Shadowing Practice: Father unknown? Life as a sperm donor's child | DW Documentary - Learn English Speaking with Video
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129 sentences
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Hannah is a single mother by choice.
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Her son was conceived through sperm donation.
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I came to the conclusion that having a child was more important to me than having a life partner.
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Leontina is also donor conceived and was shocked to find out just how many half siblings she has.
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The hardest part being donor conceived is that people think that I should be lucky to just exist exist.
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And Michael donated his sperm, a decision connecting him to dozens of children he may never know.
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I would love to see them all.
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I would love to see them, but I know it will not happen.
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Three people, one consequential decision.
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Sperm donation.
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Hannah from Sweden is living her dream.
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One year ago she became the mother of Adid.
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She's always wanted to be a mum.
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What's special about her?
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She's done it on her own, without a partner.
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Moments like this when he's sleeping or when he's running around and you can see the joy in his face, that's just pure love.
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Your heart just swells when you see him.
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So even if you love other people as well, it's not really comparable in a way.
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For years, Henna had been looking for someone.
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Then she decided to become a mother through sperm donation, partly funded by the state.
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It worked out on the fifth attempt.
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I came to the conclusion that having a child was more important to me than having a life partner.
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Like, of course I want a life partner, but I see that as a bonus.
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But having a child, I think that felt like really, really important.
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Like a life without a child for me felt empty.
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But building a family alone also means carrying the full weight of that choice.
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Alongside the joy, there have been difficult moments.
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When he was four months old, Arvid suddenly had to be taken to the hospital.
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Moments like that, when something happens, then I think it's hard to be a single mom by choice, I guess
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because you don't have anyone right there when it happens.
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Even if I have a great support system, in the end you're always a bit alone.
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Since 2016, single women like Hanna can legally become mothers in Sweden.
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It was one of the first countries to implement the scheme.
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By now, most other European states allow it.
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But especially in Central and Eastern Europe, it still remains illegal, like in Austria, Czech Republic, Italy, Lithuania, Poland and Slovakia.
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At this sperm bank in Sweden, couples and single mothers receive sperm donations.
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Stored in liquid nitrogen, each sample is carefully preserved.
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Lab head Ashling-Alström explains to us that only about 5-7% of men end up being approved donors.
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Many have a good quality sperm, but they still have to get through all these testing and screening.
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It's a good way of making sure that we're not just taking in any sample.
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Potential donors are screened not only physically but also psychologically.
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Sweden wants to make sure that they are donating responsibly and in a fully thought-out way.
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Here, every donor might one day be contacted by their offspring as Sweden banned anonymous sperm donation in 1985.
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It was thought donors would be more reluctant, but we haven't really been affected by the fact that they're non-anonymous.
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Maybe it's a cultural contribution, they feel like they're doing this as altruism.
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Many of them think it's something nice to do for the society and for people.
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Leontina was conceived through sperm donation in the 90s.
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knows what uncertainty about your heritage feels like.
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At the time, single women were not allowed to access sperm donation in Sweden.
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Her mother travelled to Denmark and used an anonymous donor there.
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But for Leontine, he was always more than that.
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I always called him my biological father or my biological dad or just dad.
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It was important for For me to make my humour and not just a donation, it's my heritage and it's not a donation.
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And also I wasn't a part of this agreement.
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I never received a donation, my mom did.
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As a child, Leontina didn't ask herself many questions.
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But as she got older, she wanted to know more about her origins.
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She turned to an online DNA database and made a discovery.
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I always noticed I had siblings, but they were just like shadows.
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I didn't know their faces or that they had any names or that they were human.
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So it was shocking, but also fun.
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It was fun to see them and that they exist.
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It's a shift.
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At first, she found seven half-siblings.
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Then the list kept growing.
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Today, she has identified 27 spread across Europe, more than the sperm bank ever disclosed.
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And there may be more who haven't taken the test yet.
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We share something very personal, but we're still strangers.
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And they would pop up on this DNA site at any time and we don't have any control.
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They probably don't know that they are only received then they will find out.
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And it's not that fun to be part of that negative surprise.
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Limiting the number of children per donor is now a heated debate across Europe.
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As rules vary widely, eight countries led by Sweden are pushing for stricter limits, an initiative Germany has not joined.
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It currently has no legal cap.
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Critics warn stricter laws could make fertility treatment harder to access especially as birth rates fall across Europe.
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Donors like Michael want to help.
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We meet him in the Netherlands.
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He decided to donate sperm after hearing from friends who were unable to have children.
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Michael himself grew up with many siblings.
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The main reason for me was that I saw how deeply touched people can be
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when not being able to get a child of their own.
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And I knew there were a lot of techniques, and maybe I could not help my friends, but I could help other people in similar situations.
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For years, Michael donated regularly and openly, meaning any child could contact him later.
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None did.
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Eventually, he joined a DNA database and found out he's fathered 21 children.
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I've met three of them from three different families.
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And they're all very different from each other.
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But very interesting because in every child you recognize also a part of yourself, of course.
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You can see that it's a child of mine.
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But the satisfaction from helping others faded as Michael learned about scandals in the sperm donation system,
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including cases where children were never told that they were donor-conceived.
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When I was asked would I do it all over again, I would do it in a different way.
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I would say now to parents, you can have my semen and conceive a child under one condition,
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that you tell your child that you be honest to it.
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Michael supports a national and international donor register, giving people like him the chance to know what became of their donation.
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Aisling Alström agrees that a unified European donor register is needed, as well as more regulation.
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It becomes quite a large number when it's not regulated.
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And as we've seen, is it okay to have 100 genetic siblings?
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Or is it better to be regulated so that it's more of a number which you can maybe have a relationship with?
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At this clinic, they try to avoid cases of so-called superdonors, some linked to dozens or even hundreds of offspring.
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But safeguards can only go so far.
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We try to control the donors
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that are coming to our clinics in a contractual agreement where we are asking them not to donate anywhere else.
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But many of these donors may go international or may go to another country and donate.
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And that makes the numbers very hard to trace.
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Leontina knows that not all men want contact with their donor-conceived children, just as not all donor-conceived children seek contact either.
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But when they do wish to meet their biological father, that desire can often remain unfulfilled if his consent isn't given.
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I think it's a human right to know where you came from and who you're related to, and decide if you want to know them or not.
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And to know your medical history and things like that.
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It's personal information and I think it belongs to everyone.
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Avid was conceived in Sweden, where donations are identifiable by law.
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When he turns 18 he can ask for his donor's identity.
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But that doesn't mean the donor has to respond or ever meet him.
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A child needs people in their life that they feel love them unconditionally and that they feel safe with.
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But if that's one person or several persons, I think it's fine either way.
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But of course, the more persons the better.
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But it doesn't have to be a biological father.
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Many parents do not want to conceal their child's origins.
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Sperm donation is their only option.
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And they stand by their decision.
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He might be mad at me about it, that I denied him that part of his life, I guess.
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But in the end, and I think what I'm going to say to him is
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that if I hadn't chosen to do this, then there would be no you.
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There might be another child, but it wouldn't be you.
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So in the end, this is the life you got and we have to work with what we got.
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And while sperm donation is increasing in many countries, Europe is still grappling with whose rights matter most.
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Those of the parents, the donor or the child.
128
You will also get upset. Can you go down?
129
We should go to the car a little bit.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 129 sentences and 1631 words to shadow. The speech runs for 12:24. The speaker talks at a steady 131 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 |
|---|---|---|
| donor noun | /ˈdəʊnə/ | One who makes a donation. |
| donation noun | /doʊˈneɪʃən/ | A voluntary gift or contribution for a specific cause. |
| donate verb | /ˈdoʊˌneɪt/ | To make a donation; to give away something of value to support or contribute towards a cause or for the benefit of another. |
| sibling noun | /ˈsɪb.lɪŋ/ | A person who shares a parent; one's brother or sister who one shares a parent with. |
| biological adjective | /ˌbaɪ.əˈlɑ.d͡ʒɪ.kəl/ | Of or relating to biology. |
| anonymous adjective | /əˈnɒn.ə.məs/ | Lacking a name; not named, for example an animal not assigned to any species . |
| shock noun | /ʃɔk/ | A sudden, heavy impact. |
| conclusion noun | /kənˈkluːʒən/ | The end, finish, close or last part of something. |
| heritage noun | /ˈhɛɹ.ɪ.tɪd͡ʒ/ | An inheritance; property that may be inherited. |
| database noun | /ˈdeɪtəˌbeɪs/ | A collection of (usually) organized information in a regular structure, usually but not necessarily in a machine-readable format accessible by a computer. |
| strict adjective | /stɹɪkt/ | Strained; drawn close; tight. |
| clinic noun | /ˈklɪn.ɪk/ | A medical facility, such as a hospital, especially one for the treatment and diagnosis of outpatients. |
| regulate verb | /ˈɹɛɡ.jə.leɪt/ | To dictate policy. |
| offspring noun | /ˈɔfspɹɪŋ/ | A person's daughter or son; a person's child. |
| technique noun | /tɛkˈniːk/ | The practical aspects of a given art, occupation etc.; formal requirements. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| find out verb | To discover, as by asking or investigating. | |
| end up verb | To bring to a conclusion. | |
| get through verb | /ɡɛt ˈθɹu/ | To overcome; to endure. |
| go down verb | To descend; to move from a higher place to a lower one. | |
| run around verb | To be very busy doing many different things. |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 23 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, they're, didn't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: donation /doʊˈneɪʃən/, shock /ʃɔk/, conclusion /kənˈkluːʒən/, shadow /ˈʃædəʊ̯/, regulation /ˌɹɛɡjʊˈleɪʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: biological /ˌbaɪ.əˈlɑ.d͡ʒɪ.kəl/, anonymous /əˈnɒn.ə.məs/, regulation /ˌɹɛɡjʊˈleɪʃən/, initiative /ɪˈnɪʃ.ə.tɪv/, contribution /ˌkɑntɹɪˈbjuʃən/
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 donor, donation, donate.
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 | was conceived · be taken · being approved |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have been · haven't really been affected · has identified |
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.