The hottest week ever recorded. What does this mean for the planet? This is News Review from BBC Learning English. I'm Beth. And I'm Phil. Make sure you watch to the end to learn the vocabulary you need to talk about this story.

  And remember to subscribe to our channel（海峡）, like this video and try the quiz on our website. Now, the story. Hotter weather has never been recorded. The UN says the first week of July had the highest average global（全球的） temperature ever measured（量）. This could have significant（重大的） effects on the planet. Hurricanes（飓风）, tropical（热带的） cyclones, drought（干旱） and heavy rain could all become more likely as a result.

  You've been looking at the headlines（大字标题）. What's the vocabulary? We have 'just getting started', 'uncharted（海图上未标明的） territory（领土）' and 'scorches（烧焦）'. This is News Review from BBC Learning English. Let's have a look at our first headline. This is from The Hill.

  We're experiencing（经验） Earth's hottest weather in 120,000 years and it's just getting started. So, the Earth is at the warmest it's been in 120,000 years. That's since before the last ice age. Now, the expression we're looking at is 'just getting started'. Phil, we've just got started with this programme. Is that what we're talking about here?

  Well, when we use 'just getting started' in this way, what we really mean is that there's a lot to come. And in the case of this story, it's all negative. Yes, this article is saying that while the current（当前的） high temperatures are bad news, they're only going to get worse. Much worse. In fact, they're just getting started. Now, we can use this as well for positive things as well.

  So, for example, we've got a lot of things we can tell you about English and we're just getting started. OK. Let's look at that again. Let's have our next headline. This is from The Guardian（[法] 监护人）. 'Uncharted territory.

  UN declares（断言） first week of July world's hottest ever recorded.' Now, we're going to look at the expression 'uncharted territory'. That makes me think of pirates（海盗）, explorers, the ocean. Well, pirates, explorers in the ocean, anyone like that, they all use charts, which are like maps. So, uncharted territory, that means it's not on any maps. It's a place that no one's been to before, or at least they haven't made a map of it yet.

  And here it's a metaphor（[修辞]隐喻）. So, in terms of the weather, we are seeing things that we've never seen before. We're in uncharted territory. That means there's no maps or anything to tell us what to do next. We can use this to talk about anything that we haven't worked out how to deal with yet. So, when we think about people using AI to cheat（骗取） in exams, we're in uncharted territory.

  That's right. Okay（好）, let's look at that again. Next headline, please. This is from Al Jazeera. 'Record breaking heat scorches communities around the world.' Now, this headline is from an article that focuses on the impact（影响） of these high temperatures.

  The word we're looking at is 'scorch'. That's all about heat, right? Yes, it is. Now, for an example, I ironed a shirt this morning, but I left the iron on it for too long and it burnt a mark on the shirt. It's a scorch mark. If you scorch something, you burn the surface（表面） of something with extreme heat.

  You're obviously（明显地） not wearing that shirt then. Now, the headline is talking about the effect of extreme heat on people living in different places around the world. And it doesn't literally（照字面地） mean that the people are being burnt, but it is definitely having a negative impact on them. Now, another metaphorical use of scorch is to criticise strongly（强烈地）. So, people can be damaged（损害） by heat or people can be scorched（烧焦） by criticism（批评）. Well, I hope we don't get scorched in the comments in this episode（插曲） of News Review.

  OK. Let's look at that again. We've had just getting started. There's more to come. Uncharted territory. Something not experienced before.

  Scorches. Damages with heat.