Learn English Through News How Does the Soccer World Cup Work
hi everybody welcome to current events in
English a series where we talk about
something currently happening in the
world something happening now and we
learned some vocabulary words and how to
talk about it in English in this episode
we’re going to talk about world cup the
world cup soccer or World Cup football a
very popular sporting event that is
happening right now as we’re filming
this so today I’m going to introduce
some vocabulary words and we’re going to
talk a little bit about how to explain
the world cup to someone so let’s begin
with a quick reading of some text that
shares a little bit about what the world
cup is and then we’ll talk about some
key vocabulary words so let’s take a
look you’ll see our key vocabulary words
in bold in this text okay let’s get
started first the world cup refers to
the FIFA World Cup a soccer tournament
held once every four years the main
tournament is played over about a month
but prior to that is a qualification
phase teams play in qualifiers to
determine which teams will advance the
32 teams which pass the qualifying
rounds play in the main tournament
called the world cup finals as the
tournament progresses fewer and fewer
teams remain from the original 32 teams
16 teams advance from that a final 8 is
determined the final 8 play in the
quarterfinals and determine teams for
the semi-finals the last four teams the
final round of the tournament determines
the champion
during the tournament players aim to
score goals but not every game ends with
a clear win a tie game or draw may
result penalties like red cards and
yellow cards help determine which team
moves forward in these cases okay so
having read the text looking at the text
now let’s go back over this introduction
and look at some key words some key
expressions that are used to explain the
World Cup so here in the first sentence
we saw the World Cup refers to the FIFA
World Cup a soccer tournament held once
every four years so tournament is a key
word for understanding the World Cup
tournament is a contest some kind of
competition so be careful depending on
your language tournament might have the
nuance might have the meaning of
competition or it might not when we use
the word tournament in English it means
contest it means competition there are
other teams or other players fighting to
become the best at something so in this
case we see a soccer tournament it’s a
contest but tournament is used for
competitions specifically okay so we see
tournament again in the next sentence
the main tournament is played over about
a month so in other words the main
tournament takes about a month to play
so there’s a specific time period that
we play it and we play in that duration
but prior to that so prior means before
prior to that prior to that means the
main tournament that here means the main
tournament so prior to before the main
tournament is a qualification phase
qualification phase let’s read the next
sentence first and then I’ll explain
some more details so teams play in
qualifiers to determine which teams will
advance so we see qualifier and we see a
qualification phase so we see qualifier
qualification phase qualifying round a
qualifier is a type of match so it’s
like the match before a tournament
before a contest
so players or teams who want to compete
in a tournament who want to participate
in a tournament first join a qualifier
so a qualifier if you pass the qualifier
it means you are qualified you meet the
requirements to continue on to the main
tournament so a qualifying match or a
qualifying round you might hear these
words use we also see a qualification
phase as well so all of these refer to
the time before the main tournament when
people are competing to join the actual
tournament the main tournament event
then at the end of this sentence here we
see advance the verb advance so teams
play in qualifiers to determine which
teams will advance so here we see will
being used so first they play in a
qualifier and this is done in order to
determine which we’ll talk about a
little more later to determine to find
out to figure out which teams will
advance to advance means to move forward
so to move forward to the next round in
this case the next round of competition
then we see again the 32 teams which
pass pass the qualifying rounds so pass
again means they win their match in
other words so they are the best in
their match those teams play in the main
tournament called the world cup finals
so the world cup finals is these 32 main
teams those teams which pass the
qualifying rounds okay continuing on as
the tournament progresses so progresses
be careful progress and progress used as
nouns and verbs have different emphasis
progress as a noun takes progress the
emphasis is on the first syllable so
progress here however it’s used as a
verb as the tournament progresses so as
the tournament continues in other words
fewer and fewer teams remain
be careful we’re using fewer and fewer
because teams is a countable noun so
fewer and fewer is the correct word not
less and less okay so from the original
32 teams 16 teams advance so this means
from the original 32 teams in the first
round of the World Cup finals 16 teams
advance again advance means to move
forward they move forward to the next
round from that so here that refers to
the previous sentences 16 teams so from
that from those 16 teams a final 8 is
determined a final eight final H refers
to final eight teams a final 8 is
determined then the final 8 play in the
quarterfinals and determine teams for
semi finals so here’s a hint I’ve
included last four teams here so
semi-finals means the last four teams
semi finals is the round right before
just before the final match so that
means four teams play in the semi final
round the round before the semi final
round is the quarter final round in the
quarter final round the final eight
teams play so in order it’s quarterfinal
semi final final in the final match two
teams play ok the final round of the
tournament determines the champion so
champion means the winner the winner of
the contest the winning player in an
individual sport or the winning team in
a team sport like soccer or football ok
let’s move on to the last page of our
text so for the purposes of vocabulary
let’s look at some obvious things so
during the tournament players aim so
meaning players try to players aim to
score goals so to score a goal means the
ball goes into the goal the ball goes
into the net please be careful to score
a goal is different from to shoot so to
shoot means to try
to score a goal so you try to kick the
ball into the goal to score means you
successfully kick the ball into the goal
so be careful shoot is attempt is try
score means successfully make a goal so
during the tournament players aim to
score goals but not every game ends with
a clear win so a clear win means we
can’t easily see who is the winner so
what does this mean
it means a tie game or a draw may result
so here result is used as a verb as well
that means this may happen in other
words so a tie game or a draw these both
mean when a game ends in the same score
for both teams so for example Team a
gets two points team B gets two points
that’s a tie game or a draw you might
not hear draw used for game you might
not hear a draw game but you will hear a
tie game or just a tie you will also
hear a draw but draw a game is not as
common at least in American English okay
finally penalties like red cards and
yellow cards help determine which team
moves forward or advances in these cases
so in these cases refers back to tie
games or a draw so these cases this
refers to the previous sentence in this
sentence we have a key word though
penalties be careful of your
pronunciation not penalty but penalty
penalty the emphasis is on the first
syllable
so penalties like red cards and yellow
cards help determine or help us find out
help us figure out which team moves
forward which sorry which team advances
in these cases so if there’s a tie in
other words we look at the number of
penalties from each team and decide
which team moves forward from there
there are a lot of other complex rules
too so to finish so here’s a list of the
keywords that were you
or discussed in this lesson so we have
words for talking about sporting events
like tournaments competitions we have
the words to talk about the different
levels in final games we have some nouns
to talk about goals scoring goals or
trying to score a goal talking about how
to move forward in a competition as well
and just some other words like tie and
draw and penalty that we can use to talk
about other sports as well so here is
our keyword list for this lesson okay so
to end today according to FIFA the World
Cup is the most widely followed and
widely watched sporting event in the
world so widely widely followed or
widely watched means the most people
watch it or the highest number of people
watch something them the largest number
of people watch or follow follow to
follow a sporting event means you check
the scores it doesn’t mean you
physically follow it somewhere it means
you check the scores you check the news
related to that sporting event so FIFA
says that the World Cup is the most
widely followed and or most widely
watched sporting event even more popular
than the Olympic Games quite interesting
so I hope that you found a few new
vocabulary words and got some grammar
points that you can use to talk about
this topic if you are a soccer fan of
course and there are some other things
that you want to know how to say please
let us know in a comment below this
video if you have questions or other
comments too please feel free to let us
know about those as well of course if
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your English Studies thanks very much
for watching this episode of current
events in English and with
you again next time bye-bye great work
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