 Welcome to Learning English, a daily 30-minute program from the Voice of America. I'm Ashley Thompson. And I'm Dan Novak. This program is designed for English learners, so we speak a little slower, and we use words and phrases, especially written for people learning English. On today's program, Faith Perlow and Andrew Smith have a report on how Taiwan pushed back against disinformation efforts in last month's elections. Brian Lin presents this week's technology report. Finally, we hear today's lesson of the day. But first... During Taiwan's presidential election on January 13th, talk about voter fraud began to spread. In one widely seen video, an election official counting votes mistakenly gives a vote to the wrong candidate. The message of the video was clear. The election results could not be trusted. The stories of voter fraud were not true. Instead, they were the result of disinformation. Fact-checking groups in Taiwan quickly showed how the video, along with many others similar to it, were false. My go-pen is a Taiwanese fact-checking service. It found that the widely shared video had been edited to hide an important fact. The full unedited video shows that soon after the official made the mistake, other election workers corrected it. Before the election, worries that fake news stories would threaten it had been growing. But Taiwan's response to disinformation was fast and organized, with fact-checking groups and government working to reduce it. Double Think Lab is a non-profit based in Taipei, Taiwan. It says its research shows that China targeted Taiwan with disinformation ahead of the election. The Chinese government has said the island of Taiwan belongs to China and should not be independent. The Associated Press, AP, reports that the disinformation aimed to weaken support of Taiwan's Democratic Progressive Party, DPP. AP reporters say the disinformation tried to make the DPP look like it was likely to start a war with China. The false stories targeted U.S. support for Taiwan, arguing that America was only interested in Taiwan's semiconductor exports and would not support the island if it came to war with China. AP reporters left messages with the Chinese Embassy in Washington on Saturday. The Embassy did not immediately return those calls. The DPP candidate, Lai Qingde, won the January election. He defeated Kowinja of the Taiwan People's Party and Hoyo'i of the Nationalist Party, Kuomintang. Many experts view the election as centering on the island's relationship with China. Many supporters of the Taiwan People's Party candidate are young. They had shared the false videos widely on TikTok. The videos were then shared on Facebook. However, groups quickly showed how the videos were false. Taiwan's Central Election Commission held a news conference to push back on claims of miscounting votes. Influencers like at Froggy Chu with more than 600,000 subscribers also explained on YouTube how officials count the votes. Kenton Tebow is an expert on Chinese disinformation at the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab. She said Taiwan has been able to effectively respond to Chinese disinformation, in part because of how seriously the threat is seen there. Tebow said Taiwan has used a whole-of-society response. The government, independent fact-checking groups, and even private citizens are called to point out disinformation and propaganda. Alexander Tai-Rei Yu is Taipei's economic and cultural representative to the US. He said Taiwan's government has learned it must identify and disprove false information as quickly as possible. Find it early like a tumor or cancer. Cut it before it spreads, Yu said. Taiwan's civil society groups have focused on raising public understanding of the issue. Charles Ye is the founder of MyGopen. The group uses a chatbot service to help the public know if a story is false. He said he started MyGopen because he saw how his family members would get confused by online rumors. Educating the public about fake news and the digital environment is growing, but slowly. It's like in the past when everyone dumped bottles and cans in the garbage and now they sort them, said Eve Chu. She is the editor-in-chief of Taiwan Fact Check Center, a nonprofit journalism organization. Everyone needs to slowly develop this awareness, and this needs time, she added. Political divisions may also affect the spread of disinformation in Taiwan. Ko, the Taiwan People's Party, or TPP, presidential candidate, said publicly he did not believe there was election fraud. However, legislators from the TPP held a conference in which they shared videos of miscounting, videos that had already been proven false. I'm Andrew Smith. And I'm Faith Perlow. Elon Musk says his company Neuralink has placed an experimental brain device in a person in the first human test of the technology. Neuralink describes the coin-sized device as a brain-computer interface. It is designed to be implanted inside the brain through a medical operation. Musk announced the news on the social media service he owns, X. The billionaire businessman is also the owner of Tesla and SpaceX. His company Neuralink aims to establish direct communication links between the brain and computers. The first human received an implant from Neuralink Sunday and is recovering well, Musk wrote. He added that first results of the implanted device showed promising neuron spike activity. A spike is a term for a method neurons use to communicate with each other. The Cambridge Learner's Dictionary defines a neuron as a nerve cell that carries messages between your brain and other parts of your body. The device includes an extremely small computer and extremely thin wires that connect to a part of the brain that controls intent of movement. Neuralink says the implant is designed to treat brain disorders and help serious back injury victims regain body movement. Company officials also say it might be used one day to help blind people see again. The company has said an early goal of the brain computer interface will be to give people the ability to control basic computer tasks using thoughts alone. Musk says that in the future the device might also be used to improve human intelligence in an effort to keep up with supercomputers and artificial intelligence AI technology. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, FDA approved human testing of the Neuralink device last May. Neuralink reposted Musk's statement about the implant in a message on X. In another message on X, Musk wrote that the first Neuralink product is called telepathy. He said the goal of the product is to permit users to control smartphones or computers just by thinking. Musk also noted the first users would be people who have lost the use of their arms or legs. It remains unclear how well the brain computer interface system or similar devices will work in humans. FDA approved trials like the one permitted for Neuralink aim to collect data on the safety and effectiveness of proposed products. Neuralink is not alone in developing systems designed to link the human nervous system to computers. The website clinicaltrials.gov reports there are currently more than 40 brain computer interface trials going on in places around the world. Reuters reported that in the past Neuralink was fined by the U.S. Department of Transportation for violating rules covering the movement of dangerous substances. The fines against Neuralink totaled $2,480 and the company agreed to fix its problems concerning the violations. The news agency said Neuralink carried out earlier trials of the implant using monkeys, pigs and sheep. Reuters has also reported on the company's animal experiments in the past. Some Neuralink employees told Reuters in 2022 the company had made mistakes in its animal testing. They said the mistakes came because the process was hurried. This led to more animal deaths than necessary, the employees said. In one 2021 case Reuters reported that Neuralink implanted 25 out of 60 pigs with the wrong sized devices. All the pigs were later killed. Employees told the news agency such mistakes could have been easily avoided with more preparation. Last September Musk wrote in a social media message that no monkey has died as a result of a Neuralink implant. He added that the company chose terminal monkeys to limit risks to healthy animals. I'm Brian Lin. Brian Lin joins me now to talk more about his technology report. Thanks for being here Brian. Of course Ashley, glad to be here. This week you described the start of new human experiments on a device designed to enable communication between a computer and the brain. As the report noted the company carrying out the trials Neuralink is not the only one doing this kind of work. What can you tell us about that? Yes, so I noted in the report an official government website lists information about more than 40 trials of brain-computer interfaces going on around the world. Now some of these have been going on for quite some time too and at least one of the companies, an Australian one called Synchron implanted its first device in a patient in 2022. I noticed the report pointed out the first people expected to use Neuralink's device will be victims of injuries that left them without the use of their arms or legs, correct? Yes, that's right and company officials have said this kind of technology development does take time and happens in steps. The first major progress Neuralink would like to see is the technology enabling a person to perform an action just by thinking. Once that step is completed the company says it will be centered on building upon that. Elon Musk by the way has said the system could also support future products aimed at improving human intelligence but that development likely remains years away. Well, thanks again Brian for answering my questions today and thank you for that report. You're welcome. Thank you Ashley. VOA Learning English has launched a new program for children. It is called Let's Learn English with Anna. The new course aims to teach children American English through asking and answering questions and experiencing fun situations. For more information visit our website learningenglish.voanews.com And now it's time for the lesson of the day on the Learning English podcast. My name is Jill Robbins and I'm joined by Andrew Smith. Hi Andrew. Hi Jill. Our lesson is based on our video series Let's Learn English. The series shows Anna Matteo in her work and life in Washington DC. Here's Anna introducing herself. Hello, my name is Anna Matteo. On today's podcast lesson we're going to listen to lesson 16 of level 2 of Let's Learn English. This lesson repeats many times, two ways we can talk about things we did or experienced on a regular or habitual basis in the past. A habitual basis means things that happened on a kind of regular schedule or that happened very often. For example, if you go to school five days a week, that is a habitual action. Now here are the two ways we can talk about habitual actions, feelings or states of being in the past. The first way uses the modal would. The second way uses the two words used to. The best way to learn to use them is to hear some examples. Listen to the beginning of lesson 16. Hi Kave, let's go to lunch. Oh, I know a great place. When I first started working here, I would go every day. Great. Oh no. What's wrong? I lost my key. I just had it this morning. You should check the lost and found office. Great idea. Where is it? Oh, it used to be across from the cafeteria, but now it's down in the basement next to the elevators. It's really hard to find. The lost and found is hard to find. That's funny. It is. You can hear the first habitual action when Kave says, Oh, I know a great place. When I first started working here, I would go every day. And then Kave talks about another situation that existed for a period of time in the past. Oh, it used to be across from the cafeteria. Here, the words used to be just mean the same thing as the verb was. There are some small differences in how we use the modal would and the verb used to when we describe habitual past actions or experiences. Here's Professor Bott explaining these differences. I hope Anna can find the lost and found office. Used to and would describe something that happened repeatedly in the past. Kave uses would when he says, When I first started working here, I would go every day. There are two differences between used to and would. Number one, we use would only when we say the time period first. Number two, for verbs like be, think, feel, see and understand, we can only use used to. Kave says, It used to be across from the cafeteria. Thanks, Professor Bott. That is a helpful explanation. Verbs such as be, think, feel, see and understand are more like states of mind or states of being rather than actions such as the verbs go, eat, play and so on. Now, listen to Jill and I have a conversation about our past. Listen for how we use would and used to. Andrew, do you have any special memories of something you would do with your family when you were young? Um, I do. Yes, I do. So one example is from the age of 11 until about the age of 18. I would go with my father every year to the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. That's in the southeastern United States. And we would hike up a mountain called Mount Laconte. At the top of the mountain, there were cabins where we would spend the night. And I remember I would get up very early in the morning and go watch the sunrise from the top of the mountain. Those are special memories. How about you, Jill? My family used to travel around the country in a Volkswagen bus. When I was little, all seven of us would sleep in this big blue tent. My dad once said he wanted us to see all parts of the country, so we went there and camped. I think that's where I got my love for traveling to new places and meeting people from other places. That sounds so great. I think I would have loved to do that. Maybe I'll get a van when I'm older and try to do something similar. Now, let's hear more from Lesson 16 of Level 2 of Let's Learn English. Anna goes to an office to try to find her lost key. The person in the office thinks Anna wants to find the key to happiness instead of a key to her door. In this part, you will hear many examples of the words used to when the speakers describe habitual actions and feelings from the past. Come in. I am Serenity. Hi, Serenity. I'm Anna. Please, sit down. How can I help you? I lost something very important. Shhh, I already know. You need help. Yes, I need help finding the key. You need to find the key. The key that will give you happiness. Yes, finding this key will make me very happy. First, Anna, let me tell you a little bit about myself. I used to be a very important person with a very important job. I made a lot of money. I mean a lot. Wow, good for you. No, no. It was bad for me. I lost the most important thing, the key. You've lost it too, haven't you, Anna? Haven't you? I guess. So how does this work? Do I have to fill out a form or something? No, no forms. Just answer this one question. As a child, what did you used to do to feel happy? When I was little, I used to sing all the time with my family. Those were good times. Singing is so joyful. I used to sing. But now that I started my business, I've just been too busy. Too busy. Why don't you sing again? I sing everywhere. I sing in the office. I sing on the metro. I sing in the elevators. I sing on the escalators. I sing in the bathroom. Serenity, serenity. I really need to find my key. Yeah. Yes, we need to find the key. The key to happiness. No, no. I just need to find the key to my apartment. I used to know. But now I don't. Do you, Anna? I don't know. I think I left it in the ladies room. You know, this isn't the lost and found, is it? It could be the lost and found. I'm lost. And I used to find joy for people. I used to find joy. You know, this is a bad time for you. I'll find the lost and found myself. Bye, thanks. I used to find joy. I used to find joy. I used to find joy. I found my key. I used to find joy. Oh, the sad woman in the office used to find joy. Well, hopefully she will find it again soon. Listeners, what are some things you used to do when you were younger? What would you do when you played with your friends? Write to us and let us know. You can send your email to Learning English at voanews.com. Remember, you can always find us on Facebook, YouTube and Instagram. Thanks for listening. I'm Dr. Jill. And I'm Andrew Smith. And that's our program for today. Join us again tomorrow to keep learning English through stories from around the world. I'm Ashley Thompson. And I'm Dan Novak.