and this is va1 the [Music] hits welcome to learning English a daily 30 minute program from The Voice of America I'm Ashley Thompson and I'm Dan no this program is designed for English Learners so we speak a little slower and we use words and phrases especially written for people learning English on today's program Ana Mato has a story on Vietnamese leaving the meong Delta to find jobs in cities Gregory stle brings us the health and lifestyle report on a new way to fight brain cancer later Andre
w Smith and Jill Robbins present the lesson of the day but first 11-year-old twin Dal Balan and her brother dong Chung live on a houseboat in Vietnam's mikong Delta but their dreams take them far away Chan loves K-pop she watches videos at night to learn Korean and would love to visit Soul her brother Chung wants to be a singer but he says their hopes are unrealistic he adds I know I'll end up going to the city to try and make a living Chong sees the reality around him climate change is making t
he Mong Delta one of the most at risk areas in the world a United Nations Climate Change Report in 2022 warned that there will be more floods in the wet season and drought in the dry season farming is getting harder with the loss of land due to the rising sea and the loss of water from dams on the river Upstream the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry reported that the areas share of Vietnam's gross domestic product or GDP has dropped from 27% in 1990 to less than 18% in 2019 factory jobs i
n the city offer better wages therefore the call of the city is often hard to ignore for the 17 million who live in the Delta that is what doka the single mother mother of the twins did soon after her children were born Kaa left the mikong Delta to find work in hoim Min City she left the children to live with her mother when on a small houseboat ever since TW sells meat and bean buns at Kyan floating Market the largest of its kind in the mikong delta on good days she makes about $4 hardly enough
to feed her grandchildren the twins have already missed two years of school because their grandmother could not pay the costs their mother was struggling in the city and could not help either now their houseboat is in urgent need of costly repairs the storms are becoming more violent said the grandmother with heavy rains she must pump out water so her houseboat does not sink moving away from the meong to bigger cities or even to other countries for a better life is not new Mimi Vu is a migratio
n expert based in hoochi Min City climate change she said has hurt livelihoods in the meong Delta the area is less developed than other parts of Vietnam and lacks access to education clean water and health care every generation still struggles Vu said and moving to the city does not guarantee anything the mother of the twins found a job in a clothing Factory in hoochi Min City she also got married and had a baby but like thousands of workers in Vietnam both she and her husband lost their jobs be
cause of low overseas orders they have since moved back to his home Village my family is poor War so I don't think too far ahead I just hope my children can receive a full education she said Vietnam's government has approved a plan to strengthen the Mong area's agricultural economy it produces about half the country's rice and feeds other countries like Indonesia and the Philippines the plan includes trying new farming Technologies creating more Fisheries growing fruits and building airports and
highways to bring foreign investment but moving to hoochi Min City is hard to resist for many especially the young even those in the countryside see moving to the city as the fastest way out of poverty said 23-year-old Chung hu he shares a living space with another young man from the Delta after 12 hours of making Parts in a factory he works a second job transporting people on his motorcycle Hugh wanted to be a teacher but his family had to choose whether to send him to college or let his young
er sister finish school he chose to move to the city so that he could send money back home my sister is doing well in school I'm very happy he said I'm Ana [Music] mato [Music] [Music] [Music] a new way to fight an extremely aggressive kind of brain tumor is showing promise in two experiments with a small number of patients for the experiments scientists took patients own immune cells and turned them into living drugs that can find and attack the tumor called gleo blastoma researchers have repor
ted that in early tests the immune cells have made the tumors temporarily smaller the treatment is called car te therapy doctors already use the treatment to fight blood related cancers like leukemia but researchers have struggled to make car T therapy work for solid tumors now separate teams at both Massachusetts General Hospital and the University of Pennsylvania are developing Next Generation car T therapy treatments they are designed to get passed some of gleo blast's defenses University of
Pennsylvan Dr Steven baggley LED one of the studies he warned it's very early days but he added we're optimistic that we've got something to build on here gleo blastoma is the brain cancer that killed US President Joe Biden's son Bo Biden it also took the life of longtime Arizona Senator John McCain Cleo blastoma is fast growing and hard to treat patients usually live 12 to 18 months after diagnosis even after many years of research there are few options if the cancer returns after treatments a
kind of cell in the immune system called tea cells fight disease but cancer has ways to hide with car T therapy doctors genetically change a patient's own tea cells so they can better find different cancer cells but solid tumors like gleo blastoma have an additional difficulty they contain mixtures of cancer cells with different mutations targeting just one kind still means the other kinds can keep growing the teams at Massachusetts General Hospital and University of Pennsylvania each developed
a therapy with two different methods they tried them in patients whose tumors returned after usual treatment at Massachusetts General Hospital Dr Marcel moss and her team combined car t with te- cell engaging antibody molecules t- cell engaging antibody molecules are molecules that can attract nearby regular tea cells to join in the cancer attack the result called car team targets a protein called egfr egfr is found in most gleo blastomas but not in normal brain tissue the University of Pennsylv
ania's method was was to create a two target carti therapy it hunts for both the egfr Protein Plus a second protein found in many Cleo blastomas both teams administered the treatment through a medical device called a catheter into the fluid that surrounds the brain Massachusetts General Hospital tested three patients with its car team therapy brain Imaging a day or two later showed their tumors were quickly becoming smaller the researchers reported their findings in the publication the New Engla
nd Journal of Medicine Moss said none of us could really believe it two of the patients to tumors began to regrow soon a second treatment given to one of them did not work but one patient's response to the experimental treatment lasted more than 6 months University of Pennsylvania researchers reported their findings in the publication nature medicine they similarly found found that in the first six patients given its therapy tumors got smaller while some came back quickly baggley said one patien
t treated last August still has not had any regrowth for both teams the goal is to see longer lasting results baggley said none of this is going going to matter if it doesn't last I'm Gregory [Music] stle Gregory stle is here now to talk more about his health report thanks for joining me Greg thanks for having me Dan this week's report looked at two studies that showed promise on a new way to treat brain cancer we learned that the studies showed signs of smaller brain tumors you use the term the
rapy to describe the treatment can you tell us more about what therapy is sure Dan so a therapy is a treatment whose goal is to improve or heal a disorder it is often used with mental health treatment in mental health therapy a patient speaks with a specialist that works to help improve the patient's mental health but in the case of this study the therapy is actually chemicals that were administered to the patients could you tell us about different treatments that might use the term therapy so w
e already talked about mental health therapy and this story deals with medication therapy the treatment in this story is called a therapy but it is a treatment where chemicals or medications are given there are other therapies as well other therapies include physical therapy occupational therapy and speech therapy Physical Therapy teaches people how to regain or improve the use of a part of the body occupational therapy helps people do everyday actions like bathing or getting in and out of bed a
nd speech therapy helps people improve the way they speak all right thanks again for joining me today Greg you're [Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome [Music] [Applause] [Music] vaa learning English has launched a new program for children it is called let's learn English with Anna the new course aims to teach children American English through asking and answering questions and experiencing fun situations for more information visit our website learning english. voanews.com [Music] hello my name is
Anna Mato and my name is Jill Robbins and I'm Andrew Smith you're listening to the learning English podcast welcome to the part of the show where we help you do more with our series let's learn English the series shows Anna Mato in her work and life in Washington DC people all over the world like to talk about the weather don't they Jill they do it's an important part of daily life you know what else people like to talk about what's that other people that's true and they like watching them too i
n lesson 15 of let's learn English Anna gets to enjoy some nice weather and watch all kinds of people walk by let's listen hello people from all over the world come to Washington DC when I'm at work I love eating lunch outside I like to watch people walking by they all look very different today my friend Ashley is eating lunch with me Ashley today the weather is beautiful isn't it yes it is oh we have to return to work no we have time let's people watch a little more it helps that Anna lives in
Washington DC doesn't it yeah sure does she can see people from many different countries almost every day in lesson 15 it also helps that the weather is nice she mentions it to her friend Ashley and then Anna's boss Miss Weaver mentions it to Anna Ashley today the weather is beautiful isn't it yes it is it's a beautiful day isn't it yes yes it is Miss Weaver I noticed that each of them used a tag question when they asked about the weather didn't they that's right they did and I think we should e
xplain a bit about this I do too okay for example let's say that it is a sunny and beautiful day if I say to Jill it's a nice day Jill would agree I can agree by saying something like yes it sure is so Jill agrees with me tag questions basically ask if the listener agrees with the speaker so if I say it's a nice day isn't it I'm asking Jill if she agrees that it's a nice day so my answer would be the same as before because I agree I could just say yes it is but if I want to stress how nice it is
I might say it sure is Tag questions might be confusing for some Learners if they try to get the meaning based on the exact words spoken when I say isn't it which is the shortened form of is it not the word not can be confusing because in a tag question it actually means something different from not yep the tag question really means the same thing as adding the short question right that's true you can also think about it this way if I say isn't it at the end of a sentence I'm really saying is t
his in fact true so listen to these two examples example one this restaurant is really good is this in fact true example two this restaurant is really good isn't it example one and example two mean the exact same thing the speaker wants to know if the listener agrees with the idea that the resturant is in fact good you're listening to the learning English podcast we also use Tag questions with the auxiliary do don't we Jill yes we do let's give our listeners some more examples of Tag questions b
ut with different forms of the verbs okay I'll start you like teaching English don't you yes I do that Professor talks a lot doesn't she yeah she sure does that was a great concert wasn't it yeah it sure was we don't have to work tomorrow do we no we don't in this example the tag or end of my question was simply do we the not was put in the first part of the question when I said we don't have to work tomorrow the not goes at the end tag for positive statements like the weather is nice isn't it a
nd in the beginning part for negative statements and there is another case we should explain if we are not asking if someone agrees like about the nice weather but instead are really trying to confirm if something is in fact true then we usually put the not into the first part of the question and there is no tag at the end all right let's give an example I can say doesn't Michael work in California that means Andrew thinks Michael does in fact work in California but he is asking to check doesn't
Michael work in California means is it in fact the case that Michael Works in California okay by now I think we've explained enough about Tag questions don't you yes indeed but what about people watching Anna likes to do that and so does her boss Miss Weaver they just look at people for a brief moment they don't really stare at them that would be rude wouldn't it in general that would be rude rude especially if the people are close by so we usually just look at a person for a few moments but it
does depend on the distance is people watching something you like to do too Andrew um yeah sometimes especially in places like airports or tourist areas like Washington where there are a mix of people from different areas and I think that when you really really know a culture deeply you can make some good guesses about what country or even what area of a country people are from sometimes just based on their clothes that's true you are more aware of small details uh for example I spent some time
in France and I can often notice if someone is from France just by some very small details in clothing and the way they walk and move their body I don't even have to hear them speak that's because you've seen more details of French culture yes but on the other hand I think we all need to be careful not to jump to conclusions about other people just based on the way they look especially if that leads you to stereotype or overgeneralize about other people each person has their own individual stor
y to tell you know this is a big deep topic that I think is worth a longer discussion why don't we continue with this in another learning English podcast soon I think that's a good idea there is a lot to talk about Oh but before we go I just thought of another really good place to people watch what's that it rhymes with the number two H it rhymes with two the Zoo yes sometimes I think it's more fun to watch the people watching the animals than to watch the animals themselves I think you're right
but you know that's kind of a tricky sentence you just said let's play it again for our listeners let's play it four times okay here we go okay but before we do here's something our listeners can try after you hear the sentence the first time try to speak along with the sentence the next three times the sentence repeats or try to write down what you hear and then play it again and try to repeat it here's the sentence sometimes I think it's more fun to watch the people watching the animals than
to watch the animals themselves sometimes I think it's more fun to watch the people watching the animals than to watch the animals themselves sometimes I think it's more fun to watch the people watching the animals than to watch the animals themselves sometimes I think it's more fun to watch the people watching the animals than to watch the animals themselves well like we said there's lots more we could say about people watching in cultures so listen for that discussion in another learning Engli
sh podcast soon and be sure to keep learning English with VA learning English I'm Jill Robbins and I'm Andrew [Music] Smith [Music] and that's our program for today join us again tomorrow to keep learning English through stories from around the world I'm Ashley Thompson and I'm Dan [Music] Novak
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