Pratique du Shadowing: How To Simplify Your Life - Apprendre l'anglais à l'oral avec la vidéo

Création de la leçon...
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It's well understood by good parents that life should only ever get so exciting for a baby.
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After friends have come round and brought presents and made animated faces, after there's been some cake and some cuddles,
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after there have been a lot of bright lights and perhaps some songs too, enough is enough.
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The baby will start to look stern and then burst into tears and the wise parent knows that nothing is particularly wrong, though the baby may by now be wailing.
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It's just time for a nap.
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The brain needs to process, digest and divide up the welter of experiences that have been ingested and so the curtains are drawn,
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baby is laid down next to the soft toys and soon it's asleep and calm descends.
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Everyone knows that life is going to be a lot more manageable again in an hour.
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Sadly, we exercise no such caution with ourselves.
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We schedule a week in which we're going to see friends every night, in which we're going to do 12 meetings, three of them requiring a lot of preparation,
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where we'll make a quick overnight dash to another country on the Wednesday, where we'll watch three films, read 14 newspapers, change six pairs of sheets, have five heavy meals after 8pm and drink 30 cups of coffee
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and then we lament that our lives are not as calm as they might be
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and that we are close to mental collapse.
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We refuse to take seriously how much of our babyhood is left inside our adult selves
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and therefore how much care we have to take to keep things simple and very, very calm.
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What registers as anxiety is typically no freakish phenomenon.
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It is our minds logical, simple, enraged plea not to be continuously and exhaustingly overstimulated.
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These are some of the things we may need to do to simplify our lives.
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It is theoretically a privilege to have a lot of people to see and things to do.
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It is also, psychologically speaking, exhausting and ultimately therefore rather dangerous.
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The manner of expression is a little dated and brutal and one might want to quibble over for the exact timings, but this point from Friedrich Nietzsche remains acute.
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Today, as always, men fall into two groups, slaves and free men.
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Whoever does not have two -thirds of his day for himself is a slave, whatever else he may be, a statesman, a businessman, an official or a scholar.
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We need to recognise that what is physically possible for us to achieve in a day is not, for that matter, psychologically wise or plausible.
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It may well be feasible to nip over to a foreign capital
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or two in a day and run a company alongside managing a household.
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But nor should we be surprised if such routines ultimately contribute to a breakdown.
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Plenty of it, of course, at least seven hours.
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Or, if we can't manage it, we need at a minimum fully to recognise how much we are deprived, so that we won't aggravate our sorrows by searching for abstruse explanations for them.
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We don't necessarily have to get divorced, retrain in a completely different profession or move country.
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We may just need to get some more rest.
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What we're taking in when we check our phones is perhaps the single greatest contributor to our mental ill health.
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For most of history, it was inconceivable that there could ever be such a thing as too much news.
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Information from political circles or foreign countries was rare, prized and expensive.
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But since the middle of the 20th century, news has been commodified and in the process it has become a major, though still too little known, risk to our mental survival.
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Every minute of every day presents us with untold options for filling our minds with the mania, exploits, disasters, furies, reversals, triumphs,
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insanity and cataclysms of complete strangers all around our benighted planet.
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Always, news organisations speak of our need to know and the need to know right now.
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But what they have left out is our equally great and often even greater need not to know.
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Because we can't change anything, because the stories are too violent, dispiriting and sad, because our minds are fragile, because we have responsibilities closer to home,
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because we need to lead our own lives rather than be
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torn apart by stories of the lives of others who are ultimately as remote from
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and irrelevant to us as the inhabitants of the Egyptian court of King Sinaferu in late 2613 BC.
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Insomnia and anxiety are the mind's revenge for all the thoughts we refuse to have consciously during the day.
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In order to be able to find rest, we need to carve off chunks of time where we have
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nothing to do other than lie in bed with a pad and paper in order to think.
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We need to consider three topics in particular.
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Firstly, what's making me anxious?
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Secondly, what's caused me pain and how, and thirdly, what's exciting me.
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We need to sift through the chaotic contents of our minds.
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Every hour of living requires at least ten minutes of sifting.
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Of course, it might be pleasant to be extraordinary, famous and world -beating.
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But maybe it will be an even greater achievement to stay sane and kind.
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We might opt not to conquer the world in favour of living a longer and more serene life.
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We are not backing away from a challenge, we are simply shifting our sense of what the real challenge might be and, more importantly, where the real rewards may lie.
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A quiet life isn't necessarily one of resignation or flight.
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It may constitute a supremely wise recognition that the truly satisfying things are available away from the spotlight and the big cities,
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on modest salaries and as far as possible from the manic, sleepless competition to win the professional status race.
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As we're discovering, excitement can be fun for a time, but also it kills.
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Simplicity is true wisdom.
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We may need a lot more naps.

Vocabulaire et conseils d’expression pour cette leçon

Cette leçon d’expression orale s’appuie sur la vidéo « How To Simplify Your Life ». Les mots qui reviennent le plus souvent : minds, lives, baby. Cette vidéo contient 61 phrases et 1011 mots à répéter en shadowing. La partie parlée dure 6:10. Le locuteur parle à un rythme naturel d’environ 164 mots par minute, proche d’une conversation courante. Seuls 80 % des mots font partie des 3 000 mots les plus courants en anglais, le vocabulaire est donc exigeant.

Vocabulaire clé de cette vidéo

15 mots de la vidéo à retenir, avec leur prononciation et leur sens :

MotPrononciationSens
necessarily adverbe/ˌnɛs.əˈsɛɹ.ə.li/absolument, nécessairement
anxiety nom/æŋˈzaɪ.əti/anxiété, inquiétude
refuse verbe/ɹɪˈfjuːz/refuser
tear verbe/tɛɹ/déchirer
slave nom/sleɪv/esclave, serf
topic nom/ˈtɑpɪk/sujet, thème
meal nom/ˈmiːl/repas
household adjectif/ˈhaʊshoʊld/domestique
recognition nom/ˌɹɛkəɡˈnɪʃ(ə)n/reconnaissance
violent adjectif/ˈvaɪ.ə.lənt/violent
alongside/əˌlɔŋˈsaɪd/à côté de, le long de
explanation nom/ˌɛkspləˈneɪʃən/explication
whoever/huˈɛvɚ/quiconque, qui que ce soit qui
remote adjectif/ɹəˈməʊt̞/distant, loin
sheet nom/ʃit/feuille

Les verbes à particule que vous entendrez

MotSens
come round verbese raviser

La grammaire de cette vidéo

Les structures que le locuteur utilise le plus, avec les mots exacts de la vidéo :

StructureDans la vidéo
Present perfect have/has + participe passé — une action passée qui compte encore maintenanthave come · have been · have been ingested
Voix passive be + participe passé — l’accent est mis sur ce qui arrive, pas sur qui le faithave been ingested · is laid · is left

Prononciation à surveiller

Le locuteur utilise 11 contractions et formes réduites, comme we're, can't, we'll. Prononcez-les sous leur forme courte, telles que vous les entendez.

  • Les sons « sh » et « zh »: recognition /ˌɹɛkəɡˈnɪʃ(ə)n/, explanation /ˌɛkspləˈneɪʃən/, sheet /ʃit/, organisation /ˈɔː.ɡə.naɪˌzeɪ.ʃən/, preparation /ˌpɹɛpəˈɹeɪʃ(ə)n/
  • Mots longs — placez bien l’accent: necessarily /ˌnɛs.əˈsɛɹ.ə.li/, anxiety /æŋˈzaɪ.əti/, recognition /ˌɹɛkəɡˈnɪʃ(ə)n/, explanation /ˌɛkspləˈneɪʃən/, extraordinary /ɪksˈtɹɔːrdɪn(ə)ɹi/

Les sons difficiles pour les francophones :

  • /h/ — il se souffle, il n’est pas muet: household /ˈhaʊshoʊld/, whoever /huˈɛvɚ/, babyhood /ˈbeɪbihʊd/, inhabitant /ɪnˈhæb.ɪ.tənt/
  • /tʃ/ et /dʒ/ — à ne pas adoucir en « ch » et « j »: achievement /əˈt͡ʃiːv.mənt/, revenge /ɹəˈvɛnd͡ʒ/, stranger /ˈstɹeɪnd͡ʒɚ/, privilege /ˈpɹɪv.(ɪ.)lɪd͡ʒ/, logical /ˈlɑd͡ʒɪkəl/
  • /r/ anglais — langue recourbée, sans frotter la gorge: necessarily /ˌnɛs.əˈsɛɹ.ə.li/, refuse /ɹɪˈfjuːz/, tear /tɛɹ/, recognition /ˌɹɛkəɡˈnɪʃ(ə)n/, remote /ɹəˈməʊt̞/

Comment s’entraîner avec cette vidéo

  1. Écoutez la vidéo en entier une fois sans parler et notez les mots que vous ne connaissez pas.
  2. Commencez à la vitesse 0,75×, répétez phrase par phrase, puis revenez à la vitesse normale quand cela devient facile.
  3. Enregistrez-vous et comparez avec l’original, en faisant attention à des mots comme necessarily, anxiety, refuse.

Qu'est-ce que la technique du Shadowing ?

Le Shadowing est une technique d'apprentissage des langues fondée sur la science, développée à l'origine pour la formation des interprètes professionnels. Le principe est simple mais puissant : vous écoutez de l'anglais natif et le répétez immédiatement à voix haute — comme une ombre suivant le locuteur avec un décalage de 1 à 2 secondes. Les recherches montrent une amélioration significative de la précision de la prononciation, de l'intonation, du rythme, des liaisons, de la compréhension orale et de la fluidité.

Technique du shadowing : lire le guide complet étape par étape →