Learning English

Brexit: What next for the UK and the EU?

The British Prime Minister has travelled to Brussels to meet European leaders for the first time since the UK voted to leave the EU. But EU leaders say they won't start talks until Britain officially starts the process to end its membership.

Language challenge

'Brexit' is a portmanteau word - a word made up of two other words, in this case 'British' and 'exit'. What do we call an item of clothing which is like a cross between jeans and leggings? Watch and find out.

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The story

The British Prime Minister David Cameron will face European leaders at an emergency meeting in Brussels shortly for the first time since Britain voted to leave the EU.

The leaders of Germany, France and Italy have said there will be no talks on Britain's future relationship with the EU until the government in London triggers the formal legal mechanism to leave.

Bethany Bell – BBC News

Certainly from David Cameron's perspective it's likely that he'll be trying to set the tone for constructive divorce proceedings. The others will be as well.

There will be considerable anger at Mr Cameron. Many of the leaders here don't understand why he felt the need to call this referendum in the first place.

They're also very concerned that they don't want to see the divorce proceedings drag on and on and on because they fear that that could be very damaging to the rest of the EU.

Key words and phrases

face
(here) deal with

triggers
starts a process

mechanism
(here) way of doing something; process

rule out
to say something is not possible 

divorce
legal ending of a marriage – here used metaphorically to mean the end of a relationship/legal arrangement

unleash
release strong, negative forces

To do

Try our quiz to see how well you've learned today's language.

Downloads

You can download the audio and PDF document for this episode here.

Language challenge - answer

The answer is: jeggings (jeans and leggings)

End of Session 2

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