GRAMMAR

VOCAB
Advanced Reading Lesson:
COLLOCATION
CNN News Article
lay off (phrasal verb)
= to stop employing someone because
there’s no work for them to do

‘BE’ + to-infinitive
= formal way to announce that
something is planned to happen in the
future

Note: we often omit ‘BE’ in the title of

Sony to lay off 900 at PlayStation as tough times
news articles
for the video games industry persist
tough times
= a difficult economic situation

persist (verb)
= something bad continues to exist or
happen

giant (noun)
= a large, successful company that is
well-known in its industry

Future Continuous
WILL BE + verb-ing

workforce (noun)
= the group of people who work in a
particular company

Electronics giant Sony announced on Tuesday that it

press release (noun)
will be cutting 900 jobs, or 8%, in PlayStation’s
= a company’s official statement that
gives information to newspapers, tv
programs, and radio stations global workforce.
in-house (adj./adv.)
= created by the employees in the offices
of a company The layoffs will impact all regions for Sony
Interactive Entertainment, according to the
immensely (adv.)
= very, very much, a lot PlayStation press release, with its in-house London
future-ready (verb) studio, responsible for the competitive singing video
= to make or plan something so that a
company can quickly identify changes game “Singstar,” closing entirely.
and respond to future challenges

set up (phrasal verb)

= to prepare
set (something) up for (something)
“These are incredibly talented people who have
been part of our success, and we are very grateful for
lie ahead
= to exist in the future their contributions,” wrote Jim Ryan, president and
slash (verb)
CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment. “However,
= to greatly reduce an amount or a price
the industry has changed immensely, and we need to
forecast (noun) future-ready ourselves to set the business up for
= a prediction of what will probably
happen in the future, based on current
information or data
what lies ahead.”
latter (adj.)
= close to the end of a time period
The workforce reduction follows the company
Past Perfect slashing sales forecasts for the year and Naomi
HAD + past participle verb
Matsuouka, Sony senior vice president, saying the
take the reins
PlayStation 5 console was approaching the latter end
= to take control of an organization or a
government
of its life cycle, according to Bloomberg.
interim (adj.)
= temporary, only until something final

Ryan had already announced in September plans to

can be made

to face (verb) retire in March as Sony Group Corporation president.

= to deal with a problem in a direct way
Hiroki Totoki, the chief operating officer and chief
sector (noun)
= a specific area of an economy
financial officer, will take the reins as interim CEO.

upheaval (noun)
= a major change that causes a lot of
problems, anger, and confusion
The new CEO will be facing an entire tech sector in

alone (adverb)
upheaval, as industry giants laid off 5,500 workers
= without including anything else
within the first two weeks of 2024 alone.

Present Perfect Continuous

HAVE/HAS BEEN + verb-ing
Specifically, the video game industry has been
hemorrhage (verb) seeing jobs hemorrhage from 2023 into this year as
= to lose a lot of people/money very
quickly in an uncontrollable way
well, with Epic Games cutting 830 jobs last
September and Tencent’s Riot Games laying off 11%
to echo (verb)
= to be very similar to something that of its workforce in January.
happened before

step back (phrasal verb)

= to stop doing something so you can Echoing the leadership of those other game
think think about it clearly and make a
better decision
companies, Ryan wrote in his email to employees:
holistically (adverb)
= considering someone or something as
“We had to step back, look at our business
one whole, not as separate parts
holistically, and move forward focusing on the long-
long-term (adj.)
= considering what will happen in the
term sustainability of the company and delivering
very distant future
the best experiences possible for our community.”
sustainability (noun)
= the ability to continue for a long time

to deliver (verb) Sony Group Corporation (SONY) stock fell less than
= to do something that you promised, or
do something that other people 1% following the news on Tuesday.
expected or wanted

stock (noun)
= the percent of a company that
someone owns

Original CNN article:

https://www.cnn.com/2024/02/27/te
ch/sony-playstation-lays-off-900

See you in the next lesson!

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Teacher Gina