Shadowing Practice: Fleabag | What We Can Learn About Love - Learn English Speaking with Video
Les maken...
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When you won’t love and you won’t let it out, the thing comes out in the form of self-destruction.
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The alternative to self-love, in other words, is self-destruction.
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Because you won’t take the risk of loving yourself properly, you will be compelled… Don’t!
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… instead to destroy yourself.
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Don’t make me hate you.
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Loving you is painful enough.
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Why is that? When we meet Fleabag for the first time in season one, she’s… a mess.
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Still reeling from the death of her best friend, Boo, all of her other relationships are in various stages of disrepair.
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She is dishonest, impulsive, emotionally repressed, and always horny.
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I’m not obsessed with sex… I just can’t stop thinking about it.
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Her guinea pig-themed café is floundering, if not outright sinking… Can I get you anything?
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No, thanks. I’m good.
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… but she’s already asked her family for one too many parachutes.
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I’m just going to ask her. I’m just gonna come, I’m just— Do you need to borrow money?
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No. I can’t do it. I can’t do it. I can’t do it. I can’t do it.
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She’s tried and failed spectacularly to get a small business loan.
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Perv. Slut.
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Wow. And she doesn’t seem to like anyone. Not her— —super high-powered, perfect, anorexic, rich, super-sister— Claire. Or, Claire’s husband.
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I need to speak to Martin.
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Martin? Martin. Martin!
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Not her father, who pretends he doesn’t see… So, the party’s moved to the hallway. Always a good sign. Or her step-mother… To be fair, she’s not an evil stepmother. She’s just a cun— And, particularly, that is to say most especially, not herself.
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Ah, f*ck it. I have a horrible feeling that I am a greedy, perverted, selfish, apathetic, cynical, depraved, morally-bankrupt woman who can’t even call herself a feminist.
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And this is a problem. We could even say it’s the central problem of the first season: Fleabag doesn’t like herself.
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I hate myself.
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We all have things we don’t like about ourselves.
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Perhaps we tend to say the wrong thing at the wrong time— I mean there’s nothing wrong with your— Say that again.
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I mean there’s nothing— What?
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I don’t know. AHHHHHH!
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Oh my God. I always say the wrong thing. Or we don’t know how to let others take care of us— Okay. If you want.
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Well, I don’t want to, but I think it’d be easier for everyone if I could just— Okay.
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I mean I’ve done it. It’s done. It’s this Friday at 7:30 at mine.
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Great. Or maybe we just really can’t stomach the thought of being alone— Do you ever feel lonely?
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Yeah. ‘Course.
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Fleabag is different, though. She seems to believe she doesn’t deserve love. Which likely stems from… She spends the entire season trying to get away from the question: How could she deserve love after betraying the person who loved her best?
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Let’s never ask anyone for anything, they don’t get it.
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Deal. Deal.
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This question is seemingly answered when, in the last episode, Claire chooses to believe Martin’s version of events over Fleabag’s.
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How can I believe you?
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Because I’m your sister!
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After what you did to Boo?
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There’s an implicit battle taking place in the background of season one between the notion that Fleabag is, indeed, a greedy, perverted, selfish, apathetic, cynical, depraved, morally-bankrupt woman who can’t even call herself a feminist… You know I’ve really tried to be there for you through this.
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You can't say I haven't tried.
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Your father and I often say, when you’ve had a few drinks, you’re so like your mother.
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I’m sorry.
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Think you should go.
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… and the possibility that she is a good person who made a mistake.
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Are you okay?
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Sad face. I’m fine.
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Yeah, but he’s obviously not happy. Happy people wouldn’t do things like that.
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Fair point.
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And anyway, that’s the very reason why they put rubbers on the end of pencils.
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What? To f* hamsters?
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No. Because people make mistakes.
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People make mistakes.
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And it’s ultimately the latter sentiment that wins out. Fleabag is able to get the small business loan, revitalize her café, and begin to take herself seriously.
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But the idea isn’t that she made a mistake and the shame caused her to hate herself.
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Actually, it’s quite the opposite. Because, you see, she says: And sometimes I wish I didn’t even know that f*ing existed.
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And that I know that my body, as it is now, really is the only thing I have left and when that gets old and unf*able, I may as well just kill it.
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And somehow there isn’t anything worse than someone who doesn’t want to f* me.
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Fleabag has found her sense of self-worth from the use of her body for longer than we’ve known her.
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Without sex, she feels worthless. Which explains why she felt compelled to… And in this way, we see how an inability to love one’s self culminates in destruction.
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“I give myself to you.
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Take me. Do anything you like with me… That’s quite mad.” This is a love story.
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When I was young, my favorite book was called What is Love?
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by Dar Draper. It went: “What is love? What does it look like? Can I see it? Can I find it? … And where is love? Where does it come from? When is love? When should I get some? Why is there love? Why do we need it? Who is love? How can I meet it?” Fuck you, then.
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Eric Fromm, the author of The Art of Loving, says love has four vital components—without which, the act we call love would be wholly unrecognizable. Those components are: care, responsibility, respect and knowledge.
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It’s the responsibility aspect of love that the second season of Fleabag explores.
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What you did at the restaurant was unforgivable.
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I know. Thank you.
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After all of her mistakes, Fleabag seems determined to love well.
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—and because I spent most of my adult life using sex to deflect from the screaming void inside my empty heart. I’m good at this.
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Although I don’t really do that anymore.
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Even if she’s not entirely sure how.
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I’m just trying to get to know you.
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Well, I don’t want that.
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And it’s not like she has a ton of great examples, either.
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Her father squirms under the thumb of an apparent tyrant.
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Please, please! She mustn’t see it! She mustn’t find out!
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While her sister languishes in a dead marriage with a man who represents everything she hates.
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Yes. You pop to the loo, pull down your knickers, and then I will come in and F* YOU.
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Traditionally, romance absolves us of our responsibility.
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To others and to ourselves.
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I made a promise to a man. He gave me a ring and I gave him my word!
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And your word is shot to hell now, don’t you think?
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I don’t—I don’t know! I’ll find out when I talk to him.
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My whole life is you. I can’t breathe because I’m waiting for you. You own me! You control me! I belong to you!
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YOU OWN ME! You control me! I belong to you!
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Love is a “get out of jail” free card. No explanations needed. It’s a reason to treat the people you don’t love badly and to be incredibly selfish.
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Love is awful… Makes you selfish.
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Makes you creepy.
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Makes you obsessed with your hair.
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Makes you cruel! Makes you say and do things you never thought you would do!
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What is less often shown are the mundane, often tedious responsibilities which love requires.
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The small or large acts, which can so easily become burdens, that we have the honor of performing for those we love.
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I want to take clean cups out of the dishwasher, put them in the cupboard, at home. And the next morning, I want to watch my wife drink from them. And I want to make her feel good.
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Responsibility isn’t easy. It can feel heavier than the whole world sometimes.
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When we don’t know how to love, or we haven’t been in the practice of loving lately, the responsibility we’re faced with seems insurmountable.
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Because it isn't enough to say you love someone.
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I want someone to tell me what to believe in. Who to vote for and who to love and how to tell them… And it isn't enough to feel it either.
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The moment you enter into any kind of human undertaking in relationship… …what an act of faith? See, you’ve given yourself up. But this is the most powerful thing that can be done—surrender. See, and love is an act of surrender to another person.
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Kneel. Love is… Knowing how to make someone laugh, even when they want to cry.
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Don’t make this fun.
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Love is the sound of their voice, after they’re already gone.
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Hi, this is Boo. I can’t come to the phone right now, but please leave me a messiagio and I’ll get back to you. Love is encouragement, when we can’t seem to pull ourselves together.
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Buck up. Smiles. Charm. Off we go.
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Off we go. Love is bumbling idiocy.
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I’m not nervous. I’m being completely— Claire!
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Oh, hi! Oh.
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Love can mean telling a white lie.
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No, it’s chic!
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It’s unsalvageable! Claire, it’s French.
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Really?
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Love can mean going to bat for someone, even though they’re wrong.
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Show her the reference.
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Love is running through an airport.
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The only person I’d run through an airport for is you.
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Love can be more than we know what to do with.
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I don’t know what to do with it.
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With what? With all the love I have for her.
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I’ll take it.
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Love is being seen.
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We’ll last a week.
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What was that?
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What? Where’d you just go?
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What? That thing that you're doing...
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It's like you disappear.
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What? What are you not telling me?
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Nothing! Tell me what’s going on underneath there.
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Nothing! Tell me. Come on!
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No! Tell me.
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Nothing! THAT!
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Nothing! I think Fleabag teaches us that, although love is hard— I can’t have sex with you because I’ll fall in love with you.
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And, if I fall in love with you, I won’t burst into flames but my life will be f*ed.
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You know the worst thing is that I f*ing love you… I love you.
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I think you know how to love better than any of us. That’s why you find it all so painful.
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–it is one of the most honorable endeavors we can undertake as human beings.
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Learning to love develops us in every way imaginable.
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… it takes strength to know what’s right.
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And love isn’t something that weak people do.
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And it starts with loving ourselves. In Fleabag: The Scriptures— Phoebe Waller-Bridge wrote: “Harry was convinced that the greatest love story we had to tell was that between Fleabag and herself.
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I shuddered at the sentimentality of it, but I knew it was true.” Harry, Fleabag's director, played a huge role in convincing Phoebe to write a Season Two and continue Fleabag’s story of self-love.
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There’s no perfect love, just as there are no perfect people, but if we start with the basic building blocks of: care… Look at me.
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Listen. People are all we’ve got.
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Respect. I loved her, but—.
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That’s all that really matters.
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No, I don’t think it is.
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Knowledge. Are you okay?
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Yeah. Tell the truth.
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And responsibility.
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It’ll pass.
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We’re sure to end up with something pretty great.
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I love you, too.
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Here's to love!
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TO LOVE! So, I’m just now realizing that I never introduced myself.
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Hi. My name’s TVHead.
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I was born with a tv for a head.
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Kind of a miracle, if you think about it.
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Oh my GOD. What is that?
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I have a near-encyclopedic knowledge of all television and film.
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Whenever I feel sad, or happy, or – Cut the cameras.
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Whenever I feel anything, it shows on my face.
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So when you watch my videos, you’re watching… me.
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And I guess I just wanted to say…
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Exploring Love, Self-Worth, and Mistakes: A Real-Life Drama for English Practice
The video dives into Fleabag’s chaotic world, a relatable scenario where self-doubt, broken relationships, and past mistakes collide. Her struggle to accept love—from others and herself—mirrors real-life battles many face. Whether it’s avoiding vulnerability, miscommunicating with family, or grappling with guilt, Fleabag’s journey is a goldmine for learning how to express complex emotions in English. This is more than just a story; it’s a window into everyday conversations about pain, forgiveness, and self-discovery—perfect for english speaking practice.
Useful Chunks & Collocations to Master
- "reeling from the death of": Expressing the shock of loss (e.g., "She’s still reeling from the death of her best friend").
- "in various stages of disrepair": Describing relationships that are broken in different ways (e.g., "All her other relationships are in various stages of disrepair").
- "can’t stomach the thought of": Conveying strong dislike for an idea (e.g., "She can’t stomach the thought of being alone").
- "stem from": Explaining the origin of a feeling (e.g., "Her self-doubt likely stems from past mistakes").
- "implicit battle": A hidden conflict (e.g., "There’s an implicit battle between self-hatred and self-forgiveness").
These phrases aren’t just words—they’re tools to build natural, emotional speech. Memorize them, and you’ll sound more like a native when discussing deep topics.
Your Shadowing Challenge: Speak Like Fleabag (Without the Chaos!)
Ready to practice shadow speak? Here’s your task: Pick a 30-second clip from the video where Fleabag argues with Claire ("How can I believe you? Because I’m your sister!"). Play the clip, pause, and repeat her lines immediately, mimicking her tone, speed, and stress. Focus on how she emphasizes "sister" to show desperation. Do this 5 times. Shadowing helps you internalize rhythm and intonation—key for sounding fluent. For more learn english with youtube tips, try shadowspeaks techniques: record yourself and compare it to the original. Notice small differences, like how she shortens "I’m" to "I’m" (not "I am") in heated moments. This is how real shadow speech works—no textbooks, just real conversation.
Fleabag’s story isn’t just about love; it’s about learning to speak your truth. Use her words to practice, and you’ll not only improve your English but also connect with the emotions that make language alive.
Wat is de Shadowing-techniek?
Shadowing is een wetenschappelijk onderbouwde taalleermethode die oorspronkelijk is ontwikkeld voor professionele tolkentraining en gepopulariseerd door polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. De methode is eenvoudig maar krachtig: je luistert naar native Engelse audio en herhaalt het onmiddellijk hardop — als een schaduw die de spreker volgt met slechts 1–2 seconden vertraging. In tegenstelling tot passief luisteren of grammaticadrills, dwingt shadowing je hersenen en mondspieren om echte spraakpatronen tegelijkertijd te verwerken en te reproduceren. Onderzoek toont aan dat het de uitspraaknauwkeurigheid, intonatie, ritme, verbonden spraak, luisterbegrip en spreekvaardigheid aanzienlijk verbetert — waardoor het een van de meest effectieve methoden is voor IELTS Speaking-voorbereiding en echte Engelse communicatie.