New Zealand is one of the first countries to experience New Year’s Day. Our time zone is UTC +13 at the moment with daylight saving time. So already it is New Year’s Day here. Samoa is now first in the world because they moved the date line a year ago.
Listen to December 29th 2011 to hear more about this.
It is quite common for people to make New Year’s resolutions today. They resolve to be better in some way; for example, to quit smoking or to lose weight. 18% of adults are smokers. One in 3 adults in New Zealand is overweight and one in 4 is obese.
The price of cigarettes has gone up today. It is now $20 for a pack of 25 cigarettes. The cost might help smokers to give up.
It is also common for people to fail in New Year’s resolutions. It is not easy to make changes to your life style. Some will try for a few weeks before giving up because it is too hard.
However, today is the first day of a new year and a time to be positive about the future.
Vocabulary
• UTC – Co-ordinated Universal Time (It used to be called GMT – Greenwich Mean Time)
• resolution (n), resolve (v) – a strong promise to yourself to do something
• common – many people do this (do not say ‘popular’)
• quit, give up – stop doing something you were doing before
• obese – extremely fat, unhealthy because of being overweight
• price goes up – increases
Questions
Have you ever make a New Year’s Resolution? Did you keep your resolution or did you give up after a short time?
Grammar
• one of the first countries. It is important to say ‘countries’ not ‘country’ because you are thinking of many countries. New Zealand is just one of them.
• one in three is (singular verb) because you are talking about ‘one’