Ted: Hi! I’m Ted, language expert here at Babbel, and you’re listening to Babbel News – English Only! Each week, we bring you the news about recent events in English, sourced from Reuters. If you’re looking to improve your English listening skills and keep up with what’s going on in the world, then you’re in the right place.
While you’re listening to the news, don’t focus too much on understanding every word. Just try to get the main idea of each story. I’ll briefly introduce the topics of the news right at the beginning of the episode, and then give you some words and phrases to listen for directly before each clip. Remember, you can always rewind and listen again if you miss anything. I also recommend that you read along with the transcript for this episode. You can find it at Babbel.com/podcasts. 

And with that, here are our topics for today. You’re going to hear two news stories. In the first one, you’ll hear about a climate protest in Germany, with activist Greta Thunberg joining in. And the second piece is about a giant 3D printer that’s currently making the first 3D-printed two-story house in the United States.

Now, try to find a nice, quiet spot where you can really focus. Ready? Then let’s begin!

Before you hear the first story, here are some key words and phrases to listen for. The first word is “mine”, an area where minerals are taken from the earth. The mine, owned by an energy company in Germany, will take lignite, also known as brown coal, from the ground. Next up is “expansion”, the action of making something bigger. In this case, the protestors are against making the mine bigger. The next one is “to occupy”. In the context of this story, it means to move into a building in order to control it. We also have the word “to raze”, or to destroy a building. And finally, there’s “slated”, which means that something is planned or scheduled. If you come across any other words you don’t know along the way, make a note of them and look them up in a dictionary after listening. Now, let’s hear the story!

Reuters: Climate activist Greta Thunberg and an estimated 6,000 people marched through mud and rain to protest against the expansion of an open-cast lignite mine near Luetzerath in Germany.

“The carbon is still in the ground. We are still here. Luetzerath is still there. And as long as the carbon is in the ground, this struggle is not over.”
 
Police cleared protesters from buildings in the North Rhine-Westphalia state village after a court decision allowed energy giant RWE to go ahead with the expansion.
 
Demonstrators had been occupying them for about two years.
RWE and the government had struck a deal to raze the village in exchange for the company’s faster exit from coal as well as saving other villages originally slated for destruction.
 
Thousands turned up to protest against the mine, which activists say symbolizes Berlin’s failing climate policy.
 
“You are showing clearly today that the changes will not come from the people in power, from governments, from corporations, from the so-called leaders. No, the real leaders are here.”
 
The state president said on German radio that energy politics were “not always pretty” but that coal was needed more than ever in light of the energy crisis confronting Europe's biggest economy.

Ted: And now for the vocabulary from the second piece of news. The first word is “multi-story”, which means a building with more than one “story”, or level. The next word is “concrete”, a hard building material made by mixing cement, sand, small stones, and water. After that we have “to withstand”, to not be harmed or broken by something. And the last word for this story is “severe”, an adjective meaning really bad. See if you can find the word that is described as “severe” in this clip! And again, you can always use a dictionary to look up any other words you don’t know… but wait until after listening, of course! Let’s head to Houston, Texas to hear about that printer!

Reuters: On this suburban street in Houston, Texas, a new multi-story home is taking shape. But this is not your average building. Layers of concrete are laid down by an enormous 3D printer, weighing more than 12 tons. And it's creating what’s believed to be the first 3D-printed, two-story home in the United States.

Constructing the 4,000-square-foot house will take a total of 330 hours of printing. That's according to architect Leslie Lok, co-founder of a design studio called HANNAH: “In the designing of this house, we not only think about the general floor plans and you know, usage, but we also design the actual print path, like how the printer will print, where it starts and where it stops.”

Lok says since the printer does all the heavy lifting, less workers are needed at the construction site: “It is a much faster construction process and it also requires, you know, only four to five people on site to print a whole house.”

The three-bedroom house will feature a hybrid design of wood framing and concrete. Concrete can withstand the hurricanes, storms and other severe weather in Texas that is becoming more frequent and severe due to climate change.
 
Roberto Montemayor is the project manager at PERI 3D Construction: “Basically this works very similar to the small, plastic desktop 3D printers with two major differences. The first one is the size, of course. And secondly, is the material. We are printing here with concrete, which is a completely different material than plastic.”

Builders hope the innovative technique can one day help more quickly and cheaply build multi-family homes.

Ted: So, that’s our first episode of Babbel News – English Only! I hope you enjoyed the stories, learned a few new words and phrases in English, and got a bit more comfortable listening to and understanding the language. To get the most out of the podcast, I recommend going back and listening again. You’ll be surprised by how much more you understand the second time around! Thanks for listening, and see you next week for another episode! Bye!