Shadowing Practice: Scott Ian on Metallica Before They Became Legends - Learn English Speaking with Video
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124 sentences
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when they got to new york i was the guy me
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and danny were the guys greeting them at the music building
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we were the ones who had to basically tell them
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because they asked and where are we staying
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and i was like oh johnny didn't well as far as i know you guys are staying here
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and this was nowhere you wanted to stay uh you know cold only cold water taps in the disgusting bathrooms
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and you know it was a burnt out squat of a building and uh
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and they lived there for a couple of months we would take them back to our houses to shower
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if you know we would we gave them our toaster oven
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that we had in our room we gave them the refrigerator
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we had in our room we were like you guys needed more than we do right now
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and um yeah we were so
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and i used to sit in the room with them at night uh
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when they would start because those guys drank we didn't drink in anthrax both james back then
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and oh yeah mustane were big drinkers those guys all of them those guys hit it hard
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and so this was like a new thing for me i didn't even know this one
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so like those these guys you know they would wake up mid -afternoon
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and like they wouldn't even start jam until like late in the afternoon
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or early evening like they would start rehearsing and
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so we'd already be done and then i would just go to their room
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and sit in there
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and it was they the first band i ever saw rehearsed
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where they had the drum kit you know who's against the wall facing into the room
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but they didn't set up their amps like a back line
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like you were playing a show they set the amps up in a semicircle facing lars in
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and they would stand in
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that middle zone where the guitars were just tearing your heads off
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and i i would sit in that little zone
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while they were playing in between james and dave's stacks so i was getting hit by both of them like equally
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and i would just be like this is these guys are
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the best like their hands you know they're both their ability as rhythm players
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and the down picking
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and it's just like man this is it's a it's another level i had never felt anything like
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that so this is interesting right
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so there you are literally you know they're totally unknown yeah by every other metric
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and and you're you're in the middle of the circle with two visionary guitarists
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and cliff burton who was another level onto it you know
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what i mean like like these guys are it's super tight
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and all that
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and then you got this guy over here in his jean
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jacket with a skinnered pin in his in his flared jeans
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with this big morley wah you know playing with his fingers
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and seemingly sometimes it's almost like he was playing nothing to do with the song they were playing
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but it it made complete sense yeah i had never seen anything like
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that either i was like this is like it's like the reincarnation even though geezer of course was not dead
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but it was a new version of geezer butler playing in this much more up -tempo fast
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and intense yeah metal sound
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and cliff banged his head in rehearsal like he was playing to a stadium full of people too
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that was the other thing like he went forward in rehearsal like it was a live show
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so looking back at you then it does it surprise you
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that they both went on to have such distinguished no surprise yeah you just it's not like i had
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that experience with 10 other bands like oh i just happened
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to be sitting in the room with with glenn tipton
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when he did this or you know like i'm not the zealot of heavy metal
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but like you just always knew even in those earliest days even
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when like they went out
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and opened for raven in the summer of 83 in the states
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and they were crushing them every night and uh you know
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and then they got the ozzy tour in 86 yeah you know
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and uh especially then
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because ozzy was cool enough to say these guys deserve it
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i'm gonna share my stage with metallica their first time out in arenas
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because people always ask how did your scene and i i think after
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so many years of being able to look back on it the moment
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when that scene the metallica us slayer megadeth exodus and
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so on the the thing that really opened the door was in 86
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when metallica opened for ozzy because metallica had already gone out obviously in headline clubs
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and all that and we had done that and so it's
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and megadeth but we were banging on that door to get out
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and play arenas yeah nobody nobody would have us nobody
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and then ozzy opened that door for metallica and they went out on
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that tour and got to play to 15 000 people every night opening for ozzy
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and maybe people heard of them you know maybe people didn't but i can say that's middle america yeah everybody
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everybody went and bought metallica records the next day
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because kill them all ride the light and master of puppets were all out
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and everyone ran to their record store and bought a metallica record
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and that's and then the trickle down from that into us and slayer
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and megadeth people are like oh my god is there more
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of this that's that's how i found you i mean you
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know i mean like i said i was listening to kill
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them all with some guy doing bong hits every five minutes right
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and invariably go there's got to be more of this out there
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because you know once you exhaust what was already out there with metallica there was a couple bootlegs
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and you're like there's got to be other people
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and then suddenly you're listening to you know chronos
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and you know whatever people started check out this import
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and it's all you know some of the production was dredged awful right yeah you couldn't
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but it was the vibe was there vibe um taking a
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step back uh is it true you were there the day mustang was fired
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and that whole i i showed up
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that day i walked in it was like early afternoon
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and cliff was standing outside smoking a cigarette
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and uh hey man he's like hey said what's going on
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oh not much we fired dave he's on a greyhound back to california
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wow and cliff was kind of like a very dry ball buster yeah
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so i said oh yeah right sure he goes no i'm
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totally serious i'm like you're not gonna get me yeah yeah
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yeah right you're playing lemores on friday with vandenberg i think
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that's who they were like whoever it was something there's a name i haven't heard for a
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while like some gig like that yeah three days
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or four days they had some show coming up
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and uh he goes bro totally serious he goes go go ask james
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and lars okay i'm figured i'm gonna go thinking like what
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or i'm gonna walk in dave's gonna be asleep
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or in his sleeping bag you know
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and uh i go up to the room
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and i don't see dave yeah and uh and uh i said to lars
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cliff just told me you guys fired dave and he's like we did we did i was like what the
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you know like oh my god like was this like a long time coming
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or like what yeah what the you know
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and they're like we'd been thinking about it pretty much since we got to new york
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and you know everybody knows the story i don't need to get into you know yeah all of
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that i just think it's interesting you're sort of witness to history i was there
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and i was like well what are you gonna do you
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know you've got a gig we have gigs we were playing
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shows with them you know we have gigs coming up
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because in my own for my own selfish reasons please don't cancel these shows
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and uh um then we already got a guy he's this
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guy kirk from a band called exodus in the bay area
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he's literally flying in like you know we might need a
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ride could you pick him up i was turned out their
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guy mark who was with them picked him up uh
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but yeah i i i met kirk like the next day
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you know he'll be here tomorrow he's already learning the songs and he's just gonna jump right in.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 124 sentences and 1511 words to shadow. The speech runs for 8:09. The speaker talks fast, about 185 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 85% 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 |
|---|---|---|
| cliff noun | /klɪf/ | A vertical (or nearly vertical) rock face. |
| arena noun | /əˈɹiːnə/ | An enclosed area, often outdoor, for the presentation of sporting events (sports arena) or other spectacular events; earthen area, often oval, specifically for… |
| bang noun | /ˈbæŋ/ | A sudden percussive noise. |
| gig noun | /ɡɪɡ/ | Originally (music), a performing engagement by a musician or musical group; (by extension, film, television, theater) a job or role for a performer. |
| vibe noun | /vaɪb/ | An atmosphere or aura felt to belong to a person, place or thing. |
| kirk noun | /kɜɹk/ | A church. |
| amp verb | /ˈæmp/ | To amplify. |
| bind verb | /ˈbaɪ̯nd/ | To tie; to confine by any ligature. |
| exodus noun | /ˈɛksədəs/ | A sudden departure of a large number of people. |
| rehearsal noun | /ɹɪˈhɝsl̩/ | The practising of something which is to be performed before an audience, usually to test or improve the interaction between several participating people, or to… |
| 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… |
| guitar noun | /ɡɪˈtɑɹ/ | A stringed musical instrument, of European origin, usually with a fretted fingerboard and six strings, played with the fingers or a plectrum (guitar pick). |
| awful adjective | /ˈɔːfʊl/ | Very bad. |
| whoever | /huˈɛvɚ/ | Who ever: an emphatic form of who. |
| nowhere adverb | /ˈnoʊ.(h)wɛɹ/ | In no place. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| come up verb | To emerge or become known, especially unexpectedly. | |
| go out verb | To leave, especially a building. | |
| check out verb | To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.). | |
| get out verb | To leave or escape. | |
| head off verb | To begin moving away. | |
| set up verb | /ˌsɛt ˈʌp/ | To make ready for use. |
| show up verb | To appear, arrive, or attend, especially suddenly or erratically. | |
| step back verb | /stɛp ˈbæk/ | To stop what one is doing and evaluate the current situation. |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 39 contractions and reduced forms, such as gonna, I'm, you're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: rhythm /ˈɹɪð.əm/, anthrax /ˈæn.θɹæks/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: crush /kɹʌʃ/, selfish /ˈsɛlf.ɪʃ/, distinguish /dɪˈstɪŋ.ɡwɪʃ/, reincarnation /ˌɹiːɪŋkɑː(ɹ)ˈneɪʃən/, visionary /ˈvɪʒəˌnɛɹi/
- Long words — get the stress right: refrigerator /ɹɪˈfɹɪd͡ʒ.əˌɹeɪ.tɚ/, invariably /ɪnˈvɛɹ.i.ə.bli/, reincarnation /ˌɹiːɪŋkɑː(ɹ)ˈneɪʃən/, visionary /ˈvɪʒəˌnɛɹi/
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 cliff, arena, bang.
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.