Shadowing Practice: Matilda - By Roald Dahl: Chapters 1 - 3 - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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Hello everybody!
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Today the Bookworms are going to be reading the first few chapters of Matilda by Roald Dahl and illustrated by Quentin Blake.
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It's a funny thing about mothers and fathers.
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Even when their own child is the most disgusting little blister you could ever imagine, they still think that he or she is wonderful.
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Some parents go further.
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They become so blinded by adoration, they manage to convince themselves their child has qualities of genius.
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Well, there is nothing very wrong with all this.
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It's the way of the world.
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It is only when the parents begin telling us about the brilliance of their own revolting offspring that we start shouting, Bring us a basin!
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We're going to be sick!
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School teachers suffer a good deal from having to listen to this sort of twaddle from proud parents, but they usually get their own back when the time comes to write the end-of-term reports.
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If I were a teacher, I would cook up some real scorchers for the children of dotting parents.
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Your son, Maximilian, I would write, is a total washout.
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I hope you have a family business you can push him into when he leaves school, because he sure as heck won't get a job anywhere else.
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Or if I were feeling lyrical that day, I might write, It is a curious truth that grasshoppers have their hearing organs in the sides of the abdomen.
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Your daughter, Vanessa, judging by what she's learned in this term, has no hearing organs at all.
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I might even delve deeper into natural history and say, The periodic cicada spends six years as a grub underground,
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and no more than six days as a free creature of sunlight and air.
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Your son Wilfred has spent six years as a grub in this school, and we are still waiting for him to emerge from the chrysalis.
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A particularly poisonous little girl might sting me into saying, Fiona has the same glacial beauty as an iceberg,
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but unlike the iceberg, she has absolutely nothing below the surface.
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I think I might enjoy writing end-of-term reports for the stinkers in my class.
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But enough of that.
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We have to get on.
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Occasionally, one comes across parents who take the opposite line, who show no interest at all in their children.
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And these, of course, are far worse than the dotting ones.
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Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood were two such parents.
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They had a son called Michael and a daughter called Matilda.
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And the parents looked upon Matilda in a particular as nothing more than such a scab.
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A scab is something you have to put up with until the time comes
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when you pick it off and flick it away.
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Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood looked forward enormously to the time when they could pick their little daughter off and flick her away,
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preferably into the next county or even further than that.
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It is bad enough when parents treat ordinary children as though they were scabs and bunions, but it becomes somehow a lot worse when the child in question is extraordinary,
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and by that I was mean sensitive and brilliant.
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Matilda was both of these things, but above all she was brilliant.
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Her mind was so nibble and she was so quick to learn that her ability should have been obvious, even to the most half-witted of parents.
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But Mr. and Mrs. Wormwood were both so gormless and
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so wrapped up in their own silly little lives that they failed to notice anything unusual about their daughter.
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To tell the truth, I doubt they would have noticed had she crawled into the house with a broken leg.
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Matilda's brother, Michael, was a perfectly normal boy.
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But the sister, as I said, was something to make your eyes pop.
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By the age of one and a half, her speech was perfect and she knew as many words as most grown-ups.
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The parents, instead of applauding her, called her a noisy chatterbox and told her sharply that small girls should be seen and not heard.
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By the time she was three, Matilda had taught herself to read by studying newspapers and magazines that lay around the house.
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At the age of four, she could read fast and well, and she naturally began hankering after books.
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The only book in the whole of this enlightened household was something called Easy Cooking, belonging to her mother.
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And when she had read this from cover to cover and had learned all the recipes by heart, she decided she wanted something more interesting.
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Daddy, she said, do you think you could buy me a book?
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A book? he said.
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What do you want a flaming book for?
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To read, Daddy.
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What's wrong with the telly?
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For heaven's sake, we've got a lovely telly with a 12-inch screen, and now you come asking for a book?
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You're getting spoiled, my girl.
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Nearly every weekday afternoon, Matilda was left alone in the house.
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Her brother, five years older than her, went to school.
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Her father went to work and her mother went out playing bingo in a town eight miles away.
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Mrs. Wormwood was hooked on bingo and play at five afternoons a week.
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On the afternoon of the day when her father had refused to buy her a book, Matilda set out all by herself to walk to the public library in the village.
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When she arrived, she introduced herself to the librarian, Mrs. Phelps.
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She asked if she might sit a while and read a book.
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Mrs. Phelps, slightly taken aback at the arrival of such a tiny girl, unaccompanied by a parent, nevertheless told her she was very welcome.
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Where are the children's books, please?
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Matilda asked.
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They're over there, on those lower shelves, Mrs. Phelps told her.
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Would you like me to help you find a nice one with lots of pictures in it?
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No, thank you, Matilda said.
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I'm sure I can manage.
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From then on, every afternoon, as soon as her mother had left for bingo, Matilda would toddle down to the library.
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The walk took only ten minutes
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and this allowed her two glorious hours sitting quietly by herself in a cozy corner devouring one book after another.
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When she had read every single children's book in the place, she started wandering around in search of something else.
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Mrs. Phelps, who had been watching her with fascination for the past few weeks, now got up from her desk and went over to her.
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Can I help you, Matilda? she asked.
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I'm wondering what to read next, Matilda said.
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I finished all the children's books.
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You mean you looked at the pictures?
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Yes, but I've read the books as well.
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Mrs. Phelps looked down at Matilda from her great height, and Matilda looked right back up at her.
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I thought some were very poor, Matilda said, but others were lovely.
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I liked the secret garden best of all.
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It was full of mystery.
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The mystery of the room behind the closed door and the mystery of the garden behind the big wall.
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Mrs. Phelps was stunned.
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Exactly how old are you, Matilda? she asked.
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Four years and three months, Matilda said.
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Mrs. Phelps was more stunned than ever, but she had the sense not to show it.
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What sort of a book would you like to read next?
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She asked.
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Matilda said, I would like a really good one that grown-ups read.
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A famous one.
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I don't know any names.
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Mrs. Swelps looked along the shelves, taking her time.
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She didn't quite know what to bring out.
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How?
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She asked herself.
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Does one choose a famous grown-up book for a four-year-old girl?
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Her first thought was to pick a young teenager's romance of the kind that is written for the 15-year-old schoolgirls.
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But for some reason, she found herself instinctively walking past the particular shelf.
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Try this, she said at last.
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It's very famous and very good.
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If it's too long for you, just let me know and I'll find something shorter and a bit easier.
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Great Expectations, Matilda read, by Charles Dickens.
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I'd love to try it.
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I must be mad, Mrs. Phelps told herself, but to Matilda she said.
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Of course you may try it.
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Over the next few afternoons, Mrs. Phelps could hardly take her eyes from the small girl
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sitting for hour after hour in the big armchair at the far end of the room with the book on her lap.
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It was very necessary to rest, it on the lap because it was too heavy for her to hold up, which meant she had to sit leaning forward in order to read.
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And a strange sight it was, the tiny dark-haired person sitting there with her feet nowhere near touching the floor,
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totally absorbed in the wonderful adventures of Pip and old Miss Havisham,
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and her cobwebbed house and by the spell of magic that Dickens the great storyteller had woven with his words.
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The only movement from the reader was the lifting of the hand every now and then to turn over a page,
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and Mrs. Phelps always felt sad when the time came for her to cross the floor and say, It's ten to five, Matilda.
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During the first week of Matilda's visit, Mrs. Phelps had said to her, Does your mother walk you down here every day and then take you home?
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My mother goes to Aylesbury every afternoon to play bingo, Matilda had said.
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She doesn't know I come here.
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But that's surely not right, Mrs. Phelps said.
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I think you'd better ask her.
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I'd rather not, Matilda said.
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She doesn't encourage reading books, nor does my father.
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But what do they expect you to do every afternoon in an empty house?
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Just mooch around and watch the telly?
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I see.
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She doesn't really care what I do, Matilda said, a little sadly.
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Mrs. Phelps was concerned about the child's safety on the walk through the fairly busy village High Street
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and the crossing of the road, but she decided not to interfere.
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Within a week, Matilda had finished Great Expectations, which in that edition contained 411 pages.
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I loved it, she said to Mrs. Phelps.
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Has Mr. Dickens written any others?
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A great number, said that astound Mrs. Phelps.
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Shall I choose you another?
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Over the next six months, under Mrs. Phelps' watchful and compassionate eye,
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Matilda read the following books. by H.G.
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Wells, The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway, The Sound and the Furry by William Faulkner, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steakman,
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The Good Companions by J.B.
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Presley, Brighton Rock by Graham Greene, Animal Farm by George Orwell.
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It was a formidable list and by now Mrs. Phelps was filled with wonder and excitement,
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but it was probably a good thing that she did not allow herself to be completely carried away by it all.
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Almost anyone else witnessing the achievements of this small child would have been tempted to make a great fuss
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and shout the news all over the village and beyond.
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But not so, Mrs. Phelps.
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She was someone who minded her own business
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and she had long since discovered it was seldom worthwhile to interfere with other people's children.
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Mr. Hemingway says a lot of things I don't understand, Matilda said to her, especially about men and women, but I loved it all the same.
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The way he tells it, I feel I am right there on the spot watching it all happen.
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A fine writer will always make you feel that, Mrs. Phelps said, and don't worry about the bits you can't understand.
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Sit back and allow the words to wash around you like music.
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I will, I will.
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Did you know, Mrs. Phelps said, that public libraries like this allow you to borrow books and take them home?
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I didn't know that, Matilda said.
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Could I do it?
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Of course, Mrs. Phelps said.
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When you have chosen the book you want, bring it to me so I can make a note of it and it's yours for two weeks.
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You can take more than one if you wish.
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From then on, Matilda would visit the library only once a week in order to take out new books
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and return the old ones.
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Her own small bedroom now became her reading room and there she would sit and read most afternoons, often with a mug of hot chocolate beside her.
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She was not quite tall enough to reach things around the kitchen, but she kept a small box in the outhouse,
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which she brought in and stood on in order to get whatever she wanted.
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Mostly it was hot chocolate she made, warming the milk in a saucepan on the stove before mixing it.
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Occasionally, she made Bovril or Ovaltine.
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It was pleasant to take her a hot drink up there to her room
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and have it beside her as she sat in her silent room reading in the empty house in the afternoons.
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The books transported her into new worlds and introduced her to amazing people who lived exciting lives.
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She went on olden days sailing ships with Joseph Conrad, she went to Africa with Ernest Hemingway, and came to India with Rudyard Kipling.
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She traveled all over the world while sitting in her little room in an English village.
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Chapter 2.
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Mr. Wormwood, the Great Car Dealer Matilda's parents owned quite a nice house with three bedrooms upstairs.
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While on the ground floor there was a dining room and a living room and a kitchen.
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Her father was a dealer in second-hand cars and it seemed he did pretty well at it.
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Sawdust, he would say proudly, is one of the great secrets of my success.
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And it costs me nothing.
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I get free from the sawmill.
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What do you use it for?
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Matilda asked him.
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Ha! the father said.
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Wouldn't you like to know?
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I don't see how sodas can help you to sell second-hand cars, daddy.
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That's because you're an ignorant little twit, the father said.
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His speech was never very delicate, but Matilda was used to it.
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She also knew that he liked to boast and she would egg him on shamelessly.
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You must be very clever to find a use for something that costs nothing, she said.
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I wish I could do it.
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You couldn't, the father said.
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You're too stupid, but I don't mind telling young Mike here about it, seeing he'll be joining me in the business one day.
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Ignoring Matilda, he turned to his son and said, I'm always glad to buy a car
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when some fool has been crashing the gear so badly they're all worn out and rattle like mad.
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I get it cheap, Then all I do is mix a lot of sawdust with the oil in the gearbox
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and it runs as sweet as a nut.
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How long will it run like that before it starts rattling again?
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Matilda asked him.
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Long enough for the buyers to get a good distance away, the father said, running about a hundred miles.
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But that's dishonest, Daddy, Matilda said.
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It's cheating.
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No one ever got rich being honest, the father said.
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Customers are there to be diddled.
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Mr. Wormwood was a small, ratty-looking man whose front teeth stuck out underneath a thin, ratty mustache.
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He liked to wear jackets with large, brightly-colored cheeks, and he sparted ties that were usually yellow or pale green.
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Now take mileage, for instance, he went on.
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Anyone who's buying a second-hand car, the first thing he wants to know is how many miles it's done, right?
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Right, the son said.
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So I buy an old dump that's got about 150,000 miles on the clock.
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I get it cheap, but no one's going to buy it with a mileage like that, are they?
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And these days, you can't just take the speedometer out and fiddle the numbers back like you're supposed to 10 years ago.
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They fixed it so it's impossible to tamper with it unless you're a ruddy watchmaker or something.
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So what do I do?
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I use my brains.
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Laddie, that's what I do.
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How?
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Young Michael asked, fascinated.
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He seemed to have inherited his father's love of crookery.
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I sit down and say to myself,
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how can I convert a mild reading of 150,000 into only 10,000 without taking the speedometer to pieces?
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Well, if I were to run the car backwards for long enough, then obviously that would do it.
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The numbers would click backwards, wouldn't they?
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But who's going to drive a flaming car in reverse for thousands and thousands of miles?
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You couldn't do it.
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Of course you couldn't do it, young Michael said.
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So I scratched my head, the father said.
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I used my brain.
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When you've been given a fine brain like I have, you've got to use it.
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And all of a sudden, the answer hits me.
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I tell you, I felt exactly like that other brilliant fellow must have fell when he discovered penciling.
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Eureka!
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I cried.
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I've got it.
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What did you do, Dad?
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The son asked him.
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The speedometer, Mr. Warmore said, is run off a cable that is coupled up to one of the front wheels.
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So I disconnect the cable where it joins the front wheel.
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Next, I get one of those high-speed electric wheels and couple
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that up to the end of the cable in such a way that when the drill turns, it turns me the cable backwards.
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You got me so far?
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You following me?
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Yes, Daddy, young Michael said.
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These drills run at a tremendous speed, the father said.
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So when I switch on the drill, the mileage numbers on the speedo spin backwards at a fantastic rate.
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I can knock 50,000 miles off the clock in a few minutes with my high-speed electric drill.
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And by the time I finished, the car's only done 10,000 and it's ready for sale.
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She's almost new, I said to the customer.
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She's hardly done 10, though.
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Belongs to an old lady who can only use it once a week for shopping.
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Can you really turn the mileage back with an electric drill?
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Young Michael asked.
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I'm telling you trade secrets, the father said.
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So don't go you talking about this to anyone else.
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You don't want me putting in a jug, do you?
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I won't tell a soul, the boy said.
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Do you do this to many cars, Dad?
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Every single car that comes through my hands gets the treatment, the father said.
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They all have their mileage cut to under 10, though, before they offer it for sale.
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And to think I've invented that all by myself, he added proudly.
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It's made me admit, Matilda, who had been listening closely, said.
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But Daddy, that's even more dishonest than the sawdust.
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It's disgusting.
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You're cheating people who trust you.
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If you don't like it, then don't eat the food in this house, the father said.
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It's bought with the profits.
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It's dirty money, Matilda said.
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I hate it.
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Two red spots appear on the father's cheeks.
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Who the heck do you think you are?
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He shouted.
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The Archbishop of Sancherbury or something, preaching to me about honesty?
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You're just an ignorant little squirt who hasn't the foggiest idea.
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What you're talking about?
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Quite right, Harry, the mother said.
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And to Matilda, she said, You've got a nerve talking to your father like that.
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Now keep your nasty mouth shut so we can all watch this program in peace.
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They were in the living room eating their suppers on their knees in front of the telly.
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The suppers were TV dinner in flopping aluminum containers with the separate compartments for the stewed meats, the boiled potatoes and the peas.
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Mrs. Wormwood sat munching her meal with her eyes glued to the American soap opera on the screen.
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She was a large woman whose hair was dyed plantainy
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and blonde except where you could see the mousy brown bits growing out from the roots.
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She tuned in bulging fingers where the flesh appears to be
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strapping in all around the body to prevent it from falling out.
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Mommy, Matilda said, would you mind if I ate supper in the dining room so I could read my book?
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The father glanced up sharply.
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I would mind, he snapped.
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Supper is a family gathering and no one leaves the table till it's over.
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But we're not at the table, Matilda said.
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We never are.
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were always eating off our knees and watching the telly.
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What's wrong with watching the telly, may I ask?
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The father said.
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His voice had suddenly become soft and dangerous.
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Matilda didn't trust herself to answer him, so she kept quiet.
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She could feel the anger boiling up inside her.
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She knew it was wrong to hate her parents like this, but she was finding it very hard not to do so.
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The reading she had done had given her a view of life that they had never seen.
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If only she would read at Little Dickens of Kipling, they would soon discover there was more to life than cheating people and watching television.
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Another thing, she resented being told constantly that she was ignorant and stupid when she knew she wasn't.
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The anger inside her went on boiling and boiling and as she lay in bed that night, she made a decision.
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She decided that every time her father and her mother was beastly to her, she would get her own back in some way or another.
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A small victory or two would help her to tolerate their idices and would stop her from going crazy.
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You must remember that she was still hardly five years old
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and it is not easy for somebody as small as that to score points against an all-powerful grown-up.
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Even so, she was determined to have a go.
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Her father, after what had happened in front of the telly that evening, was first on her list.
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Chapter 3.
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The Hat and the Super Glue.
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The following morning, just before the father left for his beastly second-hand car garage,
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Matilda slipped into the cloakroom and got hold of the hat he wore each day to work.
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She had to stand on her toes
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and reach as high as she could with a walking stick in order to hook the hat off the peg.
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And even then she only just made it.
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The hat itself was one of those flat-topped pork pie jobs with a jay's feather stuck in the hat band
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and Mr. Wormwood was very proud of it.
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He thought it gave him a rakish daring look, especially when he wore it in an angle with his loud check jacket and green tie.
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Matilda, holding the hat in one hand and a thin tube of super glue in the other,
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proceeded to squeeze a line of glue very neatly all around the inside of the rim of the hat.
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Then she carefully hooked the hat back onto the peg with a walking stick.
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She timed this operation very carefully, applying the glue just as her father was getting up from the breakfast table.
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Mr. Wormwood didn't notice anything when he put the hat on, but when he arrived at the garage, he couldn't get it off.
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Super glue is very powerful stuff, so powerful it will make your skin off if you pull too hard.
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Mr. Wormwood did not want it to be scalped, so he had to keep the hat on his head the whole day long.
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Even when putting sawdust in gearboxes and fiddling the mileages off cars with his electric drill.
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In an effort to save face, he adopted a casual attitude, hoping that his staff would think
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that he actually meant to keep his hat on all day long just for the heck of it.
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like gangsters do in the films.
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When he got home that evening, he still couldn't get the hat off.
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Don't be silly, the wife said.
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Come here, I'll take it off for you.
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She gave the hat a sharp yank.
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Mr. Wormwood let out a yell that rattled the window panes.
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Ow!
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He screamed.
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Don't do that!
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Let go!
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You'll take half the skin off my forehead!
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Matilda, nestling in her usual chair, was watching this performance over the rim of her book with some interest.
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What's the matter, Daddy?
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She said.
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Has your head suddenly swollen or something?
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The father glared at his daughter with deep suspicion, but said nothing.
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How could he?
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Mrs. Wormwood said to him.
340
It must be super glue.
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It couldn't be anything else.
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That'll teach you to go playing around with nasty stuff like that.
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I expect you were trying to stick another feather in your hat.
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I haven't touched the flaming stuff.
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Mr. Wormwood shouted.
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He turned and looked again at Matilda, who looked back at him with large, innocent brown eyes.
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Mrs. Wormwood said to him, You should read the label on the tube before you start messing with the dangerous products.
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Always follow the instructions on the label.
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What in heaven's name are you talking about, you stupid witch?
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Mr. Wormwood shouted, clutching the brim off his hat to stop anyone trying to pull it off again.
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Do you think I'm so stupid I'll glue this thing to my head on purpose?
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Matilda said, there's a boy down the road who got some super glue on his finger without knowing, and then he put his finger into his nose.
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Mr. Wormwood jumped.
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What happened to him? he spluttered.
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The finger got stuck inside his nose, Matilda said, and he had to go around like that for a week.
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People kept saying to him, stop picking your nose, and he couldn't do anything about it.
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He looked like an awful fool.
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Serve him right, Mrs. Wormwood said.
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He shouldn't have put his finger out there in the first place.
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It's a nasty habit.
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If all children had super glue put on their fingers, they'd soon stop doing it.
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Matilda said, Growing ups do it too.
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Mommy, I saw you doing it yesterday in the kitchen.
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That's quite enough from you, Mrs. Wormwood said turning pink.
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Mr. Wormwood had to keep his hat on all through supper in front of the television.
366
He looked ridiculous and he stayed very silent.
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When he went up to bed, he tried again to get the thing off, and so did his wife, but it wouldn't budge.
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How am I going to have my shower? he demanded.
369
You'll just have to do without it, won't you? his wife told him.
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And later on, as she watched her skinny little husband skulking around the bedroom in his purple striped pajamas, with a porcupine hat on his head, she thought how stupid he looked.
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Hardly the kind of man a wife dreams about, she told herself.
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Mr. Wormwood discovered that the worst thing about having a permanent hat on his head was having to sleep in it.
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It was impossible to lie comfortably on the pillow.
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Now do stop fussing around, his wife said to him after he had been tossing and churning for about an hour.
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I expect it will be loose by in the morning, and then I'll slip it off easily.
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But it wasn't so loose by morning, and it wouldn't slip off.
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So Mrs. Wormwood took a pair of scissors and cut the thing off his head, bit by bit.
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First the top and then the brim.
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Where the inner band had stuck to the hair all around the sides and back, she had to chop the hair off right to the skin
380
so that he finished up with a bald white ring around his head like some sort of monk.
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And in the front, there was the band stuck directly to the bare skin.
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There remained a whole lot of small patches of brown leathery stuff that no amount of watching would get off.
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At breakfast, Matilda said to him, you must try to get those bits off your head, daddy.
384
It looks as though you've got a little brown insect calling all over you.
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People will think you've got lights.
386
Be quiet, the father snapped.
387
Just keep your nasty mouth shut, will you?
388
All in all, it was most satisfactory exercise, but it was surely too much to hope that he had taught the father a permanent lesson.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This A2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Matilda - By Roald Dahl: Chapters 1 - 3”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: Matilda, father, Wormwood, Phelps. This video has 388 sentences and 4782 words to shadow. The speech runs for 27:30. The speaker talks at a natural 174 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 82% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| glue noun | /ɡlu/ | A hard gelatin made by boiling bones and hides, used in solution as an adhesive; or any sticky adhesive substance. |
| daddy noun | /ˈdædi/ | Also used as a term of address: a father; one's father. |
| drill noun | /dɹɪl/ | A tool or machine used to remove material so as to create a hole, typically by plunging a rotating cutting bit into a stationary workpiece. |
| shout verb | /ʃaʊt/ | To utter a sudden and loud cry, as in joy, triumph, exultation or anger, or to attract attention, to animate others, etc. |
| supper noun | /ˈsʌpɚ/ | An optional light meal consumed shortly before going to bed. |
| mileage noun | /ˈmaɪləd͡ʒ/ | The total distance travelled in miles or in air miles. |
| finger noun | /ˈfɪŋɡɚ/ | A slender jointed extremity of the human hand, (often) exclusive of the thumb, and the corresponding part, irrespective of including a thumb, in many other… |
| nasty adjective | /ˈnæs.ti/ | Dirty, filthy. |
| backward adjective | /ˈbækwɚd/ | Situated toward or at the rear of something. |
| bingo noun | /ˈbɪŋ.ɡoʊ/ | A game of chance for two or more players, who mark off numbers on a grid as they are announced by the caller; the game is won by the first person to call out… |
| mystery noun | /ˈmɪs.t(ə.)ɹi/ | Something secret or unexplainable; an unknown. |
| hook noun | /hʊk/ | A rod bent into a curved shape, typically with one end free and the other end secured to a rope or other attachment. |
| slip verb | /ˈslɪp/ | To lose one’s traction on a slippery surface; to slide due to a lack of friction. |
| flame noun | /fleɪm/ | The visible part of fire; a stream of burning vapour or gas, emitting light and heat. |
| cheat verb | /ˈt͡ʃiːt/ | To violate rules in order to gain, or attempt to gain, advantage from a situation. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| grow up verb | To mature and become an adult. |
| boil up verb | To cook or prepare by boiling. |
| bring out verb | To elicit, evoke, or emphasize (a particular quality). |
| carried away adjective | Made excessively emotional or excited, so that one goes too far. |
| come across verb | To change sides; to cross over to work for the opposition. |
| come through verb | To come into a room or other space through a door or passageway. |
| drink up verb | To drink completely; to finish (one's drink). |
| fall out verb | To come out of something by falling. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- What do you want a flaming book for?
- You mean you looked at the pictures?
- Wouldn't you like to know?
- What's wrong with watching the telly, may I ask?
- You'll just have to do without it, won't you?
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 I were a teacher, I would cook · If only she would read |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | should be seen · was left · was hooked |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | has spent · I've read · have chosen |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | someone who minded · people who lived · people who trust |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 77 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, you're, couldn't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: thin /ˈθɪn/, feather /ˈfɛðə/, nevertheless /ˌnɛvɚðəˈlɛs/, gather /ˈɡæðɚ/, underneath /ˌʌndɚˈniθ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: shout /ʃaʊt/, shelf /ʃɛlf/, occasionally /əˈkeɪʒənəli/, garage /ɡəˈɹɑʒ/, sharply /ˈʃɑɹpli/
- Long words — get the stress right: occasionally /əˈkeɪʒənəli/, naturally /ˈnæt͡ʃ.(ə.)ɹə.li/, ridiculous /ɹɪˈdɪk.jə.ləs/, unusual /ʌnˈjuːʒ(u)əl/, ordinary /ˈɔɹdɪnɛɹi/
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 glue, daddy, drill.
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.