Shadowing Practice: Mooncakes take inspiration from tò he | Vietnam Today - Learn English Speaking with Video
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26 sentences
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as the mid -autumn festival approaches traditional vietnamese cultural elements are
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finding new forms in familiar products this year a collection of moon cake creations called hon viet
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or the essence of vietnam takes the shape of flower vases drawing inspiration from traditional pottery
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and the folk craft of Tò Hè.
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At first glance, this looks like a lifelike flower vase.
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But the vase itself is actually made entirely from baked mooncake with mung bean filling and salted egg yolk.
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Even the flower in my hand right now is also crafted with edible ingredients.
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After more than three months of research, Thuy Duong created mooncakes inspired by Ba Chang and Phu Lan ceramics.
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She used nearly 70 kilograms of mung beans to create edible flower vases featuring lotus and banana flowers.
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Each vase takes one to two hours to shape and more than an hour to bake.
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Over the three months of development, we remade the vase more than a hundred times.
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For the lotus petals alone, we had to discard, and we make more than 200 petals.
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In total, we made around 300 to 400 petals to complete one vase.
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The details are so precise.
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When I first saw it, I was immediately impressed.
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I thought, how can it look so real?
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According to Thùy Dương, the team always prioritizes traditional Vietnamese cultural materials in its creative products.
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This year, they have combined baked mooncakes with tò he dough, a traditional Vietnamese material.
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I've worked in the baking industry for many years, but I usually use imported materials.
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Vietnam has tò he dough, which is made from rice flour and is a well -known traditional material.
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He added ingredients such as malt syrup to the traditional dough to make it softer
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and easier to roll into the petals we wanted.
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Bringing tò he into new products not only encourages creativity within the craft,
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but also helps bringing these cultural values closer to public, especially younger generations.
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From the shape of the vase and the flowers to the materials used in every detail, traditional elements are brought into a mooncake in a new form.
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The creation not only gives the mooncake a distinctive appearance, but also brings familiar images and values of Vietnamese folk culture into modern life.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 26 sentences and 376 words to shadow. The speech runs for 2:50. The speaker talks at a steady 133 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. Only 71% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| vase noun | /veɪ̯s/ | An upright open container used mainly for displaying fresh, dried, or artificial flowers. |
| flower noun | /ˈfloʊɚ/ | A reproductive structure in angiosperms (flowering plants), often conspicuously colourful and typically including sepals, petals, and either or both stamens… |
| bake verb | /beɪk/ | To cook (something) in an oven (for someone). |
| craft noun | /ˈkɹæft/ | Ability, skillfulness, especially skill in making plans and carrying them into execution; dexterity in managing affairs, adroitness, practical cunning… |
| dough noun | /doʊ/ | A thick, malleable substance made by mixing flour with other ingredients such as water, eggs, or butter, that is made into a particular form and then baked. |
| element noun | /ˈɛləmənt/ | One of the simplest or essential parts or principles of which anything consists, or upon which the constitution or fundamental powers of anything are based. |
| folk noun | /foʊk/ | People, persons. |
| bean noun | /ˈbi(ː)n/ | Any plant of several genera of the taxonomic family Fabaceae that produces large edible seeds or edible seedpods. |
| ingredient noun | /ɪnˈɡɹiːdi.ənt/ | One of the substances present in a mixture, especially food. |
| edible adjective | /ˈɛdəbəl/ | Capable of being eaten without harm; suitable for consumption; innocuous to humans. |
| lotus noun | /ˈloʊtəs/ | Any member of the genus Nelumbo of aquatic plants in the family Nelumbonaceae. |
| encourage verb | /ɪnˈkʌɹ.ɪd͡ʒ/ | To mentally support; to motivate, give courage, hope or spirit. |
| inspiration noun | /ˌɪn.spɪˈɹeɪ.ʃən/ | The drawing of air into the lungs, accomplished in mammals by elevation of the chest walls and flattening of the diaphragm, as part of the act of breathing. |
| autumn noun | /ˈɔtəm/ | Traditionally the third of the four seasons, when deciduous trees lose their leaves, and temperatures and daylight hours decrease; typically regarded as… |
| combine verb | /kəmˈbaɪn/ | To bring (two or more things or activities) together; to unite. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | is actually made · is also crafted · is made |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have combined · I've worked |
| Obligation: must / have to / need to saying that something is necessary | had to discard · has tò he |
Pronunciation to watch
- Long words — get the stress right: ingredient /ɪnˈɡɹiːdi.ənt/, inspiration /ˌɪn.spɪˈɹeɪ.ʃən/, creativity /kri.eɪˈtɪv.ᵻ.ti/, prioritize /pɹaɪˈɒɹ.ə.taɪz/
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 vase, flower, bake.
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.