 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. Coming up on the program, Gregory Stockle reports on a Ugandan business that turns banana fiber into sustainable products. Dan Friedel has a story on an app that shows what ancient Greek buildings looked like thousands of years ago. Brian Lin has this week's technology report on Google's AI system the company says improves traffic flow in major cities. Later, Andrew Smith and Jill Robbins present the English lesson of the day, but first... Banana plant stems are mostly useless following harvest of the fruit. It takes time and work to remove the stem from the ground. Then the farmers have to crush the plant waste to small pieces to spread around crops. But is there a better way to deal with the plant waste? A company in Uganda says yes. The business is collecting banana stems to process the plant tissue and make products. The idea is both new and sustainable in the East African country where banana plants are very important. Uganda has the highest rate of banana use in the world. The country is Africa's top banana crop producer. A young local business, Texfad, deals with the banana plant waste. Now it says it is making a profit from all the rotting stems. Texfad collects some of the plant tissue and uses it to make products like floor coverings, containers for home goods, and more. John Baptiste O'Kello leads the business division of Texfad. He told the Associated Press that the business made sense in a country where farmers are struggling with millions of tons of banana-related waste. The company works with seven different farmers groups in western Uganda. It pays $2.70 for a kilogram of dried fiber. David Bongarana is the leader of one such group in Shima district. He said only a small part of the stem is used for fiber. He said that the rest of the crushed plant remains is returned to the farmer for use as fertilizer. Texfad also takes material from a third party to Ponday Holdings Limited. This trucks transport banana stems from farmers in central Uganda. Tuponday's workers search the stems for the best candidates as fiber. Machines then turn the fiber into threads, thin, long pieces of cloth. Agre Muganga is the team leader at Tuponday Holdings Limited. He said his company deals with more than 60 farmers who continuously supply surplus raw material. That number is only a small part of what is available in a country where banana crops make up more than a million hectares of land. Banana production has been increasing over the years. The Uganda Bureau of Statistics found that banana production rose from 6.5 metric tons in 2018 to 8.3 metric tons in 2019. Muganga said that they put extra income in the hands of the farmers. He added, We turn this waste into something valuable that we sell to our partners who also make things. At a plant just outside the Ugandan capital, Kampala, Texfad employs more than 30 people who use their hands to make products from banana fiber. The company is now exporting some products to Europe. Such products are possible because banana fiber can be softened to the level of cotton, Okelo said. The company can make some paper products with the material. It is working with researchers to experiment with possible cloth from banana fiber. However, it does not have the technology to make clothing, Okelo said. I'm Gregory Stockle. If you visit the Acropolis in Athens, Greece, you will see the rocky grounds high above the city that include the famous ruins of the Parthenon. However, if you use a new app from Greece's culture ministry, you can see what the building and grounds looked like more than 2,000 years ago. The app lets visitors see the famous place in its true glory with the bright colors and details it had in the past. Archaeologists and other historians worked to create digital images showing how the Acropolis looked when it was new. In the app, the Parthenon, for example, has its famous marble sculptures that are now at the British Museum in London. The app lets visitors see the sculptures where they used to be near the Parthenon. Greece wants Britain to return the sculptures. Experts say the app called Chronos is an example of how artificial intelligence or AI technology is being used to tell the stories of the past. The technology that expands what people can see is called augmented reality or AR. Companies such as Meta and Apple are making big investments in apps and hardware that can bring the technology to more people. Maria Engberg recently wrote a book about the subject. She said, most people will first experience augmented reality through their phones at places like the Acropolis. She said, travelers will see the technology when they take tours. They will be able to see photos and videos as they walk around historic places. Engberg is a professor at Malmo University in Sweden. I think we will see really interesting customer experiences in the next few years as more content from museums and archives becomes digitized, she said. The government and other groups are making investments in AR as more visitors come to Greece following the end of the COVID-19 pandemic. Tours to Greece in the first half of 2023 increased by over 20% compared to 2022, bringing over $10 billion to the Greek economy. Microsoft worked with the Greek Culture Ministry to create a digital tour of Olympia, the home of the first Olympic Games. Lena Mendoni leads the agency. Earlier this year, she said the new technology lets real visitors and virtual visitors anywhere around the world share historical knowledge. Cosmote is the Greek telecommunications company that worked on the Kronos app. Panayiotis Gabrielides of Cosmote said advanced smartphones and faster communications networks will permit visitors to download even higher quality content. He said more guides and features will be available soon. But for now, visitors can use Kronos to see how the Parthenon and other parts of the Acropolis once looked. I'm Dan Friedel. Google says an artificial intelligence-powered system it created is helping improve traffic flow in major world cities. The system, called Project Greenlight, is currently in use in 12 cities. The project aims to save fuel and lessen air pollution or emissions from automobiles. Google first announced the program in 2021 when it was testing the system in four areas of Israel. Since then, the company has kept expanding Project Greenlight. Long cities now taking part in the program are Bangalore, Budapest, Jakarta, Manchester, Haifa, Hamburg, Rio de Janeiro, and Seattle. In an online announcement, Google's Yasi Matias explained the latest progress. He noted that the system is being tested in areas with severe traffic issues. Generally, this is at major crossings with heavy traffic and complex traffic lights. These areas where vehicles start and stop are known as intersections. The company said research has shown that at such intersections, automobile emissions can be 29 times higher than on open roads. In addition, Google's own research found that vehicles that must stop and start account for about half of those emissions. Project Greenlight uses individual driver data from Google Maps. This data is combined with AI methods to produce models of each intersection where the system is in place, the company says. The data from Maps is also used to create another model on how different traffic lights interact. The modeling process for intersections considers several elements. These include the structure of streets, traffic flows, signal scheduling, and how the vehicles interact with lights. The models are used to reduce stop and start times and create smoother traffic flows, a process called optimization. Google says one goal is to optimize multiple intersections at the same time to create waves of green lights for vehicles on the road. Results from the modeling process are then handed over to traffic engineers in the cities where the program operates. The engineers can use this information to change existing traffic plans to improve flow and reduce vehicle emissions. Google says these changes can be completed within minutes using the traffic control systems the cities already have in place. Google's Matthias shared that early numbers collected on the program showed that overall stops at intersections were reduced by up to 30%. In addition, emissions were reduced by up to 10%. The results were based on testing that happened at 70 intersections in 12 cities during 2022 and 2023. The company said it estimates this can save fuel and lower emissions for up to 30 million car rides monthly. Matthias noted that current systems used to collect traffic data for city engineers are costly and difficult to operate. This means many cities are forced to use outdated data and methods to improve traffic flows. Those methods Matthias added do not provide the wealth of information that project green light can. Matthias gave an example of a suggestion to be provided to city planners. They might urge engineers to link up signals in neighboring intersections that are currently not connected or they could suggest how to time traffic lights so that traffic flows more effectively along a stretch of road. Google says the system is designed to be easily expandable to examine thousands of intersections at the same time to improve traffic flows throughout cities. And city engineers are able to watch progress and see full results of the changes within weeks. In its announcement, the company included statements from some city officials who have cooperated with Google on the project. Vinit Kumar Goyal is a police commissioner in Kolkata, India. He said the system had already become a valuable tool for traffic police. He noted it had led to safer, more efficient and organized traffic flow and cut gridlock at busy intersections. Google says it plans to keep expanding project green light to additional cities and is inviting city planners and engineers from across the world to join a waiting list for the program. I'm Brian Lin. Brian Lin is here now to talk more about the technology report. Thanks for joining me, Brian. Of course, Dan, glad to be here. This week, you looked at an AI-powered system that is helping improve traffic flows in major world cities. We learned this project from Google is expanding quickly, suggesting it must be getting good results so far, right? Yes, this is certainly what Google is saying after testing the system the past two years. And one of the things the company pointed out is how the system led to reductions of up to 30% in cars stopping at busy intersections. And keeping vehicles moving like this, of course, eases traffic congestion, but also cuts the amount of pollution released when cars are stationary. In the report, we heard from a police official in the Indian city of Kolkata who said experiments there had been quite successful. And this is just one Indian city where the project is now active, correct? Yes, that's right. Project Greenlight has also been tested in two other cities in India, Hyderabad and Bangalore. And one thing Google noted is they saw traffic and emission reductions in all cities where it was tested. And the plan is to keep offering the system to all cities, those with major traffic problems as well as others with more minor ones. And so far, the project has been very popular with Google saying there's currently a waiting list for new cities. Great. Thanks again for joining us, Brian. Sure, Dan. Thanks for having me. Hello, my name is Anna Matteo. And my name is Jill Robbins. You're listening to the Lesson of the Day on the Learning English Podcast. Welcome to the part of the show where we help you do more with our series Let's Learn English. This series shows Anna Matteo in her work and life in Washington, D.C. We talked about Lessons 21 and 22 in our recent podcasts. Today we'll take a closer look at Lesson 22. Anna is planning her new children's show with her producer, Amelia. Washington, D.C. has four seasons, winter, spring, summer and autumn or fall. My favorite season is summer because of summer vacation. Hey, that will be a great subject for my new work assignment, The Children's Show. I can teach what families in the U.S. do during summer vacation. Today I am planning the show with Amelia. This is the first time we are working together. I hope we can work well together. Hi, Amelia. Hi, Anna. So what are we going to talk about on the first show? I want to talk about summer vacation. That will be fun. Are you going on vacation this summer? No. This summer I am too busy. That's too bad. It's okay. I can go on vacation next summer. This show will be a lot of fun, too. We hear Amelia and Anna using going to in this lesson to talk about something they will do in the future. I think our listeners already know this verb form, but there are other phrases with going that may not be as familiar to everyone. Did you notice the way they used going on to talk about travel? Amelia asked. Are you going on vacation this summer? That is another way of asking, will you take a vacation this summer? Yes. That looks like a phrasal verb. Anna uses it, too, when she says, It's okay. I can go on vacation next summer. That is like saying, I can take a vacation next summer. And next she uses another expression with vacation, take you on. Hi there and welcome to the show. Today we are going to take you on a summer vacation. As I understand that, she is saying we will go with her as she takes an imaginary summer vacation. In other situations, we use the phrase take you on to invite someone to go with us on a journey. That sounds like a very nice invitation to go on a vacation with Anna. Just be careful. You don't want to say, I'd like to take you for a ride because that is an idiom that means to mislead someone or lie to them. Anna uses going in another way in the lesson. She talks about going to an amusement park. That is a place with many fun activities like roller coasters and games. There we talk about going on a ride. Another popular summer vacation is going to an amusement park. Not an amusement park. You go on rides and eat lots of fun food. So to summarize, we can go on vacation and go on a ride. And we can take someone on a vacation or take them on a ride. This reminds me of the old Steppenwolf song, Magic Carpet Ride. Do you remember that one, Andrew? Of course. Why don't you come with me, little girl, on a Magic Carpet ride? Our listeners may remember the story about Aladdin and the Magic Lamp. A genie takes him on a ride on a flying carpet. In the song, the Magic Carpet is the girl's imagination. Jill, all this talk about summer vacation makes me a little sad because summer has ended here and we are moving into fall. But Andrew, there are so many fun things you can do in the fall or autumn. There are harvest festivals, leaf peeping. Hold on a second there. Jill, I'm not sure our listeners know what leaf peeping means. Then I'll refer them to a story our friend Donna Mateo did a few years ago. She said, leaf peeping is when people travel to see the beautiful colors of fall foliage. Foliage is another name for leaves and fall is another word for autumn. Peep is to take a quick look at something. Like you might peep inside a box to see what's inside. In the eastern United States, people like to travel to the mountains and places like the states of New Hampshire and Vermont to enjoy the beautiful colors of the leaves on the trees in the fall or autumn. Jill, have you ever noticed we only have one word for each of the other seasons but we have two words for the season between summer and winter. That's usually what happened when English speakers had contact with French speakers. Words that were originally in Latin came to the English language through French. It's why we have two words for a kind of meat, lamb and mutton. But let's get back to the fall. I really like the fall because it means the stores all have pumpkin spice flavored foods again. So it's all about the food then. For our listeners, pumpkin spice is a flavoring that includes cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice and cloves. These days in the U.S., stores begin to fill their shelves with pumpkin spice flavored food in August. It's kind of crazy. Anyway, if we're bringing food into the conversation, we've got to talk about pumpkin pie. What's your favorite pie, Jill? That's easy, pecan pie. At our Thanksgiving dinner, we must have both pumpkin pie and pecan pie to make everybody happy. That's a topic for next month. Now let's see if we can summarize with a little chant or series of sentences. Oh boy, can I start? Sure, go right ahead. Oh, that's another expression with go we can talk about. Let's try repeating after us to practice these expressions from the lesson. Here we go. I want to go on vacation. I want to go on a magic carpet ride. You can go on vacation. You can go on a magic carpet ride. Will you take me on a vacation? Will you take me on a magic carpet ride? I'll take you on a vacation. I'll take you on a magic carpet ride. I want to see the fall colors. I want to peep at the autumn leaves and drink pumpkin spice tea. You can see the fall colors. You can peep at the autumn leaves. You can have your pumpkin spice tea, but it's plain old coffee for me. Now we have an assignment for you. We'd like to know your answer to our questions. What is your favorite season? And what do you like to do during that season? You can send your answer in an email to us at learningenglishatvoanews.com. Or if you're watching this podcast on YouTube, put your answer in the comments. We'll read some of your answers on an upcoming podcast. That's all for the lesson of the day today. You can learn more on our website, learningenglish.voanews.com. You can also find us on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. And thanks for listening to the lesson of the day on the Learning English podcast. I'm Andrew Smith. And I'm Jill Robbins. 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.