A Chinese balloon has been shot down near the country’s coast by the US Air Force. While US believe that this is a spy balloon, china said it was just monitoring the weather. The incident has disturbed an important diplomatic visit to china. Now, I would like to introduce three new words, - deflate,bickering and on edge.
1.Balloon saga deflates efforts to mend US - China relations
This headline is saying that this story about the balloon has had a negative effect on China and US. As a result, they are not getting better. Deflate means is to let the air out of something. Can you let the air out of something like a football, car or bike tires? If it has no air in ball or tire, it won’t pretty useless. Now, in the headline, this way of talking about can become deflated and it just means that they become weaker. For example, you have a sports team,which you really want them to win. But they keep losing, so you feel deflated your hopes for the team. In other situations, even though you need to get 80% in an exam, you got 79%. So you are going to feel deflated.
2.Balloon bickering over Biden’s actions, China’s intentions
Bickering means arguing. We can use a lots of words in English instead of arguing. The headline writer might have chosen ‘bickering’ because it starts with the same letter as a ‘balloon’. In kind of arguing, bickering is about things that aren’t really important. It’s quite possible that the headline writer thinks that these things that they are talking about, aren’t very important. But it’s more likely that it just sounds good to write or to say “balloon bickering”.
3.China’s military keeps rivals on edge with balloon strategy
China’s use of balloons in this way is making other countries feel uncomfortable. The expression “on edge” is that you feel tense because you’re nervous or worried. It’s useful to imagine standing on the edge of something like a mountain, a clif or a tall building. You are going to feel nervous and stressed because something bad might happen. It’s quite dangerous. When people are ‘on edge’ , they can sometimes react in a very stressed way or with anger.
【語注】
shot down（shoot dowの過去形） 撃ち落とす
coast 海岸
incident 出来事
led to(lead toの過去形） 繋がる
diplomatic 外交の
mend 修復する
tense 緊迫した、緊張した
clif 崖
