Pratica di Shadowing: Why It Sucks to Be a Ghost Bride (in Ming Dynasty) - Impara a parlare inglese con i video

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1
You're born in 16th century China, in a small village that smells of wet soil and wood smoke.
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You are the first daughter of a rice farmer.
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Your first impression of father is his laugh, a loud and easy laugh that comforts you.
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You spend your first years playing in the house with your father's laugh in the background.
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When you turn three, your playground now includes the rice paddies in Village Square.
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children.
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By the time you turn five, you already have siblings.
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Sisters who beg your mom to tell stories while she braids your hair
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and brothers that steal your food when no one is watching.
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Your family is comfortable, not wealthy, but you don't lack.
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You are 13 when the red dresses start appearing.
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You watch girls your age disappear into bridal sedans and emerge as wives.
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You also watch them leave their fathers homes and you feel envious.
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Not in a bad way.
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You just want the same and you want the story that comes after.
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After all, getting married is a woman's greatest achievement in your village.
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Sometimes you joke with your mother about what your husband will look like.
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Tall and kind, you decide.
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You tell her that he'll have a good family, a warm house, and a laugh like your father's.
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Your mother keeps braiding and smiles.
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A year later, a woman arrives at your door.
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She's elegantly dressed with jade earrings and a silk scarf.
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After complimenting you on your beauty, she and your father disappear inside for an hour.
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her give your father a pouch of coins.
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That night, your father calls you.
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When you meet him, You see your mother sitting beside him.
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He tells you that woman from earlier is a matchmaker
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that she came regarding your marriage He asks
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if you are willing to marry the son of a wealthy
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merchant from a neighboring town You say yes before he finishes
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the sentence you're surprised he asked at all You're already imagining
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your red dress as you run to tell your siblings the good news
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You don't look at your mother's face if you had looked carefully You would have seen a tear rolling down.
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By the end of the week, you've told everyone.
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Your friends first, then the neighbors.
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You even tell the woman who sells vegetables at the market.
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You also wonder why a wealthy merchant's son would fancy a rice farmer's daughter.
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With no clear answer, you tell yourself that your ancestors were responsible, and your beauty sealed it.
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Still, every time you tell someone, your mother warns you not to.
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She warns you with a face that says, Don't say too much.
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Don't boast.
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Wait until it is official.
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You do not wait.
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You cannot.
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At the same time, your preparations begin.
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New clothes appear, fabrics your family would not normally spend money on.
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Your mother spends her evening sewing things she wants you to have.
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When things are less busy, she always holds you for an embrace.
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Still, she always releases you before you can read her face.
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You interpret all of it as emotion appropriate to a daughter leaving home.
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Parents feel things at these moments.
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Everyone knows this: you interpret everything through the only story you know.
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The one where the red dress is the ending and the ending is good.
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Your mother finishes the last of the sewing a month after you agreed.
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She folds everything carefully as she hands each cloth to you.
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A week after all preparations are done, The sedan arrives, and as you look at it, you know that your life is about to change forever.
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The sedan moves the next day.
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You sit in it for hours as you journey through mountain roads that get narrower the further you go.
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You watch the landscape change through the curtain gap.
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The rice paddies give way to pine forests.
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The pine forests give way to something older.
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Villages you don't recognize.
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you're finally there.
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Your sedan has arrived at a village with stone buildings.
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You look at them, and you realize that they're older than anything in your town.
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The rooftops are also curved in a style you haven't seen.
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As your sedan passes through, you notice that the people avoid your procession.
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You look at their eyes and think it's because they fear your in -laws.
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But when you exchange eye contact with a woman, All you see is pity.
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You wonder why.
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But the sound of the sedan stopping brings you back to your senses.
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In front of the sedan is a big house.
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You see a family waiting at its gate.
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You see an old man, and from his dressing, you know he's the merchant.
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your father -in -law next to him is a woman your mother -in -law
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You watch her cross the courtyard and take both your hands before you have fully stepped out of the sedan.
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Looking at her face, You notice she's weeping.
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You think of it as tears of joy.
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It seems everyone has been weeping for joy these past months.
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You're soon taken to your room.
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It's beautiful.
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In it, there are red curtains.
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There are also red lanterns strung from the ceiling and there's even a red bedding folded with precision on the sleeping mat.
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Everything is in the color of celebration.
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You move around the room touching things the curtain fabric the
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lacquered table edge You feel something almost like relief unclenching in your chest
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Then you see the altar it sits across the room like it has always been there
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and There's a painting at the center.
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It's that of a young man.
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handsome, serious -eyed.
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You also see incense burning in a ceramic holder, fruit arranged in careful formation, and below all of that, is paper money.
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Paper shoes, paper clothing folded into neat squares.
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You know what paper offerings are for.
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Every child in China knows that you burn paper for the dead.
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You look at the painting.
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You look at the offerings.
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You assume the man must be their most illustrious ancestor.
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He was probably the one that started the merchant trade of this family.
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You believe his altar here is for the ancestor to watch and judge the latest addition to their family.
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At that same moment, Your mother -in -law walks in.
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You ask when you will meet your husband.
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She smiles and says, "Sundir." very soon.
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That night, you cannot sleep.
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You need your mother's voice, your father's laugh, anything familiar to feel comfortable in an unfamiliar place.
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So you move through the dark corridor toward the room where your parents were given quarters for the night.
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Light comes from under a door at the end of the hall.
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Voices.
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You move closer.
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The door is open just enough.
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Your father sits across from the merchant.
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The matchmaker stands silently behind, hands folded.
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Your father's posture is wrong.
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Too small.
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Too careful.
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The posture of a man who is aware of what he owes and to whom.
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You hear the merchant's voice first.
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I miss my son.
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than your fathers.
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She is a good girl.
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She will not complain.
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I know my daughter.
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A pouch of coins moves from the merchant's hand to your father's, heavier than the first Much heavier Your father's fingers close around it without hesitation.
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For some reason, the action makes you step back as a floorboard creaks beneath your foot.
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Immediately, you turn, walk quickly, and then run back to your room.
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For the next few days, your hands do not stop shaking.
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Your mother asks why.
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You tell her that it's excitement.
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She believes you.
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You don't.
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For some reason, you get a bad feeling about the wedding.
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So you start praying to your ancestors.
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You even pray to the ancestors in your room.
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you beg them to watch over your wedding.
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On the day of your wedding, you're dressed by two servants.
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Your mother is present.
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She keeps complimenting your red dress.
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But she looks sad.
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This time it's obvious.
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You tell her not to worry about you, that your husband will take care of you.
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You also promise to visit often and you make her promise to visit when you have a child.
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She bursts into tears and starts to mutter, I'm sorry.
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You wonder why?
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She seems to want to say something, but your father walks in at that moment.
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He pulls her away and says she's emotional about your wedding, that she'll be alright.
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You feel that something's off.
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But today's your big day, so you don't ponder for long.
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You're soon led to the ancestral hall.
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It is enormous.
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In it, there are hundreds of wooden tablets lining every wall from floor to ceiling.
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Generations of strangers watching you with judgmental eyes.
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Your family is there.
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Your in -laws too.
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The merchant, his wife, and your husband's younger brother.
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You met him the day before when he came to give his congratulations.
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You do not like him much.
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His stare makes you uncomfortable.
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You catch his eye, and he's still staring.
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So you avoid his eyes and scan the room for your husband.
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That's when you see it.
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The altar at the center of the hall.
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The altar holds two chairs, two cups of wine, two red candles tied together with string.
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And then you see it.
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In one chair sits a paper effigy.
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life -sized dressed in wedding robes, face painted white with red lips curved into a permanent smile, and pinned to its chest,
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the painting from your room.
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the young man with the serious eyes.
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It is at that moment everything finally makes sense.
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The money changing hands.
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Your mother's face.
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The altar in your room.
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and the words you hear that day.
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You understand what's happening.
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Your parents have made you a ghost bride.
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An ancient tradition where girls are married to the dead.
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You've heard about it before, a tradition performed to ensure that individuals who die unmarried are not lonely in the afterlife
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and don't become restless spirits you just never thought you'd become
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one the sound of the whole doors being shut jolt you back to your senses You look at your parents.
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You see your mother sobbing and your father nodding slowly.
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his eyes tell you Just comply.
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It's at that moment you notice your mother -in -law at your side.
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She holds your hand tightly as if to prevent you from running as she pulls and guides you to the altar.
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A priest is already there.
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From that moment on, your body moves on autopilot.
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Your mind is no longer here.
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Instead, it has traveled back home to when you played around with your siblings.
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At the same time, You do the marriage rites.
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Bowing three times.
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Drinking from the cup.
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You are also crying.
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You are not sure when that started.
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After the rites, the wedding priest places a cold iron ring on your finger.
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It tightens the moment it touches your skin.
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A small contraction, like a decision being made by someone other than you.
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Around you, your new and old family weep.
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You see joy, grief and relief, all wearing the same face.
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Then, the temperature drops.
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Not gradually, all at once.
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The candles bend sideways without wind and straighten again.
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You feel something invisible settle into the empty chair beside you.
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So you look at the effigy with its permanent smile and paper hands folded neatly in its paper lap.
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You look at the ring on your finger and realize that you are already married.
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You wake up the next morning in the red room.
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For one breath.
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You forget where you are.
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Then you see the altar.
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The painting.
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The incense already burning.
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It seems someone else lit it before sunrise.
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But not anymore.
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Because from now on, that someone will be you.
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This is what a ghost marriage is for.
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In your culture, death is not an ending.
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It is a relocation.
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The dead move to the underworld, a mirror of the living world, where they still need food, shelter, and family.
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An unmarried man who dies has no wife to tend to spirit, no descendants to burn offerings.
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No anchor.
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he becomes a hungry ghost.
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Restless, angry, dangerous to the family he left behind.
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And the only solution they can think of is a wife.
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Your father saw their solution as an opportunity to save a wealthy family from a restless spirit
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while securing his own family's future with the coins.
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And because of this decision, your mornings now belong to the dead.
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Three years pass as you turn 17.
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Your days have blurred into a routine where you rise before the household.
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Light the incense.
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Bow three times to the painting of a man that'll never know you.
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You have been bowing to him for years.
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and you still do not know what his voice sounded like.
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You do not know if he was kind.
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You do not know if he would have made a good husband.
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After bowing, you go to the kitchen and begin the day.
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You cook.
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You clean.
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Your mother -in -law watches everything with sharp eyes and sharper silences.
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She is not cruel.
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She has just lost her son and replaced him with a ritual in a Masid disguised as a wife.
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That's it.
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Your treatment is no different from a maid.
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You learn the correct temperature for the morning tea.
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You learn which tasks belong to which hour.
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You learn that correction will be delivered in front of servants.
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They do not love you.
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They don't care for you.
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They only care that you take care of their son's altar while alive, and his soul in death.
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After all, you're legally his widow.
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which means you are legally theirs.
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You cannot leave.
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You cannot remarry.
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Your body must remain chaste because you belong to a dead man's memory.
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Life goes on as you turn 18.
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You have been a widow for the last four years.
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Your husband's younger brother has been watching you the whole time.
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You still remember his eyes at the wedding.
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That kind that doesn't look away when caught.
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You thought it was rudeness.
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You already know it wasn't.
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He's in his 20s.
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He moves to the house with the ease of a man who has always owned it.
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Well, He'll own it soon.
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The merchant is old, and the grief of losing his eldest son is killing him slowly.
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You never asked how your husband died either.
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You do not care, because right now your focus is on avoiding his brother.
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Your brother -in -law finds reasons to be in rooms you were in.
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you avoid him.
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You become skilled at knowing which corridor he is in before you enter it.
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You even develop a sense for his footsteps.
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Then one day, the merchant and his wife visit a neighboring town.
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The house is quiet in the specific way of a house that has been emptied of its authority.
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You are in your room, mending cloth.
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When the door opens without a knock, he stands in the doorway.
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That look again.
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You ask what he needs.
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He does not answer.
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You move to leave, but he's larger than even the doorway.
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Then he grabs you.
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You try to struggle, but it's futile.
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What happens next is witnessed only by the painting of a dead man on an altar.
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Time passes, and he leaves you lying on the mat.
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You look at the ceiling and tell yourself it will not happen again.
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It does.
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You try to confide in your mother -in -law but she waves her complaints away.
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You realize that the family knows.
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You can see it in the way conversations stop when you enter a room.
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in the way the servants look at the floor when you pass.
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It seems like they have made a collective decision not to involve themselves.
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So every night he visits You cry.
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You have no husband to appeal to.
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No parents who will come.
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Your father with your mother's permission has exchanged you for coins.
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All you can gain comfort from is a cold iron ring
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and the photograph of a man who never knew you existed Years pass.
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Not quickly.
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Not slowly.
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Just fast and slow enough that you've almost forgotten you once had a life that didn't revolve around a dead man.
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You are 25 when your hair starts to show its first grey threats.
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Women in your village went grey at 40.
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You know why.
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You just can't change it.
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By the time you are 30, the cold iron ring already sits differently on your finger.
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Not tighter.
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looser.
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Your hands have thinned over the years due to too much stress and work.
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The merchant and his wife pass away during this time.
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A day after the funeral, Your brother -in -law informs you that you'll now start burning incense for all three altars: your husband and his parents.
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You refuse.
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He just starves you till you cave.
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Now you spend your mornings tending the altar of a man you never met.
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You bow to his paintings every morning.
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You burn his incense.
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You maintain his honor.
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Then you repeat the same for his parents.
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He does not know.
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He is never known.
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And he'll never know.
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You are 32 when your body begins its quiet refusal of this life.
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A cough, that winter that does not leave.
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a tiredness that lives in the bone rather than the muscle.
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The kind of tired that sleep does not fix.
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You know what it means.
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Still, you continue inhaling incense smoke and bowing.
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You do this for as long as your body will allow.
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until the day it doesn't.
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One day, your brother -in -law receives news that you haven't lit the incense for his parents' altar yet.
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He rushes to your room to punish you.
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When he enters, He sees it.
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your gaunt figure sleeping peacefully.
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No breath.
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No pulse.
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Just a body in a red room with the red curtains and the red lanterns.
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The only witness to your death is the painting on the altar across from you.
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You're mourned appropriately.
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Ironically, your treatment and death far surpasses whatever care you were afforded alive.
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your tablet is prepared by the family scribe.
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He writes your name beneath your husband's and then carries it to the altar as he places it beside his.
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two tablets.
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side by side.
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together forever in the genealogy of a family that was never yours.
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You spent your entire life performing the role of his wife.
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without once meeting him.
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And now in death, you finally join him.
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You have always belonged to him.
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And now, you will always belong to him.
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That's what the tablet is for.
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Somewhere in a village not far from here, a family has a son who died too young.
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The matchmaker is already on her way.
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She's older now.
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She still wears jade earrings and silk scarves.
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She knows exactly which fathers to visit first.
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She knows which ones have daughters they cannot afford to keep.
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She knows how heavy to make the first pouch of coins.
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She has done this before.
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She will do this again.

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VocabolarioCostruisci il tuo lessico
Gioco di vocabolarioImpara giocando

Vocabolario e note di pronuncia per questa lezione

Questa lezione di conversazione di livello B2 si basa sul video “Why It Sucks to Be a Ghost Bride”. Le parole che ritornano più spesso: altar, mother, father. Questo video contiene 352 frasi e 3221 parole da ripetere con lo shadowing. Il parlato dura 20:43. Chi parla ha un ritmo naturale di circa 156 parole al minuto, vicino a una conversazione quotidiana. Il 84% delle parole rientra nelle 3.000 più comuni dell’inglese; conviene studiare le altre prima di iniziare.

Vocaboli chiave di questo video

Le 15 parole più avanzate del video, con pronuncia e significato:

ParolaPronunciaSignificato
altar sostantivo/ˈɔl.tɚ/altare
merchant sostantivo/ˈmɝt͡ʃənt/mercante, mercantessa
incense sostantivo/ˈɪnsɛns/incenso, olibano
ancestor sostantivo/ˈæn.sɛs.tɚ/antenato, ascendente
coin sostantivo/ˈkoɪ̯n/moneta
curtain sostantivo/ˈkɜɹt(ə)n/tenda, cortina
fold verbo/ˈfəʊld/piegare
matchmaker sostantivo/ˈmæt͡ʃˌmeɪkɚ/fiammiferaio, fiammiferaia
pouch sostantivo/paʊt͡ʃ/sacchetto
restless aggettivo/ˈɹɛstlɪs/instancabile
sibling sostantivo/ˈsɪb.lɪŋ/fratello, sorella
servant sostantivo/ˈsɝvənt/servo, servitore
ceiling sostantivo/ˈsilɪŋ/soffitto
earring sostantivo/ˈɪəɹɪŋ/orecchino
effigy sostantivo/ˈɛfəd͡ʒi/effigie

I phrasal verb che sentirai

ParolaPronunciaSignificato
pass away verboscomparire, mancare
pass through verbotrapassare
wake up verbo/ˌweɪk ˈʌp/svegliarsi
watch over verbovegliare, piantonare

Frasi da ripetere

Frasi brevi e complete del video che puoi riutilizzare nella conversazione di tutti i giorni:

  • By the end of the week, you've told everyone.
  • You're soon taken to your room.
  • Your father's posture is wrong.
  • You hear the merchant's voice first.
  • You tell her that it's excitement.

La grammatica di questo video

Le strutture che chi parla usa di più, con le parole esatte del video:

StrutturaNel video
Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — un’azione iniziata prima e ancora in corsohas been weeping · have been bowing · has been watching
Present perfect have/has + participio passato — un’azione passata che conta ancora adessoyou've told · has arrived · haven't seen
Forma passiva be + participio passato — conta ciò che accade, non chi lo faare done · are also curved · were given
Frasi relative who / which + frase — un’informazione in più su una persona o una cosawoman who sells · man who is · man who dies

Pronuncia a cui fare attenzione

Chi parla usa 37 contrazioni e forme ridotte, come don't, you're, he'll. Pronunciale nella forma breve, così come le senti.

  • I suoni “th”: cloth /klɒθ/, theirs /ðɛɚz/
  • I suoni “sh” e “zh”: punish /ˈpʌnɪʃ/, correction /kəˈɹɛkʃən/, precision /pɹɪˈsɪʒ.ən/, emotion /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/
  • Parole lunghe — attenzione all’accento: invisible /ɪnˈvɪzəb(ə)l/, uncomfortable /ʌnˈkʌm.fɚ.tə.bl̩/

I suoni difficili per chi parla italiano:

  • Consonante finale — senza aggiungere una vocale dopo: merchant /ˈmɝt͡ʃənt/, incense /ˈɪnsɛns/, tablet /ˈtæblət/, fold /ˈfəʊld/, pouch /paʊt͡ʃ/
  • /æ/ — più aperta della “e”: sedan /səˈdæn/, ancestor /ˈæn.sɛs.tɚ/, tablet /ˈtæblət/, matchmaker /ˈmæt͡ʃˌmeɪkɚ/, unmarried /ʌnˈmæɹ.id/
  • /ŋ/ finale — senza pronunciare la /g/: sibling /ˈsɪb.lɪŋ/, ceiling /ˈsilɪŋ/, earring /ˈɪəɹɪŋ/, neighboring /ˈneɪbəɹɪŋ/

Come esercitarsi con questo video

  1. Ascolta tutto il video una volta senza parlare e annota le parole che non conosci.
  2. Inizia a velocità 0,75×, fai shadowing frase per frase e torna alla velocità normale quando diventa facile.
  3. Registrati e confronta con l’originale, facendo attenzione a parole come altar, merchant, incense.

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.

Tecnica dello shadowing: leggi la guida completa passo dopo passo →