Shadowing Practice: Princess Diana | Panorama Interview - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
1
What effect did the depression have on your marriage?
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Well, it gave everybody a wonderful new label.
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It's Diana's unstable.
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And Diana's mentally imbalanced.
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And unfortunately, that seems to have stuck on and off over the years.
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Are you saying that that label stuck within your marriage?
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I think people used it. And it stuck.
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Yes.
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According to press reports, it was suggested
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that it was around this time things became so difficult that you actually tried to injure yourself.
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Is that true?
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When no one listens to you or you feel no one's listening to you, all sorts of things start to happen.
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For instance, you have so much pain inside yourself that you try and hurt yourself on the outside because you want help.
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But it's the wrong help you're asking for.
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People see it as crying wolf or attention seeking.
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And they think because you're in the media all the time, you've got enough attention, inverted commas.
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But I was actually crying out
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because I wanted to get better in order to go forward and continue my duty and my role as wife, mother.
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Princess of Wales.
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So, yes, I did inflict upon myself.
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I didn't like myself.
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I was ashamed because I couldn't cope with the pressures.
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What did you actually do?
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Well, I just hurt my arms and my legs.
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And I work in environments now where I see women doing similar things, and I'm able to understand completely where they're coming from.
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What was your husband's reaction to this when you began to injure yourself in this way?
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But I didn't actually always do it in front of him.
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But obviously anyone who loves someone would be very concerned about it.
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Did he understand what was behind the physical act of hurting yourself, do you think?
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No, but then not many people would have taken the time to see that.
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Were you able to admit that you were in fact unwell, or did you feel compelled simply to carry on performing as the Princess of Wales?
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I felt compelled to perform.
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Well, when I say perform, I was compelled to go out and do my engagements and not let people down and support them and love them.
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And in a way, by being out in public, they supported me, although they weren't aware just how much healing they were giving me, and it carried me through.
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But did you feel that you had to maintain the public image of a successful Princess of Wales?
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Yes, I did.
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Yes, I did.
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The depression was resolved, as you say, but it was subsequently reported that you suffered bulimia.
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Is that true?
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Yes, I did.
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I had bulimia for a number of years.
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And that's like a secret disease you inflicted upon yourself
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because your self-esteem is to low ebb and you don't think you're worthy or valuable.
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You fill your stomach up four or five times a day, some do it more, and it gives you a feeling of comfort.
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It's like having a pair of arms around you, but it's temporary.
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Temporarily.
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Temporarily.
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Then you're disgusted at the blatantness of your stomach, and then you bring it all up again.
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And it's a repetitive pattern, which is very destructive to yourself.
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How often would you do that on a daily basis?
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Depends on the pressures going on.
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If I'd been on what I call an away day, where I'd been up part of the country all day, I'd come home feeling pretty empty, because my engagements at that time would be to do with people dying,
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people very sick, people...
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marriage is the problem, all that.
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And I come home and it would be very difficult to know how to comfort myself, having been comforted lots of other people.
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So it would be a regular pattern to jump into the fridge.
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It was a symptom of what was going on in my marriage.
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I was crying out for help, but giving the wrong signals.
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And people were using my bulimia as a coat on a hanger.
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They decided that was the problem problem.
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Diana was unstable.
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Instead of looking behind the symptom at the cause, what was the cause?
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The cause was a situation where my husband
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and I had to keep everything together
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because we didn't want to disappoint the public
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and yet there obviously there was a lot of anxiety going on within our four walls.
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You mean between the two of you?
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Mm-hmm.
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Mm-hmm.
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And so you subjected yourself to this phase of binging and vomiting?
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You could say the word subjected, but it was my escape mechanism, and it worked for me at that time.
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Did you seek help from any other members of the royal family?
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No. You have to know that when you have bulimia you're very ashamed of yourself
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and you hate yourself so and people think you're wasting food
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so it doesn't you don't discuss it with people and the thing about bulimia is your Your weight always stays the same, whereas with anorexia you visibly shrink.
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So you can pretend the whole way through.
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There's no proof.
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When you say people would think you were wasting food, did anybody suggest that to you?
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Oh yes, a number of times.
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What was said?
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Well, it was just, I suppose you were going to waste that food later on.
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You know, that was pressure in itself.
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And of course I would, because it was my release valve.
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How long did this bulimia go on for?
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A long time, a long time.
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But I'm free of it now.
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Two years?
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Three years?
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A little bit more than that.
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According to reports in the national press, it was at around this time that you began to experience difficulties in your marriage
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and your relationship to the Prince of Wales.
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Is that true?
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Well, we were a newly married couple, so obviously we had those pressures too.
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And we had the media who were completely fascinated by everything we did.
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And it was difficult to share that load, because I was the one who was always pitched out front, whether it was my clothes,
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what I said, what my hair was doing, everything.
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It was a pretty dull subject, actually, and it's been exhausted over the years.
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when actually what we wanted to be, what we wanted supported was our work and as a team.
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What effect did the press interest in you have on your marriage?
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It made it very difficult because for a situation where it was a couple working in the same job, we got out the same car,
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shook the same hand, my husband did the speeches, I did the handshaking.
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So basically we were a married couple doing the same job, which was very difficult for anyone.
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unique and more so if you've got all the attention on you.
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We struggled a bit with it, it was very difficult and then my husband decided that we'd do separate engagements.
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Which was a bit sad for me, because I quite liked the company.
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But there again, I didn't have the choice.
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So it wasn't at your request that you did that on your own?
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Not at all, no. The biography of The Prince of Wales, written by Jonathan Dimbleby, which, as you know, was published last year,
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suggested that you and your husband had very different outlooks, very different interests.
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Would you agree with that?
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No, I think we had a great deal of interest.
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We both liked people, both liked country life, both loved children, work in the cancer field, work in hospices.
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But I was portrayed in the media at that time, if I remember rightly, as someone, because I hadn't passed any O-levels and taken any A-levels, I was stupid.
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And I made the grave mistake once of saying to a child I was thick as a plank, in order to ease the child's nervousness, of which it did.
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But that headline went all round the world.
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And I rather regret saying it.
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The Prince of Wales, in the biography, is described as a great thinker, a man with a tremendous range of interests.
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What did he think of your interests?
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Well, I don't think I was allowed to have any.
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I think that I've always been the 18-year-old girl he got engaged to, so I don't think I've been given any credit for growth.
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And, my goodness, I've had to grow.
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Explain what you mean when you say that.
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Well, er...
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When you say...
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When you say you were never given any credit, what do you mean?
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Well, anything good I ever did.
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Nobody ever said a thing.
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never said well done or was it okay.
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But if I tripped up, which invariably I did, because I was new at the game, a ton of bricks came down on me.
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How did you cope with that?
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Well, obviously there were lots of tears and one could dive into the bulimia and to escape.
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Some people would find that difficult to believe that you were left
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so much to cope on your own and
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that the description you give suggests that your relationship with your husband was not very good, even at that early stage?
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Well, we had unique pressures put upon us, and we both tried our hardest to cover them up, but obviously, it wasn't to be...
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Princess Diana”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: bulimia, difficult, Wales, marriage. This video has 135 sentences and 1581 words to shadow. The speech runs for 9:43. The speaker talks at a natural 163 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 86% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start. 27 of its 135 sentences are questions, so it is good practice for question intonation and short answers.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| bulimia noun | /bjuˈlimi.ə/ | A chronic eating disorder characterized by a binge-and-purge cycle: extreme overeating followed by self-induced vomiting. |
| compel verb | /kəmˈpɛl/ | To overpower; to subdue. |
| inflict verb | /ɪnˈflɪkt/ | To thrust upon; to impose. |
| injure verb | /ˈɪn.d͡ʒɚ/ | To wound or cause physical harm to a living creature. |
| symptom noun | /ˈsɪm(p)təm/ | A perceived change in some function, sensation or appearance of a person that indicates a disease or disorder, such as fever, headache or rash; strictly, a… |
| unstable adjective | /ʌnˈsteɪ.bəl/ | Not stable. |
| biography noun | /baɪˈɑɡɹəfi/ | A person's life story, especially one published. |
| temporarily adverb | /ˌtɛmpəˈɹɛɹəli/ | For a limited period of time; not permanently. |
| ashamed adjective | /əˈʃeɪmd/ | Feeling shame or guilt. |
| anorexia noun | /ænəˈɹɛksi.ə/ | Loss of appetite, especially as a result of disease. |
| blatantness noun | The quality of being blatant. | |
| fascinate verb | /ˈfæsɪneɪt/ | To evoke an intense interest or attraction in someone. |
| handshake noun | /ˈhæn(d)ˌʃeɪk/ | The grasping of hands by two people when greeting, leave-taking, or making an agreement. |
| hanger noun | /ˈhæŋ.ə/ | One who hangs, or causes to be hanged; a hangman, paper hanger, etc. |
| hospice noun | /ˈhɑspɪs/ | The provision of palliative care for terminally ill patients, either at a specialized facility or at a residence, and support for the family, typically… |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| come down on verb | To punish or criticize (someone). |
| get out verb | To leave or escape. |
| go out verb | To leave, especially a building. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- What effect did the depression have on your marriage?
- What did you actually do?
- You mean between the two of you?
- Would you agree with that?
- What did he think of your interests?
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 suggested · was compelled · was resolved |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | anyone who loves · pattern, which is · one who was |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 32 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, didn't, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: thinker /ˈθɪŋ.kɚ/, cloth /klɒθ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: ashamed /əˈʃeɪmd/, handshake /ˈhæn(d)ˌʃeɪk/
- Long words — get the stress right: bulimia /bjuˈlimi.ə/, biography /baɪˈɑɡɹəfi/, temporarily /ˌtɛmpəˈɹɛɹəli/, anorexia /ænəˈɹɛksi.ə/, invariably /ɪnˈvɛɹ.i.ə.bli/
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 bulimia, compel, inflict.
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.