Shadowing Practice: My Favorite Greek Myths [No AI] - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Once upon a time, long before men wrote history on paper, the Mediterranean was ruled not by heroes, but by monsters and the kings who made them.
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It began on the island of Crete, where an old king's death left behind a golden crown and three rival brothers.
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Minos, Radimantus and Sarpedon were no ordinary brothers.
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Their mother was a mortal princess who had caught the attention of Zeus himself.
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But since daddy Zeus is a horrible father, the boys instead had been raised by the late king of Crete as his own.
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They each laid claim to the empty throne and tore the kingdom apart fighting over it.
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Minos, the oldest and most ruthless of the three, knew that blood alone would not win him the crown.
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So, to scare his brothers away forever, he hatched a dangerous plan.
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He dragged everyone to the edge of the dark ocean, fell to his knees in the cold water, raised his hands to the sky and prayed aloud to Poseidon.
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Grant me a sign of my divine right to rule, and the moment it touches the shore, I will sacrifice sex and your honor.
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Within moments, the ocean turned black.
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The waves roared, and out of the menacing depths stepped a creature no mortal had ever seen.
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A massive ball, white as bone, its coat glowing like moonlight on water.
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It was an undeniable miracle.
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Terrified by this show of divine favor, Radimantus and Sarpedon abandoned the war and fled into exile, leaving Minos to claim the throne alone.
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Minos had won the crown.
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But as he stood before this magnificent beast, greed took hold.
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The bull was simply too beautiful to slaughter.
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He secretly hid Poseidon's white bull among his personal herds, and dragged an ordinary cheap farm bull to the altar to sacrifice instead.
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Deep beneath the waves, Poseidon saw the lie and answered it with a beast that would tear the kingdom apart.
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Mythologically facts, Bart.. actually, never mind.
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Pacific?
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What is it?
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Nothing.
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Just go back to sleep.
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My queen?
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what are you all right yeah yes of course poseidon could
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have killed minus he could have sunk his ships destroyed his palace
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or simply taken back the crown he'd helped him win instead poseidon chose something far more personal
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The Queen had summoned Daedalus, the greatest craftsman in Crete,
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with a rather unusual request.
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She wanted him to build a life -sized wooden cow, hollow on the inside, covered in real cowhide and large enough for a person to climb inside.
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Huh?
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Gross!
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Passive knew what she was asking was insane, but she woke up thinking about that bull, spent every meal thinking about it,
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and even standing beside her own husband couldn't get it out of her head.
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And every day, the obsession grew stronger.
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Eww, disgusting!
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Unfortunately for Daedalus, this wasn't really a request.
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okay just a bit further now do you know how heavy this thing is we can still turn around no
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pacify go whatever poseidon has done to you this this isn't you i know
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you better keep this to yourself all this work you can't even watch Oh, what has this world turned into?
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And what happened next?
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Well, it's probably the reason nobody ever made this all into a Disney movie.
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What Pesifei held in her arms was neither fully human nor fully beast.
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He had the tiny body of a newborn boy and the head of a bull.
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Pesifei named him Astarion.
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But the world would come to know him by another name, the Minotaur.
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Give it to me.
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No. Pacifica.
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No. Give me that thing.
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He's just a child.
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He's an abomination.
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Look at him, Minos.
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I have.
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No, look at him.
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Dad, they're back.
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Again?
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The king wants to see you.
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Of course he does.
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Daedalus was dragged before the king, who was understandably less than thrilled to learn the craftsman had helped his wife sleep with a bull.
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Minos blamed Daedalus for creating the wooden cow.
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Daedalus blamed Minos for angering Poseidon in the first place.
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And after a brief discussion over whose fault this entire mess actually was.
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You built the cow!
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You kept the bull! Is that him?
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His name is Mysterion.
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Then he's a child. For now.
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But Minos had a much bigger problem.
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The same bull that had proven his divine right to rule had now fathered a monster with his wife.
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If the people of Crete ever discovered the truth, his precious crown could be at risk.
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And so Minas needed Astarion to disappear.
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So if you want rid of him, just send him away.
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Someone will find him.
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Then take him somewhere no one goes.
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Someone will follow.
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Then what do you want from me?
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A prison.
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You want me to build a prison for a baby?
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I want Shud to build it before he stops being one.
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A cell?
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He'll break through it.
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A tower?
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Someone could find it.
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Then what exactly are you asking me to build?
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Somewhere with no way out.
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Everything has a way out.
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Then hide it.
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From the baby? From everyone.
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I want corridors that lead nowhere.
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Doors that open into more corridors.
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Turns that lead back to where they began.
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I want anyone who enters to walk until they forget
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stone by stone corridor by corridor daedalus built king minas exactly
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what he had asked for a prison unlike anything the world had ever seen a maze
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so vast and so confusing that entering it was easy.
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Leaving was another matter.
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The Labyrinth.
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And added center, Minos Buried, today's sponsor segment!
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Very friendly fellow.
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And the best part?
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Unlike this labyrinth, entering is completely free.
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Anyway, where were we?
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Ah yes child imprisonment,
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but Astarion didn't remain a child forever.
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The boy grew into a beast, stronger, more violent and increasingly difficult to feed.
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At first, animals were enough, but eventually, it demanded more.
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Where are you taking me?
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Wait!
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Wait!
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Whoa, okay, jump scare.
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Where is this head?
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Okay, maybe it's in the layer below.
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Let me check.
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No, it's still not there.
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It's in the next frame, so maybe it's hidden in another layer?
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No. Okay, we don't have time for this.
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I have to find a replacement real quick.
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Okay, it's not perfect, but it will do.
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Astarion had developed a taste for human flesh.
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At first, Minos fed the monster condemned prisoners and anyone else whose disappearance wouldn't raise too many questions.
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But there were only so many people a king could make disappear inside his own kingdom.
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Sooner or later, King Minos would need to find his victims somewhere else.
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And then, almost as if the gods themselves had provided an answer, Athens.
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gave Minas a reason.
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His human son, Androgios, had traveled to Athens to compete in their games.
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To say he was amazing is an understatement.
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He won each and every game, till jealousy formed in the shape of a blade.
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He was murdered by his rivals in cold blood.
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Minas was overwhelmed with grief and anger.
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The gods had already cursed his family once, leaving one child imprisoned as a beast.
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Now another one had been taken from him, because Athens had failed to protect a royal guest.
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Minos had spent his entire life obsessed with his legitimacy and power.
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There was no world in which he could allow another kingdom to kill a prince of Crete and simply walk away.
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They took my son.
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We were running out of people to feed the beasts.
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Now we know where to find more.
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King Minos gathered his armies and sailed north, determined to make Athens pay for the blood of his son.
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The Athenians fought back, but Minas devastated the surrounding lands
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and called upon his father Zeus to punish the city with plague and famine.
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Eventually, Athens could take no more, and King Aegis surrendered.
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What do you want?
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Justice!
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You called this justice?
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Dorset, they murdered my son!
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And how many sons have you murdered in return?
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Not enough!
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Seven young men!
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Atent began paying for the life of one Cretan prince with the lives of its own children.
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And not one of them ever came back out.
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Nine years later, another 14 were sent.
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And nine years after that, the dreadful black sails returned yet again.
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But this time, things ended up going differently.
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Stop!
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I'll go.
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Theseus.
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Take my name instead.
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You don't know what you're asking.
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I know exactly what I'm asking.
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No. Father.
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I said no. Because this wasn't just some brave Athenian volunteering himself, Theseus was the son of King Agus, the Prince of Athens.
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I will not send my own son to be slaughtered for the death of his.
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You won't, because I'm not going there to die.
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Every man who enters the labyrinth dies.
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Then I'll be the first to come back out.
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Theseus!
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How many more fathers have to stand here and watch their children sail away?
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And you think throwing your life away is going to change that?
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I'm not throwing it away.
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I'm going to kill it.
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You!
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You're going to kill your life?
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And with that, the Prince of Athens willingly sailed towards the same monster that had slaughtered every sacrifice before him.
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And waiting on the other side was the little girl who had once watched
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that very monster disappear behind the doors of the labyrinth.
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The 14 Athenians arrived in Crete expecting to die.
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They were dragged from their ship, marched through the palace gates and presented before King Minas.
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But one of the Athenians stood out.
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The son of the king whose city Minas had spent decades punishing had just winningly delivered himself to his doorstep.
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Theseus' confidence caught the attention of someone else too.
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Princess Ariadne had watched two generations of Athenians disappear into the labyrinth.
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She knew exactly what awaited him inside.
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But unlike every sacrifice before him, Theseus wasn't begging for his life.
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He actually believed he could kill Astarion.
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And for the first time in years, Ariadne began to wonder if there might actually be a way to end all of this.
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My father has kept Asterion inside that labyrinth since he was a child.
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For years I watched him feed animals to him. And prisoners.
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Then your people.
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It has to end.
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Then help me end it.
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That's why I'm here, dumbass.
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Ariadne couldn't fight Astarion herself.
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But she could give Theseus something far more valuable than another sword.
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She knew the man who had designed his prison.
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Princess.
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Oh no. What?
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Nothing good ever happens when this family comes here at night.
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Luckily, the answer to their problem was as simple as a piece of string.
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Theseus wouldn't need to remember every turn he took through the labyrinth
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if he tied one end of the thread to the entrance and unraveled the rest behind him as he went.
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If Theseus manages to slay the man -beast, this would be his way out.
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The next morning, Ariadne secretly handed Theseus the thread before the guards could notice.
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And with that, Theseus had finally had a way into the labyrinth and, assuming he survived what was waiting inside, a way back out.
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Stay far behind me, but don't lose the threat.
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I don't know.
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Oh, my
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God.
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Theseus had done it.
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For 18 years, nobody who entered the Labyrinth had ever returned.
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This time, all 14 would.
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Hello? Is anyone there?
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I'm alive!
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It's done.
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We have to leave.
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Killing Astarion has freed Athens from the demands, but it had also made Theseus and Ariadne two of the most wanted people in Crete.
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They are escaping!
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Sound the alarm!
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Princess Ariadne had chosen her side.
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There was no going back to her father now.
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But before Minas could catch the two, she and Theseus were already disappearing across the Mediterranean, back to Athens.
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But King Minas, his daughter could never have known how to escape the labyrinth on her own.
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There was only one man on Crete who knew its secrets.
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And Minas wasn't about to let the only man who knew its secrets walk free.
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Dad.
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I know.
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He locked Daedalus away, together with his son, Icarus, under constant guard.
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Escaping by land was impossible, Minas controlled the roads.
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Escaping by sea was even worse, Minas controlled that too.
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So that's it?
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We're just going to stay here?
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No. Minus might control the land and the sea, but he didn't control the air.
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And so, the greatest craftsman in Crete began building one final invention.
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Two enormous pairs of wings, made from hundreds of feathers held together with threads and wax.
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But before they left, Daedalus gave his son one final warning.
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Stay close to me.
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Don't fly too low.
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The sea will soak the feathers.
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And don't fly too high.
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The sun will melt the wax.
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And according to the myth, and only because of the myth, because some people tried copying it in real life and that didn't go well, so according to the myth, it worked.
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Father and son flew beyond Minus' reach, leaving Creed and everything Daedalus had built for its king behind them.
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But, for a boy who had spent his life watching his father build impossible things,
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suddenly doing the impossible himself got him aiming for heights too great.
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He forgot his father's warning, and the wax started to melt, causing Icarus to fall into the cold ocean and drown.
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And that is where Daedalus and Icarus' story together came to an end.
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Theseus returned to Athens as the man who had killed the Minotaur and would eventually become its king.
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Ariadne, on the other hand, never returned to her father, also mainly because she got ditched by Theseus on an island and then became a goddess.
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Dess?
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What?
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Daedalus lived on, but without the son, of course, that he escaped Creed with. And Minas?
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He eventually died too.
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I mean, all of them eventually died.
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But he specifically was boiled in a bathtub as he was about to finally get revenge on Daedalus.
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And that, finally, is where the story of the Minotaur comes to an end.
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So yeah, what did we learn today, kids?
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Kids?
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Oh, they are sleeping already.
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Guess it's time for you to go as well, then.
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Just don't stare at the snake lady on the way out unless you want to...
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For the love of...
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B1 speaking lesson is built on the video “My Favorite Greek Myths”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: Theseus, king, minas, Minos, daedalus. This video has 270 sentences and 2592 words to shadow. The speech runs for 21:26. The speaker talks at a steady 121 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. Only 79% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| labyrinth noun | /ˈlæb.ə.ɹɪnθ/ | A complicated irregular network of passages or paths, especially underground or covered, in which it is difficult to find one's way. |
| beast noun | /biːst/ | Any four-footed land mammal. |
| disappear verb | /dɪsəˈpɪɹ/ | To vanish. |
| corridor noun | /ˈkɒɹɪdɔː/ | A narrow hall or passage with rooms leading off it, as in a building or in a railway carriage. |
| sacrifice noun | /ˈsæk.ɹɪ.faɪs/ | Originally, the killing (and often burning) of a human being or an animal as an offering to a deity; later, also the offering of an object to a deity. |
| drag verb | /dɹæɡ/ | To pull along a surface or through a medium, sometimes with difficulty. |
| craftsman noun | /ˈkɹæftsmən/ | One who is highly skilled at one's trade; an artisan or artificer. |
| slaughter noun | /ˈslɔːtə/ | The killing of animals, generally for food. |
| minus | /ˈmaɪ.nəs/ | Made less or reduced by (followed by an expression of number or quantity). |
| sail noun | /seɪl/ | A piece of fabric attached to a boat and arranged such that it causes the wind to drive the boat along. The sail may be attached to the boat via a combination… |
| myth noun | /mɪθ/ | A traditional story which embodies a belief regarding some fact or phenomenon of experience, and in which often the forces of nature and of the soul are… |
| divine adjective | /dɪˈvaɪn/ | Of or pertaining to a god. |
| feather noun | /ˈfɛðə/ | A branching, hair-like structure that grows on the bodies of birds, used for flight, swimming, protection and display. |
| mortal adjective | /ˈmɔɹ.təl/ | Susceptible to death by aging, sickness, injury, or wound; not immortal. |
| melt verb | /mɛlt/ | To change (or to be changed) from a solid state to a liquid state, usually by a gradual heat. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| go back to verb | To stem from; to originate in. | |
| back out verb | To reverse (a vehicle) from a confined space. | |
| break through verb | To gain popularity. | |
| end up verb | To bring to a conclusion. | |
| fight back verb | /faɪt bæk/ | To defend oneself by fighting. |
| leave behind verb | To abandon. | |
| stand out verb | To jut out, protrude (from a surface etc.). | |
| take back verb | To retract or withdraw (an earlier statement). |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- Then what do you want from me?
- You want me to build a prison for a baby?
- Then what exactly are you asking me to build?
- Where are you taking me?
- We're just going to stay here?
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 | was ruled · had been raised · was dragged |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | anyone who enters · man who enters · man who had |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have killed · has done · has kept |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 36 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, I'm, wasn't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: labyrinth /ˈlæb.ə.ɹɪnθ/, myth /mɪθ/, feather /ˈfɛðə/, throne /θɹəʊ̯n/, ruthless /ˈɹuːθləs/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: faction /ˈfæk.ʃən/, obsession /əbˈsɛʃən/, punish /ˈpʌnɪʃ/, invention /ɪnˈvɛnʃən/, flesh /flɛʃ/
- Long words — get the stress right: legitimacy /ləˈd͡ʒɪtɪməsi/, devastated /ˈdɛv.əˌsteɪ.təd/, disappearance /dɪsəˈpɪəɹəns/, magnificent /mæɡˈnɪfəsənt/, differently /ˈdɪf.ə.ɹənt.li/
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 labyrinth, beast, disappear.
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.