Shadowing Practice: Трое в лодке, не считая собаки. Глава 1. Аудиокнига на английском. - Learn English Speaking with Video

Three men in a boat, to say nothing of the dog.

by Jerome K Jerome read by Martin Jarvis

Chapter 1 There were four of us.

George? and William Samuel Harris, and myself, and Montmorency.

we were sitting in my room smoking and talking about how bad we were Banned from a medical point of view, I mean, of course.

We were all feeling seedy.

and we were getting quite nervous about it.

Harris said he felt such extraordinary fits of giddiness come over him at times that he hardly knew what he was doing.

and then George said that he had fits of giddiness too, and hardly knew what he was doing.

With me, it was my liver that was out of order.

I knew it was my liver that was out of order, because I'd just been reading a patent liver pill circular,

in which were detailed the various symptoms by which a man could tell when his liver was out of order.

I had them all.

"It is a most extraordinary thing, but I never read a patent medicine advertisement without being impelled to the conclusion

that I am suffering from the particular disease therein dealt with in its most virulent form."

The diagnosis seems in every case to correspond exactly with all the sensations that I have ever felt.

I remember going to the British Museum one day to read up the treatment for some slight ailment of

which I had a touch.

Hay fever, I fancy it was.

I got down the book.

and read all I came to read. And then...

In an unthinking moment, I idly turned the leaves and began to indolently study diseases generally.

"I forget which was the first distemper I plunged into.

Some fearful, devastating scourge, and before I had glanced half down the list of premonitory symptoms,

It was born in upon me that I had fairly got it.

I sat for a while, frozen with horror, and then, in the listlessness of despair, I again turned over the pages.

"I came to typhoid fever, read the symptoms, discovered that I had typhoid fever, must have had it for months without knowing it.

"'Wondered what else I had got.

Turned up St. Vitus's Dance, found, as I expected, that I had that too.

Began to get interested in my case, and determined to sift it to the bottom.

and so started alphabetically, read up Aigu and learnt that I was sickening for it, and that the acute stage would commence in about another fortnight.

Bright's disease, I was relieved to find, I had only in a modified form, and so far as that was concerned I might live for years.

Cholera I had with severe complications.

and diphtheria I seem to have been born with.

I plodded conscientiously through the twenty -six letters, and the only malady I could conclude I had not got was housemaid's knee.

I felt rather hurt about this at first.

It seemed somehow to be a sort of slight.

Why hadn't I got housemaid's knee why this invidious reservation?

After a while, however, less grasping feelings prevailed.

I reflected that I had every other known malady in the pharmacology, and I grew less selfish, and determined to do without Housemaid's Knee.

"Gout, in its most malignant stage, it would appear, had seized me without my being aware and zymosis I had evidently been suffering with from boyhood.

There were no more diseases after zymosis, so I concluded there was nothing else the matter with me.

sat and pondered

Thought what an interesting case I must be from a medical

point of view what an acquisition I should be to class and

"Students would have no need to walk the hospitals if they had me." I was a hospital in myself.

All they need do would be to walk round me and after that take their diploma and

Then I wondered how long I had to live.

I tried to examine myself.

I felt my pulse.

Could not at first feel any pulse at all then all of a sudden it seemed to start off and

I pulled out my watch.

and timed it.

I made it a hundred and forty seven to the minute.

I tried to feel my heart.

I could not feel my heart.

It had stopped beating.

"I have since been induced to come to the opinion that it must have been there all the time, and must have been beating, but I cannot account for it.

I patted myself all over my front from what I call my waist up to my head

and I went a bit round each side and a little way up the back

but I could not feel or hear anything.

I tried to look at my tongue

I stuck it out as far as ever it would go

and I shot one eye and tried to examine it with the other and I could only see the tip,

and the only thing that I could gain from that was to feel more certain than before that I had scarlet fever.

I had walked into that reading -room a happy healthy man and I crawled out a decrepit wreck and

I went to my medical man.

He is an old chum of mine and feels my pulse

and looks at my tongue and talks about the weather all for nothing when I fancy I'm ill.

So I thought I'd do him a good turn by going to him now.

What a doctor wants I said it's practice he shall have me

and He will get more practice out of me than out of 1700 of your ordinary commonplace patients.

with only one or two diseases each, so I went straight up and saw him And he said, Well...

What's the matter with you?

i said i will not take up your time dear boy

with telling you what is the matter with me life is brief

and you might pass away before i had finished but i will tell you what is not the matter with me

"I have not got Housemaid's Knee." "Why I have not got Housemaid's Knee, I cannot tell you, but the fact remains that I have not got it." Everything else, however...

"I have got."

And I told him how I came to discover it all and

Then he opened me and looked down me

and clutched hold of my wrist and then he hit me over the chest

when I wasn't expecting it and "'A cowardly thing to do, I call it.' and immediately afterwards butted me with the side of his head

After that he sat down and wrote out a prescription

and folded it up and gave it me and I put it in my pocket I and went out.

Did not open it I took it to the nearest chemists and handed it in.

The man read it?

and then handed it back.

He said he didn't keep it.

I said, "You are a chemist?"

He said I am a chemist if I was a cooperative stores

and family hotel combined I might be able to oblige you being only a chemist hampers me and I read the prescription.

It ran.

"One pound beefsteak with one pint bitter beer every six hours, one ten -mile walk every morning, one bed at eleven sharp every night,

and don't stuff up your head with things you don't understand.

I followed the directions, with the happy result—speaking for myself— that my life was preserved and is still going on.

In the present instance, going back to the liver pill circular, I had the symptoms beyond all mistake,

the chief among them being a general disinclination to work of any kind.

"What I suffer in that way no tongue can tell.

100

"From my earliest infancy I've been a martyr to it.

101

As a boy, the disease hardly ever left me for a day.

102

They did not know then that it was my liver.

103

"Medical science was in a far less advanced state than now, and they used to put it down to laziness.

104

"Why, you skulking little devil, you," they would say, "get up and do something for your living, can't you?" Not men, of course.

105

that I was ill.

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and they didn't give me pills, they gave me clumps on the side of the head, and, strange as it may appear, those clumps on the head often cured me, for the time being.

107

I have known one clump on the head have more effect upon my liver, and make me feel more anxious to go straight away then and there, and do what was wanted to be done, without further loss of time,

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"than a whole box of pills does now.

109

You do.

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It is often so, though simple old -fashioned remedies are sometimes more efficacious than all the dispensary stuff.

111

We sat there for half an hour, describing to each other our maladies, I explained to George and William Harris how I felt when I got up in the morning,

112

and William Harris told us how he felt when he went to bed.

113

And George stood on the hearthrug and gave us a clever

114

and powerful piece of acting illustrative of how he felt in the night.

115

George fancies he is ill, but there's never anything really the matter with him, you know.

116

At this point, Mrs. Poppets knocked at the door to know if we were ready for supper.

117

we smiled sadly at one another and said we supposed we had better try to swallow a bit

118

Harris said a little something in one stomach often kept the disease in check and mrs. Poppets brought the train and

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And we drew up to the table and toyed with a little steak and onions and some rhubarb tart and

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I must have been very weak at the time, because I know after the first half hour or so, I seem to take no interest whatever in my food.

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unusual thing for me and I didn't want any cheese.

122

This duty done, we refilled our glasses, lit our pipes, and resumed the discussion upon our state of health.

123

What it was that was actually the matter with us, we none of us could be sure of.

124

But the unanimous opinion was that it, whatever it was, had been brought on by overwork.

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"What we want is rest." said Harris.

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"Rest and a complete change," said George.

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"The overstrain upon our brains has produced a general depression throughout the system.

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Change of scene and absence of the necessity for thought will restore the mental equilibrium."

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George has a cousin who is usually described in the charge sheet as a medical student, so that he naturally has a somewhat family physician -ary way of putting things.

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I agreed with George, and suggested that we should seek out some retired and old -world spot, far from the madding crowd,

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and dream away a sunny week among its drowsy lanes, some half -forgotten nook hidden away by the fairies, out of reach of the noisy world,

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some quaint -perched eerie on the cliffs of time, from whence the surging waves of the nineteenth century would sound far off. and faint.

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Harris said he thought it would be humpy.

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He said he knew the sort of place I meant, where everybody went to bed at eight o 'clock, and you couldn't get a referee for love or money, and had to walk ten miles to get your backy.

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"No," said Harris.

136

"If you want rest and change, you can't beat a sea trip." I objected to the sea trip strongly.

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A sea trip does you good when you're going to have a couple of months of it.

138

But for a week...

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It is wicked!' You start on Monday with the idea implanted in your bosom that you are going to enjoy yourself.

140

"You wave an airy adieu to the boys on shore, light your biggest pipe, and swagger about the deck as if you were Captain Cook,

141

Sir Francis Drake, and Christopher Columbus all rolled into one." On Tuesday, you wish you hadn't come.

142

"On Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday you wish you were dead." "On Saturday you were able to swallow a little beef tea, and to sit up on deck and answer with a warm,

143

sweet smile when kind -hearted people ask you how you feel now."

144

on sunday you begin to walk about again and take solid food and on Monday morning, as with your bag and umbrella in your hand, you stand by the gunwale,

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waiting to step ashore, "You begin to thoroughly like it.

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I remember my brother -in -law going for a short sea trip once, for the benefit of his health.

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He took a return berth from London to Liverpool, And when he got to Liverpool, the only thing he was anxious about was to sell that return ticket.

148

It was offered round the town at a tremendous reduction, so I am told, and was eventually sold,

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for eighteen pence, to a bilious -looking youth who had just been advised by his medical men to go to the seaside...

150

and take exercise.

151

"Seaside !" said my brother -in -law, pressing the ticket affectionately into his hand.

152

"Why, you'll have enough to last you a lifetime !" And as for exercise, why, you'll get more exercise sitting down on that ship than you would turning somersaults on dry land.

153

He himself, my brother -in -law, came back by train.

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He said the North Western Railway was healthy enough for him.

155

Another fellow I knew went for a week's voyage round the coast, and before this started, the steward came to him to ask whether he would pay for each meal as he had it,

156

or or arrange beforehand for the whole series.

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The steward recommended the latter course, as it would come so much cheaper.

158

He said they would do him for the whole week at two pounds five.

159

He said for breakfast there would be fish followed by a grill.

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Lunch was at one and consisted of four courses.

161

Dinner at six: soup, fish, entree, joint, poultry, salad, sweets,

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cheese, and dessert and a light meat supper at ten My friend thought he would close on the £2 .05 job.

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He is a hearty eater.

164

and did so.

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Lunch came just as they were off Sheerness.

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He didn't feel so hungry as he thought he should and

167

so contented himself with a bit of boiled beef and some strawberries and cream and

168

He pondered a good deal during the afternoon, and at one time it seemed to him that he'd been eating nothing but boiled beef for weeks,

169

and at other times it seemed that he must have been living on strawberries and cream for years.

170

Neither the beef nor the strawberries and cream seemed happy either and "'Seemed...

171

discontented -like.

172

At six they came and told him dinner was ready.

173

The announcement aroused no enthusiasm within him, but he felt that there was some of that two -pound -five to be worked off, and he held on to ropes and things, and went down.

174

A pleasant odour of onions and hot ham, mingled with fried fish and greens, greeted him at the bottom of the ladder.

175

And then the steward came up with an oily smile and said, "'What can I get you, sir?' "Get me out of this !" was the feeble reply.

176

And they ran him up quick, and propped him up over to Leawood, and left him.

177

For the next four days he lived a simple and blameless life on thin captain's biscuits.

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"I mean the biscuits with him," marked the captain, "and soda water." But towards Saturday he got uppish, and went in for weak tea and dry toast,

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and on Monday he was gorging himself on chicken broth.

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He left the ship on Tuesday, and as it steamed away from the landing stage, he gazed after it regretfully.

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"There she goes," he said.

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"There she goes, with two pounds' worth of food on board that belongs to me." that I haven't had

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he said that if they'd given him another day he thought he could have put it straight

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So I set my face against the sea trip.

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Not as I explained upon my own account I I was never queer.

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but I was afraid for George.

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George said he should be all right and would rather like it, but he would advise Harris

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and me not to think of it as he felt sure we should both be ill and

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Harry said that to himself it was always a mystery how people managed to get sick at sea.

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Said he thought people must do it on purpose, from affectation.

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Said he had often wished to be but had never been able.

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Then he told us anecdotes of how he had gone across the channel

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when it was so rough that the passengers had to be tied into their berths, and he and the captain were the only two living souls on board who were not ill.

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Sometimes it was he and the second mate who were not ill.

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but it was generally he and one other man.

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If not he and another man, then it was he by himself.

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"It is a curious fact, but nobody ever is seasick on land.

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At sea you come across plenty of people, very bad indeed, whole boatloads of them.

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But I never met a man yet on land who had ever known at all what it was to be seasick."

200

Where the thousands upon thousands of bad sailors that swarm in every ship hide themselves when they are on land, is a mystery.

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If most men were like a fellow I saw on the Yarmouth boat one day, I could account for the seeming enigma easily enough.

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It was just off Southend Pier, I recollect, and he was leaning out through one of the portholes in a very dangerous position.

203

I went up to him to try and save him.

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"'Hi, come further in,' I said, shaking him by the shoulder.

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"'You'll be overboard.' "Oh, my!

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I wish I was !" was the only answer I could get.

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there I had to leave him and Three weeks afterwards, I met him in the coffee room of a bath hotel,

208

talking about his voyages, and explaining with enthusiasm how he loved the sea.

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"Good sailor," he replied, in answer to a mild young man's envious query.

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"Well, I did feel a little queer once, I confess.

211

It was off Cape Horn.

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The vessel was wrecked the next morning."

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I said: Weren't you a little shaky by South End Pier one day and wanted to be thrown overboard?

214

I "South and Peer?" he replied with a puzzled expression, "Oh, yes, going down to Yarmouth last Friday three weeks.

215

"Oh, ah, yes," he answered, brightening up.

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"I remember now.

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I did have a headache that afternoon." "'It was the pickles, you know.

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"'They were the most disgraceful pickles "'I ever tasted in a respectable boat.

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"'Did you have any?' For myself, I have discovered an excellent preventive against seasickness, "in balancing myself.

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You stand in the centre of the deck, and as the ship heaves and pitches, you move your body about so as to keep it always straight."

221

When the front of the ship rises you lean forward till the deck almost touches your nose

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and "'and when its back end gets up, You lean backwards.

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"This is all very well for an hour or two, but you can't balance yourself for a week." George said, Let's go up the river.

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He said we should have fresh air, exercise, and quiet.

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The constant change of scene would occupy our minds, including what there was of Harris's and the hard work would give us a good appetite and make us sleep well.

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Harris said he didn't think George ought to do anything

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that would have a tendency to make him sleepier than he always was, as it might be dangerous.

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He said he didn't very well understand how George was going to sleep any more than he did now seeing

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that there were only 24 hours in each day, summer and winter alike.

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but thought that if he did sleep any more, he might just as well be dead, and so save his board and lodging.

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Harris said, however, that the river would suit him to a T.

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Don't know what a tea is a except a sixpenny one

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which includes bread and butter and cake and lib

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and is cheap at the price if you haven't had any dinner and

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it seems to suit everybody however which is greatly to its credit

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It suited me to a tee too and harris and I both said it was a good idea of george's

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And we said it in a tone that seemed to somehow imply

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that we were surprised that george should have come out so sensible

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The only one who was not struck with the suggestion was Montmorency.

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"He never did care for the river." Didn't want my MC.

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"'It's all very well for you fellows,' he says.

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"'You like it, but I don't.' There's nothing for me to do.

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Scenery is not in my line, and I don't smoke.

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If I see a rat, you won't stop, and if I go to sleep, you get fooling about with the boat and slot me overboard.

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If you ask me, I call the whole thing Bally Foolishness.

246

We were three to one, however, and the motion was carried.

247

you .

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349 sentences

Английский язык по фильму Отчаянные Домохозяйки, Сезон 1 Эпизод 1, Английские Субтитры. 1080 HD

Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults

What You'll Learn from This Engaging Clip

This video is a goldmine for building practical speaking skills! First, you’ll practice narrative flow—how to share personal stories (like the speaker’s hilarious medical self-diagnosis) with natural pauses and emphasis. Second, you’ll master conversational tone—notice how the speaker balances humor and detail, making even a story about “diseases” feel relatable. Finally, you’ll learn to connect ideas smoothly, as the text moves from one “ailment” to the next with phrases like “and then,” “I remember,” and “After a while.” These skills are perfect for shadowing practice—grab your shadowing app and dive in!

Listen For These Sounds: Connected Speech at Work

The audio is full of real-world linking and reductions that make English sound fluid. Listen for: “I’d just been” (reduced to “I’d jus’ been”) and “what else I had got” (linked as “wha’ else I had got”). Notice how “and then George said” becomes “an’ then George said”—the “d” in “and” softens to a glottal stop. These small sounds are key to sounding natural, so replay the video and focus on mimicking them. Tools like shadowspeaks can help you slow down and catch every detail!

Say It Like a Native: Rhythm and Stress Tips

To mirror the speaker’s style, focus on stress and rhythm. The speaker emphasizes words like “extraordinary,” “horror,” and “housemaid’s knee” to create humor and emphasis. Notice how short phrases like “I sat for a while, frozen with horror” have a quick, punchy rhythm—don’t drag out the words! Practice shadow speech by repeating each sentence immediately after the speaker, matching their pace and stress. Remember: English is a stress-timed language, so stretch the stressed syllables and shorten the unstressed ones. With tools like shadow speak, you’ll nail this in no time. Learning English with YouTube has never been so fun—this clip is your ticket to sounding more like a native!

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on	have been beating · have been living
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	were Banned · were detailed · being impelled
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	have ever felt · I've been · have known
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	forget which was · however which is · one who was

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

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