According to sources familiar with the matter, American Apparel started to lay off staff on Monday this week after Canada's GildanActivewear withdrew an initial plan to purchase some of the bankrupt fashion retailer's manufacturing operations.
知識點1:－詞匯語法部分
形容詞做后置定語：sources familiar with the matter
lay off 解雇
initial /ɪˈnɪʃ.əl/adj.最初的
purchase/ˈpɝː.tʃəs/ v. 購買
manufacture /ˌmæn.jəˈfæk.tʃɚ/ v.生產

知識點2:－發音
斷句：According to sources familiar with the matter,／斷句 American Apparel started to lay off staff on Monday this week／斷句 after Canada's GildanActivewear withdrew an initial plan to purchase some of the bankrupt fashion retailer's manufacturing operations.
斷句原則：句子太長，一個完整意思說完（意群），表現形式通常以一個特殊語法點出現。比如：主謂賓＋狀語。就可能在狀語前面斷句。主謂＋賓語從句。就可能在賓語從句前面斷句。

Just last week, Gildan won the rights to American Apparel's brand with an $88 million bid. According to sources, many of the over 2,100 employees at the company's headquarters in Los Angeles and nearly 1,000 employees at a manufacturing facility now stand to lose their jobs. In November 2016, American Apparel filed for a second time for bankruptcy protection with about $177 million in debt after the failure of a comeback plan.

知識點1:－數字表達點
2,100 –twenty one hundred
17:00 （下午5點）——seventeen hundred
187 million ---187,000,000 1.87億美元。
File n.檔案；v.遞交檔案