Your English Five a Day #5.3

E106: Today we dive into the underworld of financial criminal activity in this episode of the Your English Five a Day series. Join me as we figure out the meanings of the words 'criminal', 'to launder', 'down-and-out', 'deceitfully', and 'to prey on' or 'to prey upon'. We follow the story of a friend who was, sadly, the target of a financial crime, and how his debts kept adding up, leaving him in a sticky situation.

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Transcript

Vocabulary

Speaker 1 0:00

Hello and welcome to the English. Like a Native podcast, I'm your host, anna, and you are listening to a series called your English Five a Day, where we aim to expand your vocabulary little by little, piece by piece, with five pieces of vocabulary every day for each working day of the week. Today is no different. This is week five, day three, and we're kicking off today's list with the verb launder, launder. This is spelt L-A-U-N-D-E-R. So what does launder mean? Well, this is often coupled with the word money, so we're talking about laundering money or money laundering. This means to move illegally obtained money, so money that's been stolen or that's been obtained through the sale of things that are illegal, like arms or drugs, and then you take that money, which is tainted, it's dirty because it's come from you know illegal activity, and you clean it. That's why we use the word launder, like laundry, we clean it by processing it through banks and businesses so that you make it look legal. Okay, there's been oh, there was a fantastic series on Netflix called the Ozarks, which was all about a chap that got completely wrapped up in this money laundering business. Despite wanting to escape that criminal activity. He had very little choice and so he was money laundering for some big gangsters. So that's called the Ozarks very good, interesting series. So that's to launder money. Here's an example sentence Police in Nottingham have been accused of laundering money through local businesses, mainly liquor and convenience stores. Alright, moving on to the next word on our list is a noun, and it's the word criminal, a criminal. A criminal is a person who commits crime. So criminal is spelled C-R-I-M-I-N-A-L, criminal, criminal, so a person who commits crimes. Do you know anyone who's committed a crime? Now it's interesting, isn't it? Because I'm sure all of us in some way or another have broken some form of law. I've broken the speed limit occasionally. I stole a sweetie from a sweet shop when I was younger. What else have I done that's illegal. I used to take a VHS and record things off the television when I was younger and that was illegal, and so I think we've all done things that kind of go against the law at some point or other. But a criminal calling someone a criminal is when they've been convicted, usually of a more serious crime you know, like abuse or something that's you know caused real problems, like selling drugs or murder. You know all these really serious crimes. Carrying a firearm when guns are illegal. So a criminal would be reserved for someone who commits a serious crime. If someone commits small crimes, then you might call them a petty criminal or refer to the crimes as petty crimes. They've been convicted of a number of petty crimes. Anyway, let's have the example sentence. Mr Martins, you are a criminal of the worst kind. I hereby sentence you to 27 years in jail. Okay, next on our list is the adverb deceitfully. This is spelled D, e, c, e, I, t, f, u, l, l Y deceitfully. If you do something deceitfully, then you're doing it in a way that keeps the truth hidden. So it's all about hiding the truth, especially to gain an advantage over someone or something. Okay, so have you ever done something deceitfully? Here's an example sentence A local politician has been deceitfully claiming £2,000 a month in expenses. That's unheard of. Okay, I'm being sarcastic, of course. Okay, the next word on our list. Well, it's a couple of words together the adjective down and out, down and out. Three words brought together with hyphens to show that they belong together D-O-W-N. Down, a-n-d and O-U-T out, down and out. If something is down and out, or if someone is down and out, then it describes them having no money, luck or opportunities. So when someone's in a really bad place basically you have no money, you have no luck, more bad things are happening to you and there's no opportunity for you then you definitely are down and out. It's a really bad place to be. Here's an example sentence my neighbour used to be down and out. Then he met Jane at the food bank and it turned his life around. Okay, the last word or words on my list is actually a phrasal verb and it is pray on, sometimes also known as pray upon. So you can use on or upon. They're both very similar. So you pray on or you pray upon someone. Now this means to harm someone or to like, try to pick people that you want to harm, picking them because they're weaker than you. So the word pray. We often think about predators and prey out in the wild. A predator would be an animal that would attack its prey, which is the thing that it wants to destroy or eat. So you can imagine a tiger is the predator and its prey would be a little gazelle, a little deer or a little rabbit poor little rabbit. The rabbit would be the prey. So the tiger prays upon the rabbit. It will hunt it, chase it and then attack. Now some people pray on weaker people. Here's an example sentence Insurance companies should be stopped from praying upon people they know are in financial difficulty. Okay, so that was our five. Let's revisit. We had the verb launder, talking about laundering money, which is moving dirty money illegal, illegally obtained money and cleaning it through businesses and banks. We had the noun criminal, a person who commits crimes. We had the adverb deceitfully, to do something in a way that keeps the truth hidden. We had the adjective down and out, meaning someone or something has no money, luck or opportunities, and we had the phrase of a verb to prey on or to prey upon, which is to wish someone harm or cause someone harm, particularly those that are weaker than you, to seek them out, to hurt them. Let's try now for pronunciation. So please repeat after me Launder, criminal, deceitfully, down and out, prey on, prey upon. Now you will notice that I dropped the D in down and out. Down and out. I said this is quite common when and is sitting between like two words that make up a common phrase, like fish and chips, salt and pepper, down and out, we just tend to drop that D. It's much faster to say Okay. So now that we've had our five. Let's bring them all together in a little story. Have you ever found yourself in financial difficulty? Usually, we can work things out and get over these little issues with help from friends or family. There are many reasons why we might find ourselves in debt and, unfortunately for some, getting out of debt isn't so easy. In the world of finance and money lending, cunning criminals lurk. They prey on financially troubled youngsters, deceitfully targeting those who find themselves trapped in extreme debt. A friend of mine was once caught out by one such criminal. This crook offered to lend my friend £1,000. We later learned that this guy was laundering money in order to provide loans to naive and needy customers to give them a way out of their financial problems. And these no questions asked loans came at a huge cost. The £1,000 loan offered to my friend ended up costing over £2,000 once the interest and arrangement fee had been added on. Exploiting their potential customers' vulnerability, these skillful criminals manipulate and clean illegal funds through complex schemes and offshore accounts. Their activities are calculated to erase any trace of the money's origins. They often prey on those that are down and out, enticing them with false promises of relief and a way out of their financial trouble. Their actions leave a trail of shattered lives in their wake, as the selfish search for personal gain takes priority over the well-being of their victims. I wish I had stepped in to stop my friend being preyed upon by this guy. I can only hope that it doesn't happen again. Okay, so that brings us to the end of today's Fiver Day. I do hope you found it useful. I look forward to tickling your eardrums again tomorrow. Until then, take very good care and goodbye.