 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, you will hear reports from Katie Weaver, Faith Perlow, and John Russell. Later, Brian Lynn looks back at the year's big science stories. Finally, we hear today's lesson of the day. But first, Katie and Faith have this report on the Louisiana Creole culture. Language experts estimate as many as 10,000 people still speak the French-based language Louisiana Creole. In addition, many others in New Orleans and across the Southern U.S. state consider themselves part of the culture that draws tens of thousands of people to events. The celebrations include Autumn's Festival Acadienne et Creole, Summer's Creole Tomato Festival, and Spring's Treme Creole Gumbo and Congo Square Rhythms Festival. But for locals and visitors alike, everyday evidence shows how strong Creole culture is in Louisiana. The state's performance spaces and airwaves are often filled with the driving, rhythmic sound of Zydeco and other Creole and Cajun music. Louisiana's restaurants offer dishes with rich, complex flavors, including gumbo, hot sausage, red beans and rice, and shrimp étouffée. To celebrate Creole culture is to wake up and live in New Orleans, said Christina Bragg. She is a member of the Mahogany Blue Baby Dolls, a parade group for black and mixed race women. Everything Creole is celebrating our day to day lives, the food we eat, the music we dance to, the way we gather with friends to parade during Mardi Gras, she said. Every day I open my eyes and breathe. It's a celebration of Creole culture because that's who I am. So what is Creole? It's food, it's music, it's architecture, it's style and it's traditions. Mona Lisa Saloi told VOA, there are millions of Creole people in countries across the world. We are all so much more alike than we are different. We create beautiful cultures everywhere we go. And I think that's evident here in Louisiana. Saloi is the writer of the poetry collection, Black Creole Chronicles, and served as Louisiana's poet laureate from 2021 to 2023. She said Creole cultures all over the world have similarities to Louisiana's. Creole styles common in New Orleans like the Creole Cottage or the Shotgun Home can be found in other places with Creoles, such as in other parts of the American South and the Caribbean, she said. Much of our music derives from the rhythms of Africa and the Caribbean, as does much of our food. Prevalence of gumbo such as the long rice and okra, for example, or the prevalence of beans. How the word Creole is defined changes from place to place and person to person. The word Creole is believed to have come from the Portuguese word Creolo, which developed from the Latin word for to create. Some say it was used in the European slave trade to describe a slave born in the new world and not in Africa. The word took on different meanings in different places. Creole in much of Africa and part of the Caribbean, for example, came to mean people of mixed ethnic or racial backgrounds. In Louisiana, the definition has changed over the years. Here, the definition kind of depends on who you ask. C'est Vance Vaucrescent. He is a New Orleans based Creole and owner of a local restaurant, the Vaucrescent Sausage Company. I prefer an inclusive definition, he said. By that definition, anyone born in Louisiana could be Creole. During our colonial era, it was meant to differentiate people born in the Americas, usually a French, Spanish, or African descent from those born in Europe or Africa. Describing his definition, Vaucrescent added, It doesn't matter. If you're born here and embrace the culture, you can be Creole. I'm Faith Perlow. I'm Katie Weaver. Beneath each full moon, a group of women in religious clothing surround a fire near a village in central Mexico. They breathe in deeply from a joint and blow clouds of marijuana smoke out toward the fire. Despite their religious clothing, the women are not religious. They are part of an international group founded in 2014 called Sisters of the Valley. The group has promised to spread its ideas about the healing powers of the drug marijuana. The group also launched a successful small business in the United States, where about 20 states have legalized recreational marijuana use. It sells products made from cannabis, the plant from which marijuana comes. The Sisters of the Valley business made over $500,000 last year. But in Mexico, a drug war has hurt the country, and Christianity is built into society. The group says its image of marijuana smoking nuns is like an act of rebellion, though women say. The Sisters often post on social media, mainly Instagram. The pictures show them caring for cannabis crops, leading workshops, and attending cannabis related events. Their business makes around $10,000 each year, small compared to their partners in the US. The five women are careful to hide possible personal and workplace identifiers in the images they post. They do business out of a building with a false storefront. Cannabis production is a legal gray area in Mexico. Much of the activity remains tied to criminal organizations called cartels. The women say they worry that both police and crime groups could threaten them. On a recent weekend, reporters from Reuters news agency visited. One of the nuns, who uses the name Sister Bernadette online, said the sisterhood is in a totally different context here in Mexico because of how religious the country is and because of the plant's ties to cartels. She asked Reuters to not report her real name as she feared attack or punishment if her identity is discovered. In her main job as a homeopathic caregiver, she prescribes marijuana to her patients with cancer, joint pain, and sleep problems. We want to take the plant back from the drug dealers, she said. The sisters have borrowed some ideas from the Beguins, a religious movement that existed for a few hundred years, starting in the eleven hundreds. The group, made up of single women, devoted itself to spirituality, scholarship, and providing aid to the needy. It was not officially connected to any religion. The sisters worldwide say they wear religious clothing called habits to demonstrate uniformity and show respect for the plant. With the help of Alele Paz, a chemist and marijuana researcher working with the group, the sisters in Mexico grow a small crop. They grow the plants in old paint containers and place them in lines between four walls on a rooftop. Later the sisters move the larger plants to private gardens. Their work is limited to weekends when they care for the plants and produce cannabis goods. The women visit other groups in the expanding cannabis community in Mexico City, pushing for full legalization. The women also give workshops that touch on everything from how to make products like cannabis infusions to the chemistry behind the plant. I'm John Russell. As 2023 comes to a close, we are taking a look back at some of the biggest space stories of the year. A container carrying asteroid material captured in space three years ago arrived safely on Earth in September. The container, or capsule, was released by the American Space Agency NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. It floated to Earth and landed in a desert area in the western state of Utah. The spacecraft captured the asteroid material, or sample, from the asteroid Bennu in 2020. NASA announced in October the first examinations of the sample showed evidence of high carbon material and water. These two substances suggest the possibility that the building blocks of life on Earth may be found in the rock. NASA's Psyche spacecraft launched on a mission to observe an asteroid made mostly of metal. It is expected to travel 3.6 billion kilometers over six years to reach the asteroid, also called Psyche. NASA believes the asteroid could have separated during violent crashes that happened during our solar system's early creation. Scientists think data collected on the asteroid could provide new details about how rocky planets, including Earth, formed. The Psyche spacecraft is also being used to test a laser-based communication method. The system aims to greatly improve data links between Earth and spacecraft exploring deep space. A few weeks ago, NASA demonstrated the technology with a short video sent by the laser technology over 30 million kilometers to Earth. The space agency said it took less than two minutes for the video to reach an observatory in California. The video showed a cat repeatedly chasing a red laser light. Scientists announced last month they had discovered the oldest black hole ever found. The huge object is believed to have formed about 470 million years after the Big Bang. The researchers said the findings confirm their theory that supermassive black holes existed in the very early universe. Last month, the European Space Agency, ASA, released the first images from its new Euclid Space Telescope. ASA designed Euclid to study dark matter and dark energy. Scientists think those hidden forms of matter and energy make up 95% of the universe. ASA said the newly released images covered 1,000 galaxies, about 240 million light-years away from Earth. Data collected by NASA's James Webb Space Telescope helped astronomers identify the most distant active supermassive black hole ever discovered. Researchers said the black hole sits at the center of a galaxy called Sears 1019. The galaxy is estimated to have existed about 570 million years after the Big Bang. Earlier this month, NASA said its Ingenuity Helicopter continues to perform well in tests carried out on Mars. So far, Ingenuity has completed at least 66 flights over the past 2.5 years. NASA said it is also testing equipment on Earth that it plans to include in future helicopters built for space exploration. The latest tests on Earth involved new rotor blades. The space agency said reached speeds near the speed of sound in experiments. In August, India became the fourth country to successfully land a spacecraft on the Moon. The Moon lander, called Chandrayaan-3, also became the first spacecraft to land near the Moon's South Pole. The South Pole is thought to be an important area with scientists saying it may contain large amounts of frozen water and minerals. Chinese scientists announced in March they had discovered water in the materials collected during the country's Cheng'e 5 mission. Researchers from Nanjing University reported the water was in the form of extremely small beads found in dirt collected in 2020. The scientists noted that billions, if not trillions, of these beads could exist on the Moon, possibly providing a huge water source. But the team said mining the water would be difficult. I'm Brian Lin. My name is Anna Matteo. My name is Andrew Smith. And I'm Jill Robbins. You're listening to The Lesson of the Day on the Learning English Podcast. Today's lesson helps you do more with Level 2 of our video series, Let's Learn English. This series shows Anna Matteo in her work and life in Washington, D.C. Lesson 2 of Level 2 is called The Interview. Anna's friend Pete has an opportunity for a new job. Anna's boss, Ms. Weaver, is going to interview Pete for the job. The person who asks the questions is called the interviewer, and the person answering the questions is called the interviewee. Right. Just like a company or person who gives a job is the employer, and the worker who gets the job is the employee. Anna also gets a new job, or role, and that's spelled R-O-L-E, in Lesson 2. Your role at work means the special functions or activities you do. Anna still works for Ms. Weaver, but Ms. Weaver tells her, Anna, you're good at asking questions. So, I want you to go back to hosting and reporting. Go back is one of many phrasal verbs you can hear in the video. It means to return. Let's listen to the robot teacher, Professor Botte, talk about them. I wonder what Anna's new assignment will be. Professor Botte here, while you are watching, look for phrasal or two-word verbs. Some stay together, like go back, and some can come apart, like give out. Good luck, Anna. In the video, the word assignments appears between the words give and out. That means give out is a separable phrasal verb. In other words, we can separate the two words and put another word between them. So, Ms. Weaver is telling everyone what their new assignment is. Here's another example, this time with the phrasal verb, turn on. We can say, please turn on the light, or we can say, turn the light on. Both mean to cause a light to shine. Now, let's see what else Ms. Weaver has planned for Anna. And be sure to listen for phrasal verbs as well. So, as I said at the meeting last week, I have new assignments for everyone at the studio. Anna, you're good at asking questions. So, I want you to go back to hosting and reporting. That sounds great! You're also a team player. So, I want you to team up with someone. That sounds even better! Ms. Weaver, someone who is very different from you. That sounds... what do you mean... different? Well, you are very cheerful. You're a people person. I want you to team up with someone who isn't. Ms. Weaver, I will find that person. What kind of person do you think Anna will try to find? Ms. Weaver said Anna is very cheerful and a people person. A people person is an expression that means a person likes to be with other people. Cheerful means happy and sharing good feelings with others. So, if Anna teams up with someone different, that person probably doesn't usually want to be around a lot of people. Team up with is another phrasal verb. Dr. Jill and I team up with each other to do the lesson of the day on the Learning English Podcast. So, team up with just means to work with another person or group of people. Now, let's listen and see who Anna finds. Pete, hi! Thanks for meeting me! Sure, but I don't have lots of time, Anna. I'm busy looking for work. Pete, you can tear these one-ads up and throw them away! I have good news! Anna, I was working on that crossword puzzle. Oh, sorry. Sorry. Pete, forget about the crossword puzzle. I have a job offer for you. I'm listening. My boss wants me to team up with someone to host a talk show. But the person must be different from me, so I thought of you. Different from you? What do you mean? I'm sorry, Pete. I don't have time right now. Here's my boss's address. Your interview is tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. But what do you mean different? Just be yourself, Pete. Just be yourself. Anna takes Pete's newspaper and tears it up or rips it into two pieces. Tear up is a phrasal verb. And Professor Botte tells us about another one. Did you find any two-word verbs? Here's one example. Pete can throw the want-ads away. Throw away is a two-word verb. Thanks, Professor Botte. But since our listeners are not watching the video, we should explain that throw away means to place something in a waste container. Now, let's see how Pete does in his interview with Ms. Weaver. Thanks for coming in, Pete. Thanks for the opportunity, Ms. Weaver. I need to find out if you have the skills for this job and I want you to be completely honest. Okay. First, let's talk about your personal skills. Pete, are you a people person? Well, okay. Sometimes, I think people talk too much. Pete, what work of yours are you most proud of? Last year, I locked myself in a cabin and wrote a book. I didn't speak to anybody the entire time. It was the best two months of my life. Okay. I think I've heard enough. It sounds like Pete is not a people person. Do you think Ms. Weaver will team him up with Anna? Probably. By the way, Ms. Weaver used another phrasal verb there, find out. She wants to learn or gather information about Pete's abilities. That's because she wanted Anna to team up with someone different from herself. Grumpy is an adjective to describe a person's mood or personality. It describes someone who is a bit unhappy or does not share positive feelings with others. I remember some years ago on YouTube, there was a grumpy cat that became very popular. The cat's face made it look grumpy. Yes. All you need to do is enter the word grumpy in YouTube or Google, and you will find many pictures and videos of that cat. So we find that Pete got hired for an unusual reason, because he was grumpy and not a people person. So that makes him different from Anna. Well, they say that good teams need to have different kinds of people on them. What does that say about us, Andrew? I think we have different ways of teaching, but together they work pretty well. In future episodes of Let's Learn English Level 2, we'll see the kinds of assignments Anna and Pete take on. And that brings us back to the phrasal verb from the beginning of the video. Listen. Hey. Hey. Pete, how was the interview with Ms. Weaver? Well, she said I was grumpy and not good with people. And? And I got the job. I knew it. Congratulations. Let's go celebrate. Okay. To take on something is to accept a duty, job, or responsibility. We say we take on a new job, we take on work, we take on a new role, take on responsibilities, and so on. And this phrasal verb is separable. For example, if we use the pronoun it, we can say take it on. But if we use a longer noun, like assignment, we place that noun after the phrasal verb. So we say take on the assignment. We hope you will watch all the lessons in Let's Learn English to see what roles Anna takes on. And have you taken on a new role at work or in life recently? Perhaps you have a new job, or perhaps you have recently become a parent. Write to us and let us know. You can send us your email at learningenglishatvoanews.com. And remember, you can also find us on YouTube, Facebook, and Instagram. Thanks for listening. 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.