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As Asheville City Council ponders the idea of purchasing a hotel to provide housing for the homeless, the company that owns the neighboring shopping center prepares for a legal fight.
It's kind of a deeper meaning of wondering, thinking deeply about something.
Have you ever pondered what it might be like to be a fluent English speaker?
This verb to ponder is more often used in formal situations, and it's a great example of a word that would be used in the news, this advanced vocabulary compared to just a regular old TV show.
This is talking about the general population of people who don't have somewhere to live.
They might be living in a shelter provided by the government, but they don't have a home.
Several organizations give coats to the homeless during the winter.
And now we have our drama, this word, legal fight.
We can imagine that the local company who owns the neighboring shopping center is not happy because they are going to get into a legal fight.
Instead, they're taking legal action to push against the initiative to give housing to the homeless in a local hotel.
You can use this phrase like this, the court case will be dropped because the costs involved in the legal fight are just too high.
The city is looking at a Ramada near River Ridge Marketplace, which is home to 26 businesses, including Best, Bride, Prom and Tux.
Owner, Dennis Knapp, feels a homeless shelter and a retail area would be anything but an ideal marriage.
She says Horn Properties, which owns River Ridge, is ready for a legal fight.
This is a temporary place where people can live if they don't have a home.
You could say, he stayed at the homeless shelter until he found a job and could afford an apartment.
A retail area is another term for a shopping center.
So you might say, shopping is a lot more convenient now that there's a new retail area in our neighborhood.
This is kind of a formal term that you're more likely to see in a news article than to use in real conversation.
And next we have this lovely expression, anything but, and then we have added on, an ideal marriage.
So we were just talking about a store that sells clothing for brides, for weddings.
Of course, a marriage is when two people get married, but we can also talk about two things that go well together is an ideal marriage.
For example, ketchup and French fries is an ideal marriage.
Because that's really what takes it to the next level. anything but an ideal marriage.
Keeping our cat and dog inside in our small apartment is anything but an ideal marriage.
Our cat and dog don't get along very well and to stay inside in that small apartment, it's not a good idea.
In the article, the author said that having a homeless shelter and a retail area in the same spot is anything but an ideal marriage.
This section used this lovely expression to move forward.
That's physically moving forward, but this article is using it in a more advanced way, a little bit more figurative.
They said, if the city moves forward with the project, this means they're progressing or they start to do the project.
We won't be able to move forward with the loan until you get approved.
This is a very advanced, very formal expression that you will often hear, for example, at the bank when you're trying to get a loan.
I'm not happy about it at all, says stylist Susan Shepherd.
It's been an influx the past few months of trash in our parking lot.
She's concerned about there being an increase in trash in the parking lot and in that area.
And then if they add a homeless shelter to that same retail area, well, she fears that it might get even worse.
With this sudden influx in rain, our crops are growing rapidly.
This is quite formal, quite advanced, and a great thing to use in a news article.
Last week, 50 homeless people moved out of the Red Roof Inn on Smoky Park Highway.
The city partnered with the chain to give them temporary refuge during the pandemic.
Okay, so when you partner with someone, you're working together, but to partner with a chain, are we talking about this metal linking device?
No, this is just another way to talk about similar restaurants or hotels that exist globally, or at least all over your country.
For example, McDonald's and Starbucks are popular chains, or we could say they're popular chain restaurants, or Starbucks is a popular chain coffee shop.
You could say, our local charity is partnering with the McDonald's down the street to raise some funds for their project.
Okay, that means McDonald's is giving a percentage of their money from that day to the local charity.
The term nonprofit is used for a business or company that earns money for helping a social cause.
It helps them to have a job and find somewhere to live.
You also heard this wonderful advanced expression, to close on something.
Yes, you can close the door, but this is a little more metaphorical.
For example, when we bought this house, we had to close on the house.
It meant that we had to sign a ton of papers to make it official.
So you can close on a house, you can close on a purchase, you can use a sentence like this.
After the inspections were complete, we closed on the purchase immediately.
Folks we spoke to at River Ridge say the city's project would create more problems than it solves.
So the people who work in that retail area are saying, this is not going to be good for business.
And the people who are making this project, well, they're not the ones who have their business here.
And if it came down to it, they would not want a homeless shelter by their business.
In the US, this is the term that we use to talk about the land behind your house.
They were using it to mean the area close to their business, but it implies a certain level of intimacy or privacy.
This is our area and you don't have our permission to create a homeless shelter here.
The businesses in this area are worried about keeping a good reputation or keeping up a good reputation.
This means they want customers to feel comfortable and confident going to their businesses.
But if there are homeless people all over the parking lots, maybe drug needles, these types of problems, then they're not going to go to those businesses.
You might say, well, if that business owner keeps yelling at customers, he is not going to be able to keep up a good reputation and his business might close.
Congratulations on reading through this entire news article with me and learning some key advanced English expressions along the way.
Should they put the homeless shelter in the same area as the retail businesses?
You will get the entire article plus a link to the new site where you can find it, all of the vocabulary, sample sentences, definitions, and you can answer Vanessa's challenge question at the bottom of the worksheet.
Well, thank you so much for learning English with me, and I'll see you again next Friday for a new lesson here on my YouTube channel.
The next step is to download the free PDF worksheet for this lesson.
With this free PDF, you will master today's lesson and never forget what you have learned.
Even though it's just the four of us, me, my husband, my two sons, I decided to bake a huge chocolate cake last week.
And today you are going to learn 15 natural English phrases that I used last week in my daily life, including three that you just heard.
I used this because I was walking to the park with my children and on the way back there's a huge uphill and I didn't want to walk uphill with them back to the house.
So I asked my husband this question, maybe you could just swing by the park and pick us up.
There are two other very similar phrasal verbs that you could substitute for this.
And I said, well, I need to finish up this work and then we'll see.
Instead I used this reduced pronunciation and said we'll.
Sometimes this can be used as an indirect way to say no, but it could just be that you don't want to give a direct answer now, and you'll see if in the future there's a possibility to do that thing.
So for example, children sometimes ask something like this, can we get ice cream this afternoon?
Well, if you don't want to say no, but you're not sure if the answer is directly yes, you can say, we'll see, we'll see.
Maybe this gives children too much Hope if your real answer is no, but if you're not sure, you could just say, we'll see.
And I said, well, I'm not home right now, but I'll get back to you later this afternoon.
And then when I get back home, I will get back to you.
This is not literally my body is going back.
I'll give you an answer later, similar to we'll see, but it's letting her know, hey, I'll get back to you when I get back home this afternoon.
To go for something, we often use this in the phrase, let's go for it, or I'm so glad we went for it.
So last week, our neighbors across the street were selling a big chunk of their land.
And my husband and I had already been thinking about investing in some land as kind of a long-term financial investment.
When that land became available, well, we knew we needed to act fast.
Real English expression number five that I used last week is to take a breather.
We decided to spend some time beside the river, just relaxing, watching the water, throwing some rocks.
There's a little space in your life when you can relax.
You're going to sit down, try to catch your breath and you just need a little bit of time to rest.
Real English expression that I used last week, I'll do it in a sec.
We were in the car and my kid said, hey mom, can we listen to some music?
If there's a big pile of laundry in your living room and your husband comes home and sees it, you might say, hey, don't worry about the laundry.
I took my kids to a local nature center and usually we invite friends when we go to these types of things.
You might imagine that you can switch out that word three for any other number and you'd be correct.
Let's take a look at another sentence. why are we sitting at this huge table?
Sometimes I think this when I watch period dramas, this is a TV show that's based in a time long ago and they have this huge long table and there's just two people sitting at the table.