Shadowing Practice: WW2 - OverSimplified (Part 1) - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Now, without further ado - It's 1902.

A young man by the name of Benito Mussolini moves from Italy to Switzerland to avoid military service.

He gets big into socialism, working for trade unions, writing for socialist newspapers, advocating a violent overthrow of European monarchies, the whole shabang.

This gets him in a bit of trouble with the Swiss police.

So he gets arrested, sent back to Italy, set free, returns to Switzerland, is arrested again, goes back to Italy again, completes his military service after previously avoiding it, and then after a brief stint as an elementary school teacher, he finally returns to work as an avid socialist.

His speeches and journalistic abilities made him famous among Italian socialists.

He was anti-war, so when Italy colonised Libya in 1910, he rioted.

And got arrested.

Then WW1 came along, and once again, he protested Italy's involvement.

But then he thought, 'Wait a minute.' 'This war could bring about the social climate needed to overthrow European monarchies, and bring about the socialist revolution everywhere.' And suddenly he was pro-war.

But his fellow socialists didn't like his new pro-war stance, so they kicked him out of the party.

So then he said, 'You know what?

I'm done with socialism.

We need something new. Not based on class divisions tearing us apart, but based on unity through nationality.

We'll conquer the Mediterranean, and reunite all Italian peoples, just like the days of the Roman Empire.

I'll call it "Fascismo" and it will guide the Italian nation to greatness.' 'That's all well and good, Mr Mussolini, but what kind of haircut am I giving you?' 'Let's go with...

bald.' Tchaikovsky - 1812 Overture Italy had been on the winners' side in WW1, and they hoped they were going to get a lot out of it.

But in the end, they only got a little, and they felt cheated.

On top of that, a bad economy, and weak governments meant that the Italian people were a little unhappy.

So when Mussolini came along, and said that he could fix everything, his fascist movement gained a lot of support.

In 1922, he went to the King and said, 'Make me prime minister, or I'll make me prime minister.' And the King said, 'You and what army?' 'This army.' 'Fair enough.' Then he went about establishing a dictatorship with himself at its centre.

Europe had its first fascist dictator.

Next up: Germany.

Germany had been on the losers' side, and they got absolutely wrecked by the Treaty of Versailles.

They lost territory, had to demilitarise the Rhineland, had to reduce their army to just 100,000 men, couldn't have an airforce, had to pay the Allies a huge amount of money that it didn't have, and a new rule was established that every Englishman witheld the right to walk into the center of Berlin, pick out any German they wanted, and spank the hell out of them.

I made that last one up, but it helps you understand how all of this felt to Germans.

On top of that, a bad economy and weak governments meant that when a small, angry man with a silly moustache came along and said that he could fix everything, the German people loved it.

Hitler had been a soldier during WW1, and he was crazy patriotic.

And nobody was madder than him about Germany's humiliation.

He helped start a new political party, and in 1923, attempted a march on Munich with his boys.

And then he got arrested.

But his popularity grew and grew, and in 1933, the President made him Chancellor.

He believed he was Germany's great destined saviour, and he went full megalomaniac, establishing a dictatorship with himself at its center.

Europe had Fascist Dictator No. 2.

Hitler and Mussolini had a lot of the same ideas.

But more importantly, they had the same enemies.

And they started to get along.

'Anyone else wanna be friends?

Franco? No?

You good?' 'I do.' 'Who's that?' It's Japan.

And they've taken over northern China.

Let's rewind a bit - Japan had isolated itself from the rest of the world for over 200 years.

Until the Americans showed up and said, 'You're going to trade with us, and you're going to like it.' Then the Western powers imposed a bunch of 'Unequal Treaties'.

Meaning Japan's economy was bust.

They also had no natural resources.

So they decided to go get some.

They went to war with China to gain a sphere of influence over Korea, and they took a bunch of China's stuff.

But then the West said, 'Hey!

Cut that out.' And since Japan couldn't take on the West, They said, 'Okay, I guess we'll just go home - Wait a minute!

What are you doing?' 'Taking advantage of a weakened China and setting up spheres of influence.' 'But I was the one who weakened them.' 'We know.' 'And you guys didn't let me have anything.' 'We know.' 'That seems unfair.' 'We don't think so.

Okay. See ya.' So Japan thought, 'Screw this!' and went to war with Russia, and stunned everyone by actually winning.

Then they fully annexed Korea, but they didn't stop there.

In WW1, they took Germany's colonies and islands in Asia.

And then in an incident that was maybe staged by the Japanese army, a bomb blew up a Japanese train in Manchuria, giving them an excuse to launch an invasion and take over.

So, here's the situation: Nazi Germany, fascist Italy and Japan, all believe they're racially superior.

All feel hostility towards the Allies, and all want to militarise and take over more stuff.

And so they did.

Let's start with Germany.

Hitler hated the Treaty of Versailles, and now he was ready to begin undoing it.

In complete violation of the treaty, the first Luftwaffe squadrons were set up, conscription was introduced, and he pimped up his army.

The Allies did nothing.

Then Hitler sent his army back into the demilitarised Rhineland, giving orders to immediately retreat if the Allies showed up.

The Allies did nothing.

With his military restrengthened, he could now move on to Step 2.

He wanted to rapidly increase the Aryan population.

And to do so, he needed lebensraum, or in other words, he would have to take over the world.

But for now, a good portion of Europe would do.

And he began eyeing up his neighbours.

The Allies finally started to get worried, so they implemented a fairly useless diplomatic strategy called appeasement.

And it went a little something like this: Hitler would say, 'I want that thing.' And the Allies would say, 'You can't have that thing - Okay you can have that thing but no more.' 'I want that thing.' And repeat.

In 1938, Hitler's army marched into Austria, and just took it, with no resistance.

Boom. This is Germany now.

Next, he demanded to be given the Sudetenland, an area of Czechoslovakia with many ethnic Germans.

The Allies held a meeting with Hitler in Munich and said, 'Look, we're going to give you wha -' 'HANG ON.

This meeting is about my territory, shouldn't I come to the meeting too?' 'Anyway, we're going to give you what you want.' 'Really?' 'Yeah.' 'Just like that?' 'Yep.' 'What's the catch?' 'Just sign this piece of paper promising you won't invade the rest of Czechoslovakia.' 'Okay.' Then Chamberlain returned home victorious, waving his signed piece of paper in the air, declaring crisis to be averted, and the continuation of World Peace, and we built a statue of Chamberlain in his honour and every day on the 30th of September we celebrate Chamberlain Day - 'Hitler's invading the rest of Czechoslovakia.' 'What?' 'He's invading the rest of Czechoslovakia.' 'Oh.

You lied to me.' 'What do you expect?

I'm Hitler.' Not to be outdone, Mussolini also wanted to get in on the action.

He thought to himself, 'Isn't there a not-yet-colonised nation somewhere which is so underdeveloped that the people would be defending themselves against our tanks with literal bows and arrows and wooden spears?

Oh there is?

Fantastic!' And so he took it.

Italy also wanted to control the entrance to the Adriatic Sea.

100

So they occupied Albania.

101

Then, in another incident that was maybe staged by the Japanese, gunfire was exchanged by Japanese and Chinese troops at the Marco Polo Bridge.

102

And the Japanese launched yet another invasion against China.

103

They swept through Beijing and Shanghai, and then advanced through the Yangtze Valley to China's then-capital, Nanking.

104

It was here that saw the worst of Japan's shocking atrocities committed against the Chinese people.

105

Back in Europe, Germany and Italy made their relationship status official by signing the Pact of Steel.

106

Then, Hitler turned his eyes towards Poland, and the hated Polish Corridor splitting Germany in two.

107

At this point, the Allies really had to put their foot down.

108

And they warned him that an invasion of Poland would mean war.

109

Hitler had planned to continue his advance eastward, but he didn't want to end up fighting a war on two fronts.

110

So for now he made an alliance with Stalin, saying, 'How about we both invade Poland and split it between the two of us, and I definitely won't not refrain from not betraying you sometime in the future.' 'Sounds...

111

good.' This new alliance stunned the West.

112

On the 1st of September 1939, German troops entered Poland, and Britain and France declared war on Germany.

113

The Poles fought hard, but they were no match for the two giants crashing down on them from either side.

114

Then came a period known as 'The Phony War', where everyone just sort of sat around not doing much.

115

The French had launched a small invasion into the Saar Land, but they maintained mostly defensive positions, and after a while decided to just turn around and call it a day.

116

Speaking of France, the French were still super proud of their victory in WW1.

117

And they hadn't really moved on from it.

118

They still used horses, they dispatched messages by motorbike instead of using the radio, orders from the commander-in-chief were usually pretty vague, and the troops were rarely inspected.

119

They built a line of defenses along their German border, but didn't bother extending it all the way to the Channel, and they wouldn't launch artillery strikes against Germany out of fear of being retaliated against.

120

In a war. They didn't want to attack the enemy.

121

And at first, the UK wasn't much better.

122

Chamberlain still naively hoped that the war could be ended diplomatically.

123

Instead of bombing raids, the RAF dropped propaganda leaflets over German cities, which one air marshall said likely did nothing but provide the continent with toilet paper for the duration of the war.

124

They also only sent 200,000 men to France, while the French had mobilised millions.

125

Both Britain and France wanted to avoid a repeat of the First World War, and so they wanted to keep the war as far from home as possible.

126

So they turned their eyes north, towards Norway.

127

Neutral Sweden was exporting iron ore to Germany, through neutral Norway.

128

So the Allies asked them if they could please stop exporting iron ore to Germany.

129

But this request was refused.

130

Then, the Soviet Union attacked Finland.

131

So the Allies said, 'How about we land troops in Norway and move them across Sweden to go help out your good pal Finland?

132

And then along the way maybe take control of all your iron fields.' But Norway and Sweden still said no.

133

So the UK mined the waters around Norway to force any transport ships into international waters, and they also attacked a German tanker they found in the area.

134

Hitler realised what the Allies were up to, and he quickly moved to secure his supply of iron ore.

135

He launched an invasion through Denmark into Norway.

136

The Allies rushed to land troops at quay ports along the coast, but Germany had taken control of Norway's airfields, and their air superiority decided to fight.

137

The Allies had to retreat.

138

After this slightly embarrassing failure, Chamberlain resigned.

139

And was replaced with Winston Churchill, who had a slightly different approach to dealing with the Germans.

140

Hitler's overall strategy was similar to Germany's WW1 strategy.

141

Attack France, defeat France, knocking out the UK in the process, then turn on the Soviet Union and win the war.

142

During the Phony War, the Allies had given Hitler enough time to prepare his forces.

143

Now, he was ready to attack.

144

The Allies had wanted to place troops in Belgium, but Belgium had refused.

145

And in a move that surprised pretty much no one, Hitler launched an invasion to get around France's defenses.

146

The Allies charged into Belgium at full speed, to meet the German invasion head-on, and it looked like a repeat of the First World War was coming.

147

But this time, Hitler had a trick up his sleeve.

148

Blitzkrieg.

149

As the Germans advanced, they sent thousands of refugees westward, slowing down the Allies.

150

Then, to the south, the French had left the Ardennes, an area filled with hills and forests, pretty under-defended, because they thought it was naturally impenetrable.

151

Well, the Germans were about to penetrate it with everything they had.

152

They smashed 50 Wehrmacht divisions through, and encircled the Allied armies at lightning speed.

153

The best of the Allied forces were now trapped.

154

The Germans squeezed in from all sides, taking out France's best armies, and nearly wiping out the British, too.

155

But they managed to make a desperate last-minute escape at Dunkirk, with British civilian ships even making the perilous journey to bring their young men home.

156

With most of the French forces depleted, the Germans breezed through, taking Paris, and France fell.

157

What the Germans couldn't do in WW1, Hitler had done just like that.

158

Hitler hoped that with the fall of France, the UK would also lose hope and sue for peace.

159

But quite annoyingly, it didn't.

160

And he needed to secure the Western Front.

161

So he tried to force them into submission, with mind games.

162

The UK were now all alone and Hitler wanted to emphasise that.

163

First of all, just before France fell, Italy finally declared war on the Allies, making the UK's situation even worse.

164

Next, instead of just occupying all of France, Hitler occupied the coastal areas for defense, but allowed France to continue its existence as a German puppet state.

165

This way, it looked like the UK's old ally had decided to switch sides.

166

Hitler also hoped that the UK wouldn't attack any of her old ally's navy bases or colonies in Africa, giving Hitler an extra line of defense to the south.

167

But the UK made sure to respond to this by sailing down to France's navy base in Algeria and wrecking a bunch of ships.

168

So, have at it.

169

Hitler then began laying down plans for an invasion of Great Britain.

170

Before German troops could land on British soil, he would first need air and naval superiority across the Channel.

171

Waves of German bombers came, while the completely outnumbered RAF worked bravely around the clock in an attempt to quell the German attacks.

172

At first, the Luftwaffe targeted British ports and coastal facilities, then it attacked RAF bases, crippling the RAF's ability to defend the nation.

173

And it looked like Hitler's great British invasion was coming.

174

But then, Churchill ordered a small, pretty insignificant bombing raid over Berlin.

175

It didn't do much damage, but Hitler was furious, and he immediately ordered the Luftwaffe to refocus its attacks on civilian targets in London.

176

Children were sent off to the countryside, away from their parents, to avoid danger.

177

And frequent trips to air-raid shelters became a daily occurrence.

178

But British morale held firm.

179

Smiling, knitting, lounging casually, these people have balls of steel.

180

This refocusing on London also gave the RAF breathing space to reorganise.

181

So Hitler kind of shot himself in the foot there.

182

Just the foot for now.

183

Finally, the Luftwaffe sent one massive all-out attack on London, and the RAF successfully repelled it, destroying many of the German aircraft, and placing air superiority firmly in British hands.

184

Hitler's invasion had to be postponed, but the bombing of British cities continued for some time.

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Vocabulario y notas de pronunciación para esta lección

Esta lección de conversación de nivel B1 se basa en el vídeo “WW2 - OverSimplified”. Las palabras que más se repiten: Hitler, German, Allies, Germany. Este vídeo tiene 184 frases y 2955 palabras para practicar shadowing. La parte hablada dura 13:31. El hablante habla rápido, unas 219 palabras por minuto, así que espera sonidos enlazados y reducidos. 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
invasion sustantivo	/ɪnˈveɪʒən/	invasión
socialist sustantivo	/ˈsoʊ.ʃə.lɪst/	socialista
invade verbo	/ɪnˈveɪd/	invadir
fascist sustantivo	/ˈfæʃɪst/	fascista
superiority sustantivo	/sʊˌpɪə(ɹ).iˈɒ.ɹɪ.ti/	superioridad
occupy verbo	/ˈɑkjəpaɪ/	ocupar
raid sustantivo	/ɹeɪd/	correría, razia
treaty sustantivo	/ˈtɹiti/	tratado
stun verbo	/stʌn/	anonadar, aturdir
weaken verbo	/ˈwikən/	debilitar, languir
overthrow verbo	/ˌoʊvɚˈθɹoʊ/	derrocar, derribar
dictatorship sustantivo	/ˈdɪkteɪtəɹʃɪp/	dictadura, dictaduría
dictator sustantivo	/ˈdɪkˌteɪtəɹ/	dictador, dictadora
monarchy sustantivo	/ˈmɑnɚki/	monarquía
socialism sustantivo	/ˈsoʊʃəlɪzəm/	socialismo

Phrasal verbs que vas a escuchar

Palabra	Significado
take over verbo	apoderarse, enseñorearse
come along verbo	avanzar, marchar
show up verbo	comparecer, personarse
end up verbo	terminar, ir a parar
get along verbo	llevarse bien con, avenirse
knock out verbo	noquear
lay down verbo	soltar
slow down verbo	desacelerar, decelerar

Gramática en este vídeo

Las estructuras que más usa el hablante, con las palabras exactas del vídeo:

Estructura	En el vídeo
Voz pasiva be + participio pasado — importa lo que ocurre, no quién lo hace	was made · can be found · is arrested
Oraciones de relativo who / which + oración — información extra sobre una persona o cosa	link, which can · one who weakened · somewhere which is
Present perfect have/has + participio pasado — una acción pasada que sigue importando ahora	would've found · they've taken
Past continuous was/were + -ing — una acción en curso en un momento del pasado	was considering · was exporting · was coming

Pronunciación a tener en cuenta

El hablante usa 39 contracciones y formas reducidas, como didn't, couldn't, I'll. Dilas en su forma corta, tal como las oyes.

Los sonidos de “th”: overthrow /ˌoʊvɚˈθɹoʊ/, thirst /θɝst/, breathe /bɹiːð/
Los sonidos de “sh” y “zh”: invasion /ɪnˈveɪʒən/, socialist /ˈsoʊ.ʃə.lɪst/, fascist /ˈfæʃɪst/, dictatorship /ˈdɪkteɪtəɹʃɪp/, socialism /ˈsoʊʃəlɪzəm/
Palabras largas — cuida el acento: superiority /sʊˌpɪə(ɹ).iˈɒ.ɹɪ.ti/, dictatorship /ˈdɪkteɪtəɹʃɪp/, socialism /ˈsoʊʃəlɪzəm/, atrocity /əˈtɹɑsɪti/, humiliation /hjuːˌmɪliˈeɪʃən/

Sonidos difíciles para hispanohablantes:

s + consonante al inicio — sin añadir una “e” delante: stun /stʌn/, stint /stɪnt/, spear /spɪə̯(ɹ)/, sphere /sfɪɚ/, sleeve /sliv/
/v/ — no es /b/: los dientes tocan el labio inferior: invasion /ɪnˈveɪʒən/, invade /ɪnˈveɪd/, overthrow /ˌoʊvɚˈθɹoʊ/, civilian /sɪˈvɪl.jən/, victorious /vɪkˈtɔːɹiəs/
/z/ — sonora, no /s/: colonise /ˈkɑlənaɪz/, socialism /ˈsoʊʃəlɪzəm/, resign /ɹɪˈzaɪn/, loser /luzɚ/

Cómo practicar con este vídeo

Escucha el vídeo entero una vez sin hablar y anota las palabras que no conoces.
Empieza a velocidad 0,75×, haz shadowing frase por frase y vuelve a la velocidad normal cuando te resulte fácil.
Grábate y compara con el original, prestando atención a palabras como invasion, socialist, invade.

¿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.

Técnica de shadowing: lee la guía completa paso a paso →

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Vocabulario y notas de pronunciación para esta lección

Vocabulario clave de este vídeo

Phrasal verbs que vas a escuchar

Gramática en este vídeo

Pronunciación a tener en cuenta

Cómo practicar con este vídeo

¿Qué es la Técnica de Shadowing?