Shadowing Practice: How Money Is Created and How This Makes Some Rich and Some Poor - Learn English Speaking with Video
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45 sentences
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This is the gold price since the 1970s, and that's total money supplied by the US Federal Reserve.
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Here we have new home prices and money supply.
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That's the S&P 500, which tracks the shares of top American businesses and money supply.
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And finally, the Bitcoin price, here on a log scale, and money supply.
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If gold, real estate, stocks and cryptocurrencies all go up with the total cash in circulation, the value of each dollar must go down,
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which raises some crucial questions.
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Why is money losing its value?
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Who creates it?
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Why do we keep printing more?
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And who are the winners and losers of this system?
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The moment you save money, it starts losing value.
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This happens because bankers and government officials keep printing new money. And
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so the total US dollar supply increased from around 1.4 trillion in 1975 to around 129 trillion by the end of 2024,
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and with all the new money, each individual bill lost value.
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To put this in perspective, suppose your grandparents had, very generously, put $10,000 into a piggy bank for you back in 1975.
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It'd still be $10,000 today and would buy you a tiny car.
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If they had exchanged that same amount for gold it would be worth $200,000 today and get you a very fancy sports car.
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Invested in a fund holding shares in the top 500 US public companies it would have grown to 2.8 million dollars.
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You could own lots of cars and a mansion for that.
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So how exactly is money created?
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There are two major forces bankers and and bureaucrats.
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Bankers create new money whenever they take out a loan.
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After they approve a credit, they literally just type the newly created money into your account.
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Woohoo!
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The only requirement, banks must hold about 10% of all the new money they create.
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And when you repay your loan, the money evaporates again.
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Government officials like to spend more than they actually have.
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and so they tend to borrow new money from central banks, fund managers or foreign investors.
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If such a deal happens with the central bank, it just prints new money.
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In 2020, the US Federal Reserve created close to $4 trillion this way,
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which meant that the total dollars in circulation grew by about 26% in a single year.
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Bureaucrats then typically take this new money, invest it in projects, or give it to particular people and special interest groups.
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All this new money, so the theory goes, gets people spending and hence creates jobs and economic growth.
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But there are not only winners.
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The first losers are those who hoard their cash, unaware that all the new money inflates the price of housing, shares and other assets.
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Second are those who have no access to buy other assets or efficient capital markets.
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And last are those who earn too little to invest in housing, gold or stocks.
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This last group often faces a double squeeze.
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They see rent, food and childcare costs rise faster than their paychecks, while wealth-building assets stay out of reach.
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But what do you think?
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How could we solve this problem?
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Should we just stop printing new money?
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Share your thoughts in the comments below.
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If you found this helpful check out our other videos, join us on YouTube or on Patreon.com.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “How Money Is Created and How This Makes Some Rich and Some Poor”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: dollar, supply, create, value, bank. This video has 45 sentences and 557 words to shadow. The speech runs for 4:06. The speaker talks at a steady 136 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. 86% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start. 8 of its 45 sentences are questions, so it is good practice for question intonation and short answers.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| banker noun | /ˈbæŋkəː/ | One who conducts the business of banking; one who, individually, or as a member of a company, keeps an establishment for the deposit or loan of money, or for… |
| bureaucrat noun | /ˈbjʊɹəkɹæt/ | An official who is part of a bureaucracy. |
| circulation noun | /ˌsɝkjʊˈleɪʃən/ | The act of moving in a circle, or in a course which brings the moving body to the place where its motion began. |
| loser noun | /luzɚ/ | A person who loses; one who fails to win or thrive. |
| childcare noun | The act, practice, or occupation of supervising and taking care of young children. | |
| cryptocurrency noun | /ˈkɹɪp.toʊˌkɝ.ən.si/ | A digital currency based on a cryptographic system, usually having no central issuing or regulating authority. |
| evaporate verb | /ɪˈvæp.ə.ɹeɪt/ | To transition from a liquid state into a gaseous state. |
| generously adverb | In a generous manner, in a way that is giving or ample. | |
| grandparent noun | /ˈɡɹæn(d)pɛəɹənt/ | The parent of someone's parent. |
| inflate verb | /ɪnˈfleɪt/ | To enlarge an object by pushing air (or a gas) into it; to raise or expand abnormally |
| paycheck noun | /ˈpeɪ.t͡ʃɛk/ | A periodic payment, usually in the form of a paper check, received by an employee from an employer for work performed. |
| woohoo | /wuːˈhuː/ | Used to express sudden or exuberant joy, happiness, excitement, approval or delight. |
| repay verb | /ɹiˈpeɪ/ | Synonym of pay back in all senses. |
| unaware adjective | /ˌʌnəˈwɛɚ/ | Not aware or informed; lacking knowledge; unmindful. |
| squeeze verb | /skwiːz/ | To apply pressure (to something) from two or more sides at once. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| check out verb | To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.). |
| go down verb | To descend; to move from a higher place to a lower one. |
| take out verb | To remove. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- Why do we keep printing more?
- How could we solve this problem?
- Should we just stop printing new money?
Pronunciation to watch
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: circulation /ˌsɝkjʊˈleɪʃən/, mansion /ˈmæn.ʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: circulation /ˌsɝkjʊˈleɪʃən/, cryptocurrency /ˈkɹɪp.toʊˌkɝ.ən.si/, evaporate /ɪˈvæp.ə.ɹeɪt/
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 banker, bureaucrat, circulation.
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.