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form sick for my barbs.

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You guys deserve better than that.

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Welcome to Learning English, a daily 30-minute program from the Voice of America.

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I'm Ashley Thompson.

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And I'm Dan Novak.

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This program is designed for English learners, so we speak a little slower and we use words and phrases, especially written for people learning English.

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On today's program, Mario Ritter Jr.

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and Katie Weaver have a report on South America's lithium triangle.

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Jill Robbins teaches us how to talk about hopes and dreams in a new everyday grammar lesson.

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But first, Dan Novak has this report.

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The American college basketball tournaments, known as March Madness, begin this week.

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College basketball, or National Collegiate Athletic Association, NCAA basketball, is very popular in the United States.

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In parts of the country, it is even more popular than professional basketball.

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And many people like to guess who will win the many games played over the next few weeks of competition.

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67 games will be held for both men and women.

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A chart that shows the sequence of games is called a bracket.

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Thousands of fans in the US compete with each other to correctly predict the most outcomes of each game.

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Today, more people are using artificial intelligence, or AI, to help them fill their brackets.

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Using AI for bracketing in the tournament is not so new.

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Even so, the yearly bracket competitions still provide many surprises for computer science experts who have spent years creating their models using past tournament results.

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The researchers have found that machine learning alone cannot quite solve for the limited data and unpredictable human elements of the tournament.

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A normal fan may spend a few days this week deciding which team might win a few games in the tournament.

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But computer experts are going after even more detailed information.

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They are using complex math to find the best model for predicting success in the tournament.

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Some are using AI to perfect their codes or decide which qualities of the team can best predict their competitive future.

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The chances of creating a perfect bracket are extremely low for any competitor, however advanced their tools may be.

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An informed fan making choices based on past results has a 1 in 2 billion chance at perfection, says Ezra Miller.

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He is a mathematics professor at Duke University.

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Artificial intelligence is likely very good at determining the probability that a team wins, Miller said.

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But even with the models, he added that the random choice of who's going to win a game that's evenly matched is still a random choice.

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For the 10th straight year, the data science community Kaggle is hosting machine learning madness.

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In traditional brackets competitions, people simply write each team they think will win.

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But machine learning madness requires users to enter a percentage representing their level of confidence that a team will advance.

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Kaggle provides a large data set from past results for people to develop their algorithms.

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That includes information on a team's free throw percentage, turnovers, and assists.

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Users can then turn that information over to an algorithm to find the statistics most predictive of tournament success.

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It's a fair fight.

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There's people who know a lot about basketball and can use what they know, said Jeff Sonas.

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He is a statistical chess analyst who helped start the competition.

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It is also possible for someone who doesn't know a lot about basketball but is good at learning how to use data to make predictions.

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No method will include every element at play on the court.

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There is a balance between modeling and intuition, said Tim Chartier, a Davidson University bracket expert.

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Chartier has studied brackets since 2009.

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He developed a method that largely depends on team success on home court and away, performance in the second half of the season, and difficulty of schedule.

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But he said the NCAA tournament's historical results provide an unpredictable and small sample size.

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that is a difficulty for machine learning models which use large sample sizes.

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Chartier's goal is never for his students to reach perfection in their brackets.

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His own model still cannot account for Davidson's 2008 unexpected admission into the Elite 8 level of the tournament.

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In that mystery, Chartier finds a useful reminder from March Madness.

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The beauty of sports, and the beauty of life itself, is the randomness that we can't predict.

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An area stretching across Argentina, Bolivia, and Chile forms what is called the Lithium Triangle.

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The earth there is rich in lithium, a necessary metal in creating batteries for electric cars and other products.

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The international effort to develop technologies that do not use oil, gas, or coal requires huge amounts of lithium.

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But small native communities in the lithium triangle are worried.

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They fear their way of life will disappear as industry pushes for new lithium mines.

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The mining takes place in low, dry areas known as salt flats.

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Erene Leonor Flores de Cajata is 68 years old.

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She lives in a desert area of Argentina where she keeps llamas and sheep.

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The life includes searching for fresh water on a usual basis.

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Her town is one of 38 that surround salt flats called the Guayatoyoc Lagoon and Salinas Grandes.

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People in the area earn some money from vacationing visitors and salt harvesting.

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They are a native people known as the Cola.

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Flores de Cajata worries that if the mining expands in her area, there will be no water.

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She said, what will we do if we don't have water?

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If the mines come, we'll lose our culture.

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We won't be left with anything.

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Between 2021 and 2023, the price for one ton of lithium almost tripled in the US, reaching $46,000.

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In China, a main buyer of lithium reportedly paid $76,000 for one ton of the metal last year.

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Some call the metal white gold.

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Mining companies around the world are turning their attention to the lithium triangle.

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World leaders are also pushing for lithium production.

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In the United States, President Joe Biden said he aimed to have electric vehicles make up half of all sales in America by 2030.

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That would amount to about 8 million electric vehicles.

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U.S.

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Secretary of State Antony Blinken has said, Argentina is poised to play a critical role in building supply chains for critical minerals that will drive the economy of the 21st century, particularly things like lithium.

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Although prices have recently dropped because of oversupply, experts say worldwide demand is likely to rise in the future.

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Two lithium mining companies operate in Chile, which borders Argentina to the west.

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SQM is a Chilean business, and Albemarle is an American one.

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Valentín Barrera, a spokesman for SQM, said lithium is an answer to the problem of climate change.

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We want to grow, understanding that it's needed to mitigate climate change.

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In Chile, SQM pumps thousands of liters of salt water out of the ground and then lets the water dry out in pools.

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The solids in the salty water contain lithium.

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The pools evaporate, leaving a solid substance that is collected and purified.

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Environmentalists, however, are concerned that the mining in the area will harm animals like flamingos and other life.

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As in Argentina, mining has brought criticism and legal cases.

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Local people want influence in decisions about the land.

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In 2016, an investigation of SQM found that the company had used more water in their mining process than the law permitted.

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Later, the company was ordered to pay $51 million to mitigate damage caused by six incidents, including the polluting of freshwater wells.

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Barrera said the court actions and criticism come from disinformation.

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He blamed the state-run copper mines, which also use a lot of water.

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An Albemarle spokesperson said the underground salt water is not water because it is not drinkable.

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The Associated Press, AP, spoke to a number of scientists.

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They said it is hard to believe that industrial water use does not affect the environment.

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They said water pumping can pollute fresh water with salty water and dry out the surrounding area.

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Ingrid Garces studies water at Chile's University of Antofagasta.

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She said the salt flats are important for different kinds of animal and plant life.

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She said, the water in the salt flats is not drinkable.

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but is connected to other water sources and is important to natives.

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A 2020 report from the United Nations said that mining has used up 65% of the water in Chile's Atacama salt flat, causing pollution and environmental damage, causing natives to leave ancestral settlements.

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In April of 2023, Chilean President Gabriel Boric announced a plan to increase government control of lithium mines.

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The government told the AP the plan would help control water use and spread wealth to more people.

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The move had the effect of pushing mining companies to invest

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in neighboring Argentina.

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Miguel Soler is Secretary of Mining in Northern Argentina.

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He said, in Argentina, Chile's decision is an opportunity.

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More than 30 companies are officially seeking permission to mine in the Guayatoyoc Lagoon and Salinas Grandes areas in Argentina.

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Local people are opposing the business effort.

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The llama herder Flores de Cajata and her native Kola people have fought against mining and brought long legal battles to halt projects in the past also.

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We are guardians of the highlands, said Flores de Cajata.

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We defend our land.

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Last summer, the local government changed laws to limit the ability of groups to protest against the expansion of mining.

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Alicia Chalabi, an environmental lawyer representing the communities, said the change to local law violates international law.

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She said, there is a lot of pressure to exploit lithium for electric vehicles.

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But, she added, while lithium is important worldwide, so is the resistance of these communities.

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They're not alone.

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Flores de Cajata lives in the small town of Tusaquichas, next to the wide salt flats where mining might take place in the future.

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She has a small group of farm animals and lives in a home with dried mud walls that she and her husband built.

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She wonders what will be left in 20 years.

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If the mines come, we'll have money for a time, but then our grandchildren, our great-grandchildren, they're the ones who will suffer, she said.

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Jenner family herded goats near a town close to Chile's Atacama salt flats.

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But when companies started mining lithium in the early 1980s, Torres took a job as a miner and started saving money.

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Today, he uses his wireless phone as he sits next to his small home.

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He bought the house and his device with his earnings from mining.

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There is development, but there's also the water issue, and they contradict each other, Torres said.

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Because everyone needs money, everyone also needs the basics, like health care and education.

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I'm Mario Ritter, Jr.

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And I'm Katie Weaver.

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VOA Learning English has launched a new program for children.

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It is called Let's Learn English with Anna.

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The new course aims to teach children American English through asking and answering questions and experiencing fun situations.

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For more information, visit our website, learningenglish.voanews.com.

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In an earlier Everyday Grammar, we talked about Fast Car, a song about young people who had dreams of making their lives better.

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Then, we asked our readers and listeners to tell us about their own dreams.

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In today's lesson, we will review two answers we received, both from people in their middle years of life,

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and we give some grammar advice.

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First, we want to thank Jairo, a middle-aged man, who wrote to us.

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He said, Today, everyday grammar topic is about dreams.

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How can I describe my dream?

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This is an interesting topic overall for people who already has certain age, like me.

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As well, the time is not longer for following an eternal dream.

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Hyrule used an interesting expression to tell us about his age.

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He said, People who already has certain age.

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You might have heard this expression in sentences like, a person of a certain age needs to be concerned about retirement funds.

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Note that the verb has is not used, but the preposition of is used before a certain age.

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As you can guess, this is a polite way to describe someone in their 40s, 50s, or 60s.

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It is often used to talk about women's age without saying how old they are.

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Sometimes it comes before criticism, so take care in using it.

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Hyro said, the time is not longer for following an eternal dream.

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We suggest using the time is growing shorter or there is little time left.

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Hyro could say,

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The time for me to follow my dream is growing shorter.

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Hyrule continues to tell us about what is now important to meeting his life goals.

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For that reason, I need to be focused on important things.

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Indeed, buy a house, save money for my daughter's scholarship,

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save money for taking a vacations or save money to be prepare for my retirement time.

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In this statement, Ido uses BE before an infinitive verb form two times.

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BE focus and BE prepare.

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We suggest using the adjective form in both.

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I need to be focused on important things.

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I need to save money to be prepared for my retirement.

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Next, we review a message from Kaori, who is a middle-aged woman in Japan.

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She begins by saying what she dreamed as a young person, using the expression we heard in the song, Fast Car, to be someone.

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When I was young, I strongly believed I would be someone in the future.

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I wanted to be the first female prime minister in Japan or an executive of the big famous company."

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Kaori did earn a job at a company, but then marriage and children and culture forced her to quit working.

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She says, however, I didn't become anyone.

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I stopped my job and gave up my career.

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Do I regret my decision and my life?

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No, not at all.

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From the remaining part of Kaori's message, we find she was a success at being a mother, as her two daughters are in college.

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And she gained a part-time job that helped to pay their school costs when they were younger.

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The corrections to her message that we suggest are the spelling of career and how to say you have quit a job.

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We can say, I stopped working or I quit working.

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But Kaori could also say, I changed jobs because being a homemaker and mother, although unpaid, is a full-time job.

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Kaori did all that while holding a part-time job.

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Thinking of How Her Dream Changed Over Time, Caudie writes, My past dreams were only thinking, not real.

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I can say my own dreams have changed every time.

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In the future, even if I become old, I hope to find new and enjoyable dreams at any time.

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Two words in this part cause grammatical issues, every time and anytime.

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Every time should be written as two separate words, but a better way to say this would be, I can say my own dreams have changed over the years.

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Anytime is an adverb, so it should not appear after the preposition at.

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Instead, Kaori could say,

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I hope to find new and enjoyable dreams anytime.

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Or she could use a different expression.

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I hope to find new and enjoyable dreams my whole life long.

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Thank you, Kaori and Heido, for writing to us and helping everyone to learn more about how we talk about our dreams.

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You both showed us that dreams can change over time as our lives become connected with those of others.

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And that's Everyday Grammar.

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I'm Jill Robbins.

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Jill Robbins is here now to talk more about the Everyday Grammar lesson.

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Thanks for joining me, Jill.

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Can you first tell us more about your reader's answers to your Everyday Grammar story?

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Sure, thanks for having me on your podcast.

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When I decided to write about Fast Car, the Tracy Chapman song, I was thinking that it told the story of young people who had been denied the American dream because of poverty.

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But that's not the whole story.

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Did the readers help you to understand it in another way?

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Yes, they helped me see that the song was also about how our dreams change from when we are young to when we are older.

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I think they become a little more realistic.

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Exactly.

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We become a bit more realistic in what we think is a good life.

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Heidel, the man who wrote to us, said he's now focused on helping his daughter get through school and saving for family vacations.

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How about Kaori, the woman who wrote to us?

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She became more realistic too, but I had some advice for her.

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We had talked about the expression to be someone from the song.

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Kaori said she had not become anyone, but I could see she had become a great mother and homemaker.

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Right, an unpaid position, as you say in the story.

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Yes, so I told her she had done valuable work raising two daughters who are now in college.

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I think since it's National Women's History Month, we should acknowledge the tough job that mothers do.

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We should.

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Here is a shout out to all the moms around the world.

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Thanks for being on today's program, Jill, and thanks for that lesson.

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Thanks for asking me, Ashley.

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And that's our program for today.

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Join us again tomorrow to keep learning English through stories from around the world.

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I'm Ashley Thompson.

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And I'm Dan Novak.