Pratique du Shadowing: How to Start a Business - Apprendre l'anglais à l'oral avec la vidéo

Création de la leçon...
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Many of us want to start our own businesses.
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Public space is filled with reports of new ventures.
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But the reporting on entrepreneurship is heavily skewed in one particular direction:
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towards people who've started new kinds of businesses ; pioneers who've pushed the boundaries of commerce by creating a wholly new offering,
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usually through the help of some form of innovative piece of technology.
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The new entrepreneurs might, for example, have invented an app for measuring and controlling the humidity of clothes closets,
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or they might have come up with a tiny sensor that can detect hunger in domestic animals, or they've built a social platform to connect people planning a trip to Italy.
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This emphasis on novelty can leave us feeling that the chief
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and correct way to become an entrepreneur is invariably going to be through radical, technologically based innovation.
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We may therefore, as we contemplate an entrepreneurial future, ask ourselves, with increasing panic,
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what entirely unthought of idea we might ourselves come up with to propel us forwards.
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In our frenzy, the answers we arrive at may start to lean towards the implausible, the trite or the naive.
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But there is another path.
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Most of the economy is made up of businesses doing stuff that people have always been doing, or have been doing for a very long time.
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Making daily bread, or shirts, or trousers, teaching languages, or giving travellers a bed for the night, raising animals, or fixing teeth.
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In other words, most businesses operate in areas that economists call 'mature', sectors where it's rather hard to come in and make a surprising fortune.
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But that doesn't mean these sectors should be ignored.
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Far from it.
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There are a plethora of hugely meaningful possibilities hiding for us
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in plain sight on account of one perhaps surprising fact about the economy.
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A majority of businesses don't love what they do.
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we might make a basic distinction between two kinds of businesses: pragmatic businesses, and businesses of love.
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Pragmatic businesses are everywhere.
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They almost define for us what we think business is in its essence.
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They know how to make their product or service with a sound degree of competence.
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But there is a practical, unidealistic edge to the way they go about things.
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There isn't anything very powerful drawing them to their particular offering.
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They might easily have been doing something else.
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They don't care about the long term.
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The business is only a vehicle for an underlying financial purpose.
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One eye is always focused on how to sell up.
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didn't have to work, they almost certainly wouldn't.
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Such pragmatic businesses may do fine or even very well for a long time.
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But the motivations are easy enough to spot.
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A discerning eye can tell something crucial within minutes of walking through the door.
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This is not being done with or full love.
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pragmatic businesses dominate the economy.
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One might say that over 85 % of businesses fall into this category.
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But there are parts of the economy, and they are heavily in the minority, where things are being done rather differently.
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Businesses of love produce many varied things, but there are some underlying principles holding them together.
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Here, love means: a total commitment to excellence of a given product
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or service a desire to reinvest almost all profit into guaranteeing this excellence.
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a focus on the long term, because the business is, for its owners, the meaning of life.
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There is no interest in selling the firm right now or perhaps ever.
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The dearest wish might be to give it to someone you love, like your child.
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Love means you almost do it for free and don't only because you need to live.
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You need to pay your employees and you want the business to be able to last into the long term.
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The product or service is what you love and you love it inordinately.
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Businesses of love are the sort where the owner has scoured the world for the best kind of flour
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and wakes up excitedly at dawn to check on the progress of each of the loaves.
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Or the aircraft factory, where the workers think of every play in their building almost like a relative they will always care for.
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Or the stationery shop, where notebooks and paper are viewed as objects of beauty rather than utility.
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Or the travel agency that won't rest until it knows its clients have enjoyed their trips rather than just paid for them.
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Or the sandwich store that views a fine avocado and chicken roll as one of the authentic joys in a tricky life.
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Businesses run for love are not always successful in the standard financial sense of the term.
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Some might just be returning a little over 3 % a year.
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But for these enterprises, money is only ever a means to a greater, more purposeful end.
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There are huge opportunities to hand for any would -be entrepreneurs, because most of the economy is in the hands of people who don't love what they're doing.
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Most law firms, dentist offices, hotels and bakeries aren't in it for love.
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They may be efficient and canny, but they are ultimately just waiting to sell up.
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We don't need to be very original to succeed.
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We don't need to have invented anything very new.
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We just need to make sense of our lives and make an honest living along the way,
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to offer the world something we love a little more intensely than most people do.
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Thank you for commenting, liking and subscribing.
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Our book, A Job to Love, is a practical guide to finding fulfilling work.
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To find out more, follow the link on your screen now.

Vocabulaire et conseils d’expression pour cette leçon

Cette leçon d’expression orale de niveau B2 s’appuie sur la vidéo « How to Start a Business ». Les mots qui reviennent le plus souvent : businesses, economy, pragmatic, term. Cette vidéo contient 67 phrases et 947 mots à répéter en shadowing. La partie parlée dure 5:46. Le locuteur parle à un rythme naturel d’environ 164 mots par minute, proche d’une conversation courante. 84 % des mots font partie des 3 000 mots les plus courants en anglais ; le reste mérite d’être vu avant de commencer.

Vocabulaire clé de cette vidéo

Les 15 mots les plus avancés de la vidéo, avec leur prononciation et leur sens :

MotPrononciationSens
pragmatic adjectif/pɹæɡˈmætɪk/pragmatique
entrepreneur nom/ˌɑn.tɹə.pɹəˈnɝ/entrepreneur, entrepreneuse
invent verbe/ɪnˈvɛnt/inventer
excellence nom/ˈɛksələns/excellence
underlying adjectifsous-jacent
avocado nom/ˌɑvəˈkɑdoʊ/avocat
contemplate verbe/ˈkɑn.təmˌpleɪt/envisager, étudier
discern verbe/dɪˈzɝn/discerner
entrepreneurial adjectif/ˌɑn.tɹə.pɹəˈnɝ.i.əl/entreprenant, entrepreneur
excitedly adverbeexcité, excitée
frenzy nom/ˈfɹɛnzi/frénésie
invariably adverbe/ɪnˈvɛɹ.i.ə.bli/invariablement, constamment
plethora nom/ˈplɛθəɹə/pléthore
propel verbe/pɹəˈpɛl/propulser, catapulter
technologically adverbetechnologiquement

Les verbes à particule que vous entendrez

MotPrononciationSens
come up with verbeinventer, imaginer
find out verbedécouvrir, savoir
wake up verbe/ˌweɪk ˈʌp/se réveiller

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 continu have/has been + -ing — une action commencée avant et toujours en courshave always been doing · have been doing
Voix passive be + participe passé — l’accent est mis sur ce qui arrive, pas sur qui le faitis filled · is made · should be ignored
Present perfect have/has + participe passé — une action passée qui compte encore maintenantwho've started · have invented · they've built

Prononciation à surveiller

Le locuteur utilise 16 contractions et formes réduites, comme don't, who've, aren't. Prononcez-les sous leur forme courte, telles que vous les entendez.

  • Les sons « th »: plethora /ˈplɛθəɹə/, cloth /klɒθ/, authentic /ɔˈθɛn.tɪk/
  • Les sons « sh » et « zh »: entrepreneurship /ˌɑn.tɹə.pɹəˈnɝ.ʃɪp/, stationary /ˈsteɪʃəˌnɛɹi/, distinction /dɪˈstɪŋkʃən/
  • Mots longs — placez bien l’accent: entrepreneur /ˌɑn.tɹə.pɹəˈnɝ/, avocado /ˌɑvəˈkɑdoʊ/, entrepreneurial /ˌɑn.tɹə.pɹəˈnɝ.i.əl/, invariably /ɪnˈvɛɹ.i.ə.bli/, entrepreneurship /ˌɑn.tɹə.pɹəˈnɝ.ʃɪp/

Les sons difficiles pour les francophones :

  • /h/ — il se souffle, il n’est pas muet: hugely /ˈhjuːd͡ʒli/, wholly /ˈhoʊ.li/, humidity /hjuːˈmɪd.ə.ti/, hunger /ˈhʌŋɡɚ/
  • /tʃ/ et /dʒ/ — à ne pas adoucir en « ch » et « j »: hugely /ˈhjuːd͡ʒli/, sandwich /ˈsæn(d).wɪd͡ʒ/
  • /r/ anglais — langue recourbée, sans frotter la gorge: pragmatic /pɹæɡˈmætɪk/, entrepreneur /ˌɑn.tɹə.pɹəˈnɝ/, entrepreneurial /ˌɑn.tɹə.pɹəˈnɝ.i.əl/, frenzy /ˈfɹɛnzi/, invariably /ɪnˈvɛɹ.i.ə.bli/

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 pragmatic, entrepreneur, invent.

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 →