Learning English

The Taliban has told men who work for the government that if they shave their beards and don't wear traditional local clothing - long loose top and trousers, and hat or turban - they will not be allowed in their workplace and might even be fired.

The group regained control of Afghanistan last August, 20 years after being ousted, as the remaining Western troops and diplomats left.

Rob and Neil look at the vocabulary used in the headlines about this story.

ነቲ ቪድዮ ብምዕዛብ ነቲ ስራሕ ዕመምዎ

NEWS REVIEW PODCAST NOW AVAILABLE - SUBSCRIBE HERE

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Did you like that? Why not try these?

• Afghanistan: Taliban retake Kabul
  
• English in a Minute: Prevents vs Avoids
• Differences between formal and informal English

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The story

The Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice warned that employees would risk losing their jobs if they failed to adhere to these rules and to pray five times a day.

This is the latest of several new restrictions imposed by the Taliban in recent weeks.

Key words and phrases

hardliners (or hard-liners)
people with strict views or beliefs

• The hardliners are trying to overthrow the president.
• The police take a hardline approach to people who drink and drive.

bars
officially prevents something from happening

• My mate was barred from the pub after he got into a fight.
• There’s a bar on any flights taking off after midnight.

show up
appear at a place

• The bus showed up early, so we missed it.
• My friend didn’t show up, so we went to the cinema without her.

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.

More

We hope you enjoyed News Review. You can find more episodes here.