Shadowing Practice: Essays what book is SD 480p - Learn English Speaking with Video

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I don't usually try to make my books as they come out better known by putting them onto social media

but I make an exception in the case of this book which has just come out last week called Essays.

What I have learnt about myself and the world with cover with me in my woodland path.

I'm doing that because I've been surprised,

indeed enormously warmed by the reception of a few of the

key people who've been involved in the process of bringing this book to publication.

I remember it as a book

which I wrote at the suggestion of my wife shortly after Covid

when she said write down what you've learned about your life

and so on and I started to dictate some short essays

and I greatly enjoyed it

and it ended up in 240 very short essays roughly modeled on the idea

and memory of Montaigne's essays but much much shorter.

And when recently I thought I would publish it, I thought, well, this is a useful book and I want it out there.

But some of the people, several of the people who were closely acquainted with it, thought it was really special.

And so I'll indicate their views by quoting them a little bit.

But basically to tell you of the structure, it is, as I say,

a number of essays on anything that struck me as useful and interesting and quirky.

For example, under the letter L, it's alphabetical, on the leaning tower of Pisa,

on liberty, on libraries, on limited good,

on loneliness, on losing, on love, on lying.

Well that's a tiny cross section and you can see that it covers serious and less serious subjects.

So what do my colleagues and friends say about it?

Well there's a forward by our close friend Baron JC von Fetten

and he writes as a Frenchman who was a great admirer of Montaigne

that in some ways my essays are go beyond Montaigne.

They are shorter, more succinct, more accessible.

And he starts his short forward as follows.

Essays may well constitute Alan MacFarlane's ultimate contribution to human knowledge.

It is written for scholars and the wider public alike.

The book is the result of 60 years of deep anthropological research conducted across the world,

using observation as its primary method and extracting knowledge through a rigorous process of analysis and reflection.

The reader will therefore find in each essay a remarkably practical set of insights and answers.

And he ends, after decades of experience, research and reflection, and after writing dozens of books,

McFarland has succeeded in turning his analytical gaze both upon the world and upon himself.

The result is essays, a work that distils lifetime search for wisdom.

The second person who has commented was the person who edited the book,

my friend Irene Galstian, and she's written about this several times in emails,

but this is a small extract from one email.

As you become a long-time reader of these essays, their effect on you goes to a different level.

And this is where they truly shine.

Well, shine is too vigorous a word for what I am trying to describe.

It's more like a glow.

With repeated reading, these little talks are calming in a way that can't be explained by their intellectual content alone. So those are two.

And then there's a wonderful postscript by Qin Yuchen,

who is translating the book into Chinese.

And I'll just read one part of her remarkable and beautiful postface.

What the letters do for me is what these essays did when I first read them.

They come in like air from outside.

The anxiety of my generation is real enough.

The rungs, as he put it, have gone from the ladder we were all brought up to climb.

What struck me was how precisely these small essays answer that predicament.

A letter written at first light by an 80-year-old grandfather,

who is also one of the great historical anthropologists of his time,

lifts you clear of all that and sets you down somewhere higher up and further off, from which the trouble is visible in its true proportion.

Old, general, survivable, shared with everyone who has ever lived.

We are not the first age of anxiety, he says, nor will we be the last.

I know of no better remedy.

And indeed, some of these essays which have gone up onto social media like YouTube and Chinese social media

have elicited those same sentiments from people who have heard them.

So, as I say, it's on Amazon Essays by Helen McFarlane,

and I think you may share their feeling.

It's a book which has a lot of my final and deeper reflections in it,

and I'm proud that my close friends anyway, think it's really worthwhile.

Thank you.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This C1 speaking lesson is built on the video “Essays what book is SD 480p”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: essay, reflection, letter, written. This video has 65 sentences and 810 words to shadow. The speech runs for 7:06. The speaker talks at a steady 114 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. Only 79% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.

Key vocabulary in this video

The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
litter noun	/ˈlɪt.ɚ/	Straw, grass, and similar loose material used as bedding for people or animals.
extract noun	/ˈɛkstɹækt/	Something that is extracted or drawn out.
acquaint verb	/əˈkweɪnt/	To furnish or give experimental knowledge of; to make (one) know; to make familiar.
admirer noun	/ædˈmaɪ.ɹɚ/	One who admires.
alphabetical adjective	/ˌæl.fəˈbɛt.ɪ.kəl/	Pertaining to, furnished with, or expressed by letters of the alphabet.
anthropological adjective	/æn.θɹə.pəˈlɑd͡ʒikəl/	Relating to anthropology.
anthropologist noun	/ˌæn.θɹoʊˈpɑl.ə.d͡ʒɪst/	An expert in anthropology.
distil verb	/dəˈstɪl/	To exude (a liquid) in small drops; also, to give off (a vapour) which condenses in small drops.
elicit verb	/ɪˈlɪsɪt/	To evoke, educe (emotions, feelings, responses, etc.); to generate, obtain, or provoke as a response or answer.
enormously adverb		Extremely, greatly: to an enormous degree.
postface noun		A piece of text, containing information normally included in a preface, placed at the back of a publication.
postscript noun	/ˈpoʊst.skɹɪpt/	An addendum to a letter, added after the author's signature.
predicament noun	/pɹɪˈdɪkəmənt/	A definite class, state or condition.
survivable adjective		Able to be survived.
vigorous adjective	/ˈvɪɡəɹəs/	Physically strong and active.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
come out verb	/ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/	To be discovered; to be revealed.
bring up to verb		To raise (something) so that it reaches a particular standard or minimum requirement.
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	has just come · have learnt · I've been
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	book which has · people who were · person who has
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	who've been involved · is written · can't be explained

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 9 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'll, I'm, can't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: anthropological /æn.θɹə.pəˈlɑd͡ʒikəl/, anthropologist /ˌæn.θɹoʊˈpɑl.ə.d͡ʒɪst/, worthwhile /ˌwɜː(ɹ)θˈwaɪl/
Long words — get the stress right: alphabetical /ˌæl.fəˈbɛt.ɪ.kəl/, anthropological /æn.θɹə.pəˈlɑd͡ʒikəl/, anthropologist /ˌæn.θɹoʊˈpɑl.ə.d͡ʒɪst/, predicament /pɹɪˈdɪkəmənt/, analytical /ˌæn.əˈlɪt.ɪ.kəl/

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 litter, extract, acquaint.

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: Essays what book is SD 480p - Learn English Speaking with Video

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