Shadowing Practice: Benedict Cumberbatch reads a beautiful love letter - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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Reviewer.pxs.
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My darling George, you said that things seemed clearer when they were written down.
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Well, herewith a very boring letter, in which I will try and put down everything,
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so that you may read and reread it in horror at your folly in getting involved with me.
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deep breath.
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To begin with, I love you with the depth and passion that I have felt for no one else in this life.
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And if it astonishes you, it astonishes me as well.
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Not, I hasten to say, because you are not worth loving, far from it.
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It's just that first of all, I swore I would not get involved with another woman.
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Secondly, I have never had such a feeling before, and it's almost frightening.
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Thirdly, I would never have thought it possible
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that another human being could occupy my waking and sleeping thoughts to the exclusion of almost everything else.
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Fourthly, I never thought that even if one was in love,
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one could get so completely besotted with another person so that a minute away from them felt like a thousand years.
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Fifthly, I never hoped aspired, dreamed that one could find everything one wanted in one person.
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I was not such an idiot as to believe this was possible.
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Yet in you, I have found everything I want.
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You are beautiful, giving, gentle, idiotically and deliciously feminine, sexy,
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wonderfully intelligent and wonderfully silly as well.
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I want nothing else in this life than to be with you, to listen and watch you, your beautiful voice, your beauty,
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to argue with you, to laugh with you, to show you things and share things with you, to explore your magnificent mind,
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to explore your wonderful body, and to help you, protect you, serve you, and bash you on the head when I think you're wrong.
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Not to put too fine a point on it, I consider that I am the only man outside mythology to have found the crock of gold at the rainbow's end.
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Now let me tell you something.
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I have seen a thousand sunsets and sunrises, on land where it floods forests and mountains with honey-colored light,
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at sea where it rises
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and sets like a blood orange in a multicolored nest of cloud slipping in and out of the vast ocean.
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I have seen a thousand moons, harvest moons like gold coins, Winter moons as white as ice chips,
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new moons like baby swan's feathers.
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I have seen seas as smooth as if painted, colored like shot silk, or blue as a kingfisher,
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or transparent as glass, all black and crumpled with foam, moving ponderously and murderously.
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I have felt winds straight from the South Pole, bleak and wailing like a lost child.
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Winds as tender and warm as a lover's breath.
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Winds that carried the astringent smell of salts and the death of seaweeds.
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Winds that carried the moist, rich smell of a forest floor, the smell of a million flowers.
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Fierce winds that churned and moved the sea like yeast, or winds that made the waters lap at the shore's edge like a kitten.
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I've known silence, The cold, earthy silence at the bottom of a newly dug well.
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The implacable stony silence of a deep cave.
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The hot, drugged midday silence when everything is hypnotized and stilled into silence by the eye of the sun.
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The silence when great music ends.
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I have heard summer cicadas cry so that the sound seems stitched into your bones.
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I have heard tree frogs in an orchestration as complicated as Bach singing in a forest lit by a million emerald fireflies.
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I've heard the keys calling over great glaciers that groaned to themselves
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like old people as they inched their way to the sea.
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I've heard the hoarse street vendor cries of the mating fur seals as they sang to their sleek golden wives.
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The crisp staccato astonishment of the rattlesnake.
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the cobweb squeak of the bat and the belling roar of red deer knee-deep in purple heather.
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I've heard wolves baying at a winter's moon, red howler monkeys making the forest vibrate with their roaring cries.
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I have heard the squeak, purr and grunt of a hundred multicolored reef fish.
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I've seen hummingbirds flashing like opals round a tree of scarlet blooms, humming like a top.
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I've seen flying fish skittering like quicksilver across the blue waves, drawing silver lines on the surface with their tails.
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I've seen spoonbills flying home to roost like a scarlet banner across the sky.
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I've seen whales, black as tar, cushioned on a cornflower blue sea,
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creating a Versailles of fountain with their breath.
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I've watched butterflies emerge and sit trembling while the sun irons their wings smooth.
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I've watched tigers, like flames, mating in the long grass.
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I've been dive-bombed by an angry raven, black and glossy as the devil's hoof.
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I've lain in water warm as milk, soft as silk, while around me played a host of dolphins.
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I have met a thousand animals and seen a thousand wonderful things,
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but all this I did without you.
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This was my loss.
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All this I want to do with you.
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This will be my gain.
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All this I would gladly have forgone for the sake of one minute of your company, for your laugh, your voice,
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your eyes, hair, lips, body and above all for your sweet ever surprising mind,
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which is an enriching quarry in which it is my privilege to to delve.
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Yours ever, Gerry.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 67 sentences and 923 words to shadow. The speech runs for 6:58. The speaker talks at a steady 132 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. Only 70% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| silence noun | /ˈsaɪ̯ləns/ | The absence of any sound. |
| breathe verb | /bɹiːð/ | To draw air into (inhale), and expel air from (exhale), the lungs in order to extract oxygen and excrete waste gases. |
| smooth adjective | /smuːð/ | Having a texture that lacks friction. Not rough. |
| explore verb | /ɪkˈsploɹ/ | To examine or investigate something systematically. |
| silk noun | /sɪlk/ | A fine fiber excreted by the silkworm or other arthropod (such as a spider). |
| roar verb | /ˈɹoɹ/ | To make a loud, deep cry, especially from pain, anger, or other strong emotion. |
| scarlet noun | /ˈskɑɹlɪt/ | A brilliant red colour sometimes tinged with orange. |
| wonderfully adverb | /wʌn.də(ɹ).fli/ | In an excellent manner. |
| vast adjective | /væst/ | Very large or wide (literally or figuratively). |
| bone noun | /boʊn/ | A composite material consisting largely of calcium phosphate and collagen and making up the skeleton of most vertebrates. |
| complicated adjective | /ˈkɑm.plɪˌkeɪ.tɪd/ | Difficult or convoluted. |
| argue verb | /ˈɑɹ.ɡju/ | To show grounds for concluding (that); to indicate, imply. |
| cloud noun | /ˈklaʊ̯d/ | A visible mass of water droplets suspended in the air. |
| flash verb | /flæʃ/ | To cause to shine briefly or intermittently. |
| passion noun | /ˈpæʃən/ | A true desire sustained or prolonged. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| call over verb | To ask (someone) to come to one's location, especially when raising one's voice towards someone within earshot. |
| put down verb | To insult, belittle, or demean. |
| write down verb | To produce or set (something) down in writing; to record something. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have felt · have thought · have found |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | were written · is hypnotized |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 13 contractions and reduced forms, such as I've, you're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: breathe /bɹiːð/, smooth /smuːð/, heather /ˈhɛðɚ/, feather /ˈfɛðə/, mythology /mɪˈθɑ.lə.d͡ʒi/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: flash /flæʃ/, passion /ˈpæʃən/, bash /bæʃ/, exclusion /ɪksˈkluːʒən/, cushion /ˈkʊʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: complicated /ˈkɑm.plɪˌkeɪ.tɪd/, intelligent /ɪnˈtɛlɪd͡ʒənt/, magnificent /mæɡˈnɪfəsənt/, mythology /mɪˈθɑ.lə.d͡ʒi/, multicolored /ˈmʌltɪˌkʌlɚd/
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 silence, breathe, smooth.
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.