Learn English with the News | Robotaxi Expansion in San Francisco (FREE PDF)

Welcome back to JForrest English. I'm Jennifer, and today we're going to read a news article together so you can become fluent in English. Let's get started. 1st I'll read the headline Robo Taxi Expansion Gets Green Light in San Francisco, So we're talking about. Robo. Taxis autonomous. Vehicles. Selfdriving vehicles. So a selfdriving taxi. Have you ever been in a selfdriving vehicle? I have not. So let's talk about this the. Expansion gets green light. It's appropriate that they. Use this idiom

. This is an idiom in English. I will explain what it means in just a second. But it's appropriate they. Use this idiom because we're talking about vehicles. And vehicles obviously use. Green light yellow. Right light red light frequently. So it's very. Appropriate they use this. Idiom. Now, what does this mean? The green light in this idiom simply means. Approval so the robo. Taxi expansion. Gets approval. Now notice here they omitted. The article. The the idiom is. To get. The green light. In

newspaper headlines, they commonly omit articles to make the headline as. Short as possible. But grad grammatically. It is required so the. Idiom is to. The green light from someone to do something so you can think of. It as approval or? Permission both of them. Have the same meaning. For example, I got the green light from my boss to attend the conference. So the verb is get. You need to conjugate that. This is the past simple. I got the green light remember from someone. To do. Something from

my boss to attend the conference, which means I got approval from my boss to attend the conference. Now don't worry about taking notes because I summarize everything in a free lesson PDF. You can look for the link in the description. Let's continue. Two, Robo. Taxi companies have been given the green light so notice. Here because. It's no longer the headline. They use the correct grammatical structure. And notice. Here that it's to. Be given. To be. Given the green light, so the companies. Were.

Have been given, which means. They've received approval. So you can. Give the. Green light to someone to do something. Let's. Review these three. So this is the sentence. I provided above. I got the green light from my boss to attend the conference. Now I could. Talk about my boss giving me the green light. To do so. Something in this case, I'm talking about receiving approval. In this example, I'm talking about my boss giving approval. My boss gave me the green light to attend the conference.

Or I could also use the structure to. Be given. I've been given the green light to attend the conference Different grammatical. They all communicate the same thing. Approval permission. Two robo taxi companies have been given the green light to start charging for service throughout San Francisco. The move marks a major expansion. Let's take a look at this. To mark a major expansion. Mark. Is a verb. To mark and when something the move marks something else. A major expansion is simply represents

that something has happened. So this the. Move represents that this has happened. For example today. Marks our first. Wedding anniversary. So today represents that something has happened, that our first wedding anniversary has happened, so something marks. Something and we. Usually use. This with significant events. Like a birthday. Anniversary or a national celebration or holiday or an important world event. Like. This major expansion of. Selfless, selfless driving. Self driving cars. Driving c

ars autonomous. Vehicles. The move marks a major expansion for the companies. Which previously faced. Limits on when or. Where they could charge for rides. When you. Charge for. Something it means you require that someone. Pay for something. So you can charge someone. Charge the passengers for. Rides, but you don't need to include. The someone if it's. Obvious, obviously. They're charging the. People who are. Using the service so you don't need to say that to. Charge for rides to require. That t

he passengers pay. For rides. Before we move on, I just want to ask, are you enjoying this lesson? Do you enjoy learning English with the news? If you do, then I want to tell you about the Finally Fluent Academy. YouTube. This is my premium training program where we study native English speakers on TV. And the news so you can improve your listening skills of fast English and add. All of these. Advanced expressions. Using correct advanced grammar. To your speech. To help you sound like a fluent,

advanced English speaker, and you'll have me as your personal coach, so you can look for the link to join in the description, let's continue on. Approval from regulators came despite objections, so remember approval. This represents our idiom, the green light. So you could say the. Green light from regulators came despite objections from police and fire officials, activists and others thinking about our other sentence structures. You could say the regulators gave. Them. Them meaning the robo tax

i companies. The regulators gave. Them the green light. Objections from police. So that would be. Said another way, but they have the same meaning and I forgot the. Word Light. So I. Added that in here because it's the green. Light this is. The expression that represents. Approval, so approval. From regulators came despite objections from police and fire officials, activists and others. All of these groups. So this means that these. Had objections but. They still gave. Them the green light. They

still gave them approval. Analysts say the decision could usher in a new. Era for driverless car services Let's take a look at this to. Usher in the phrasal. Verb here is to usher. This is our verb. To usher something. In and in this case the something is a new. Era for driverless car services. All of this. Represents the something. When you usher something in is simply means you welcome something or you signal the beginning of something and that something is usually an important event. So in t

he world. Because. Right now. Driverless cars, autonomous vehicles are not very common. This is. An important event. For the world, for the. Economy so we can usher in this new. Era of driverless car services. Another. Important event that many. People usher. In welcome is the new year and most. People celebrate. The new year. So you could use this phrasal verb. To indicate how? Welcome the New Year. How you celebrate. The New Year. We ushered in the new year by celebrating with friends. Waimo.

Which shares a. Parent company with Google. So somehow, Waimo. Is related to. Google and Waimo has been offering free rides in ITS. Driverless cars? Since last year called the decision the true beginning of our commercial operations in San Francisco. So why Mo is one of the robo taxi companies? So obviously they're. Going to be very positive about getting the green light. So remember why MO as the company, They're the ones receiving approval. So you would say? Why Mo got the green light? To. The

ir robo taxi. I'll write that for you. So I wrote that for you. Here, why Mo got the green light to expand the robo taxi operations. Now notice here they said they've been offering free rides. And remember. Before, I said. They can now. Start charging. So when you charge, you require someone to pay. When something is free, they don't have to pay. So let's say you you flag. Down one of the taxis and you can say, oh, how much is it? And they could say, oh, it's free or. There's no charge if someon

e says oh. There's no charge, no charge. It's another way of saying it's. I wrote that here. For you, how much is it? It's free. This is the same as saying there's no charge. Driverless car services have. Slow to live. Up to the promises of transforming transport that accompanied the start of their development more than a decade. OK, so. This. Suggests that a decade ago. When the. Driverless car services. Began when they. Developed, they said. We. Will transform the transport industry, but they

haven't done that this. What is what it means by they've been? Slow to live up to the. So of course you know what slow means. It hasn't happened quickly. Let's talk about. Live up to the. To live up to. The promises. This means to fulfill the promises. Up to the promises, it means you fulfilled them. So if you do. And if you don't live up to the promises, which? Is what they're. Suggesting here it means you don't fulfill the promises. Now we also. Use this. Expression with expectations. To live

up. To something very commonly promises and expectations. Now if you. Live up to. It means it's as good as the expectation. The expectation is what you think is going to happen. So let's. Say you're going to a new movie. The Barbie Movie. Or Oppenheimer and everyone says the movie is amazing, so your expectation is. So if you say. The movie lived up to my expectation. It means. It was as good as you were. Expecting and remember you were expecting it to be good. You could also say it. Exceeded my

expectations. So that means it was better than you expected, but if. You say. It didn't live up to my expectations. It means. It was worse. Than you were expecting, so here the movie was. But it didn't live up to my expectations. Because remember. You thought the movie? Was going to be amazing. So your expectation was here, but then the movie was just. Here so it. Didn't live up to your expectations. And. Hopefully you always. Live up to. Your promises, which means you. Your promises, if you. S

ay you're going to do something, You live up to that you. Do it so driverless car services? Have been slow to. Live up. To the promises of transforming transport that accompanied the. Start of their. Development more than a. Decade ago. They have been bogged down by technology. OK, let's looked at. Let's look at. Bogged down by and. Also glitches. A glitch is a. Problem or error and we usually. Use this with. Technology. Technology glitches in this case because it's plural problems. Or errors. N

ow when something. Bogs. Something else down? It means that something. Like the glitches. Prevent someone or something from progressing. So this means that the. Glitches the errors the. Problems are preventing the companies from progressing with their project. So they. Have been bogged down. It's just written in the passive form the companies the robo taxi companies have been bogged down by. These glitches. Have been prevented from progressing by. These glitches. Not just the. There's also safet

y fears. And high. Accidents. Involving vehicles if something is. Described as high profile. Here the noun is accident and the adjective. Is high profile. A high profile accident is an accident that gets a lot of attention. So a high profile issue, A high profile. Person is an issue or person that gets a lot of attention. I wrote that down here. Now let's continue. The California Public Utilities Commission had twice postponed the vote. When you postpone something, it means you delay something.

So if the vote was to take place. On August. 1st but it was. It means it. Was rescheduled to a date after August 1st. It could have been August 2nd. It could have. Just been postponed for one day, one week, one month, one year. We don't know how long is just. Later. Than scheduled so. Postponed. Delayed. The vote? And on Thursday heard more than. Six hours of. Testimony from the public. Including supporters and critics. So testimony. This is. Simply the opinions. The expertise. The thoughts? Of

the public related to this specific issue of. Approving or denying. The Robo. Taxi expansion. So they heard it from both supporters, people who say yes, I. The Robo Taxi. Companies to expand and then critics, those who say no, I don't want that to. Happen the board. This is the board. The California Public Utilities Commission, that is. The board approved. The expansion. 3:00 to. So three people said yes, I approve. One person said no, I don't approve. So there were four. People in total on this

board. Let's continue. Critics People who? Oppose the expansion. Critics. Raised concerns about. Records and claimed the cars often caused traffic incidents by abruptly shutting down. When something shuts down, it stops operating and if it happens abruptly, it means it happens quickly and also without any warning. Let's look at this example. The glitches. Remember this was errors or problems. The glitches. Caused my computer. To abruptly shut. So to stop. Stop operating. And it happened very. Q

uickly without. Any warning, you were typing a document and then all of a sudden your computer turned off. That would be abruptly. Shutting down. Then you could say I'm still waiting on the green light from my boss to buy a new one. Because your boss has to give you. The green light to buy a new computer because the company is paying for that computer. Let's continue in the statement announcing the approval, commissioners acknowledge. That data. On how autonomous. Vehicle safety records. With re

gular cars. Was limited. So they approved it. The commissioners. Are the people. On this board, the Commission. California Public Utilities Commission. This is the board and this word Commission, that's where the word commissioners people who are on the board. People who are part of the. That's where that comes from. So these people, the four people. Even though they. Approved the. They gave it the green light, they acknowledge. They said publicly. That they don't have. Data on the. Safety of th

e Robo taxis compared to a regular. But. Clearly that did not prevent them from giving the green light and that's the end of our article. So I have a question for you. Do you give me the green light to make more videos? Just like this. One If so, then you can put in the comments section. Of course I want you. Jennifer, I give you the green light to make more. To practice this. Expression, which is why I want you to leave this in the comments and I also want to see. If you like this video, South.

If you give me the green light, then I know that you like. This video. And you want me to keep making more videos? Just. Like this one. If this is too long for you to write, I understand you could also just Simply put. Green light in the. Comments section so I know you want me to make more videos just like this one, so put that. In the comments only if you approve, of course. Now that's the end of the article, So what I'll do is I'll. Go to the beginning. I'll read the article from start to fin

ish, and this time you can focus on my pronunciation. Robo Taxi Expansion gets Green Light in San Francisco. Two, Robo. Taxi companies have been given the green light to start charging for service throughout San Francisco. The move marks a major expansion for the companies which previously faced. Limits on when or where they could charge for. Rides approval from regulators came despite objections from police and fire officials, activists and others. Analysts say the decision could usher in a new

era for driverless car services. Why? Mo, which shares a parent company with Google and has been offering free rides in his driverless cars. Since last year called the decision the true. Beginning of our commercial operations in San Francisco, driverless car services. Have been. Slow to live. Up to the promises of transforming transport that accompanied the start of their. Development more than a decade ago. They have been bogged down by technology glitches. Safety fears and highprofile acciden

ts involving vehicles. The California Public Utilities Commission had twice postponed the vote. And on Thursday heard more than six hours of. Testimony from the public, including supporters and critics, the board approved the. Expansion 3 to 1. Critics raised concerns about safety records. And claimed the cars often caused traffic incidents by abruptly shutting down or failing to make way for emergency responders. In the statement announcing the approval, commissioners acknowledged that data on

how autonomous vehicle safety. Records compare with regular cars. Was limited. So are you. Going to give me the green light to make more videos just like this. If so, put green light in the comments below, green light in the comments below, and make sure you get this free speaking guide where I share 6 tips on how to speak English fluently and confidently. You can click. Here to download it or look for the link in the description and why don't you get started with your next? Lesson right now.