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

I'm Brian Lynn.

I'm Anna Mateo.

This program is made for English learners, so we speak a bit slower, and we use words and sentences especially written for people learning English.

Here are the stories we have for you on today's program.

John Russell talks about the history and importance of the U.S. City of Philadelphia.

Jill Robbins brings us a science story.

She talks about how scientists have linked a gene to human speech.

For words in their stories, we learn about green expressions from Warren Shear.

My co-host Brian will return with a short history of moon landings.

We will end our 30 minutes together with the lesson of the day.

But first, here is John Russell. Philadelphia, also sometimes called Philly, is a big city on the

Delaware River in the northeastern state of Pennsylvania.

It has about 1.5 million people, estimates from the United States Census Bureau show.

William Penn, an Englishman and member of the Christian group known as Quakers, founded

Pennsylvania in the 1680s.

He also designed the city.

Penn chose the name Philadelphia, a term he interpreted to mean city of brotherly love in Greek. Philadelphia is

famous for holding an important place in American history. It served as the nation's capital

from 1785 to 1790. Earlier, it was the capital of the American colonies

during most of the Revolutionary War against Britain. Philadelphia became the central meeting

place for the Founding F fathers who created the United States government.

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