Shadowing Practice: (2006/10/21) BBC 2, The Culture Show, Thom - Learn English Speaking with Video

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I asked loads of my friends

if you had to ask one question of Tommy York Why are you such a miserable bastard?

I think actually to be honest I think half the problem is that I have a certain sort of voice that

can make things sound worse than they are

It wasn't about you being miserable they wanted to ask you

if you thought the best thing you ever did was I was like a computer.

That's funny, because people used to say the bends.

What do you think about that?

So maybe give them another five years, maybe they'll say, kid A, maybe not.

What made you feel you wanted to do something on your own?

Mostly it was to do with the fact

that there was a sort of growing pile of things

that I wanted to finish that would have been extremely dull if it had been a band thing, because they were done on computers.

You know, it was all programming and, um...

It wouldn't have really made sense to sit around with all five of us gazing at a screen.

The lyrics on the eraser, they're very provocative, some of them, aren't they? Are they?

Well, I found them so and...

Oh, okay.

Good.

I think.

There's the song about David Kelly.

What made you want to write a song about that?

The whole Hutton whitewash and the...

the mewing and crying of Alistair Campbell and then the...

All the lies about going to war in the first place and la la la, and going to these protests of people lining the streets eating school kids,

and all this sort of madness going on.

And then in the middle of it, this one poor guy, who just seemed to end up being like the focus of a certain terrible energy.

Do you hope or deliberately set out to try and provoke people

and provoke people to think about some of these things through your lyrics?

I don't have a problem with with writing about things

that may be seen as political

but I don't really think it's it's not political music it's just part of what's in front of me.

Do you write all this as a kind of catharsis?

Desperately trying to write songs that fantastical, life-affirming in all the right ways, but I personally think that's what the music's supposed to do.

And if you write the words correctly, you could be absorbing all this stuff.

But really, the whole point is the music flows over you.

Music basically is like mathematics, you know, and you're trying to form patterns,

patterns that make you understand what is around you and patterns that help you get through the next day.

Like, when I listen to the radio and stuff, when I hear a new piece of music, that I've just got to get a hold of it,

because I know it's going to help me through a particular thing until the next one, or it's life-affirming.

The whole point of music is life-affirming.

The sickness of it for me, the bit I couldn't deal with, was that somehow this is a reason to exist.

and somehow you get to a certain level and...

..or whatever, of exposure or fame or whatever, and then suddenly you can communicate with other famous people on a higher level.

And, like, waft around going, hi.

And that was a bit...

I just kind of thought that was a bit peculiar.

Do you think there's a sort of upside to being, you know, well-known in that you can have huge influence?

I don't think you do.

I think all you do is you turn on the media

that week for 20 seconds to something and then they turn on to the next thing.

I don't think you have influence as such.

All you do is that and then that might get someone to sort of vaguely rethink about one little thing but there's,

you know, I don't think...

I think people are perfectly capable of making their own decisions and God help them if they listen to me.

If you could pick one song that you'd like to be remembered by, what would it be?

How to Disappear, After a Day.

Why?

Because it's the most beautiful thing we ever did, I think.

We have this really amazing situation.

I'm not quite sure whether it happens with other bands, but we have all these unofficial sites that are really on top of what we're doing, more on top of what we're doing than we are.

And our site itself is just like this mad sort of collage thing of our thoughts

and also a really good way of getting directly to people when we want to.

So it's always been, I mean, from about Kid A onwards, it's been a source of directly

trying to circumnavigate the media and the media having to follow what's happening on the internet rather than the other way round.

It sort of works to varying degrees,

but I I personally think that for Radiohead, what we do on the internet is much,

much more important than, except for live performances on TV, it's by far the most important thing for us and it has been for ages.

Because it's not very messy and it's not very coherent and whatever,

but it's us, you know, and it's what we choose to put across other than making music all the time.

Do you feel that relationship has deepened over the years with your fan base?

I think so.

I mean, the most fun we have is when we do these things, the webcast things we used to do and we still do sometimes,

which is just, it's this mad situation where you you know thousands of people are watching

and they're talking about what you're doing

and you can see it on one screen and you're seeing what you're doing on the other.

Like a pirate TV thing, that's really, you get massive buzz out of that.

And also you have that other thing where we play all these new songs and they're immediately up on YouTube,

recorded on people's phones and things and there's an entire sort of energy to

that whole thing which is completely outside of your Sunday supplement music critics or whatever, which I think is, I find really exciting.

It's really amazing, especially when we travel, when we go to America and stuff, how important it's been for us and

how there's sort of like an honesty about our relationship we have with the fans when minutes through that, which I think is great.

I don't like having mediators with their own agendas, obviously no one would give them the choice.

And do the fans send you nutty things, in which case what's the nuttiest?

Oh, er, no. No, not really.

That's because you're not famous enough, obviously, in that anymore.

No, we used to get the nutty thing.

Now you have people saying, that was great the way you changed the chord in the end of it.

And you're like, okay.

Is that worse? Or better?

That's alright.

You know, sometimes they're right.

Sometimes you really should put that verse back in.

Okay?

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Daily ConversationWorking Adults

144 sentences

Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This video has 94 sentences and 1219 words to shadow. The speech runs for 7:21. The speaker talks at a natural 166 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 88% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow.

Key vocabulary in this video

15 less common words from the video, with pronunciation and meaning:

lyrics /ˈlɪɹ.ɪks/ (noun) — The words to a song (or other vocal music).
miserable /ˈmɪz(ə)ɹəbəl/ (adjective) — In a state of misery: very sad, ill, or poor.
protest /ˈpɹoʊ.tɛst/ (noun) — A formal objection, especially one by a group.
exposure /ɪkˈspəʊ.ʒə(ɹ)/ (noun) — The condition of being exposed, uncovered, or unprotected.
fame /feɪm/ (noun) — One's reputation.
agenda /əˈd͡ʒɛn.də/ (noun) — A temporally organized plan for matters to be attended to.
vary /ˈvɛəɹi/ (verb) — To change with time or a similar parameter.
correctly /kəˈɹɛk(t).li/ (adverb) — In a correct manner.
communicate /kəˈmjuːnɪkeɪt/ (verb) — To impart or transmit (information or knowledge) to someone; to make known, to tell.
verse /ˈvɝs/ (noun) — A poetic form with regular meter and a fixed rhyme scheme.
mathematics /mæθ(.ə)ˈmæt.ɪks/ (noun) — An abstract representational system studying numbers, shapes, structures, quantitative change and relationships between them.
pile /paɪl/ (noun) — A mass of things heaped together; a heap.
bend /bɛnd/ (verb) — To cause (something) to change its shape into a curve, by physical force, chemical action, or any other means.
buzz /bʌz/ (noun) — A continuous humming noise, as of bees; a confused murmur, as of general conversation in low tones.
supplement /ˈsʌp.lɪ.mənt/ (noun) — Something added; especially, such an addition added to make up for a deficiency.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

think about /ˈθɪŋk əˌbaʊt/ (verb) — To ponder.
back in (verb) — To reverse a vehicle into a space.
deal with (verb) — To handle verbally or in some form of artistic expression; to address or discuss as a subject.
do with (verb) — Only used in to do with
end up (verb) — To bring to a conclusion.
get through /ɡɛt ˈθɹu/ (verb) — To overcome; to endure.
go on /ˈɡoʊˌɒn/ (verb) — To continue in extent.
put across (verb) — to explain or state something clearly and understandably.

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 26 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, you're, they're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: mathematics /mæθ(.ə)ˈmæt.ɪks/, catharsis /kəˈθɑɹˌsɪs/, rethink /ɹiːˈθɪŋk/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: exposure /ɪkˈspəʊ.ʒə(ɹ)/, unofficial /ʌn.əˈfɪʃ.əl/, collage /kəˈlɑʒ/
Long words — get the stress right: miserable /ˈmɪz(ə)ɹəbəl/, communicate /kəˈmjuːnɪkeɪt/, mathematics /mæθ(.ə)ˈmæt.ɪks/, deliberately /dɪˈlɪb.(ə.)ɹət.li/, desperately /ˈdɛs.p(ə.)ɹət.li/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like lyrics, miserable, protest.

Grammar in this video

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

Structure	In the video
“Used to” used to + verb — a past habit or state that is no longer true	used to say · used to do · used to get
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	it's always been · has been · has deepened
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	may be seen · be remembered

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 →

Shadowing Practice: (2006/10/21) BBC 2, The Culture Show, Thom - Learn English Speaking with Video

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(2021/09/24) Christie's - Kid A Mnesia Interview - Radiohead [Thom Yorke, Stanley Donwood] (Video)

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