Review from BBC Learning Hello and welcome to News Review, the programme where we show you how to use the language from the latest（迟的） news stories in your everyday English. I'm Dan and joining me today is Catherine. Hi Catherine. Hi Dan. So what's the story? Today's story, Dan, is about extreme snow.

  Extreme snow! OK, let's hear more from this BBC Radio 4 bulletin（公告）. Commuters（通勤者） have been warned（警告） to expect major disruption（ 动乱） this morning as snow and arctic temperatures sweep across the UK. The Met Office has issued（发行） amber warnings（警告） for large parts of eastern（东方的） England with up to 15 centimetres of snow predicted in some places. Some real companies have issued revised timetables. So 15 centimetres of snow, Dan.

  Not extreme by a lot of people's standards（标准） but because it's falling in the UK it's predicted to fall here in the UK. That's quite unusual, so by UK standards it's extreme. It's also happening in lots of other parts of Europe. In the UK, because we're not used to snow, it's causing a lot of travel disruption. So this weather, the snow is actually coming all the way from Siberia in northern（北方的）-eastern（东方的） Russian, so the newspapers are calling it the 'beast（兽） from the east'. The beast from the east.

  Yes. Very dramatic（戏剧的）. It is, yes. And of course these weather warnings have been issued by the Met Office which is the UK's national meteorological（气象的） service. Exactly. Wonderful.

  So you've been looking around at three words and expressions we can use to talk about this story. What have you found（找到）? We have braces（ 支撑物）, relentless（无情的） and engulfs. Braces, relentless and engulfs. OK. Can we have our first headline（大字标题） then, please?

  We can. Let's look at the Guardian（[法] 监护人）. The headline is 'UK braces for extreme weather as Met Office warns of snow'. Braces prepares for something unpleasant（讨厌的）. Now, forgive（原谅） me, Catherine, I'm confused. I thought that braces were those elastic（弹性的）-y straps（带子） that go over your shoulders to clip（剪） to your trousers, no?

  They are. That's right, yes. But they're not in this story. There's no braces, no elastic trouser holder（持有人） upers in today's story. OK. So, all right, well, what about the metal things across the teeth?

  It holds（拿住） your teeth in place when you're a teenager often. Yeah, the dentist puts them around your teeth to hold them and move them slightly（轻微地）, yes. No, nothing to do with teeth either, Dan, today, no? Well, but the connection（连接） between them is holding（拿住）, right? Because you said that they hold the trousers and they hold the teeth. Absolutely（完全地）, yes.

  So, something to do with that? It is. Well done. You got there in the end, Dan? Yay! If you imagine you're on a bus and the bus is really full, so you're standing.

  The bus is moving quite quickly and you're holding on to something. And then the bus driver stops the bus really quickly and you have to hold on really tight（ 紧的） with you and you sort（种类） of push your feet into the ground and you hold（拿住） on with two hands. You hold your body really strong, strongly（强烈地） and stably. That's called bracing. So, holding yourself tense and strong and stable（稳定的） is to brace（ 支撑物）. And you do it because something bad's about to happen.

  In this case, the bus is stopping, so you have to do it physically. But if you brace yourself, it means you prepare yourself, either mentally（精神上） or physically, for something bad or difficult. Like（喜欢） when you might open your exam results and you're not sure… Yeah, yeah, yeah. That envelope（信封） looks at you, you look at the envelope and you get ready because you might have bad results, so you brace yourself to open your exam results. And in this case it's saying that the UK is bracing or the UK braces for extreme weather. So you often use to brace yourself or you can just brace for something.

  It means prepare for something bad. Well, thank you very much for that headline. Now, viewers（观察者）, brace（ 支撑物） yourself for our second. Right, if everybody's ready, prepared. Let's look now at the express – weather, snow, forecast（预测）, relentless（无情的） snow and travel disruption（ 动乱） to hit UK today. Relentless.

  Yes. Never stopping. Yes. So, 'to relent' means to stop. If we add the suffix（后缀） 'less', we get the adjective（形容词的） 'relentless（无情的）' and it means without stopping. If something keeps going and it doesn't stop, we can say it's relentless.

  So, in this case, 'relentless snow', the snow isn't going to stop. Is it always used for something negative? Not necessarily（必然）, no. You can have 'relentless' – you can have for people. We often use it for people's character and what they do. Somebody can be relentlessly miserable（痛苦的） and we've got the adverb（副词） 'relentlessly' or they can be relentlessly positive.

  It means they never stop being happy and positive. So it's about doing something without stopping. And can we also use it for a personal adjective to say that someone is kind（种类） of generally（一般地） determined（决定）? Yeah, most definitely. Yes. As a character, a relentless character, somebody who keeps going, doesn't give up, very focused, very determined（坚决的）, very motivated（ 有动机的）.

  Reminding（提醒） me a little bit of our colleague, Neil. I was just going to say, even in the pursuit（ 追赶） of a crazy idea... The cat programme. English for cats. How many times do we have to tell（ 告诉） him? Neil, what are you thinking?

  It's not going to work. It's not going to happen. But he's relentless. Relentless. He won't give up. Meow, Neil.

  Meow, Neil. It's not going to happen. Relentless, Neil. Well, we've had two headlines already. Let us relentlessly move forward to our third. OK.

  So, writers are telling us, freeze（冻） engulfs Europe. Rare（稀薄的） roam（漫步） snow disrupts（破坏） flights. Engulfs covers completely. The key is completely. If something engulfs（卷入） something else, it covers it top, bottom, sides, every direction. You can't see this thing anymore because it is completely covered.

  So, if lots of snow falls off your roof tomorrow morning, Dan, and lands on you, so we can't see you. I will be engulfed. You'll be engulfed. By snow. In or by, we use as a preposition（前置词）. Yeah.

  Or like this evening, when I get into bed, I will engulf myself in my duvet because it is so cold. Yes. Freezing. Good advice. People can also be engulfed by emotions（情感） as well, can't they? Yeah, most definitely, especially strong emotions.

  Love, grief（悲痛）, sadness – these emotions（情感） kind（种类） of engulf（卷入） you when you're feeling very strongly（强烈地） about something. Now that we've engulfed our viewers in those three pieces of information, let's have a look at our Facebook challenge（挑战）. Today, we posted… Commuters have been warned to expect major disruption this morning as snow and arctic（北极的） temperatures sweep（扫） across the UK. Which word from this extract（汁） from today's BBC Radio 4 broadcast（广播） can complete these three popular idioms? someone off their feet something under the carpet and make a clean How did they do, Catherine? They did really well, Dan.

  They didn't really catch anybody, I don't think. So, well done to Daniel Mumbere, Samar HaThun, Carmen Ribera, Ferdy… Everybody said 'sweep', so fantastic everyone who said 'answer a sweep'. Wonderful. So, sweep someone off their feet, sweep something under the carpet and make a clean sweep. Now, if you'd like to know what these particular idioms mean, you'll have to come to our website to find out. That's bbclearningenglish.com.

  OK, Catherine, can you recap the vocabulary for us? I can. We had braces, prepares for something unpleasant, relentless, never stopping and gulfs covers completely. Thank you very much.