SpaceX starship enters orbit for the first time, Madonna wins artist of the year “Cheung Chaoyang’s English Lessons” express global hot spots

At 12:30 on September 29, the new issue of “Zhang Chaoyang’s English Class” was launched on time on the Sohu Video Follower stream. Zhang Chaoyang, founder, chairman and CEO of Sohu, shared three hot foreign media reports in Chinese and English: SpaceX starship completed orbital test flight, MTV Music Video Awards ended, and North Korean prisoners of war incident. While helping netizens understand the news, he also refined and explained practical and authentic English expressions in the news.

Zhang Chaoyang first introduced the latest developments in the aerospace field. The SpaceX Starship rocket completed its orbital test and completed splashdown in the Pacific Ocean after orbiting the Earth for about three hours. The mission was originally scheduled to fly for 10 hours, but the team chose to end the mission early. The rocket released 26 new-generation Starlink V3 satellites in orbit to expand the broadband Internet satellite constellation.

According to reports, Starship is called “the world’s most powerful launch vehicle ever developed” and will eventually carry crew and cargo “to Earth orbit, the Moon, Mars and beyond” in the future.

Then Zhang Chaoyang shared a piece of news in the entertainment field. On Sunday night, the MTV Video Music Awards (MTV VMAs) were held in downtown Los Angeles, with singers including Madonna and Taylor Swift winning awards. Among them, Madonna returned to the awards ceremony stage for the first time in more than 20 years and won many awards including artist of the year. Taylor Swift won the first Artist Director Honor Award and also won the highest honor of the night, Video of the Year.

In addition, the course also brought out a diplomatic hot topic. Recently, Ukrainian President Zelensky publicly announced the handover of two captured North Korean soldiers. After the incident, South Korea summoned Ukraine’s acting ambassador to South Korea. Officials from South Korea’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs expressed “strong regret” that Zelensky made the transfer public, saying that the personnel transfer should have been a confidential matter.

Zhang Chaoyang cited foreign media reports that two North Korean prisoners of war captured on the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield had previously hoped to go to South Korea. After more than a year of negotiations between South Korea and Ukraine, the personnel transfer was completed. South Korea originally requested that the entire matter be kept secret in order to protect the families of the prisoners of war who stayed in North Korea. However, Zelensky made the matter public at the United Nations General Assembly. South Korean President Lee Jae-myung criticized the move as disappointing, saying that the handover was a highly sensitive matter related to national security; Uzbekistan refuted that the two sides had not signed a confidentiality agreement, and a diplomatic spat broke out between the two countries. South Korea demanded an apology from Uzbekistan, and bilateral mutual trust suffered a heavy blow.

During the live broadcast, Zhang Chaoyang analyzed key English words based on the news content, including splashdown, constellation, launch vehicle, inter-planetary flight, artist of the year, prisoner-of-war, acting ambassador, spat, lethal weapon, etc.