Do you prefer late night
or early mornings. One of those choices could be bad
for your health. This is News Review from BBC Learning English. I'm Neil... And I'm Sian. Make sure you watch to the end to
learn vocabulary, about today's story. And don't forget
to subscribe to our channel, 'like' this video
and try the quiz on our website. Now, our story. Staying up late into the night.
For some people, it's just the way
they prefer to live. But it may be affecting their health. New research from th
e US found that night owls may be more likely to
develop heart disease and diabetes. It's because people who get up early,
burn fat for energy more easily. You have been looking
at the headlines, Sian, what's the vocabulary? We have 'night owl', 'chronic' and 'prone to'. This is News Review from BBC Learning English. Let's have a look at our first headline. OK, this one is from Sky News. So, the headline asks
what kind of sleep pattern you have? Do you prefer to stay up late? Or, do you like get
ting up early? And
there are two expressions in there for those two situations. What are they? OK, so the one we're going to look at is 'night owl'.
What can you tell me about owls, Neil? Well, owls are a type of bird
and they stay up late. They stay up all night
and they are very active at night. That's when they do their work,
which is hunting in this case. Exactly. And so we call people
who stay up late 'night owls'. It means they stay up late, but also they are mentally
or physically active
at night. What about the opposite Neil? Well, we can also see in the
headline the expression. 'early bird' which comes from the saying
'the early bird catches the worm'. And it describes someone who likes
to get up early. There are other ways
of saying that as well. You can call someone 'an early riser'
or 'a morning person'. Which one are you, Sian? I used to be a night owl
and I think, naturally, I'm a night owl,
but I wanna be a morning person, so I've made myself become one.
How about you? W
ell the same. I like staying up late,
but it's never a good idea. Let's have a look at that again. Let's have our next headline. This one is from CNN: The headline is saying
that night owls - that's the expression we just looked at - are
at a higher risk of developing chronic diseases. And
that's the word we're looking at - 'chronic'. And if we use 'chronic' to
describe an illness It means it's long lasting, so it doesn't go away. For example,
if I hurt my back in an accident and the pain lasts
forever, I can say I have chronic pain
or a chronic backache. Yeah, and in a medical sense
the opposite of that is 'acute'. So, if you hurt your back, but you get better
after a couple of weeks, that is not chronic pain, that is acute pain. We use this word, though, chronic, for more than just illnesses,
don't we Sian? That's right. We can use it to describe situations
which are long lasting and bad. So, for example, we can talk
about chronic unemployment, or we can say there is
a chronic shorta
ge of doctors. Yeah, and as you said that is for
bad situations and in fact, in slang, you can use the word 'chronic' on its own just to mean bad.
So, for example, did you see that new detective
drama on TV? It was chronic!
Acting was terrible. And one more thing to note
about the pronunciation, so the spelling and pronunciation,
are a bit tricky. Normally, when we see c-h it's pronounced 'ch' like cheese. But here it's 'k', so 'chronic'. Let's take a look at that one more
time. Our next headlin
e, please. This one's from the Guardian. So, in this headline we see that word 'night owls' again, and it's saying
that people who stay up late, are more likely
to develop diseases and we're looking at the expression 'prone to'. That's right. So, if you're
prone to something it means you are likely
to be affected by something bad. So, for example. smokers are prone to lung disease
or professional footballers are prone to leg injuries. So, the structure is 'prone
to' followed by something bad. Ye
ah, and we also use this expression
'prone to' to describe certain negative types of behaviour
that people have in their personality. So, for example, if someone
doesn't tell the truth a lot, We can say they are prone to lying. Or someone that exaggerates a lot,
can be prone to exaggeration. And we have another phrase which is
'accident prone'. So, if someone is accident prone then
they tend to have a lot of accidents. Yeah, but be careful, you can't just create
an adjective like that by adding
'prone' at the
end. Accident prone is a set expression. We wouldn't say, 'lying prone'. OK, let's have a look at that again. We've had 'night owls',
people who stay up late and are active at night. 'Chronic' - it's bad and it lasts a long time. And 'prone to' - likely
to be affected by something bad. Don't forget there's a quiz on our
website at bbclearningenglish.com Thank you for joining us and goodbye. Goodbye.
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