シャドーイング練習: Why Are US Politics Today So Divisive?: Crash Course US Government #1 - 動画で英語スピーキングを学ぶ

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Maybe you've noticed.

The echo chambers are loud.

The divisions wide.

Our Fox News dads and our MSNBC moms may as well be living in different dimensions.

And our majestic eagle friend is looking way less majestic than when we last saw him.

You okay there, Baldi?

Stop picking at your feathers.

You're only going to make it worse.

So how did we get here?

Screaming at each other across an ever -growing cavernous divide?

And what does that mean for the fate of this country?

Hi, I'm Kushan Avidar, this is Crash Course, and we're answering big questions on US government.

While it's true that the media we consume contributes greatly to our super -polarized political culture,

to understand the full scope of what's going on, we have to take an even wider view because this thing we've got going on goes back a long time.

For decades, there's been a widening divide between the two major political parties in terms of political ideology,

where people fall on the spectrum of beliefs about how society should work.

Very simply, from left to right, liberal to conservative.

And when we say liberal and conservative, we're not actually talking about Democrats and Republicans, at least not yet.

Liberal really just means falling on the left side of our political spectrum.

These folks tend to support more government involvement in people's lives.

Conservatives on the right side of the spectrum want the government to conserve the status quo, which usually means less intervention both socially and economically.

So for example, a liberal person would probably support government -funded healthcare, while a conservative person might think that's something better left to private companies.

In a centrist political culture, most voters hold moderate views, falling somewhere between liberal and conservatives.

Sure, you've got your fair share of leftists and right -wingers, but the largest cluster of voters are hanging out in the middle, and in an election, they could swing either way.

But in a culture of political polarization, like ours, voters are camped out farther away from each other in their views.

These days, we tend to think of the political spectrum as falling along party lines,

with liberal meaning the same thing as Democrat and conservative meaning the same thing as Republican, with a vast, seemingly uncrossable canyon between them.

But the left -right divide between the parties wasn't always this clear cut.

So what happened?

To help explain things, let's head over to my colleague, historian Buff.

Just Buff, that's his whole name.

Hi there, Kusha.

You are not what I was expecting.

What do you mean?

Don't worry about it, Buff.

Go ahead, friend.

You got it, Kusha.

Well, back in the day, political parties didn't really mean the same thing they do now.

There were liberals and conservatives sprinkled throughout both parties.

I'll give you an example.

In the wake of the Civil War, in the period known as Reconstruction, who do you think led the charge to expand voting and civil rights for Black Americans?

It was liberal Republicans from New England.

And who do you think instituted Jim Crow laws that made it harder for Black Americans to exercise those rights?

It was conservative Southern Democrats. In fact, the voting records of Southern Democrats in Congress skewed significantly more

conservative than their Northern Republican brethren until well into the 20th century.

And here's an interesting way that shows up.

In 1964, President Lyndon B.

Johnson, himself a Democrat, signed the Civil Rights Act into law.

The act made it illegal to discriminate and segregate by race in public spaces, and it generally enjoyed pretty bipartisan support in Congress.

But the folks who didn't support it, most weren't Republicans.

They were Dems from Johnson's own party.

When white, conservative Southern Democrats saw other Democratic presidents like LBJ and his predecessor JFK embracing civil rights legislation,

it sent a message.

Democrats became the party more associated with the civil rights movement.

So those conservative Democrats steadily left the party for the Republican Party, or died out.

Congress was pretty old, even back in the 60s.

Meanwhile, those liberal Republicans decided to fully align themselves with the Party of Civil Rights and made the swap over to the Dems.

Back to you, Kusha.

I'm sorry.

Thanks, Buff.

That is just one example of how party alignment shifted during the mid -20th century, giving us the system we know today,

with Democrats being pretty universally liberal or left -leaning and Republicans being pretty universally conservative or right -leaning with a,

you guessed it, ever -widening gap between them.

These days, when Congress does manage to get legislation passed, it's often not with the same bipartisan support of the days of yore.

Like 2025's One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed through the House with support from 218 out of 220 total House Republicans and,

count it, zero Democrats.

The 1960s set us off on a journey where conservative and liberal have become more and more synonymous with Republican and Democrat.

And things have started to turn into kind of a self -perpetuating spiral of polarized intensity.

As the parties become more associated with specific values, like liberal support for LGBTQ plus rights, or conservative support for the Second Amendment,

they attract people with those same values, which then enforce those conservative or liberal associations.

All of this makes it a lot easier for people to fit neatly into slots along the left -right continuum, a process known as ideological sorting.

Essentially, it's become a lot easier to guess which party somebody supports just by their stance on individual things like abortion, taxes, gun control, foreign policy,

the environment, or importantly, their go -to news network, and a lot harder for voters to hang out in the center.

But it's not just that Democrats and Republicans have grown apart in terms of how they think about issues.

They've also grown apart in terms of who they are as people.

Until recently, you couldn't reliably predict someone's political party based on their gender or race or anything like that.

But thanks to what's known as social sorting, for the past two decades or so, certain identities have become increasingly tied to one party over another.

Take gender for example.

Across the entire US population, men today are more likely to identify as Republicans and women more likely to identify as Democrats.

To be clear, that doesn't mean there aren't men or women who buck the trend.

There definitely are.

It's just that gender is becoming a stronger predictor.

And so is race.

White voters are more likely than any other racial or ethnic group to identify as Republican, while Black voters are more likely than any other group to identify as Democrats.

So even though women in general more often vote Democrat, if we look at exit poll data on votes cast by white women in the 2024 election,

the Republican candidate Donald Trump comes out four percentage points higher than his opponent Kamala Harris.

On top of all these other factors, there's a growing geographic divide too.

People in rural areas increasingly identify as Republicans, while people in urban areas identify as Democrats.

So thanks to the combined effects of ideological sorting and social sorting, our politics aren't just something we believe, they're becoming who we are.

So it didn't take just one ingredient to cook up our current situation.

It was decades of shifting party ideology, calcifying identities, and increasing partisanship from both sides.

And as the gap between us widens, it's harder and harder to find common ground.

What do we have left?

Gardening?

The Bachelor?

The Bachelor in Paradise?

Of course, political polarization has way bigger consequences than, like, it's hard to know what to talk about at family dinner.

As political affiliation becomes more closely linked to other core parts of who people are,

it stops being just a political identity and becomes something new — a mega -identity, or one identity and set of values to rule all others.

100

The term mega -identity was coined by political scientist Liliana Mason in the 2010s.

101

It describes a pattern where someone's partisan identity, whether they define themselves as Republican or Democrat,

102

affects how they see and interact with people that identify the other way.

103

And as a result, we're more likely to think bad stuff about the other side or even view them as a threat.

104

Research has shown a rise in what's known as affective polarization, a kind of polarization that goes way beyond whether or not the two sides disagree on policy issues,

105

dipping into big emotions like distrust, animosity, and contempt.

106

In other words, the more polarized we get, the less we recognize each other as 3D human beings and the more we cast each other as 2D bad guys.

107

And that has direct consequences on Election Day.

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Voters are increasingly motivated less by what they like about their own party's platform

109

and more by negative partisanship or their hatred for the other party.

110

This isn't new by any means.

111

Negative campaign ads were swaying your grandpappy's vote before you were born.

112

But as Republicans and Democrats have gotten more polarized, negative partisanship has become increasingly powerful.

113

More and more, we're out there voting against someone instead of for someone to the point where we might start to ignore candidates'

114

actual political platforms.

115

And I know we've been talking about national stuff, but the inability to divorce politics and partisanship can also affect voting habits at the more local level,

116

leading to nationalization.

117

Basically, as the parties have divided into these two big,

118

at -odds camps, voters increasingly cast ballots based on what they know about the national party they identify with or identify against.

119

Not necessarily what's happening in their own town.

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And unfortunately for us, our country, and our little eagle friend Baldi,

121

all these effects of increasing partisanship feed back into the causes.

122

It is a vicious cycle, creating a feedback loop that's really shi - bad.

123

Because not only is it seeping into how we, the citizens, interact with each other, but how the people running our government work together to actually get stuff done.

124

Just because something's hard doesn't mean it's not possible.

125

Our government and our country as a whole has weathered plenty of challenges

126

and come out on the other side with a desire to be better.

127

And today there are plenty of people, both in the government and on the street, willing to reach across the aisle to work together for a better future.

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Today's super -polarized politics have been brewing for decades, but it's not the end.

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And there are plenty of people thinking there must be a better way.

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So next time, that's exactly what we're asking.

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Why does the US only have two major political parties?

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This episode of Crash Course Big Questions on US Government was produced in partnership with USA Facts,

133

a non -partisan civic tech project that makes government data easier to understand.

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For more resources that go along with these videos, go to usafacts .org slash crash course.

135

Thanks for watching this episode of Crash Course Big Questions on US Government, which was filmed in Indianapolis, Indiana, and was made with the help of all these nice people.

136

If you want to help keep Crash Course free for everyone forever, you can join our community on Patreon.

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このレッスンの語彙とスピーキングのポイント

このB2レベルのスピーキングレッスンは、動画「Why Are US Politics Today So Divisive?: Crash Course US Government」を教材にしています。繰り返し出てくる語は次のとおりです：Democrat, Republican, conservative, liberal, identify。この動画には、シャドーイング用の文が136文、単語が1899語あります。音声の長さは12:07です。話す速さは1分あたり約157語で、日常会話に近い自然なペースです。単語の84%は英語の頻出3,000語に含まれます。残りは練習の前に確認しておきましょう。

この動画の重要語彙

動画の中で特に難しい単語15語を、発音と意味つきで紹介します。

単語	発音	意味
voter 名詞	/ˈvoʊtɚ/	投票者, 選挙人
divide 動詞	/dɪˈvaɪd/	分割する, 分ける
polarization 名詞	/ˌpoʊlərɪˈzeɪʃən/	分極化
widen 動詞	/ˈwaɪdn̩/	広がる, 広まる
majestic 形容詞	/məˈd͡ʒɛstɪk/	荘厳な, 威厳がある
ideological 形容詞	/ˌaɪ.di.əˈlɑ.d͡ʒɪ.kəl/	イデオロギーの
ideology 名詞	/aɪ.diˈɑ.lə.d͡ʒi/	観念形態, イデオロギー
interact 動詞	/ɪn.təˈɹækt/	相互作用する, 相呼応する
consequence 名詞	/ˈkɑn.sɪ.kwəns/	結果
eagle 名詞	/ˈiːɡəl/	鷲, 鵰
lean 動詞	/ˈliːn/	傾ける
animosity 名詞	/æn.ɪˈmɒs.ɪ.ti/	敵意
conserve 動詞	/kənˈsɜː(ɹ)v/	節約する
continuum 名詞	/kənˈtɪnjuəm/	連続体
distrust 名詞	/dɪsˈtɹʌst/	疑惑, 不信

動画に出てくる句動詞

単語	発音	意味
come out 動詞	/ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/	出る
die out 動詞		死に絶える
go ahead 動詞	/ˌɡoʊ əˈhɛd/	どうぞお先に
go back 動詞		戻る, 帰る
show up 動詞		現れる

繰り返し練習したい文

動画に出てくる短く完結した文です。日常会話でそのまま使えます。

You're only going to make it worse.
What do you mean?
I'll give you an example.
What do we have left?

この動画の文法

話し手がよく使っている文型を、動画の実際の表現とともに紹介します。

文型	動画での表現
現在完了進行形 have/has been + -ing — 以前に始まり今も続いている動作	we've been talking · have been brewing
現在完了形 have/has + 過去分詞 — 過去の出来事が今も関係している	you've noticed · there's been · have become
受動態 be + 過去分詞 — 誰がするかより、何が起きるかに焦点を当てる	are camped · was coined · were born
関係詞節 who / which + 節 — 人や物について情報を加える	women who buck · Government, which was

注意したい発音

話し手はwe're, didn't, aren'tなど、短縮形や弱形を27回使っています。聞こえたとおりの短い形で発音しましょう。

「th」の音: brethren /ˈbɹɛðɹən/, feather /ˈfɛðə/
「sh」と「zh」の音: partisanship /ˌpɑːtɪˈzænʃɪp/, polarization /ˌpoʊlərɪˈzeɪʃən/, affiliation /əˌfɪliˈeɪʃən/, vicious /ˈvɪʃəs/, socially /ˈsoʊʃəli/
長い単語（アクセントの位置に注意）: partisanship /ˌpɑːtɪˈzænʃɪp/, polarization /ˌpoʊlərɪˈzeɪʃən/, bipartisan /baɪˈpɑɹ.tə.sən/, universally /ˌjunɪˈvɝsəli/, ideological /ˌaɪ.di.əˈlɑ.d͡ʒɪ.kəl/

日本語話者が苦手な音：

/r/ と /l/ の区別 — /l/ は舌先を歯茎につけ、/r/ はどこにもつけない: polarize /ˈpəʊ.lə.ɹaɪz/, polarization /ˌpoʊlərɪˈzeɪʃən/, sprinkle /ˈspɹɪŋkəl/, spiral /ˈspaɪɹəl/, importantly /ɪmˈpɔɹ.tənt.li/
/v/ — /b/ にならないように、上の歯を下唇に当てる: voter /ˈvoʊtɚ/, divide /dɪˈvaɪd/, universally /ˌjunɪˈvɝsəli/, affective /əˈfɛktɪv/, cavernous /ˈkæv.ɚ.nəs/
/f/ — 「フ」ではなく、上の歯と下唇で出す: affective /əˈfɛktɪv/, calcify /ˈkælsɪfaɪ/, leftist /ˈlɛf.tɪst/, affiliation /əˌfɪliˈeɪʃən/, feather /ˈfɛðə/

この動画での練習方法

まず声を出さずに動画を最後まで聞き、知らない単語をメモします。
まず0.75倍速で一文ずつシャドーイングし、慣れてきたら通常の速度に戻します。
自分の声を録音して元の音声と比べます。voter, divide, polarizationなどの単語に特に注意しましょう。

シャドーイングとは？英語上達に効果的な理由

シャドーイング（Shadowing）は、もともとプロの通訳者養成プログラムで開発された言語学習法で、多言語習得者として知られるDr. Alexander Arguelles によって広く普及されました。方法はシンプルですが非常に効果的：ネイティブスピーカーの英語を聞きながら、1〜2秒の遅延で声に出してすぐに繰り返す——まるで「影（shadow）」のように話者を追いかけます。文法ドリルや受動的なリスニングと異なり、シャドーイングは脳と口の筋肉が同時にリアルタイムで英語を処理・再現することを強制します。研究により、発音精度、抑揚、リズム、連音、リスニング力、そして会話の流暢さが大幅に向上することが確認されています。IELTSスピーキング対策や自然な英語コミュニケーションを目指す方に特におすすめです。

シャドーイングのやり方: ステップ別の完全ガイドを読む →

シャドーイング練習: Why Are US Politics Today So Divisive?: Crash Course US Government #1 - 動画で英語スピーキングを学ぶ

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