#idiom Hit the Hay (go to bed) رفتن به رختخواب Listen, Kim. We're going to be really busy with moving tomorrow, and we've got to get an early start. I guess you're right. We'll need all the rest we can get. What do you say we hit the hay now? Agreed. Let's go to bed and get a good night's sleep. It's going to be a long day 🏡 @English_House 🏡

🏡 @English_House 🏡

#listening 🏡@English_House🏡

#story In 1986, three men volunteered to die in order to save hundreds of thousands of people, but most of us have never heard of these unsung heroes. When a nuclear power plant in Chornobyl, Ukraine, began releasing deadly radioactive material, workers didn’t know what to do. No one could figure out how to stop the disaster without killing themselves in the process. To make matters worse, the plant was in danger of exploding at any moment. The only way to prevent the explosion was to enter the toxic radioactive water and release a valve. Robots were unable to function in the radioactive water, so it would have to be done by a human. Three courageous men, knowing full well that this was a death mission, volunteered. Alexi Ananenko, Valeri Bezpoalov, and Boris Baronov put on a brave face and their scuba gear. They then dove into the contaminated water and succeeded in releasing the valve. A nuclear meltdown was avoided, and hundreds of thousands of people’s lives were saved. They became known as the Chornobyl Suicide Squad. While all three heroes were widely reported as dead, they did, in fact, survive. However, thousands involved in the emergency response and cleanup did die due to the disaster. Some estimates say that about 60,000 Ukrainians, Russians, and Belarusians died from radiation. Many of these people knew they were risking their lives to help. Even scientists are baffled by rare cases of people who ignore their survival instinct. Humans are hard-wired to survive, but heroes ignore the biological voice inside that yells “protect your own life!” While we sometimes hear stories of parents who sacrifice themselves for the life of a child, this, too, could be seen as the human instinct to survive. Our children are part of us, and through them, our genes survive. In the case of Chornobyl, many people might have packed their families up in a car and sped away from the danger as fast as they could. What makes people like Ananenko, Bezpoalov, and Baronov different? Andrew Carnegie spent his life studying heroes. Since 1904, his Hero Fund has recognized more than 80,000 people for acts of pure selfless heroism. One interesting thing that Carnegie found was that heroes usually don’t see their actions as “heroic” at all. “I’ll bet you won’t find a single example of a person who says, ‘Yes, I’m a hero,’” says Professor Earl Babbie. Instead, heroes usually believe they did what anyone else would have done, risked their own life for the life of someone else. 🏡@English_House🏡

#vocabulary unsung heroes people who do great deeds but receive little or no recognition ——————— figure out to find a way to do something; solve a problem ——————— make matters worse to do something that makes a bad situation worse ——————— put on a brave face pretend to be confident and unafraid ——————— be hard-wired to do something to automatically act in a particular way ———————- pack up prepare things or people for transport 🏡@English_House🏡

Bend Over Backwards (try very hard) خیلی تلاش کردن" یا "خیلی سخت کار کردن برای کسی When Joan first started teaching she was afraid that she would have a lot of trouble getting used to the kids and to the faculty. Her fears turned out to be unfounded, since everybody bent over backwards to help her. Everyone tried very hard to help her feel comfortable and adjust to the school. 🌸 @Essential_English_Words 🌸

🌸 @Essential_English_Words 🌸

Bite the Dust (go down in defeat) شکست خوردن، مردن، کشته شدن، از بین رفتن Andy did exceptionally well in all of the track events, but he bit the dust in the high jump competition. Much to the disappointment of his fans, he went down in defeat, losing to a competitor from the visiting team. 🏡@English_House🏡

🏡@English_House🏡

#listening Fighting For The Amazon 🏡@English_House🏡

Fighting For The Amazon More than twenty men hired by an oil company hacked through the Ecuadorean jungle. Suddenly, they found themselves surrounded by a large group of indigenous people called the Cofan. The newcomers were clearly outnumbered. In the last five years, several oilmen had been beaten or killed by various tribes inside the jungle. The oilmen were preparing for the worst, but nothing happened. The tribesmen just stood there silently until a blond, blue-eyed man emerged from their group. The white man spoke to the oilmen in perfect Spanish, telling them that they weren’t welcome in the jungle. He then told the Cofan people to detain them. They put the oilmen into their canoes and brought them to their village. Instead of beating them, the white man, whose name was Randy Borman, gave the newcomers a long lecture on how oil drilling was destroying the forest before releasing them. As the son of American missionaries, Randy grew up deep in the jungle amongst the Cofan people. When his parents decided to leave the jungle, Randy went off to high school in the city but later returned to the jungle. He couldn’t believe what he saw. Where 500 Cofan people once lived, 30,000 settlers had moved in, all working for the oil industry. Randy decided then that he would reject modern society and instead spend his life fighting for the protection of the forest. Tribes in the Amazon depend on the jungle to survive. When oil is discovered, roads are built and thousands of workers flood in. Animals that once lived in these places begin to vanish as they move deeper into the forest, and the plants and trees are destroyed. Randy happened to be exactly what the Cofan needed. He spoke English, Spanish and Cofan, which helped him to get his foot in the door with governmental agencies. Randy straddled both worlds. He married a Cofan woman, had three sons with her and felt in his heart that he was a member of the tribe. At the same time, he took trips into cities to fight for their rights. Randy, now in his fifties, is credited by his tribespeople with single-handedly saving the Cofan people. In the 80s, many assumed the Cofan would die out. Now, they are not only surviving but thriving. They control six times the land they did in the nineties, but the future is always uncertain. Randy’s mission to protect the people of the forest becomes more urgent every day. 🏡@English_House🏡

#vocabulary go off somewhere to leave and go to another place flood in to come in large numbers get one’s foot in the door to have a chance to do something that could lead to future opportunities straddle both/two worlds to live or work in two different environments or cultures die out to gradually disappear until there is none left 🏡@English_House🏡