Pratica di Shadowing: 218.2 - English Story: Irregular Verbs with Dance Marathons - Impara a parlare inglese con i video
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Hi, everybody.
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My name is Shauna, and this is the American English Podcast.
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My goal here is to teach you the English spoken in the United States.
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Through common expressions, pronunciation tips, and interesting cultural snippets or stories, I hope to keep this fun, useful, and interesting.
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Let's do it.
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When I lived in Berlin years ago, I used to go to nightclubs where the music was loud.
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Techno, house music, there was a lot of jumping up and down.
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Now, it wasn't really my go-to style of music, but I tagged along with friends, and to be honest, it was a good workout.
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Most of the time, I felt like my jump roping skills were all that I needed.
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And, of course, stamina.
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Stamina is the physical or mental strength to keep doing something for a long time.
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I needed stamina to keep jumping up and down to techno music.
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Back then, my stamina also came in the form of Red Bull.
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And my youth.
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The point is, for that genre of music, I didn't need dance lessons to get by.
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Then I moved to Colombia.
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Well, I guess you could say I went on vacation.
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For three months in 2015, I was in Barranquilla, the birthplace of Shakira.
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and no surprise, the city moved differently.
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From an outsider's perspective, which I was an outsider, I was amazed.
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Little corner bars that served bar food and snacks during the day would turn into casual dance floors at nighttime,
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and everybody got out of their chairs.
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Grandma, grandpa, grandchildren.
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I'd watch, trying not to be creepy.
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And all I could think was, what?
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Look at that fancy footwork.
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Look at them move their hips.
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It's not just Shakira.
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As a gringa in Colombia, I could immediately see how deeply ingrained dancing is into the culture, especially partner dancing.
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How often does the average American dance?
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I'd be willing to guess that most people in the U.S would answer rarely or occasionally.
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I decided to look it up.
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According to a large U.S health survey,
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about 20% of adults who exercised in their free time said dancing was one of their activities.
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But wait a minute, that's out of the people who actually exercise.
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Hmm, so significantly less than 20%?
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Was there ever a time in U.S history when dancing was on more people's minds?
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Yes.
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In fact, there was a time in U.S history when dancing was a main event across U.S states.
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It was broadcast, it drew in participants from all walks of life,
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and audiences at all hours of the day and night.
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In today's lesson, we're going to talk about dance marathons.
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By the end of today's lesson, you'll have learned all about this culturally significant event,
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and you'll also have learned 10 common irregular verbs, most of them related to movement.
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After you hear this wild story, we'll go through each verb in depth for reinforcement.
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At the very end, I'll share a few fun facts about dancing in the U.S and more details about this story.
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Without any further ado, let's begin.
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In the 1930s, during the Great Depression, dance marathons became strangely popular across the United States.
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And when I say dance marathon,
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I don't mean to say that people would run a marathon while dancing. That would be hilarious.
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No, it was slightly different, but equally as peculiar as the notion of people running and dancing.
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At dance marathons, participants would dance,
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walk, and move with their partner for days and sometimes weeks on end.
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Weeks.
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Weeks of dancing without going home.
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If you're like me, when I first heard this, I was like, no way.
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That's unbelievable.
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Why would anyone dance for weeks? And how?
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How could they do that physically and mentally?
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Let me explain from the beginning.
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It all started in 1923.
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That year, a New York dance instructor named Alma Cummings decided to see how long she could dance without stopping.
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It turned out 27 hours.
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She danced through a Manhattan Ballroom for 27 hours straight.
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In that time, she had six different partners.
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They all got tired and needed to stop, but Alma never left the dance floor.
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News of Alma's dancing record spread across the United States.
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After all, world records, endurance and strength tests had gained popularity with the Olympics.
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The Olympics came back in the 1920s, really strong, and people wanted to see how far they could push their bodies.
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So Alma's endurance dance was newsworthy.
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She made the headlines.
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And as a result, dancers across the country raced to break her record.
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Many, of course, failed.
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27 hours is a long time to dance.
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But it was eventually broken nine times, and not just in New York City.
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Interest had spread across the states.
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Promoters in New York City saw that and realized the potential.
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People liked hearing about dancers dancing for 27 hours.
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What if they could watch?
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So they began organizing local competitions for endurance dancing, like the Dance Derby of the Century,
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which took place at Madison Square Garden in 1928.
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Large audiences came and watched as a form of entertainment.
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It all started as a wholesome activity, but then the Great Depression happened.
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At the height of the Great Depression, which started in October of 1929,
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the unemployment rate in the U.S hit 25%.
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percent.
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Families across the country struggled to put food on the table.
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So when dance halls started offering cash prizes and free meals, as well as places to sleep,
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thousands of desperate individuals signed up to participate.
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What was it like at these events?
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Imagine walking into a giant ball room lit with bright stage lights and crowded with curious spectators.
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Jazz bands played at some hours of the day, while contestants, who are the dancers,
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and the audience, also known as the crowd, sang along to familiar songs.
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The rules of the competition were surprisingly strict.
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Contestants usually had to remain moving for about 45 minutes out of every hour, day and night.
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They were given short breaks to eat, wash up, or nap.
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And if they didn't wake up, judges used smelling salts and even ice water to force them awake.
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competitions forced dancers to eat while walking, so they would have eggs or oatmeal while shuffling across the dance floor.
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If they stopped moving on the dance floor,
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collapsed for too long, or failed one of the derby races across the ballroom floor,
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essentially just running at high speeds with their partner around the dance floor, they could be eliminated immediately.
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Nobody was really sure at the get-go how long the competition would last.
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Many imagined they'd dance for a night or two and then go home.
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Oftentimes, dancers found themselves there for days with no end in sight.
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So when these competitions started, participants were energized.
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Some participants spun around the room doing the Lindy Hop.
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Crowds screamed and cheered as the male dancers flung their partners over their heads.
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Other popular dances included the Charleston, with fast footwork and swinging arms.
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or the jitterbug.
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Slower dances included the foxtrot and the waltz.
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At the beginning, the dancing was impressive and fun to watch.
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As the nights passed, participants got increasingly more exhausted.
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The tired dancers swung each other across the floor.
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Every once in a while,
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an announcer sprang onto the stage to dramatically announce eliminations or yell stories into the microphones to keep the crowd entertained.
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Meanwhile, the dancers kept going.
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They slid across the floor like zombies.
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Some contestants were so out of it that they slept on their partner's shoulders while swaying to the music.
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Rather than calling quits, some participants danced until they collapsed.
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If they fell on their knees for too long, they were out.
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In those moments, their partners shook them awake.
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Even when feet bled, the music continued.
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Dance marathons went on for days, and sometimes weeks.
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In 1933, Callum de Villier
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and Vani Kuczynski won a marathon in Massachusetts after
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dancing for roughly 3,780 continuous hours more than 157 days.
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That's more than five months.
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During the Great Depression, marathons were cheap, all-night entertainment.
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Audiences paid about 25 cents to watch, and they could stay as long as they wanted after paying admission.
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They were popular.
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Some people even snuck out of their houses late at night to watch the performances.
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Some wandered in after work and sat in the stands, eating snacks and smoking cigarettes.
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Some people bet on their favorite contestants.
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The point is, crowds filled the ballrooms day and night.
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Eventually, the dances became a national obsession. In fact, historians estimate
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that nearly every American city with a population of more than
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50,000 people hosted at least one dance marathon during the Great Depression.
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As a business, it made a lot of money.
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In a time when jobs were scarce, the event itself employed quite a few people.
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There were food stalls, doctors, judges, hosts, cameramen.
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Many of the larger marathons aired on radio stations.
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The hosts would talk about couples who fell in love on the dance floor and others who broke up.
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Who knows how much of it was true?
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What is true is that contestants danced until they dropped.
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Literally, they'd need to be picked up off the floor.
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When the competition neared an end, the tension rose.
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The winning prize could be over $1,000, possibly more.
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It could change somebody's life.
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That's more than a lot of people could earn in a year at that time.
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So, what happened to the competitions?
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By the late 1930s, the marathons faded out.
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But for a while, they captured something real and raw about the time.
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Ordinary people were willing to push their bodies to the limit.
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And they were willing to do that for a chance at earning money.
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The country called it entertainment.
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In the end, dance marathons became one of the strangest events of the Great Depression.
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So what do you think?
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If you had lived during that time, would you have participated? Would you have watched?
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I find the whole thing...
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Well, on one hand, it's interesting to learn about.
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On the other hand, it's kind of sad.
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I mean quitting for so many people meant going back to poverty.
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They needed that food and that bed to rest in.
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So I don't know if I had lived right and we're using the third conditional here.
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If I had lived during that time and attended one of these events I might have found it entertaining in the beginning,
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when the dancers were full of energy,
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but I certainly wouldn't have been interested in seeing participants after a few days.
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I wouldn't have enjoyed seeing them in survival mode, falling apart in front of me.
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I find it disturbing.
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So, not for me.
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No thank you.
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that's my opinion.
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What about you?
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So that's the end of our story.
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Did you catch the 10 new irregular verbs?
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There were quite a few that we went over in previous irregular verb episodes, but let's see if you heard the new ones I've added.
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Try to guess the past tense before I say it.
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I'll leave a little space.
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Number one, to sing.
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To sing in the past is sang.
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Jazz bands played while contestants and audience members sang along to familiar songs.
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Let's do a few more examples.
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The choir sang loudly at church.
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The children sang loudly on the bus.
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Number two, to spin.
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To spin in the past is spun.
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Couples spun around the room while judges watched carefully from the sidelines.
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The little girl spun happily in her new dress The carnival ride spun faster and faster Number three,
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to fling To fling in the past is flung And to fling means to throw something with force Or kind of wildly
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After being eliminated, one contestant flung his shoes across the ballroom.
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She flung her backpack onto the chair after school.
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For no reason, my daughter flung the ball into the lake.
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Number four, to swing.
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To swing in the past is...
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Swung.
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Exhausted dancers swung each other across the dance floor.
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I swung my purse by my side as I walked.
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My daughter swung on the swings.
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Number five, to slide.
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To slide in the past is slid.
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Others slid across the floor in worn-out shoes that barely supported them anymore The glass slid off the counter and shattered
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He slid onto home plate during the baseball game Number six,
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to sleep The past tense of sleep is slept Some contestants were so exhausted they slept on their partner's shoulders.
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I slept for 10 hours after the long trip.
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My dog Milo slept peacefully beside the fireplace.
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Number seven, to shake.
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To shake in the past is shook.
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Some dancers shook their partners to wake them up He shook the bottle before opening it
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Her hands shook during the speech because she was nervous Number eight,
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to bleed The past tense of bleed is Bled Dancers' feet sometimes bled from hours of nonstop movement.
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After falling off his bike, his knee bled for several minutes.
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Her fingers bled after working in the garden without gloves.
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Number nine, to sneak.
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To sneak in the past is snuck.
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Some people even snuck out of their houses late at night to watch the dancers.
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The kids snuck cookies from the kitchen.
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He snuck into the room without making a sound.
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Number 10, to bet.
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The past tense of to bet is bet.
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It doesn't change.
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Spectators bet on which couple would last the longest.
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He bet $20 on the football game.
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She bet her friend that it would rain by Friday.
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All right, to get the full quiz and in-depth lesson on these irregular past tense forms, be sure to sign up to the Academy.
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The Academy is a place where you can talk to other English learners who are learning with my material.
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We have weekly calls to practice speaking, and it's a lot of fun.
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You can find the link to the Academy in the episode notes or also on the website at AmericanEnglishPodcast.com.
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Let's move on to the fun facts.
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So one of the most brutal parts of these dance competitions I mentioned, it's called the Derby.
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After dancing for days with almost no sleep,
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contestants suddenly had to sprint around the ballroom floor while crowds screamed.
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If they came in last, they could be eliminated.
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So yeah, imagine running laps after being awake for nearly a week.
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It's crazy.
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Many of the dancers collapsed immediately after the derbies.
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Fact number two, I mentioned how popular these dances were in the U.S.,
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but endurance dancing actually existed in other countries too.
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For example, there were contests in the UK, in Germany, France, and Australia.
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But the phenomenon was much bigger in the United States, especially during the Great Depression.
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Fact number three.
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I briefly touched on hosts dramatizing the event by sharing stories of participants falling in love on the dance floor
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and breaking up.
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Historians actually compare the marathons to early reality TV,
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where the spectators were watching real-life struggles.
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And sometimes the contestants really struggled.
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There's reports of some dancers hallucinating, others becoming delirious.
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In one famous case in 1928,
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a contestant reportedly punched his partner after what they called fatigue-induced psychosis.
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Fact number four.
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As dance marathons grew more extreme, many cities and states began banning them altogether.
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Seattle outlawed the competitions in 1928 after contestant Gladys Lenz attempted suicide following a 19-day marathon.
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Other cities soon followed, including Bellingham and Tacoma in Washington in 1931.
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But the thing is, whenever a city banned it, they just moved to another location.
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The dance marathon would be on the outskirts of town.
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So to make a real change, state laws would need to prohibit them.
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By 1935, roughly 24 U.S states had either banned dance marathons or placed major restrictions on them,
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like the length of time.
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So instead of enduring 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for 5 months,
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like Callum, who I mentioned before, they were only allowed to dance for 8 hours on end.
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Interestingly, concerns weren't just about health and exhaustion Churches,
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police departments, women's groups, and even movie theater owners Argued that the events were immoral and harmful to local businesses
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Other critics complained they were inhumane But once again, by the late 1930s, they were no longer common
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so yeah that's the end of this episode is dancing popular
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in the u.s i don't know i'd like to get your opinion on
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that be sure to post your thoughts in the comment section
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if you're listening on spotify i'd like to hear from you
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anyway i dance sometimes with my girls for fun sometimes i dance while I cook,
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especially if I'm making something that tastes pretty good.
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You got to dance a little bit when that happens.
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It's definitely not every day.
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What about you?
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How often do you dance?
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That's it for today's episode.
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I hope you enjoyed it.
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Be sure to sign up to the Academy if you're interested in diving deeper into these lessons.
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And of course, join the free 14-day Slang and Expression Challenge.
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You'll also find the link in the episode notes.
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Enjoy the rest of your day.
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Bye, guys.
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Thank you for listening to this episode of the American English Podcast.
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Remember, it's my goal here to not only help you improve your listening comprehension, but to show you how to speak like someone from the States.
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If you want to receive the full transcript for this episode, or you just want to support this podcast,
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make sure to sign up to premium content on American English podcast.com.
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Thanks and hope to see you soon.
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Vocabolario e note di pronuncia per questa lezione
Questa lezione di conversazione di livello B1 si basa sul video “218.2 - English Story: Irregular Verbs with Dance Marathons”. Le parole che ritornano più spesso: dance, marathon, dancing, dancers, floor. Questo video contiene 284 frasi e 2956 parole da ripetere con lo shadowing. Il parlato dura 26:34. Chi parla mantiene un ritmo costante di circa 111 parole al minuto, comodo per lo shadowing. Solo il 80% delle parole rientra nelle 3.000 più comuni dell’inglese, quindi il lessico è impegnativo.
Vocaboli chiave di questo video
Le 15 parole più avanzate del video, con pronuncia e significato:
| Parola | Pronuncia | Significato |
|---|---|---|
| marathon sostantivo | /ˈmæɹəθən/ | maratona |
| dancer sostantivo | /ˈdænsəɹ/ | ballerino, danzatore |
| participant sostantivo | /pɑːɹˈtɪsəpənt/ | partecipante, che partecipa |
| bleed verbo | /ˈbliːd/ | sanguinare |
| sneak verbo | /sniːk/ | intrufolarsi, sgusciare |
| slide sostantivo | /ˈslaɪ̯d/ | scivolo |
| shake verbo | /ˈʃeɪk/ | scuotere, agitare |
| tense sostantivo | /tɛns/ | tempo |
| stamina sostantivo | /ˈstæmənə/ | vigore |
| ballroom sostantivo | /ˈbɔːlɹuːm/ | sala da ballo, balera |
| irregular aggettivo | /ɪˈɹɛɡ.jə.lɚ/ | irregolare |
| verb sostantivo | /vɝb/ | verbo |
| endurance sostantivo | /ɪnˈdʊɹəns/ | resistenza, sopportazione |
| podcast sostantivo | /ˈpɑdˌkæst/ | podcast, audioprogramma |
| spectator sostantivo | /spɛkˈteɪtə/ | spettatore, spettatrice |
I phrasal verb che sentirai
| Parola | Pronuncia | Significato |
|---|---|---|
| break up verbo | spezzettare, tagliuzzare | |
| go through verbo | attraversare | |
| pick up verbo | tirare su, sollevare | |
| turn out verbo | risultare | |
| wake up verbo | /ˌweɪk ˈʌp/ | svegliarsi |
| wear out verbo | fare fuori, consumare |
Frasi da ripetere
Frasi brevi e complete del video che puoi riutilizzare nella conversazione di tutti i giorni:
- I'd watch, trying not to be creepy.
- Without any further ado, let's begin.
- If you had lived during that time, would you have participated?
- Would you have watched?
- How often do you dance?
La grammatica di questo video
Le strutture che chi parla usa di più, con le parole esatte del video:
| Struttura | Nel video |
|---|---|
| Forma passiva be + participio passato — conta ciò che accade, non chi lo fa | were given · could be eliminated · were energized |
| Present perfect have/has + participio passato — un’azione passata che conta ancora adesso | have learned · have participated · I've added |
Pronuncia a cui fare attenzione
Chi parla usa 29 contrazioni e forme ridotte, come I'd, don't, you'll. Pronunciale nella forma breve, così come le senti.
- I suoni “th”: marathon /ˈmæɹəθən/, altogether /ɔl.tuˈɡɛð.ɚ/
- I suoni “sh” e “zh”: shake /ˈʃeɪk/, shatter /ˈʃætɚ/, restriction /ɹɪˈstɹɪkʃən/, obsession /əbˈsɛʃən/, admission /ədˈmɪʃən/
- Parole lunghe — attenzione all’accento: participant /pɑːɹˈtɪsəpənt/, irregular /ɪˈɹɛɡ.jə.lɚ/, eliminate /ɪˈlɪm.ɪ.neɪt/, historian /hɪˈstɔɹi.ən/, altogether /ɔl.tuˈɡɛð.ɚ/
Come esercitarsi con questo video
- Ascolta tutto il video una volta senza parlare e annota le parole che non conosci.
- Fai shadowing frase per frase a velocità normale, ripetendo ognuna finché il tuo ritmo coincide con quello di chi parla.
- Registrati e confronta con l’originale, facendo attenzione a parole come marathon, dancer, participant.
Cos'è la tecnica dello Shadowing?
Shadowing è una tecnica di apprendimento delle lingue supportata da studi scientifici, originariamente sviluppata per la formazione dei traduttori professionisti e resa popolare dal poliglotta Dr. Alexander Arguelles. Il metodo è semplice ma potente: ascolti un audio in inglese di madrelingua e lo ripeti immediatamente ad alta voce — come un'ombra che segue il parlante con un ritardo di solo 1–2 secondi. A differenza dell'ascolto passivo o degli esercizi di grammatica, lo shadowing costringe il tuo cervello e i muscoli della bocca a elaborare e riprodurre simultaneamente i modelli di discorso reale. La ricerca dimostra che migliora significativamente la precisione della pronuncia, l'intonazione, il ritmo, il discorso connesso, la comprensione dell'ascolto e la fluidità del parlato — rendendolo uno dei metodi più efficaci per la preparazione alla prova di speaking dell'IELTS e per la comunicazione reale in inglese.