Nan's story

I think it is. I asked you, " How old do scientists think the Earth is?" You said, "5.5 billion years." and I'm afraid you were wrong, Phil. It's 4.5 billion years. OK. Let's recap the vocabulary we've learnt, starting with the idiom my jaw dropped, which is used to say someone looks very shocked and surprised. A hypothesis is a suggestion that's proposed to explain something, which can then be..

Do you believe there's life on other planets?Well, theer's a lot of other planets, so yeah, I think there must be. Yeah, I agree. Well, it's a question that interests American astrophysicist Adam Frank, who discussed it with his clleague Gavin Schmidit, director of Nasa's Institute for Space Studies. Here, Adam recalls their conversation for BBC World Service programme CrowdScience. We know that..

I guessed it was to vote in an election. Was I right?You were wrong. I'm afraid, Neil! In fact, the biggest crwod in hisory had gathered for a Hindu religious festival, the Kumbh Mela, which 220 million people attended over fifty days. OK, let's recap the vocabulary we've learned from this programme on crowds- large number of people who gather together for a shared reason. To regress means retur..

There was a huge crowd of people waiting at the train station this morning, Neil. When the train finally arrived, everyone rushed in and I couldn't find a seat! I hate crowds!But you love going to the football match on Saturday...Ah, that's different- more like a big group of friends...Well, whether it's sporting events, train stations or political protests, crowds- that's large groups of people..

In fact, Catherine says that how we frame a memory doesn't matter. Frame can be used a verb to mean how we think of or describe something, like a memory. So, our nostalgia about Christmas memories might not be based on what things were actually like in the past, but we shouldn't worry too much! And I think it's time I revealed the answer to my quiz question, Beth. I asked what has become a trad..

Now, it's Christmas time in the UK at the moment. And like with celebrations around the world, lots of people have many happy memories about Christmas. Beth, do you have any happy Christmas memories?I have a lot. Um, my cousins and I used to always put on a Christmas performance for the family. That was always fun. What about you?Christmas was magical. I lived in Canada when I was a kid and it ..

This is Learning English from the News from BBC Learning English. We're talking about scientists revealing what the real Santa looked like. So, we know that St Nicholas lived a long time ago.Yes, in fact he lived 1,700 years ago, which is getting close to 2,000 years. And we're going to explain some vocabulalry in our next headline, which is used to describe thousands of years. Yes, this one's f..

In thie programme, revealing the face of the real Santa Claus.And in this programme, we normally look at a big, important, serious news study, but it's Christmas. So we're going to have a little bit of fun, but also teach you some vocabulary. Yeah, and you can find all the vocabulary and headlines from this episode as well as a worksheet on our website bbclearningenglish.com. OK, let's hear more..

And I said I know the answer- it's actually 42m tonnes, according to a UN report back in 2015. The figure could be a lot higher not. And as you know- my mobile isn't very heavy- 42m tonnes is an awful lot of phones! While we try to picture that, let's quickly run through today's vocabulary. So first up was gizmo- a small piece of technology- a gadget. Smartphones, smart watches, fitness trackers..

Today- is technology built to fail? And are we throwing away too much technology and harming the planet? Catherine, tell me- how old is your TV?My TV has just had its fifth birthday. And your mobile phone?It's about two and a half. So you do like to have gizmos, but not necessarily the latest. Exactly. Gizmo- nice word. A gizmo is a small piece of technology- otherwise called a gadget. And of co..