Shadowing Practice: Barack Obama Inspirational Speech - Learn English Speaking with Video
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The President of the United States The
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President of the United States Thank you very much.
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Thank you so much.
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Well, I am so grateful to be a recipient of this award and to be keeping such extraordinary company.
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I, first of all, want to thank all of you who were involved in making this possible.
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But the main thing
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that I want to do here is to just say how I'm inspired by the young people who are represented here, because I think that's the purpose, ultimately, of this foundation.
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And I want to tell just a brief story, because Archbishop Tutu is here,
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one of my heroes, and let you know where I was when I was about your age.
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I'm really dating myself now, although I'm also dating the Archbishop,
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because back in 1979, I was a freshman in college,
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at Occidental College in California you.
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And I had had a somewhat rocky youth and teenage years.
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My father wasn't at home.
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I was growing up partly with my grandparents in high school.
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I had gotten into trouble occasionally.
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It was what my mother called a good -time Charlie, meaning I wasn't really serious in terms of my studies, in terms of my work.
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Had some awareness of the world around me had some sense of injustice and unfairness, but it wasn't finely honed.
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It wasn't well -developed.
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And I remember in 1979, arriving as a freshman and doing what freshmen do,
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trying to figure out what courses are and trying to change your study habits
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and trying to identify that food in the cafeteria, what it is.
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And we were visited on campus by a couple of gentlemen
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from South Africa who were representatives of the ANC in 1979 -1980.
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And they spoke about their efforts to overcome apartheid.
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And for about an hour,
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myself and a group of students listened to these young men who were not much older than we were,
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describe the extraordinary struggles they were going through, the sacrifices that were being made,
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people who were enduring jail and torture and beatings because they had a sense that somehow,
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some way, justice would prevail.
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And that brief meeting, I think, in some ways changed my life, because what it told me,
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first of all, was that ordinary people can do extraordinary things when they're given an opportunity.
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We sometimes think that our leaders have to be, have fancy degrees or well -educated or some public office somewhere.
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These young men had none of those things.
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But what they possessed was an anger over injustice that they were able to channel in a constructive, positive way.
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And I thought to myself that they gave me some sense of the direction that my life might go.
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And so I became active in the anti -apartheid movement on campuses.
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And I'm not sure we were particularly effective.
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As I recall, Occidental College continued to refuse to divest, despite the various protests that we organized as students.
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I transferred to Columbia, and there was similar resistance on Columbia's campus.
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But over time, I like to think that I was part of
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that mosaic that applied pressure and ultimately helped those in South Africa achieve the extraordinary liberation
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that I would witness almost 10 years later as a law student.
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And I remember the image of Nelson Mandela walking out of prison
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and understanding that that a seminal moment in history had occurred and that Mandela's long march towards freedom was not his alone,
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but was part of thousands of footsteps, of millions of footsteps of people all around the world.
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And I trace back me getting involved in politics to that moment, because I, as a consequence of that organizing on a college campus,
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I became a community organizer as a consequence of a community organizer, I...
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After going back to law school, became a civil rights attorney.
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As a consequence of being a civil rights attorney, I entered the state legislature,
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and I now stand before you as a United States senator and as a candidate for president.
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And so the primary message I guess I have in receiving this award is that all of you
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represent enormous potential and enormous possibility for change, because we all know that injustice still exists.
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It exists here in the United States, in every poor neighborhood, in every inner city, in every rural community all across the country.
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There is quiet desperation.
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Young people's lives are filled with sadness and desperation and anarchy and chaos.
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And obviously, all around the world,
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we see those same symptoms of hopelessness made manifest in places like Darfur,
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in places like the Middle East,
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in places that too often are forgotten about and not written about until they flare up in tragedy.
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So I hope
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that all of you who are on the brink of doing extraordinary things decide to channel
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that talent and that energy and that imagination to figuring out how do you move the process along for a better history.
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How do you put your shoulder against the wheel and move that boulder up the hill?
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And I'm absolutely confident that if all of you take up that challenge, the world is waiting for you, ready to be changed.
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Because I think we live in this moment in history right now where the hunger for change, the hunger for something new,
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the desire to break out of the ordinary, the self -interested, the petty, the trivial, is everywhere.
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And they're waiting for you.
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And so I hope that as you see the recipients of this award,
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you recognize that it's actually more of a tool to give you a little spark
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and drive you in the wonderful directions that I hope your lives take in the years to come.
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So thank you very much.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 72 sentences and 970 words to shadow. The speech runs for 7:20. The speaker talks at a steady 132 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. 82% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| extraordinary adjective | /ɪksˈtɹɔːrdɪn(ə)ɹi/ | Out of the ordinary; exceptional; unusual. |
| consequence noun | /ˈkɑn.sɪ.kwəns/ | An effect; something that follows a cause as a result. |
| freshman noun | /ˈfɹɛʃ.mən/ | a person (of either sex) entering the first year of an institution, especially a high school (ninth grade for US, grade 9 for Canada, grade 7 for Philippines)… |
| injustice noun | /ɪnˈd͡ʒʌs.tɪs/ | Absence of justice; unjustice. |
| ordinary adjective | /ˈɔɹdɪnɛɹi/ | Having regular jurisdiction; now only used in certain phrases. |
| enormous adjective | /ɪˈnɔː.məs/ | Extremely large; greatly exceeding the common size, extent, etc. |
| hunger noun | /ˈhʌŋɡɚ/ | A need or compelling desire for food. |
| organize verb | /ˈɔɹɡənaɪz/ | To arrange in working order. |
| recipient noun | /ɹəˈsɪp.i.ənt/ | One who receives. |
| apartheid verb | /əˈpɑːtheɪt/ | To impose a policy of segregation of groups of people, especially one based on race. |
| organizer noun | /ˈɔɹɡənaɪzɚ/ | A person who arranges the details of a public event. |
| desperation noun | /ˌdɛspəˈɹeɪʃən/ | The act of despairing or becoming desperate; a giving up of hope. |
| occur verb | /əˈkɜː/ | To happen or take place. |
| protest noun | /ˈpɹoʊ.tɛst/ | A formal objection, especially one by a group. |
| awareness noun | /əˈwɛɹ.nəs/ | The state or level of consciousness where sense data can be confirmed by an observer. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| figure out verb | To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce. |
| go back to verb | To stem from; to originate in. |
| go through verb | To travel from one end of something to the other. |
| grow up verb | To mature and become an adult. |
| take up verb | To pick up. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | were involved · are represented · were visited |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | people who are · men who were · people who were |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 11 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, wasn't, they're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: freshman /ˈfɹɛʃ.mən/, desperation /ˌdɛspəˈɹeɪʃən/, occasionally /əˈkeɪʒənəli/, imagination /ɪˌmæd͡ʒəˈneɪʃən/, liberation /ˌlɪbəˈɹeɪʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: extraordinary /ɪksˈtɹɔːrdɪn(ə)ɹi/, ordinary /ˈɔɹdɪnɛɹi/, recipient /ɹəˈsɪp.i.ənt/, organizer /ˈɔɹɡənaɪzɚ/, desperation /ˌdɛspəˈɹeɪʃən/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like extraordinary, consequence, freshman.
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.