Because of my work, I have a habit. Every day, I read English news in my email. I subscribe to many English newsletters. I get hundreds of emails every day. Because there are so many, I read very fast.
This "Sentence Spotlight" series will pick some real English sentences. We will look at them together. This is good for beginner English learners.
Today, I saw this sentence in my email. Let’s try to understand it step by step:
"FDA’s anticipated approval of lenacapavir comes at a time of global health cuts."
source
This sentence is a little difficult. It is about CEFR C1 level.
Let’s imagine our English is A2-B1. We know about 2000 words. How can we understand this sentence quickly, without a dictionary or grammar books?
1. Find the main action
Lucky for us, we see a word we know: "come."Yes, this is the verb in the sentence.
2. Start with the easy part
Let’s look at this part: "at a time of global health cuts". This part is not hard. It means: "when there are global health cuts." The word "cuts" usually means "to cut with a knife."
But we know you cannot cut health. So, here "cuts" means "less money for health." Health budgets are going down.
3. The hard part: the subject
Let’s try to look at this part: "FDA’s anticipated approval of lenacapavir."
At our level, maybe we only know "FDA" here.
But if we look at "of," we know the important word is "approval." The rest of the words tell us more about "approval."
4. Put it all together
Now, we can guess the meaning:
When global health budgets are going down, the FDA gives approval for lenacapavir.
If you are B1 level, you may know "approval" means "to say OK" or"permission."
Even if you don’t know the word, you can still guess. We know the FDA is a group that makes rules for medicine. They do not make things. So, it is easy to guess: the FDA "approves" or says "OK" to something, even when there is less money for health.
And what is "lenacapavir"? If we don’t know, we can click the news story to learn more.
Does this look complicated? With practice, it is easy and very fast. I can do this in one second after practice.
If you have a sentence you want to understand, write a comment! We can practice together!