Shadowing Practice: Houthis CARVE Through Saudi Arabia - Learn English Speaking with Video

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The Saudis have carried out punishing strikes against the Houthis in Yemen, trying to offer their support to the internationally recognized government of Yemen,

which has tried to push back against the Houthis.

But in much the same way we saw Iran fight, the Houthis are doing the same.

They don't have the military capability or the weapons to match

Saudi Arabia's military.

What they do have are drones, ballistic missiles, and cruise missiles, and they're able to use those very effectively to cause the disruptions we're seeing here.

Not only are the Saudis in trouble, the world is in trouble.

Drones have changed warfare forever, and I believe the Houthis can beat

Saudi Arabia, period.

I mean, they're doing it right now.

In Saudi Arabia, that's a whole different conversation.

Obviously, an airport was hit, catastrophe in Saudi Arabia, but there's a lot more where that came from.

Let's tell you the whole story.

Yes, in fact, Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince is currently in hiding,

transitioning from bunker to bunker as this escalation between the Saudis and the Houthis,

best known as Ansar Allah, escalates.

So let's get to the details because there's also the other issue with more

and more vessels and supertankers getting struck in the Strait of Hormuz by Iran.

So this spells a lot of trouble for the global economy.

So the Houthis carried out a missile strike that hit the King Khalid International Airport in Riyadh over the weekend.

So the first strike took place on Saturday.

The Houthis say that the strikes were in retaliation for Saudi strikes in Yemen that killed women and children.

Now take a look at this footage, you're gonna see a little of the damage that was carried out by the Houthis.

So the strike at the Saudi capitals international airport killed at least 13 people, including one American and wounded 300 others.

Air defense systems did not provide earlier warning of the attack, and that is currently being investigated right now.

This is the worst attack in Saudi Arabia over the decade.

Let me just pause to note that, remember, the latest round of fighting between the Houthis the Saudis happened because of the fact that

Saudi Arabia violated a ceasefire that had been ongoing for a few years.

They decided to carry out strikes against a plane that had just been in Iran for the assassinated Ayatollah's funeral.

As they were coming back to Yemen,

their plane was targeted by the Saudis that broke the ceasefire and that led to the latest this round of fighting,

which the Saudis seem to be dominating in, okay?

So going back to the airport in Riyadh that was targeted and attacked.

So two terminals were struck and their roofs were partially collapsed.

The airport was evacuated and it is closed and will remain so for the remainder of the week.

However, there were additional strikes that Ansar Allah carried out against the airport today.

The airport, there were more attacks on the airport on Sunday as well.

A projectile caused a fire in terminal four and led to one death as well as injuries.

And an initial probe by the Saudis found that the Houthis fired multiple drones to pave the way,

to clear the way essentially for a mix of crews and ballistic missiles.

MBS, as I mentioned earlier, is currently in hiding and And the Houthis have hit the King Khalid International Airport at least four times,

five times now, considering the strikes that took place today.

Now there are additional Houthi strikes that took place in Riyadh today as well, and making matters worse for the Saudis.

And this is a problem for the US as well.

So keep this in mind, Saudi officials said that they are running low on interceptors needed to fend off further strikes.

The kingdom has called for help from its military ally Pakistan and is scouring the globe for air defenses.

Air defenses that we are in short supply of.

And even if they had interceptors, guys, here's something else to keep in mind.

The Houthis possess ballistic missiles and advanced systems fitted with warheads

that can change direction during flight and pose a challenge to Patriot interceptors and other defense systems used by the Saudis.

This has been something that has been raised by many military experts.

There seems to be this thought that the Patriot missile interceptors are infallible, they're fantastic at intercepting all missiles, but that's not necessarily the case.

And on top of that, the debris from intercepted ballistic missiles can be incredibly dangerous.

One hit a kindergarten and a medical clinic complex Thursday in Saudi Arabia.

Now, Trump signaled that he is considering entering this conflict in order to defend the Saudis.

But honestly, that seems unlikely.

Ever since Trump made mention of that, there's been no movement on it.

And it's because Trump has struck a side deal with the Houthis.

As long as he doesn't attack them, they will only block

Saudi vessels and ships in the Bab al -Mendib Strait.

And the United States is providing

Saudi Arabia with intelligence support, but that's about it.

It doesn't seem like

Trump wants to do more than that.

Now the Israelis have said that they want to join in this war in order to help the Saudis.

And so the Saudis have responded to that by saying that they are reviewing their options.

In the meantime, the Saudis keep escalating the war in ways that won't work out so well for them.

And really the only way to kind of save

Saudi Arabia is to do the opposite of what they're doing now, but let's keep it real, MBS, there are egos at play.

So, Saudi airstrikes on a government complex and house in the northern province of Al Jaff killed nine people,

including five children and a woman and wounded seven others.

And ever since Saudi Arabia carried out those strikes, Ansar Allah has basically retaliated with a vengeance.

Saudi Arabia also carried out strikes in the Yemeni capital of Sana 'a, killing one.

And for those concerned about the airstrikes on a civilian airport, look, Saudi Arabia should not,

and any country really should not use civilian airports for fighter jets, number one.

But also, Saudi Arabia, let's not forget, has bombed Yemen's airport hundreds of times, at least 227 times to be specific.

I mean, in 2018 alone, they carried out 47 airstrikes against the airport in Yemen.

So I don't want it to seem as though the Saudis are being innocent here.

They're the ones who broke the ceasefire, which led to the latest round of fighting between themselves and Ansar Allah.

So I got really bad news and potentially good news.

So the really bad news is no one is safe anymore.

That's really bad news.

Okay, but gigantic silver lining potentially, which is I think that this will eventually mean we have less wars or fewer wars.

Now why?

So first, no one saved anymore because of the drones.

And so before, Saudi Arabia could bomb the living crap out of Yemen all day, all night.

And Yemen couldn't cross the straight and do anything to Saudi Arabia.

So it was completely one sided.

Now because of drones, they're like, you bomb our airport, we bomb your airport.

Now that evens the score between smaller countries and bigger countries in a massive way.

The bigger countries with at least stronger militaries, Israel, Saudi Arabia, America, let's keep it real,

Russia, all acted with impunity.

We come kill you, we take Donbass, we take Gaza, we take this, we take that, and there's nothing you could do about it.

And if you do do anything, it'll be a tiny little thing,

and then we'll call you a terrorist and murder all your family and city block around you, right?

But now there is something they can do about it.

And they just showed you we can hit airports.

Well, that's not fair, there's civilians there, that's totally out of bounds.

That leads to the second reason why no one's safe anymore.

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Because there is no more boundaries left, there are no rules left.

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And let's be honest, we're the ones who eviscerated them.

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After World War II, America was a beacon, And this is real, it's not some imaginary thing, it actually happened.

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We set up international institutions, and we set up the idea of war crimes and human rights. So why?

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So we wouldn't have to firebomb Dresden and use nuclear weapons on Hiroshima

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and Nagasaki and the Germans wouldn't do something like the Holocaust, etc. They were excellent rules for really good reason,

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especially after we lived through World War I and World War II.

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Now, as you've seen on all over television and in our media over the last however many years, but certainly the last three,

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you have Israelis and their American servants all over television going, no, no, we shouldn't have any international law.

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We shouldn't have human rights.

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We shouldn't have an international criminal court.

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We shouldn't have any rules at all, why?

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Because Israel wants to be able to murder as many

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Palestinians as possible, make us pay for it, and block all those votes in the United Nations.

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And by the way, why do you think you heard all the anti -United Nations propaganda all these years?

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Because they keep introducing resolutions against Israel.

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So Israel paid their politicians

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and the media here in America to try to destroy the United Nations so the world couldn't work together anymore.

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And guess what, that's where we are now, congratulations.

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Oops, it turns out now that we can't work together anymore, there's no one to protect anyone.

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And so now I believe that Yemen, and this is super bold, and no one else believes this.

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But I believe Yemen actually can cross the strait, the Houthis can, Ansar Allah, and get into Saudi Arabia proper.

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Yeah.

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And do a lot of damage there, there.

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Because what I know that you guys might not know is that the Saudi military is fraudulent.

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It's a bunch of rich princes that couldn't get the plane up in the air.

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In my estimation, I could be wrong.

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Couldn't get it up.

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And so, whereas the Houthis are hungry, literally, and they're poor and they got nothing to lose.

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The Saudis are rich, fat cats sitting there thinking, we got this, we got America on our side.

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We have Israel on our side.

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We're invincible.

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Come to find out, they're not invincible.

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They're very, very vincible.

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So now guys, why in the world is there a silver lining here?

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Well, if you're now worried that you might get hurt, that things are now reciprocal.

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You are used to hitting their airports 79 times with no consequences.

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All of a sudden they hit your airport once and you're in your feelings about it.

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And which I get and you should be and I hate that they kill those civilians.

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Yes.

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But I also hated when you killed their civilians when you hit their airport hundreds of times.

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I mean, how many hundreds of thousands of people, children have died in Yemen thanks to the famine

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that was caused from the previous round of fighting between the Houthis and the Saudi back coalition.

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Let alone what the horrors that the UAE have done in Sudan, the horrors that Israel has done in Gaza,

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West Bank, Lebanon, we can keep going all day on that one.

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So the Israelis will be last

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because they have all of the defensive missiles of the world will be united to protect their most precious citizens,

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which are much more valuable than the rest of us.

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So and they're now in full late stage fascism, so they'll be last.

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But every other country is gonna go,

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I'm not sure we should start the next war because because I'm not sure we could win the next war.

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And it turns out it now has a cost on us.

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Yes.

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And so they might be a little bit more reluctant to start the next one.

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I hope you're right.

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Now, in the meantime, all of this fighting between Ansar Allah

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and the Saudis is taking place with the backdrop of the World Petroleum Congress taking place in Saudi Arabia.

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Now, only the Saudis are taking part in it.

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So for instance, executives from BP are not going to Saudi Arabia for this for obvious reasons.

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But - Because they don't want to die?

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They don't want to die, exactly.

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Look, the impact that this is having, not just on Saudi Arabia, but on energy prices is very real.

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And we're already dealing with a barrel of crude above $100 a barrel.

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This morning it was at 106.

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And so it's only gonna get worse as the war against Iran continues to spread in the Middle East.

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Whether combat operations resume in Iran before or after US

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and Israeli elections doesn't really matter much for Ansar Allah or the Houthis in Yemen, who continue to spank the hell out of the Saudis.

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Now, the Saudis started this, they were enjoying a ceasefire.

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And then last July,

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they decided to strike Ansar Allah as they were coming back home from the funeral for Khamenei in Iran.

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And of course, the Houthis are gonna respond to that, and they have responded by publicly humiliating the Saudis,

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especially MBS, Mohammed bin Salman, the Saudi crown prince.

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Man, his cheeks are so red, you think he's been watching sadistic war porn.

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It's amazing, it really is.

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So let's get to the details on what's going on right now.

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So Brett Erickson, great follow on X.

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He's following this issue in particular and doing a really good job updating everyone about it.

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He says, breaking, just released statement from Ansarallah, the Houthis announced that they have again struck the King Khalid Airport in Riyadh.

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This is a separate announcement from the confirmed strike yesterday that also saw strikes on a refinery in Riyadh.

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And most notably, the Aramco headquarters.

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This now marks the fourth day in a row that Ansarallah has struck the King Khalid Airport support.

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So that's a big deal.

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And remember, one of our biggest issues, yes, is the Strait of Hormuz.

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That is true.

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But one of the bigger issues at this point is

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that we have a shortage of diesel because of refineries that keep getting destroyed in war,

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both in Middle East wars and also in the war against Ukraine and Russia.

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And so you take crude oil and you refine it into diesel.

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If you don't have the refineries, you can't refine the crude oil into diesel.

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So this is bad news for everyone, but it's especially bad news for Saudi Arabia,

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which made a huge mistake by reigniting this war with the Houthis.

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So the Houthis have also struck the Saudi Aramco headquarters.

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I wanted to give you a few more details about that.

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A Saudi Aramco administrative building had been targeted, leading to a limited fire.

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Sounds like it's not a big deal, but it actually is.

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The building houses, the office of the company's chief executive, as well as its oil supply planning and scheduling department,

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and suffered extensive damage after the missile strike caused a fire

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that spread to multiple floors and led parts of the roof to collapse.

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There's a very real question about whether Mohammed bin Salman will have any power after all of this is said and done.

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Let me continue, the Houthis said they targeted Aramco in Dahran in retaliation for Saudi attacks on its territory in Yemen.

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The group said it would continue to target

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Saudi energy facilities and airports and warned civilians to stay away.

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And sure enough, the Saudi -led coalition said earlier Tuesday that it targeted the Yemen petroleum companies,

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Al Shabaha fuel depot held by the Houthis.

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So all of the strikes that you saw by the Houthis recently were in retaliation for that Saudi strike.

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I think we're living in an era where these nation states, these countries don't fully understand what their vulnerabilities and weaknesses are.

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There's a lot of ego.

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And it's the type of ego that I think even persuaded me at one point to think,

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well, I mean, the Saudi -backed coalition will crush Ansarallah.

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I mean, you've got the US military hardware, we've sold them so much of it,

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how could, but they don't know how to use it, it seems like.

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And not only that, they are out of interceptors.

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So if you're out of interceptors, what are you doing carrying out additional strikes against Ansarallah?

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It makes no sense.

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Ansarallah is also making some serious territorial advancements in Yemen.

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And I think it's important for us all to know about that because the way US media talks about the Houthis,

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you would think it's just like this tiny, irrelevant rebel group in Yemen.

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But no, there are a lot more than that.

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Let's take a look at some of the footage with our good friend Ryan Grimm narrating.

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The Houthis have encircled Thais.

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The Houthis are the primary power in the Ansarallah coalition.

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So right now you effectively have Yemen split between

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and what you're seeing here is the kind of the advancement that the Ansarallah military capacity has taken.

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There's been some debate online about that clip that you just saw whether

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that tank was hitting a mine

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or whether the Houthis are able to kind of hit moving vehicles by mortar at this point.

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It does seem like there have been some incredible shots.

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So this is Western Thais.

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So Ansar Allah now controls the entrance to Western Thais effectively just a matter of time until they take the last city,

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which was one of the kind of lone holdouts that is not Aden.

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So roughly something like 70 % of the Yemeni population lives now in territory controlled by Ansar Allah.

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So that's the reality on the ground in Yemen.

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And we shouldn't be surprised to see more energy shortages

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and economic pain as a result of all of this warfare and chaos that make no mistake about it, Israel drove the region into.

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And I want you guys to think about that.

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Every time you fill your tank, every time you have difficulty paying your gas bill to keep your home warm

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or whatever type of fuel you need to keep your home warm.

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Just remember Israel did this with the help of the United States.

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It's just so they can expand their empire.

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That's all this is, that's all this is.

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Iran was never a threat to the United States.

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Iran didn't have the capacity, the capability to even hit the United States with a missile.

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They weren't building nuclear weapons.

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Everyone knows that that whole argument is a sham, a total lie to goad

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Americans and to supporting a war that would harm them and potentially destroy their country economically.

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That's where we're at.

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So I want you to remember Israel did this and then ask yourself, do we really want to be aligned with them?

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Are they really our friends?

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Because I don't think they are.

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Every time you ring the bell below, an angel gets his wings.

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Totally not true, but it does keep you updated on our live shows.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This speaking lesson is built on the video “Houthis CARVE Through Saudi Arabia”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: Saudi, Houthi, airport, Arabia, strike. This video has 250 sentences and 3245 words to shadow. The speech runs for 19:48. The speaker talks at a natural 164 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. Only 81% 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
missile noun	/ˈmɪs.aɪl/	Any object used as a weapon by being thrown or fired through the air, such as stone, arrow or bullet.
drone noun	/dɹoʊn/	A male hymenopteran (ant, bee, hornet, or wasp), whose sole primary function is to mate with the queen.
coalition noun	/koʊ.əˈlɪʃ.ən/	A temporary group or union of organizations, usually formed for a particular advantage.
civilians noun	/sɪˈvɪl.jənz/	Synonym of civvies
strait noun	/stɹeɪt/	A narrow channel of water connecting two larger bodies of water.
potentially adverb	/pəˈtɛnʃ(ə)li/	In a manner showing much potential; with the possibility of happening in a given way.
diesel noun	/ˈdisəl/	A fuel derived from petroleum (or other oils) but heavier than gasoline/petrol. Used to power diesel engines which burn this fuel using the heat produced when…
crude adjective	/kɹuːd/	In a natural, untreated state.
retaliation noun	/ɹɪˌtæl.iˈeɪ.ʃən/	Violent or otherwise punitive response to an act of harm or perceived injustice; a hitting back; revenge.
horror noun	/ˈhɒɹ.ə/	An intense distressing emotion of fear or repugnance.
funeral noun	/ˈfju.nəɹ.əl/	A ceremony to honor and remember a deceased person, often distinguished from a memorial service by the presence of the body of the deceased.
headquarters noun	/ˈhɛdˌk(w)ɔɹ.tɚz/	The military installation from which troops are commanded and orders are issued; the military unit consisting of a commander and his support staff.
footage noun	/ˈfʊtɪd͡ʒ/	An amount of film or tape that has been used to record something, or the content of the recording.
terminal noun	/ˈtɚmɪnəl/	A building in an airport where passengers transfer from ground transportation to the facilities that allow them to board airplanes.
vessel noun	/ˈvɛsəl/	Any craft designed for transportation on or in water, such as a ship, boat, or submarine.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
carry out verb	/ˈkæ.ɹi aʊt/	To hold while moving it out.
set up verb	/ˌsɛt ˈʌp/	To make ready for use.
turn out verb		To end up; to result.
work together verb		To be coworkers with someone; to share a workspace with someone.
come back verb		To return to a place.
find out verb		To discover, as by asking or investigating.
go back to verb		To stem from; to originate in.
live through verb		To survive a difficult period or event

Sentences worth repeating

Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:

I mean, they're doing it right now.
Let's tell you the whole story.
We shouldn't have human rights.
We shouldn't have any rules at all, why?
Are they really our friends?

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 carried · has tried · have changed
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	was hit · was carried · being investigated
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	ones who broke · ones who eviscerated

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 61 contractions and reduced forms, such as they're, don't, we're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “sh” and “zh” sounds: coalition /koʊ.əˈlɪʃ.ən/, potentially /pəˈtɛnʃ(ə)li/, retaliation /ɹɪˌtæl.iˈeɪ.ʃən/, shortage /ˈʃɔː(ɹ)tɪd͡ʒ/, transition /tɹænˈzɪʃ.ən/
Long words — get the stress right: coalition /koʊ.əˈlɪʃ.ən/, potentially /pəˈtɛnʃ(ə)li/, retaliation /ɹɪˌtæl.iˈeɪ.ʃən/, capability /ˌkeɪ.pəˈbɪl.ɪ.ti/, necessarily /ˌnɛs.əˈsɛɹ.ə.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 missile, drone, coalition.

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: Houthis CARVE Through Saudi Arabia - Learn English Speaking with Video

Choose a practice mode

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

Key vocabulary in this video

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Sentences worth repeating

Grammar in this video

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?