Shadowing Practice: If You’re Young, You NEED to Hear This — Jack Ma’s Life Advice - Learn English Speaking with Video
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359 sentences
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I think if you succeed, every mistake becomes a legendary.
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If you fail, that's just a garbage.
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You know what I'm saying?
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I think everybody has great stories.
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Everybody has a lot of mistakes.
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Everybody has a lot of problems.
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But very few people listen to you.
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One day when you become successful, people listen to you say, wow, you are great.
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I'm not that great.
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I was born in a normal family.
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And I'm not good at schooling.
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Of course, I tried to study hard.
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But as a boy, you know, my school was not that good at that time.
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So, I failed looking for jobs, looking for joining university, joining good schools.
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But I never give up.
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And I think there's one thing I learned is that why you should have a chance to be successful.
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Everybody should get used to fail, but not get used to be accepted by other people.
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Why other people should help you?
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You should earn the right to be helped.
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So the thing I learned is that don't give up.
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My opportunity has not come yet.
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when everybody complain that is the opportunity
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I always thought when I was young when I was in the high school
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or university I thought Bill Gates took up my job you
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know Bill Gates did all the successful things Larry Harrison from Oracle they
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they took all the wonderful opportunities IBM benefit we people have no opportunity
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and I think I aim too high I should aim to support
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and help the people around me do tiny things I never
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thought I could be today after 18 years Alibaba become today's size not
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because I'm smart I don't think I'm a smart person
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but I have I work with a lot of smart people
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and most smart people they always want to do successful things quick easy things
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and I think it's not easy to be successful
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quickly every time everything we do we prepare for 10 years I know I'm not smart
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if we want to be successful we have to win 10 years later if we want to be successful,
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we have to work with smart people.
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If we want to be successful, we should make a lot of mistakes and never give up.
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A lot of people, they make mistakes, they have problems, they give up.
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We never give up.
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We learn from mistakes.
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And I think when we feel the message, the experience advice that I want to give you, advice I want to give you.
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You will judge when this person will be successful or not by when he fail, he thinks it's his fault or the other fault.
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If he thinks my fail because of the others, this guy has no chance.
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Those people who fail always think, hmm, it is my fault.
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I did not do it properly.
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I should change here or change there these guys have opportunities
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so I learn a lot from those people who fail I
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learn a lot from those people who made mistakes I learn a lot from my mistakes so this is what I
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when I this is my life attitude
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when I feel I say see I will fail when I succeed say well I never know I could be successful.
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This make me very positive and optimistic.
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And because of so many mistakes, too much failure, that make me never complain.
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God, I get used to that.
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We are making mistakes every day, even to today.
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We made stupid decisions almost every day.
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nobody knows we thought it's smart but finally proved stupid
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but we learn we do again we learn we do again that's the way that's the live attitude
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Alibaba starts from no money, no technology, no people.
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In my apartment, 18 people decide that we want to use internet technology to help small business.
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That was the idea.
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After 18 years, we grow from 18 people to today close to 60 ,000 people.
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It is really not easy.
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But we survived.
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Today, we are one of the biggest internet companies in the world.
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I think we are lucky.
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We made so many mistakes, but we still survive.
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how can you be continue to be lucky
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that is the question keep on asking me I think
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if you want to continue to be lucky you have to
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give your luck to the others you give luck to the
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others you help others the others in the future will help you
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that was my our thinking in the past 10 years Alibaba was born in China,
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but Alibaba should not be a Chinese company.
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The name, the day when I choose the name Alibaba, Alibaba is not a Chinese name.
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It's an Arabic name.
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And Iran said it's an Iranian name, Turkey says, Turkey name, I don't, I don't know what name.
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But it's the name from Alibaba 1001 Mistakes, or Alibaba 1001 Nights, the story.
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We want to make this company a company that born in China,
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enabled the world, helping the global young company, young people.
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As I said, that every century there is a company for the century.
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Microsoft was the company of last century, of the great century.
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IBM was a company of the century.
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What is the company of this century, 21st century?
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And I think we should not think about Alibaba.
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We should always, we make money, serve Chinese.
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We should make the money, serve the world, serve this century.
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This, only think in that way, we can do more.
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Our company today is big.
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But compared to yesterday, it was big.
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But compared to tomorrow, it is still a tiny company.
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The world changes so fast.
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So this is our thinking.
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We want to make Alibaba be the company of the century.
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We want to make Alibaba the company supporting global small,
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medium -sized companies we want to make this company supporting global young people
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and we want to make this company to making sure women can have more jobs online
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because people don't care your women
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or men online this is what we want to do
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and we're doing a lot outside China Southeast Asia we are
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also doing lot in Indian we just started do more in america and the
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and also canada in russia we have a small business that's called aliexpress maybe aliexpress here is very big
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but in in our company probably less than one percent of our business on express
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but aliexpress is not our main purpose of doing business in russia
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We do not want to be a Russian e -commerce company.
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We are not e -commerce company.
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We help other companies become e -commerce.
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We hope what we want to do in Russia, we want to help in Russia to build up the logistic system.
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Russia is so big, deliver things so difficult.
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Oh, I cannot imagine.
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i met some russian girls two years ago i say do
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you use ad express yes i said how long what about
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the speed of delivery they say it's great i said what do you mean by great she said only 45 days
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i mean greater is 45 minutes not 45 days now we reduce from 45 days to 15 days
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But that is not enough.
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Russia should have a modern logistic system that would be able to deliver within 48 hours or 72 hours anywhere,
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any place in Russia.
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When you place order online, we should get it within 72 hours.
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And this should be using technology.
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This is your opportunity.
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Young people, because Russia logistics is terrible, and you have the chance.
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If logistics is good, we have no chance.
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We should build up the payment, online payment.
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Today in China, the mobile phone payment, so popular.
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i went to see few weeks ago i saw some beggars on the street you
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when you back money they use zip code mobile phone because people don't have pocket money
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so we in russia we should have built up a good payment system a modern payment system
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that every young people can receive money pay money at the
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lowest cost every young people should be able to reach financial
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assistance don't worry about the future all right don't worry about technology let me tell you one thing
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when you worry about the future that is
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because you are lack of confidence you lack of imagination we
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don't have I may not have the solution for future
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but there is a solution for future we don't have the solution for future
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but our young people have a solution for future I find
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in this world young people don't worry about the future all
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the people worry for the future I find those six today successful of the people, they worry about the future.
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Let me tell you, future is the opportunity for everybody, especially the opportunity for young people,
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because we have nothing to lose, right?
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This is what I tell myself 18 years ago.
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18 years ago, we did not have money, so we have no money to lose.
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We don't have technology.
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We have no technology to lose.
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And then we say, we believe 10, 20 years later, e -commerce, internet will be powerful.
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If we start to do now, when a lot of successful people don't like technology,
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don't like internet, we start to do it.
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10, 20 years later, we will be the expert.
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10, 20 years later will be successful
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so i think don't worry about the future prepare for the
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future make your own future cloud computing big data artificial
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intelligence they are new to anybody you are successful new to you you are not successful new to you
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so what do you worry about second thing is don't worry
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about the things the other people worry about especially don't worry about the things president
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and prime minister worry about worry about things you worry about
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we everybody have too many things to worry about
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if you do not worry about yourself you worry too much
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about the world now today alibaba should worry about the world you should not worry about the world.
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President Putin is worried about the world.
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You should not worry about the world.
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You should worry about when you graduate.
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How can you make a living?
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How can you do something that is different?
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How can you do something that is fun, interesting, and helping others? By the way, don't believe
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that technology is going to take away human beings' jobs technology is going to replace lot of stupid jobs
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when the first technology revolution come the steam machine come people
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worry oh my god steam machine is going to take away
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a lot of jobs after 50 years the steam machine created more jobs.
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When electricity comes, a lot of companies worry about losing jobs.
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But electricity created so many jobs.
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Artificial intelligence, they will create more jobs.
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The problem is next to 20, 30 years may lose, create, lose a lot of job, but this is short period.
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So we people have to learn how we can survive in the artificial intelligence period.
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By the way, why human being can win machines?
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Machines, they might be stronger than human being.
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They might be smarter than human being.
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They might be run faster than human being.
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But they can never be as wise as human beings.
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Because human being, we have belief.
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We have religion.
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We have a heart.
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Which machine does not have.
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So, if you want to be ready for future,
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Please, do not follow yesterday's way of learning and teaching.
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Do not try to memorize things hard and more, because computer can remember things hard and more than you.
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Do not try to calculate faster, because computer can calculate much faster than you do.
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So try to be creative.
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Try to be innovative.
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Try to be constructive.
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These are the things.
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Everything you learn, you think about.
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Is this thing can make me more creative?
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Is this thing can make me more innovative?
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Is this thing can make me more constructive?
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Let's do it.
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And also, I think when other people worry, opportunity comes.
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Make them worry.
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You should know nobody will and nobody can stop this technology revolution.
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You worry, it comes.
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You don't worry, it comes.
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So what's the point of worry?
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So I said, people say, Jack, have you ever cried in the past 18 years doing e -business internet in China?
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I don't cry, because I know cry does not make any sense, does not help me.
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If cry can help me, I will cry every day.
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We should not cry, we should make competitors cry.
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So, think about, be positive, get ready for that.
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If you people from Moscow University cannot solve the problem,
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If you worry, the whole world, 99 % of people have no future.
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So don't worry about it. Be positive.
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Start to do it.
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And when people worry, open the door and see what they worry about and solve the problem.
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That's what I think.
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I love to be with young people.
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First, I'm still young.
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and second is that when you are young people you know you are young all the time
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and young people are the solutions for tomorrow young people are the solutions for all the worries
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young people if you stay with them you will be full of energetic
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but the advice I give to the young people is
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that also the advice i give to myself that nothing is easy nothing is free
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if you want to be successful you have to pay the price aliba by 18 years to today's size Yeah,
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we are lucky, but we work much harder than most of the people.
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We never sleep well and sound in the evening.
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I travel last year, 867 hours a year in the flip plane, in the plane.
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I'm working hard.
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My team working very hard.
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18 years, we work like a normal company, 70 years, day and night.
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Nothing is free.
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Nothing is easy.
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Easy means you have to think different.
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You have to do different.
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If you, everybody, if John said this is right, you for John, why you?
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So you have to think, for example, early days in my company,
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when some ideas come to my desk, Jack, this is a great idea, and I look at everybody.
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Everybody say it is a good idea I normally throw into the rubbish.
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Because everybody say it is good.
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Then all the other people think, if everybody say, this is going to be very tough, I'm very interested in that tough question.
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And I pick up and say, how can we do in a different way?
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This is to be unique, to be different.
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And third, this is my advice, and this is also I'm telling myself every day.
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Today is very tough.
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Tomorrow is more tougher.
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The day of tomorrow is beautiful.
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But most people die tomorrow evening.
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You have to work very hard.
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Every tough days, every tough situations, problems you meet, that is the training of yourself.
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When you graduate your school, graduate from this school, You just start your career of learning.
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When you got a PhD diploma or bachelor diploma,
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this is just a certificate your parents pay the tuition for four years.
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Your real challenge is when you leave the college, the real life stats, the real exam stats, the real test stats.
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That's life.
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So, one thing you are lucky, as I said, if students from Moscow University cannot survive,
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99 .9 % of people in the world cannot survive.
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Only you have this confidence, you will be able to face the challenge of future.
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the question is
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that in the time the market is going to be more
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competitive how can you keep the confidence for the future right market is never easy
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in the early day just like doing business is never easy
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people say ah it's doing business more difficult no never easy continue to be more difficult the confidence is not
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the best way to do it is that find a good team find the people that share the same vision
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same dreams work with them the only thing you listen is you listen to group of people
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if you doing a company listen to your customers
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if they are happy
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if they your customers are happy don't worry too much you still have competitive
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if your companies if your customers happy listen to your colleagues your team are they confident
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if they are confident don't worry about
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don't listen to advisors lawyers I'm sorry don't listen to those
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people I have no chance whether the market has a chance
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or not custom tell you your colleagues tell you
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so nobody is the expert of future most of the experts are yesterday
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so for the future the best way you learn it is
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that you know the early days alibaba had no money no revenue nobody pay us
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the revenue we got are the all the email of thanks
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from customers the customer sent us email oh alibaba you're
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so great you're helping me a lot but i don't have money to pay you Fine, we know one day they will pay if we really help them.
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So the confidence is from the customers.
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Confidence is from your team.
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And your competitors always try to destroy your competence.
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If your competitors spend a lot of time destroy your competence or confidence, that means you're good.
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Let me tell you that language is very important.
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But you speak good English does not mean you will do global business, right?
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Mao Zedong, he made a speech here, right?
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Mao Zedong does not speak English.
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Nixon did not speak Chinese, but these all the two guys made a global deal.
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China, U .S are working together.
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It's the vision.
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It's the belief that you have. that changed the world.
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But let me tell you other thing.
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Language is so important.
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It helped me a lot.
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Because of artificial intelligence, in the future, you don't, people say, I don't need to learn English or Russian or Japanese.
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Something a cheaper here can translate quickly.
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No, it's not about language.
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It's about the culture.
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When you learn the other language, you start to understand the other culture.
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You start to appreciate, respect the other culture.
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When you appreciate, respect the other culture, you will be respected and appreciated by the others.
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Then you can work together.
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I learned my English by myself when I was a child.
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I never got one day English training class outside China,
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but I think I understand the Western culture much more better than those Chinese students study outside.
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Because I'm not learning language, I'm learning culture.
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When you respect the other culture, when you appreciate the other culture,
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it's easy to make friends.
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If you don't like the other culture, you will never make friends.
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If you don't have friends, how can you do business?
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So, I would say language helped me a lot.
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But most things helped me is my respect for the different culture.
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I wish I could speak Russian.
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The more I come here, the more I learn a lot.
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I asked one of the Russian guy why you know Russian too tough
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and Chinese too gentle how can they mix together
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and he asked it very good and he said Jack this country is
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so cold we have to be tough my city Hanzo is
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so good weather so we to be tough yeah so if you
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if you have to do everything with a translator no good of course sometimes you have to right
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but if you can't understand a language
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that can communicate it's easy for you to communicate easy to understand
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and be understood if you're good at marketing normally you're not a good at invention
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so people need to work it together
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if you have a great invention you are extremely fun
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and good at invention and creative technology must find good business people to partner
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and finding good so like me I know little about technology today i'm
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so happy we don't use pc the only thing i can use my pc
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and send receive email and browse i don't know how to use today i'm happy we all use a mobile phone
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i'm not a technology guy but i know if we if i want to if we want to realize our dream team.
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We must have the technology.
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But if I don't know the technology, we should invite the best engineers and scientists.
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I work with them.
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I listen to them.
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Nobody can do anything.
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What you should do is always form a team.
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I think it is very difficult to make an exact company like Alibaba.
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Again, you can make a company better than Alibaba.
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But it will be difficult to make exact business model.
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Our model, I will not say be great, but it's very workable.
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Our model, because of 18 years, especially for the first 10 years, nobody believe it.
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Everybody say, Jack Ma is stupid, crazy, doing something that will never make money.
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So the smart people, rich people, never be our competitors. That gives us chance.
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So, finding good partner, find good team,
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and always focus on the things that you are good at.
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Focus on the things that you love.
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And that is what we call a partnership.
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By answering that, I give you advice for those young people.
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If you are 20 to 30 years old, please find a good boss,
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not necessarily a good company.
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Learn from the boss, learn how to do it.
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When you are 30 to 40 years old, try to do something yourself, if you really want to try.
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When you're 40 to 50 years old, do things that you are good at.
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After 20 years of learning, you should do something you're good at.
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When you're 50 to 60 years old, spend time supporting young people.
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When you are over 60 years old, spend time with your grandchildren.
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right that is normally a lot of people like that so
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when you are graduate
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when you just in the university don't think about i want resign from the school
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and be another bill gates
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because bill gates left harvard there's only one bill gates in the world
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when you graduate find a company
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and most important find a good boss they can clean you discipline you
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and tell you what is good
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and right it's more important than a good company right of course a good company a good boss even better
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and then continue your life it's all about the partner Thank you.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 359 sentences and 3762 words to shadow. The speech runs for 32:53. The speaker talks at a steady 114 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. 91% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| gate noun | /ˈɡeɪ̯t/ | A doorlike structure outside a house. |
| commerce noun | /ˈkɑ.mɚs/ | The exchange or buying and selling of commodities; especially the exchange of merchandise, on a large scale, between different places or communities; extended… |
| artificial adjective | /ˌɑː.tɪˈfɪʃ.əl/ | Man-made; made by humans; of artifice. |
| competitor noun | /kəmˈpɛt.ɪ.tɚ/ | A person or organization against whom one is competing. |
| invention noun | /ɪnˈvɛnʃən/ | Something invented. |
| belief noun | /bɪˈliːf/ | Mental acceptance of a claim as true. |
| compare verb | /kəmˈpɛɚ/ | To assess the similarities and differences between two or more things [“to compare X with Y”]. Having made the comparison of X with Y, one might have found it… |
| electricity noun | /ɪˌlɛkˈtɹɪsɪti/ | Originally, a property of amber and certain other nonconducting substances to attract lightweight material when rubbed, or the cause of this property; now… |
| solve verb | /sɒlv/ | To find an answer or solution to a problem or question; to work out. |
| succeed verb | /səkˈsiːd/ | To follow something in sequence or time. |
| complain verb | /kəmˈpleɪn/ | To express feelings of pain, dissatisfaction, or resentment. |
| communicate verb | /kəˈmjuːnɪkeɪt/ | To impart or transmit (information or knowledge) to someone; to make known, to tell. |
| innovative adjective | /ˈɪn.əˌveɪtɪv/ | Characterized by the creation of new ideas or inventions. |
| colleague noun | /ˈkɒliːɡ/ | A fellow member of a profession, staff, academic faculty or other organization; an associate, a workmate. |
| calculate verb | /ˈkælkjʊleɪt/ | To determine the value of something or the solution to something by a mathematical process. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| give up verb | To surrender (someone or something); to inform on (someone). | |
| build up verb | To erect; to construct. | |
| take away verb | /ˌteɪk əˈweɪ/ | To remove something and put it in a different place. |
| work together verb | To be coworkers with someone; to share a workspace with someone. | |
| pick up verb | To lift; to grasp and raise. | |
| take up verb | To pick up. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result | If cry can help me, I will cry · if you stay with them you will be |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | was born · be accepted · be helped |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | people who fail · people who made |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 60 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, I'm, you're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: artificial /ˌɑː.tɪˈfɪʃ.əl/, invention /ɪnˈvɛnʃən/, partnership /ˈpɑɹtnɚʃɪp/, examination /ɪɡˌzæm.ɪˈneɪ.ʃən/, imagination /ɪˌmæd͡ʒəˈneɪʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: artificial /ˌɑː.tɪˈfɪʃ.əl/, competitor /kəmˈpɛt.ɪ.tɚ/, electricity /ɪˌlɛkˈtɹɪsɪti/, communicate /kəˈmjuːnɪkeɪt/, innovative /ˈɪn.əˌveɪtɪv/
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 gate, commerce, artificial.
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.