Shadowing Practice: Introduction to Economics Part 2 - Professor Ryan - Learn English Speaking with Video
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The scientific study of how individuals, organizations, and societies deal with.
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OK, what's happening over here?
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Well, this one's going to be really quick.
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Basically, this over here is what differentiates microeconomics from macroeconomics.
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And you are only doing one of these two this semester.
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Okay?
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Now, microeconomics focuses on individuals, and organizations.
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And macroeconomics focuses on whole societies.
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Okay?
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So, microeconomics, if this class, If what you're in right now is a microeconomics class, you're going to be learning just about individuals and organizations.
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If what you're in right now is a macroeconomics class, then we're going to spend the entire semester talking about societies, cities, governments mostly.
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How do cities make decisions about the problem of scarcity?
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How do states make decisions?
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Mostly what we would talk about is how the country, and in particular the United States,
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how it deals with the problem of scarcity on a large scale with all of the people, not just a handful of the people,
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not just 20 % of the people, not just 10 % of the people, but they're making decisions about scarcity for all of the people.
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Whereas in microeconomics, if this is a microeconomics class, we're going to talk a lot about you
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and how you as an individual make decisions or how how your business or the company that you work for,
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organizations, how they make decisions about the problem of scarcity, okay?
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So economics is the scientific study, so we've got assumptions and conclusions about how individuals,
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organizations, or societies, that would split up whether we're dealing with microeconomics or macroeconomics, how they deal with the problem of scarcity.
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So in economics, now there's lots of different decisions that we can talk about, but we focus on three main questions in the study of economics.
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And those three main questions are, first main question, and we call these the three economic questions.
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You can actually Google that if you want to.
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Okay, so the three economic questions.
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And those three economic questions are what?
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Two is how, and the third question is who or whom.
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I'll just say who for now, but it's who or whom.
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Now these three economic questions are answered, or excuse me, the question
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that is actually asked is going to be a different question whether you are studying microeconomics or macroeconomics. And
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so we're going to get into more detail on these three
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questions as we move into the next part of this lesson where we focus on,
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where I'm going to take you into the actual subject we're talking about this semester.
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So we'll talk about these three economic questions again
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when we get into the next section and break off into either microeconomics or macroeconomics, OK?
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Alright, so, but what does deal with mean?
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So, what generally refers to the idea of what is it that we should do with our resources?
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What should, and normally we focus on production, okay?
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Usually we're dealing with production.
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What should we make?
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Or what should we get?
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What should we focus on?
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What should you do with your money?
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If you're going to get food, should you get food at a restaurant, or what kind of food should you actually get?
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What I just mentioned, that's a how decision.
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But what should we get?
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Should we get food, or maybe we shouldn't get any food at all.
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Maybe we have to make a decision between food and rent, or maybe we have to make a decision between electricity and water.
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Okay?
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What should we be getting with our resources?
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And when we get over here, we're going to be talking a lot about the subject of resources.
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And we can wait on that.
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Alright, how.
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How means how are we going to get the resources?
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How are we going to get what we need?
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Or how are we going to get what we want?
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The how question is usually what's called the, write or buy.
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decision.
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And here's what I mean by that.
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How are we going to deal with this fact that we need food?
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Let's say that you know that you need milk.
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Well, mainly there's two ways of getting milk.
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You can either go to the store and buy milk
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or you can have a cow in your backyard and you can go milk the cow yourself.
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That is called the make or buy decision.
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And all economic agents, all individuals, organizations and societies, they have to decide when they need something,
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are they going to get it by making it themselves or are they going to get it by buying it?
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Here's an interesting, I think it's an interesting example.
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For example, when I was in college, I went to Palm Beach Atlantic University,
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and when I was in college and I lived in my dorm in the Towers residence hall, I wanted a desk.
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I had two choices.
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I could go to the store and buy a desk, or I could make a desk myself.
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Well ultimately I decided to make the desk, and here's why.
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Every desk that I saw in the stores did not have what it was that I wanted.
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I wanted a certain number of drawers.
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I wanted to fit certain things into the drawers.
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I wanted the desk to have a certain depth to it.
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I wanted it to be high enough.
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All the desks that I saw
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that I could buy all seemed to be a little too small and they didn't have all the features that I wanted.
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And therefore, because what I wanted was a desk with certain features,
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I decided that how I was going to get that desk was by making the desk.
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Now, what turned out is it cost about twice as much money,
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maybe more, to make the desk I wanted than it would have cost for me to just buy it.
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So going back in time, I might have decided to just buy the desk instead of making the desk.
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But it was a good desk.
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I used it a lot, and it served me really, really well.
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But that was me dealing with a problem.
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And the problem that I had was that I needed a desk.
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I needed some place to put my computer to be able to do work.
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I needed, there was a lot I needed with this, well, for college, for succeeding in my classes.
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All right, and then who.
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The question of who is a question of who is going to get the stuff.
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Let's say that you're making a decision, I don't know, let's say you have a company, and your company needs some new computers.
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And you have 500 employees, but you're only going to get a hundred computers.
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Well, you have to decide who's going to get those hundred computers,
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because there's going to be 400 less happy people if they didn't get the computer.
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In fact, this reminds me of, there was an episode of, I don't know if you ever watched the television show, The Office.
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There was this episode where the office manager, Pam, she had gotten a new computer for one of the employees.
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And that employee was very happy that they had gotten this new computer.
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And then there was another employee in the office
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and he got really upset that he did not get a new computer when the other person had.
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And so the whole episode, one of the subplots of the whole episode was him trying to figure out how he could get a new computer
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from Pam or from the resources that they had.
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So Pam, the office manager, was dealing with this problem that Andy wanted a new computer even though she had gotten a new computer for Aaron.
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And so that was kind of funny.
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And so the idea here is, in economics, we have to decide, once we get some kind of resource, once we get computers for the office,
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or once we get a brand new drill or saw, we have to decide who's going to get it.
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You know, individuals, families have to make this decision.
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You know, let's say you get a brand new phone, right?
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Okay, your dad gets a brand new phone.
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And you're like, man, I want that brand new phone.
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And so you go to your dad and you say, hey, dad, I know you got a brand new phone.
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Can I have that phone?
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And your dad's like, no, you're getting my old phone.
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I'm getting the new phone.
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And you're like, man, I want the new phone.
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I don't want your old phone.
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But you actually really liked your dad's old phone three weeks ago.
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You're like, man, my dad's phone is way better than mine.
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I wish I could have my dad's phone.
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And then your dad, your dad, who is an individual running a household.
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So by the way, sometimes individuals, we refer to them as households because sometimes they're small groups of individuals.
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Your dad is in charge in this particular case, maybe your mom's in charge,
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but your dad's in charge of dealing with this problem of scarcity in his family.
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And so he's going to decide this who question.
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Dealing with the problem of scarcity, which we'll get to in a second, focuses on these three economic questions and you ask these all the time,
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what am I going to wear today?
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How am I going to wear it?
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and who is going to see me wearing it.
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I don't know.
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That's kind of a stretch.
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But anyway, you have to make these decisions all the time.
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You have to decide on, you know, which car, if you're going to buy a car.
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You know, or first of all, what is, maybe you don't even need a car.
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You decide you need a car because you don't want to ride the train, okay?
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Okay, so now I've made that decision.
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How am I going to get a car?
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Am I going to make the car or buy the car?
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I'm going to buy the car.
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And who am I going to, I don't know, who am I going to buy the car from?
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Or when I get the car, who's going to drive it?
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You have to be really kind of flexible.
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But these are the three main economic questions.
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How individuals, organizations, or societies deal with.
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So what's happening here?
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Ultimately, dealing with means making decisions.
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Making decisions.
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And every single decision that you make in your life is an economic decision.
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You bring me any decision.
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You can text me, email me a decision.
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You can call me and say, here's a decision, and I will tell you how that decision is an economic decision.
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All of the decisions in the universe are economic decisions, and as I said, I'll explain to you why if you don't already understand.
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Hopefully by the end of this semester, you will fully understand why every decision is an economic decision.
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So what we fundamentally have here is that economics is the scientific study of decision -making.
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Why?
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Because making a decision means dealing with the problem of scarcity.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “Introduction to Economics Part 2 - Professor Ryan”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: decision, economic, desk, computer, individual. This video has 157 sentences and 1874 words to shadow. The speech runs for 11:54. The speaker talks at a natural 157 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 89% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow. 35 of its 157 sentences are questions, so it is good practice for question intonation and short answers.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| desk noun | /dɛsk/ | A table, frame, or case, in past centuries usually with a sloping top but now usually with a flat top, for the use of writers and readers. It often has a… |
| resource noun | /ɹɪˈzɔːs/ | Something that one uses to achieve an objective, e.g. raw materials or personnel. |
| economics noun | /ˌiːkəˈnɒmɪks/ | The study of resource and wealth allocation, consumption, and distribution, of capital and investment, and of management of the factors of production. |
| semester noun | /sɪˈmɛstɚ/ | Half of a school year (US) or academic year such as autumn or spring semester. |
| household adjective | /ˈhaʊshoʊld/ | Belonging to the same house and family. |
| refer verb | /ɹɪˈfɜː/ | To direct the attention of (someone toward something). |
| drawer noun | /dɹɔɹ/ | An open-topped box that can be slid in and out of the cabinet that contains it, used for storing clothing or other articles. |
| lesson noun | /ˈlɛs.ən/ | A section of learning or teaching into which a wider learning content is divided. |
| 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… |
| whereas | /(h)wɛɹˈæz/ | In contrast; whilst on the contrary; although. |
| conclusion noun | /kənˈkluːʒən/ | The end, finish, close or last part of something. |
| remind verb | /ɹəˈmaɪnd/ | To cause one to experience a memory (of someone or something); to bring to the notice or consideration (of a person). |
| residence noun | /ˈɹɛz.ɪ.dəns/ | The place where one lives (resides); one's home. |
| stretch verb | /stɹɛt͡ʃ/ | To lengthen by pulling. |
| succeed verb | /səkˈsiːd/ | To follow something in sequence or time. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| figure out verb | To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce. |
| get over verb | To overcome. |
| split up verb | Cease to be together, break apart from the group. |
| turn out verb | To end up; to result. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- What should we focus on?
- What should you do with your money?
- What should we be getting with our resources?
- How are we going to get what we need?
- Can I have that phone?
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 40 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, don't, we're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: conclusion /kənˈkluːʒən/, assumption /əˈsʌm(p).ʃ(ə)n/, differentiate /dɪf.əˈɹɛn.ʃi.eɪt/
- Long words — get the stress right: economics /ˌiːkəˈnɒmɪks/, electricity /ɪˌlɛkˈtɹɪsɪti/, differentiate /dɪf.əˈɹɛn.ʃi.eɪt/, microeconomics /ˌmaɪkɹəʊˌɛkəˈnɒnɪks/, macroeconomics /ˌmæk.ɹoʊˌiː.kəˈnɒ.mɪks/
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 desk, resource, economics.
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.