we have a policy of taping everything and letting everybody watch it and look at it, and then have thoughtful conversations about that. And there's — if you’re coming into the company, you go there because you believe that understanding what is true and having thoughtful conversation about it, including harsh realities, is healthy. So yes, that's embedded. That's — those are the ground rules. That's how to have an idea meritocracy.   00:16:40     In other words, if you want to have a real idea meritocracy that's not — doesn't have any barriers to it, will go wherever truth leads us, that's what we do, and that's very powerful. That's where the success comes from.   00:17:01     ALICE WINKLER: If you work at Bridgewater and you talk about a person behind his back, you may get fired. You might think that would make it a pretty uncomfortable place to work, but that’s not how Ray Dalio sees it.   00:17:12     RAY DALIO: No, reality is reality. Okay, which is going to produce more discomfort, denying reality? There are harsh truths, things you wish were not the case. Okay? But they're truths. Do you want to know about them, or do you not want to know about them? If you want to make success, it’s practical to know about all those harsh realities — right? Know about the harsh realities — and then deal with the harsh realities.   00:17:40    The person who doesn’t want to go there is not going to make progress. The person who loves to know all what reality is — whatever it is — is going to know how to deal with reality in the best possible way — right? So what’s the fear? Unfortunately, we have — most people have not been raised with the notion that knowing what your weaknesses are is pleasurable. Pain is associated with bad, and pleasure is associated with good, and that’s not true.   00:18:19    That most — all growth — you can’t get stronger, physically or mentally, unless you’re having pain, because you’re stretching yourself. You’re going into a new level. So pain is good if you’re exercising — right? Like, go exercise at the gym. It starts off painful, but as you start to get going with it and you start to see the benefits of it and you start to change actually your brain physiology, in terms of what actually determines whether it’s painful or not, it becomes pleasurable.   00:18:54    So behavior modification usually takes place over about 18 months of doing something, and so you start to get into an environment where it’s pleasurable. And in our case, we call it getting to the other side. People come in and they originally — they look at this and they say, "Oh, I made a mistake. I feel pain about that," or, "I’m identifying some weakness, and I feel pain about that." And then, after doing it enough and seeing the feedback, then they begin to realize that it’s producing benefits to them, and they begin to like it, and they begin to worry about being in an environment that they won’t have that.   00:19:31     That, if they go into a normal environment, they’re going to have dishonesty. They’re going to have people seeing the same things, thinking the same things about them but not telling them. They won’t have an opportunity to have a discussion. They won’t know whether it’s truthful or not that they’re operating — so it will all be under the covers. So that’s the choice. Which environment would you rather be in? You have to decide for yourself.   00:19:56     ALICE WINKLER: Finance columnist Paul Farrell once called Ray Dalio the reincarnation of Ayn Rand, high priestess of individualism and the free market. Others have disparagingly compared his book of principles to Mao’s Little Red Book. But whatever you think of Dalio’s ideas and the way he runs his company, it’s kind of hard to argue with his success or his personal fortune. Dalio is a self-made multi-billionaire.   00:20:25     He comes from a perfectly middle class family on Long Island with a stay-at-home mom and a father who was a jazz musician. During the Academy of Achievement's interview with Dalio, he didn’t have a lot to say about his childhood. He wasn’t sure how his family life contributed to the person he would become. He remembers listening to his dad improvising and liking it, and he thinks that has probably something to do with his love of communication, but he felt sure there were more clues in his feelings about school.   00:20:57    RAY DALIO: I hated school. I really hated school. I hated school, generally, right, because it was this instruction-following thing. Now I bet you it’s probably also because I wasn’t good at it. I mean I suspect I wasn’t good at it. You know, maybe to some extent it was that, yes, I wanted to pursue the understanding. I always liked the understanding, but I think it was — I think I was just built that way — right?   00:21:23     So I did terribly in high school. I hated high school. I just wouldn’t study. You know, my mother would send me to my room and say, "You have to study," and I would be alone in the room. There would be — I'd find something to think about or do, and I wouldn’t study, and I did terrible in high school. And I barely got into a college that — C.W. Post College, which people — you know, it was just a great college for me at the time.   00:21:57     And it was only then that I could begin to pick my courses. So then I began to pick things that were interesting to me. And then it was exciting. I loved it. In college, there was freedom. I always loved freedom. I remember, when I got my car or whatever it would be, anything that brought me freedom I loved. And so college allowed me freedom, the freedom to choose the subjects, the ones that I was interested in, the freedom of time. And so I did very well in college, and then I went to Harvard Business School.   00:22:33     ALICE WINKLER: That summer, between college and business school, he was a clerk on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.   00:22:40    RAY DALIO: Which was in 1971, when there was the monetary system breakdown, which was an unbelievable experience, and it was — well, I was wrong many times in the markets up to that, but this was one of those really telling times. So imagine you're — I watched it and followed the developments day by day up until the breakdown. And what I was seeing is that the world financial system, money as we knew it — dollars — were not being accepted.   00:23:16    We had large debts around the world, and these dollars were not being accepted, and — a big crisis. And it came to a head on August 15, 1971, when I was clerking on the floor of the Exchange. President Nixon, on Sunday night, gets in front of the television and announces the floating of the dollar. In other words, we're going off the gold standard, and at that time, money had no value except as a claim against gold.    00:23:51     RICHARD NIXON: The strength of a nation's currency is based on the strength of that nation's economy, and the American economy is by far the strongest in the world. Accordingly, I have directed the Secretary of the Treasury to take the action necessary to defend the dollar against the speculators. I have directed Secretary Connally to suspend temporarily the convertibility of the dollar into gold or other reserve assets, except in amounts and conditions...   00:24:19    RAY DALIO: I figured, "Wow, what a shock!" And I walked onto the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, where I'm clerking, and I come there, and the stock market went up the most it ever went up in a long time, in many years, and I wasn't prepared for the fact that this was a currency devaluation. People at the time, none of us, really understood the relationships because it never happened in our lifetimes before.   00:24:48    So I started to do research. I always wanted to understand how it made sense, and I realized that there were currency devaluations that happened many times in history. So it was a pattern that I would see of surprise. We would be surprised because we were stuck in our presumption that our recent experiences were going to continue. Everything happens because there are causes to make it happen. Everything. Okay, now when I looked at each one of those and said, "That thing, did it ever happen before?" — and I went back in history, and I saw these things happening before for the same cause/effect relationships...   00:25:37    And then I realized that everything that happens is just another one of those — right? The same thing happens — it may be, I don't know, a birth, a marriage, an economic downturn. If you encounter any of those, they have all happened before, a deleveraging. There's a machine. Everything works like a machine, meaning there are cause/effect relationships.   00:26:03    ALICE WINKLER: Ray Dalio didn’t last long working at the Stock Exchange. By the time he was 26, he had launched Bridgewater Associates in his two-bedroom apartment.   00:26:17    RAY DALIO: I love to trade markets. I worked, you know, at a Wall Street firm — two Wall Street firms — for about two years. I got out of school in '73. And I had problems fitting into the organization, meaning, you know, I literally, you know, got into a fistfight with my boss because on New Year’s Eve we were drunk together and — you know, it's — it was that kind of — I was not a well-behaved employee, and working within an organization was not the right thing for me.   00:26:56    So it didn’t work out, and I always loved being independent. I didn't view it as starting a business. I just viewed it as, “I get to do what I like to do, which is to play the markets, and they’ll pay me to do that.” And then I did that, and then, of course, what happens over time is you need things. So I need people to work with, and besides, I love playing the game with people.   00:27:22    You know, and I get computers, and I get other things over a period of time, and it grows, and it became a company, but I never viewed it as a company. I really viewed it more like, "I’m doing this thing, and these are the things that I needed" — those people in that group — and then I just kept doing it, and the things I needed became the company.   00:27:45    ALICE WINKLER: As Bridgewater grew, Dalio moved it from his apartment to a townhouse and eventually from New York to Connecticut, where he and his wife wanted to raise their kids. And that’s where Bridgewater is today, in Westport, Connecticut, the number one most successful hedge fund firm, with 150 billion dollars in global investments. Their clients include foreign governments and central banks, pension funds, university endowments, and charitable foundations.   00:28:14    Ray Dalio says his understanding of what he calls the “economic machine” allowed him to predict the real estate debacle that brought on the financial crisis. During 2007, while most people were hemorrhaging, Bridgewater’s main fund delivered a 9-1/2% return. In 2011, that same fund went up 45%. As Dalio said, Bridgewater didn’t just “withstand” the crisis.   00:28:42    RAY DALIO: We anticipated it and profited by it. So in 2006 and '07, we could see that it was coming, because it’s another one of those, and it seemed very, very likely that that was going to happen. And as it was happening, there was a lack of understanding of it, and the reason that there was a reluctance to embrace this is, first of all, it was controversial, so it seemed improbable because it never happened before in their lifetimes. Right?   00:29:17    And then there was a certain amount of conventional wisdom that they — and there was not enough discussion. Quality discussion. Why might something that seemed so improbable be true? Right?              So we knew — you don’t know anything, but it seemed highly likely — and we then were positioned so that our clients did well in 2008.   00:29:48    ALICE WINKLER: Dalio’s advantage, he says, comes largely from Transcendental Meditation, something he’s been practicing since the late 1960s.   00:29:58    RAY DALIO: In 1968, the Beatles went to India to learn how to meditate, and then I heard quite a bit about it. It was in the media. It was interesting, and then I learned how to meditate, and it was definitely life-changing, probably more than anything. It had a bigger effect on my life than practically anything because it's basically open-mindedness. What happens is that open-mindedness creates where creativity comes from, because creativity is not coming from the “working the brain,” and the “I will work hard and think about it,” and that “I will muscle it through.”   00:30:40    It comes from this relaxation. It’s just like it’s an opening up and, you know — take a hot shower and don’t be thinking of something, and some great idea comes through, and you grab the great idea. So meditation is very much like that. It opens the mind, creates an openness, a freedom that's — in which that, I don’t know whether we would say an intuition or those — that creativity just kind of comes through. And it creates an equanimity that, in other words, you could step back, and you can put things in perspective.   00:31:14    It doesn’t lessen your emotions. The emotions are the same, but you can step back and say, "I’m not going to be controlled by that emotion, or let me put things" — and I think it then helps to see things at a higher level. And it's what I do. I love being creative. I love, right — I go there and I encounter — the markets are just a medium. It’s just my instrument. Right?   00:31:41    It’s a vehicle, so in many ways I’ve invented many different investment concepts that have never been invented before because they just made sense — right? So it’s not just the making the money and the game as it’s structured. It’s inventing how the game should be played. That’s fun. That’s interesting. It’s just a natural extension of that. So that’s my instrument. The markets are my instrument. Somebody else might have — medicine might be somebody else’s instrument. You know, computer technology is somebody else’s medium.   00:32:17    ALICE WINKLER: And believe it or not, Ray Dalio says that making all that money is not the reward for playing his instrument well. Here's how he explained it in a speech he gave to students at the Academy of Achievement in 2012, the same year he sat for the interview you’ve been listening to.   00:32:37    RAY DALIO: I look at it mostly like, supposing I want to have a great life, and a great life is on the other side of a jungle, and I have to get to the other side of the jungle in order to have a great life. But in that jungle there are all sorts of deadly animals and things that can kill me. If I stay on this side of the great jungle, I'll have an ordinary life. If I get to the other side, I'll have a great — how should you approach that?   00:33:06    How do I approach that? I enter that with other people with whom I have relationships. For me, the most important thing is meaningful work and meaningful relationships, so that's our work. We go into that jungle, and they have different sets of eyes, all looking out for all of the different things that can bite you. And you go through that jungle that way, and you will get bit — I have been bit.   00:33:34    I have been hurt, but you continue on, and then you begin to realize that what's great is not the other side of the jungle but going through the jungle and doing that — pursuing your mission.   00:33:53    ALICE WINKLER: Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates. I'm Alice Winkler, and I am going off to work on my radical honesty. You've been listening to What It Takes.   00:34:09     Thanks to the Catherine B. Reynolds Foundation for making What It Takes possible.   END OF FILE

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English @ the Movies: 'Act Out'

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Trump Denies Insulting Term at White House Meeting

President Donald Trump has denied that he used an offensive term to describe African nations and Haiti during a White House meeting. American news media reported on Thursday that Trump used the term at talks on a U.S. immigration policy known as DACA. The media include The Washington Post and The New York Times newspapers and broadcaster CNN. DACA is short for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals. It is meant for individuals who moved to the United States illegally before the age of 16. Under the policy, those immigrants are guaranteed protection and not at risk of expulsion from the country. Media reports said Trump used the offensive term when Senators Dick Durbin and Lindsey Graham reported to him on a newly-written immigration bill. Trump reportedly asked, “Why are we having all these people from s---hole countries come here.” The term suggests dirty or very poor. The president added that the U.S. government should accept more people from countries like Norway. Trump had met with the Norwegian prime minister on Wednesday. Asked about the comments, White House spokesman Raj Shah did not deny them. “Certain Washington politicians choose to fight for foreign countries, but President Trump will always fight for the American people,” he said. In a tweet Friday morning, Trump suggested that he did not use the insulting term. He wrote, “The language used by me at the DACA meeting was tough, but this was not the language used. What was really tough was the outlandish proposal made - a big setback for DACA!” Trump later added, “Never said anything derogatory about Haitians other than Haiti is, obviously, a very poor and troubled country. Never said ‘take them out.’ Made up by Dems. I have a wonderful relationship with Haitians. Probably should record future meetings – unfortunately, no trust!” Senator Durbin, a member of the Democratic Party, was at the White House meeting on Thursday. The senator spoke with reporters on Friday in Chicago, Illinois. When asked what Trump had said in the meeting, Durbin said, "I cannot believe that in the history of the White House and of that Oval Office, any president has ever spoken the words that I personally heard our president speak yesterday. You've seen the comments in the press. I have not read one of them that's inaccurate." Reactions from Africa The African Union (AU) told the Associated Press it was “frankly alarmed” by Trump’s comment. A spokesman for the AU said, “This is particularly surprising as the United States of America remains a global example of how migration gave birth to a nation built on strong values of diversity and opportunity.” The government in Botswana called Trump’s comment “reprehensible and racist.” South Africa’s ruling African National Congress said his comment is “extremely offensive.” Some African governments found themselves in a difficult position. Since they are receiving American aid, they were slow to criticize the president’s comment. “Unless it was specifically said about South Sudan, we have nothing to say,” a spokesman for South Sudan told the Associated Press. Sylvester Odion Akhaine teaches international relations at the Lagos State University in Nigeria. He said Trump’s comment “not only insulted Africans, he has also insulted African-Americans.” United Nations official Rupert Colville added “These are shocking and shameful comments from the President of the United States. There is no other word one can use but ‘racist’.” Reactions in the U.S. U.S. Congressman Steny Hoyer, a Democrat, said “President Trump’s comments are racist and a disgrace.” But Democrats were not the only ones objected. Like Trump, Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida is a member of the Republican Party. She said "It's incomprehensible that these words came out of the mouth of the president of the United States of America, a country that was founded on being free from discrimination and treating people fairly and having people come here, the land of the free." Another Republican, Representative Mia Love of Utah, is a child of Haitian immigrants. She said “This behavior is unacceptable from the leader of our nation.” And she called on Trump to apologize to the American people. Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, also a Republican, said he wanted more details of the president’s comments. "Part of what makes America so special is that we welcome the best and brightest in the world, regardless of their country of origin," Hatch added.   Hai Do adapted this story for VOA Learning English based on AP, Reuters and VOA news reports. George Grow was the editor.    

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Can You Correct 'Her and I?'

  On March 5,  Jazmine Hughes wrote in a New York Times blog, “Recently, at an IRL party — that is, a party that takes place ‘in real life,’ as opposed to where I generally live, which is on the Internet — a guest asked a friend and I how we met.” The sentence includes a common error I have been seeing and hearing more and more often lately. The error is using the subject pronoun “I” when the object pronoun “me” should be used. Even President Obama can be heard using “I” for the object of a sentence. At his first press conference, on November 7, 2008, he spoke about being invited to tour the White House. “Well, President Bush graciously invited Michelle and I to -- to meet with him and First Lady Laura Bush.” The rule for object pronouns English has eight subject pronouns: I, you, he, she, it, we, you and they. Subject pronouns show the actor in a sentence. For example, in the sentence “I speak English,” “I” is the actor.   English also has eight object pronouns: me, you, him, her, it, us, you and them. We use an object pronoun to show the receiver of the action in a sentence, as in “She gave the book to me.” In that sentence, “me” is the receiver. People often confuse subject pronouns and object pronouns in sentences with two receivers. Take the sentence “President Obama gave an award to my brother and me.” We can easily see the need for an object pronoun because of the preposition “to.” But some sentences do not have prepositions, as in “Obama asked my brother and me some questions.” The sentence still needs the object pronoun “me.” However, some people might want to say “Obama asked my brother and I some questions.” You know that sentence has a grammar error because “I” is not an object pronoun. Why people say “I” instead of “me” I think the confusion about “I” and “me” comes from instruction we get as children: to be polite. When we mention ourselves and another person in a sentence, we are told to put the other person first. For example, we might be reminded to say, “My brother and I went to the White House.” Saying “I and my brother went to the White House” is grammatically correct but would sound impolite, or rude. So, English speakers who are faced with two people in the object position in a sentence often grab for the phrase “someone and I.” They do not notice the phrase is grammatically incorrect. It just sounds more polite. Another theory about the “I” or “me” error comes from a 2009 New York Times article “The I’s Have It.” Writers Patricia T. O’Conner and Stewart Kellerman guess that people correct children who use “me” instead of “I” so much, the children grow up using “I” even when it is wrong. They explain the term for this linguistic phenomenon is “hypercorrection.”  Back to Ms. Hughes, her party and the New York Times blog. Her sentence should be re-written as “…a guest asked a friend and me how we met.” Shortly after I called the error to the newspaper's attention, the sentence was corrected in this way. A simple way to check for the correct pronoun in a case like this is mentally to eliminate the second person. Try saying in your head “A guest asked me how we met,” or, “A guest asked a friend how we met.” That simple check makes choosing the correct pronoun easier. Now you will always know the right pronoun to use – take it from me! I’m Jill Robbins.   Dr. Jill Robbins wrote this story for VOA Learning English. Kelly Jean Kelly was the editor. _______________________________________________________________ Words in This Story   error - n. something that is not correct; a wrong action or statement; mistake instruction - n. the action or process of teaching : the act of instructing someone phenomenon - n. something (such as an interesting fact or event) that can be observed and studied and that typically is unusual or difficult to understand or explain fully hypercorrection – n. the mistaken use of a word form or pronunciation based on a false analogy with a correct or prestigious form​ Now it’s your turn. In the comments section, tell us about your own grammar gripes. What do people say in your language that bothers you?  

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