Shadowing Practice: 2016 Stanford Commencement address by Ken Burns - Learn English Speaking with Video
Elige un modo de práctica
Cada modo abre una sala de práctica a pantalla completa.
249 oraciones
Si las oraciones son demasiado cortas o largas, haz clic en Editar para ajustarlas.
1
Stanford University.
2
Please join me in warmly welcoming our commencement speaker, Ken Burns.
3
President Hennessy, members of the Board of Trustees, distinguished faculty and staff, proud and relieved parents,
4
calm and serene grandparents, distracted but secretly pleased siblings,
5
ladies and gentlemen, graduating students of the class of 2016, good morning.
6
I am deeply honored and privileged that you have asked me here to say a few words at so momentous an occasion,
7
that you might find what I have to say worthy of your attention on so important a day,
8
especially one with such historical significance.
9
One hundred and twenty-five years.
10
Wow.
11
Thank you, too, for that generous introduction, President Hennessey.
12
I always feel compelled, though, to inoculate myself against such praise by remembering
13
that I have on my refrigerator door at home an old and now faded cartoon that shows two men standing in hell,
14
the flames licking up around them, and one guy says to the other, apparently my over 200 screen credits didn't mean a damn thing.
15
They don't, of course.
16
There is much more meaning in your accomplishments, which we memorialize today.
17
I am in the business of memorializing, of history.
18
It is not always a popular subject on college campuses today,
19
particularly when at times it may seem to some an anachronistic and irrelevant pursuit,
20
particularly with the ferocious urgency this moment seems to exert on us.
21
It is my job, however, to remind people with story,
22
memory, anecdote, feeling of the power our past also exerts to help us better understand what's going on now.
23
It is my job to try to discern patterns
24
and themes from history to enable us to interpret our dizzying and sometimes dismaying present.
25
For nearly 40 years now, I have diligently practiced and rigorously maintained a conscious neutrality in my work,
26
avoiding the advocacy of many of my colleagues trying to speak to all of my fellow citizens.
27
Over those decades of historical documentary filmmaking, I have also come to the realization that history is not a fixed thing,
28
a collection of precise dates, facts, and events that add up to a quantifiable, certain, confidently known truth.
29
History is a mysterious and malleable thing, constantly changing, not just as new information emerges,
30
but as our own interests, emotions, and inclinations change.
31
Each generation rediscovers and re-examines that part of the past, which gives its present new meaning,
32
new possibility, and new power.
33
The question becomes for us now, for you especially, What will we choose as our inspiration?
34
Which distant events and long dead figures will provide us with the greatest help,
35
the most coherent context, and the wisdom simply to go forward?
36
This is in part an existential question.
37
None of us get out of here alive.
38
An exception will not be made in your case and you'll live forever ever.
39
You can't actually design your life.
40
If you want to make God laugh, the saying goes, tell her your plans.
41
The hard times and vicissitudes of life will ultimately visit everyone.
42
You will come to realize that you are less defined by the good things that happen to you, your moments of happiness and apparent control,
43
than you are by those misfortunes and unexpected challenges
44
that in fact shape you more definitively and help to solidify your true character, the measure of any human value.
45
You especially know that the conversation that comes out of tragedy and injustice needs to be encouraged,
46
emphasis on courage.
47
It is through those conversations that we make progress.
48
A mentor of mine, the journalist Tom Brokaw, recently said to me, what we learn is more important than what we set out to do.
49
It's tough out there, but so beautiful too.
50
And history, memory, can prepare you.
51
I have a searing memory of the summer of 1962, when I was almost nine, joining our family dinner on a hot,
52
sweltering day in a tract house in a development in Newark, Delaware, and seeing my mother crying.
53
She had just learned, and my brother and I had just been told, that she would be dead of cancer within six months.
54
But that's not what was causing her tears.
55
Our inadequate health insurance had practically bankrupted us, and our neighbors, equally struggling working people,
56
had taken up a collection and presented my parents with six crisp $20 bills, $120 in total,
57
enough to keep us solvent for more than a month.
58
In that moment, I understood something about community and courage, about constant struggle and little victories.
59
That hot June evening was a victory,
60
and I have spent my entire professional life trying to resurrect small moments moments within the larger sweep of American history,
61
trying to find our better angels in the most difficult of circumstances,
62
trying to wake the dead to hear their stories.
63
But how do we keep that realization of our own inevitable mortality from paralyzing us with fear?
64
And how do we also keep our usual denial of this fact from depriving our lives and our actions of real meaning, of real purpose?
65
This is our great human challenge, your challenge.
66
This is where history can help.
67
The past often offers an illuminating and clear-headed perspective from
68
which to observe and reconcile the passions of the present moment just when they threaten to overwhelm us.
69
The history we know, the stories we tell ourselves,
70
relieve that existential anxiety, allow us to live beyond our fleeting lifespans,
71
and permit us to value and love and distinguish what is important and the practice of history,
72
both personal and professional, becomes a kind of conscience for us.
73
As a filmmaker, as a historian, as an American, I have been drawn continually to the life and example and words of Abraham Lincoln.
74
He seems to get us better than we get ourselves.
75
158 years ago, in mid-June of 1858,
76
Abraham Lincoln, running in what would be a failed bid for the United States Senate, at a time of bitter partisanship in our national politics,
77
almost entirely over the issue of slavery, spoke to the Republican State Convention in the Illinois State House in Springfield.
78
His political party, the Republican Party, was brand new, born barely four years before,
79
with one single purpose in mind, to end the intolerable hypocrisy of chattel slavery
80
that still existed in a country promoting certain unalienable rights to itself and the world.
81
He said, a house divided against itself cannot stand.
82
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
83
Four and a half years later, he was president, presiding over a country in the midst of the worst crisis in American history,
84
our Civil War, giving his annual message to Congress, what we now call the State of the Union.
85
The State of the Union was not good.
86
His house was divided.
87
But he also saw the larger picture.
88
The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present.
89
The occasion is piled high with difficulty, he said, and we must rise with the occasion.
90
As our case is new, we must think anew and act anew.
91
We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country." And then he went on,
92
"'Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history.
93
The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation.
94
We say we are for union.
95
The world will not forget that we say this.
96
We know how to save the Union.
97
In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free.
98
Honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve,
99
we shall nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope of Earth.
100
You are that latest generation he was metaphorically speaking about, and you are, whether you are yet aware of it or not,
101
charged with saving our union.
102
The stakes are slightly different than the ones Lincoln faced.
103
There is not yet armed rebellion, but they are just as high.
104
And before you go out and try to live and shape the rest of your life, you are required now to rise,
105
as Lincoln implored us, with the occasion.
106
You know, it's terribly fashionable these days to criticize the United States government, the institution Lincoln was trying to save,
107
to blame it for all the ills known to humankind.
108
And my goodness, ladies and gentlemen, let's be honest, it has made more than its fair share of catastrophic mistakes.
109
But you would be hard pressed to find in all of human history a greater force for good.
110
From our Declaration of Independence to our Constitution and Bill of Rights, from Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th,
111
14th, 15th, and Women 19th Amendments, to the Land Grant College and Homestead Acts,
112
from the Transcontinental Railroad and our National Parks to Child Labor Laws, Social Security, and the National Labor Relation Acts,
113
from the GI Bill and the Interstate Highway System to putting a man on the moon and the Affordable Care Act,
114
the United States government has been the author of many of the best aspects of our public and personal lives.
115
But if you tune in to politics, if you listen to the rhetoric of this election cycle,
116
you You are made painfully aware that everything is going to hell in a handbasket,
117
and the chief culprit is our evil government.
118
Part of the reason this kind of criticism sticks is
119
because we live in an age of social media where we are constantly assured that we are all independent, free agents.
120
But that free agency is essentially unconnected to real community,
121
divorced from civic engagement, duped into believing in our own lonely primacy by a sophisticated media culture that requires you know,
122
desperately needs you to live in an all-consuming disposable present, wearing the right blue jeans,
123
driving the right car, carrying the right handbag, eating at all the right places,
124
blissfully unaware of the historical tides that have brought us to this moment,
125
blissfully uninterested in where those tides might take us.
126
Our spurious sovereignty is reinforced and perpetually underscored to our obvious and great comfort,
127
but this kind of existence actually ingrains in us a stultifying sameness that rewards conformity,
128
not courage, ignorance and anti-intellectualism, not critical thinking.
129
This wouldn't be so bad if we were just wasting our own lives, but this year our political future depends on it,
130
and there comes a time when I
131
and you can no longer remain neutral silent we must speak up
132
and speak out for 216 years our elections though bitterly contested have featured the philosophies
133
and characters of candidates who were clearly qualified that is not the case this year
134
One is glaringly not qualified.
135
So before you do anything with your well-earned degree,
136
you must do everything you can to defeat the retrograde forces that have invaded our democratic process,
137
divided our house, to fight against, no matter your political persuasion,
138
the dictatorial tendencies of the candidate with zero experience in the much malign but subtle art of governance.
139
Who is against lots of things but doesn't seem to be for anything,
140
offering only bombastic and contradictory promises and terrifying Orwellian statesman.
141
A person who easily lies, creating an environment where the truth doesn't seem to matter,
142
who has never demonstrated any interest in anyone or anything but himself and his own enrichment.
143
who insults veterans, threatens a free press, mocks the handicap, denigrates women, immigrants, and all Muslims,
144
a man who took more than a day to remember to disavow a supporter who advocates white supremacy
145
and the Ku Klux Klan, an infantile, bullying man who,
146
depending on his mood is willing to discard old and established alliances, treaties, and long-standing relationships.
147
I feel genuine sorrow for the understandably scared
148
and they feel powerless people who have flocked to his campaign in the mistaken belief that,
149
as often happens on TV,
150
A one can be waived and every complicated problem can be solved with the simplest of solutions.
151
They can't.
152
It is a political Ponzi scheme.
153
And asking this man to assume the highest office in the
154
land would be like asking a newly minted car driver to fly a 747.
155
As a student of history, I recognize this type.
156
He emerges everywhere and in all eras.
157
We see nurtured in his campaign an incipient proto-fascism,
158
a nativist, anti-immigrant, know-nothingism, a disrespect for the judiciary,
159
the prospect of women losing authority over their own bodies.
160
African Americans again asked to go to the back of the line.
161
Voter suppression gleefully promoted.
162
Jingoistic saber rattling.
163
A total lack of historical awareness.
164
A political paranoia that predictably points fingers, always making the other wrong.
165
These are all virulent strains that have at times infected us in the past,
166
but they now loom in front of us again, all happening at once.
167
We know from our history books that these are the diseases of ancient and now fallen empires.
168
We know from our history books that these are the diseases of ancient and now fallen empires.
169
The sense of commonwealth, of shared sacrifice, of trust, so much a part of American life is eroding fast,
170
spurred along and amplified by an amoral internet
171
that permits a lie to circle the globe three times before the truth can get started.
172
We no longer have the luxury of neutrality or balance or even bemused disdain.
173
Many of our media institutions have largely failed to expose this charlatan,
174
torn between a nagging responsibility to good journalism and the big ratings a media circus always delivers.
175
In fact, they have given him the abundant airtime he so desperately craves,
176
so much so that it has actually worn down our natural human revulsion to this kind of behavior.
177
Hey, he's rich, he must be doing something right.
178
He's not.
179
Edward R.
180
Murrow would have exposed this naked emperor months ago.
181
He is an insult to our history.
182
And do not be deceived by his momentary good behavior.
183
It's only a spoiled, misbehaving child hoping somehow to still have dessert.
184
And do not think that the tragedy in Orlando underscores his points.
185
It does not.
186
We must disenthrall ourselves, as Abraham Lincoln said, from the culture of violence and guns, and then we shall save our country.
187
This, ladies and gentlemen, is not a liberal or conservative issue, a red state, blue state divide.
188
This is an American issue.
189
Many honorable people, including the last two Republican presidents, members of the party of Abraham Lincoln,
190
have declined to support him.
191
And I implore those Vichy Republicans who have endorsed him to please, please reconsider.
192
We must remain committed to the kindness and community that are the hallmarks of civilization and reject the troubling,
193
unfiltered Tourette's of his tribalism.
194
The next few months of your commencement, that is to say your future, will be critical to the survival of the Republic.
195
The occasion is piled high with difficulty.
196
Let us pledge here today
197
that we will not let this happen to the exquisite yet deeply flawed land we all love
198
and cherish and hope to leave intact to our posterity.
199
Let us nobly save, not meanly lose, the last best hope of Earth.
200
Let me speak directly to the graduating class.
201
Watch out, here comes the advice.
202
Look, I am the father of four daughters.
203
If someone tells you they've been sexually assaulted, take it effing seriously and listen to them.
204
Maybe someday we will make the survivor's elegant statement, as important as Dr. King's letter from a Birmingham jail.
205
OK, try not to make the other wrong, as I just did with the presumptive nominee.
206
Be for something.
207
Be curious, not cool.
208
Feed your soul, too, every day.
209
Remember, insecurity makes liars of us all, not just presidential candidates.
210
Don't confuse success with excellence.
211
The poet Robert Penn Warren once told me that careerism is death.
212
Do not descend too deeply into specialism either.
213
Educate all of your parts.
214
You will be healthier.
215
Free yourself from the limitations of the binary world.
216
It is just a tool, a means, not an end.
217
Seek out and have mentors.
218
Listen to them.
219
The late theatrical director Tyrone Guthrie once said, we are looking for ideas large enough to be afraid of again.
220
Embrace those new ideas.
221
Bite off more than you can chew.
222
Travel.
223
Do not get stuck in one place.
224
Visit our national parks.
225
Their sheer majesty may remind you of your own atomic insignificance, as one observer noted.
226
But in the inscrutable ways of nature, You will feel larger, inspirited,
227
just as the egotist in our midst is diminished by his or her self-regard.
228
Insist on heroes and be one.
229
Read.
230
The book is still the greatest man-made machine of all.
231
Not the car, not the TV, not the smartphone.
232
Make babies.
233
One of the greatest things that will happen to you is that you will have to worry,
234
I mean really worry about someone other than yourself.
235
It is liberating and exhilarating, I promise.
236
Ask your parents.
237
Do not lose your enthusiasm.
238
In its Greek etymology, the word enthusiasm means simply, God in us.
239
Serve your country.
240
Insist that we fight the right wars.
241
Convince your government, as Lincoln knew, that the real threat always and still comes from within this favored land.
242
always forget that.
243
Insist that we support science and the arts, especially the arts.
244
They have nothing to do with the actual defense of our country.
245
They just make our country worth defending.
246
Believe, believe, as Arthur Miller told me in an interview for my very first film on the Brooklyn Bridge,
247
believe that maybe you too could add something that would last and be beautiful. And vote.
248
indelibly underscore your citizenship and our connection to each other when you do.
249
Good luck and Godspeed.
Descargar app
Todo lo que necesitas para hablar con fluidez
Pronunciación con IAEvalúa cada oración
Práctica de IPADomina cada sonido
VocabularioConstruye tu banco de palabras
Juego de vocabularioAprende mientras juegas
Mismo canal
C18
Martin Andrews – Definitive Stem Cell and Gene Therapy for Child Health: Stanford Childx Conference
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C12
The Future of Data Science - Data Science @ Stanford
Daily ConversationUniversity Students
C16
2019 Stanford Commencement address by Tim Cook
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B22
Sundar Pichai gives Stanford’s 2026 Commencement address
Business EnglishInterview EnglishUniversity Students
C14
Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address (with intro by President John Hennessy)
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C272
Steve Jobs' 2005 Stanford Commencement Address
University Students
FOR YOU
Recomendar Video
C11
236 oraciones
【日英字幕】2026ハーバード卒業演説 自身のハーバード学生生活から人生の教訓まで、ユーモアを交えて語るコナン流感動の卒業スピーチ
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C11
719 oraciones
View From The Top with Roelof Botha, Managing Partner of Sequoia Capital
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C11
150 oraciones
Why We Can't Save Those We Love
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
![THIS WILL CHANGE YOU! Navy Seal Admiral William H. McRaven [MOTIVATIONAL SPEECH]](https://img.youtube.com/vi/mMEq0r97T_k/mqdefault.jpg)
C193 oraciones
THIS WILL CHANGE YOU! Navy Seal Admiral William H. McRaven [MOTIVATIONAL SPEECH]
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C16
37 oraciones
Steve Jobs Famous 2005 commencement speech at Stanford University
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C11
21 oraciones
Solve at MIT: Her Majesty Queen Rania on "Youth, Skills, and the Workforce" Challenge
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C1264 oraciones
Full Speech Jim Carrey's Commencement Address at the 2014 MUM Graduation
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C176
53 oraciones
ENGLISH SPEECH | LEONARDO DICAPRIO: Climate Change (English Subtitles)
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C130
64 oraciones
KenBurn 1
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
C12
136 oraciones
Kenyon College: John Green Commencement Address
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
C12
814 oraciones
What It Means To Be A Good Man Today With Tom Junod
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C11
220 oraciones
［中英字幕完整版］畢業生必看！泰勒絲在紐約大學的畢業演講 Taylor Swift addresses at 2022 NYU Graduational Commencement
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
Vocabulario y notas de pronunciación para esta lección
Esta lección de conversación de nivel C2 se basa en el vídeo “2016 Stanford Commencement address by Ken Burns”. Este vídeo tiene 249 frases y 2976 palabras para practicar shadowing. La parte hablada dura 25:17. El hablante mantiene un ritmo constante de unas 118 palabras por minuto, cómodo para el shadowing. Solo el 80 % de las palabras está entre las 3.000 más comunes del inglés, por lo que el vocabulario es exigente.
Vocabulario clave de este vídeo
Las 15 palabras más avanzadas del vídeo, con su pronunciación y significado:
| Palabra | Pronunciación | Significado |
|---|---|---|
| insist verbo | /ɪnˈsɪst/ | insistir, empeñarse |
| anew adverbio | /əˈnu/ | de nuevo, nuevamente |
| commencement sustantivo | /kəˈmɛnsmənt/ | incoación |
| existential adjetivo | /ˌɛɡzɪˈstɛnʃl̩/ | existencial |
| nobly adverbio | /ˈnoʊbli/ | noblemente |
| amidst | /aˈmɪdst/ | en medio de, en pleno |
| neutrality sustantivo | /nuˈtɹæləti/ | neutralidad |
| honorable adjetivo | /ˈɑn.ə.ɹəbl̩/ | honorable, honroso |
| inadequate adjetivo | /ɪnˈædəkwɪt/ | inadecuado |
| distinguish verbo | /dɪˈstɪŋ.ɡwɪʃ/ | distinguir |
| emerge verbo | /ɪˈmɝd͡ʒ/ | emerger, aparecer |
| desperately adverbio | /ˈdɛs.p(ə.)ɹət.li/ | desesperadamente |
| enthusiasm sustantivo | /ɪnˈθuziæzəm/ | entusiasmo |
| immigrant sustantivo | /ˈɪmɪɡɹənt/ | inmigrante |
| assure verbo | /əˈʃʊɹ/ | asegurar, afianzar |
Phrasal verbs que vas a escuchar
| Palabra | Pronunciación | Significado |
|---|---|---|
| get out of verbo | salirse de, ponerse fuera de | |
| go out verbo | salir | |
| speak up verbo | /ˌspik ˈʌp/ | hablar más alto, hablar más fuerte |
| watch out | cuidado, ojo | |
| wear down verbo | desgastar |
Gramática en este vídeo
Las estructuras que más usa el hablante, con las palabras exactas del vídeo:
| Estructura | En el vídeo |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + participio pasado — una acción pasada que sigue importando ahora | have asked · have also come · have spent |
| Voz pasiva be + participio pasado — importa lo que ocurre, no quién lo hace | will not be made · be encouraged · been told |
| Oraciones de relativo who / which + oración — información extra sobre una persona o cosa | person who easily · man who took · people who have |
Pronunciación a tener en cuenta
El hablante usa 10 contracciones y formas reducidas, como can't, doesn't, don't. Dilas en su forma corta, tal como las oyes.
- Los sonidos de “th”: enthusiasm /ɪnˈθuziæzəm/, threaten /ˈθɹɛt.n̩/
- Los sonidos de “sh” y “zh”: existential /ˌɛɡzɪˈstɛnʃl̩/, realization /ˌɹɪə.laɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/, distinguish /dɪˈstɪŋ.ɡwɪʃ/, assure /əˈʃʊɹ/, limitation /lɪmɪˈteɪʃən/
- Palabras largas — cuida el acento: neutrality /nuˈtɹæləti/, realization /ˌɹɪə.laɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/, inadequate /ɪnˈædəkwɪt/, desperately /ˈdɛs.p(ə.)ɹət.li/, enthusiasm /ɪnˈθuziæzəm/
Sonidos difíciles para hispanohablantes:
- s + consonante al inicio — sin añadir una “e” delante: sweep /swiːp/, smartphone /ˈsmɑɹtfoʊn/
- /v/ — no es /b/: los dientes tocan el labio inferior: relieve /ɹɪˈliːv/, advocacy /ˈæd.və.kə.si/, observer /əbˈzɝvɚ/, irrelevant /ɪˈɹɛləvənt/, civic /ˈsɪvɪk/
- /z/ — sonora, no /s/: existential /ˌɛɡzɪˈstɛnʃl̩/, realization /ˌɹɪə.laɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/, enthusiasm /ɪnˈθuziæzəm/, observer /əbˈzɝvɚ/, expose /ɪkˈspoʊz/
Cómo practicar con este vídeo
- Escucha el vídeo entero una vez sin hablar y anota las palabras que no conoces.
- Haz shadowing frase por frase a velocidad normal, repitiendo cada una hasta que tu ritmo coincida con el del hablante.
- Grábate y compara con el original, prestando atención a palabras como insist, anew, commencement.
¿Qué es la Técnica de Shadowing?
Shadowing es una técnica de aprendizaje de idiomas respaldada por la ciencia, desarrollada originalmente para la formación de intérpretes profesionales y popularizada por el políglota Dr. Alexander Arguelles. El método es simple pero poderoso: escuchas audio en inglés nativo y lo repites en voz alta de inmediato, como una sombra que sigue al hablante con solo 1-2 segundos de retraso. A diferencia de la escucha pasiva o los ejercicios de gramática, el shadowing obliga a tu cerebro y músculos de la boca a procesar y reproducir simultáneamente patrones de habla reales. Las investigaciones muestran que mejora significativamente la precisión de la pronunciación, la entonación, el ritmo, el habla conectada, la comprensión auditiva y la fluidez al hablar, convirtiéndola en una de las metodologías más efectivas para la preparación del IELTS Speaking y la comunicación en inglés en el mundo real.