Shadowing Practice: Shakespeare: Hamlet - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Should you do it or not?
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Is it better to act or not?
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Should you speak up or not?
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To be or not to be?
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That is the question.
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In any given day we are presented with thousands of decisions
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from the trivial like choosing what socks to wear to the momentous like deciding to get married or not.
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But every choice matters and every choice is painful.
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In Shakespeare's Hamlet we meet a character who is torn by indecision and inner conflict, the same conflicts that you and I feel all of the time.
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But there is something a bit excessive about Hamlet's inner thoughts.
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They seem to get caught up in themselves and there is a sense that he is crippled by his own indecision.
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But as the play goes on, it becomes clear that he is delaying and putting off his need to choose.
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He debates with himself to avoid choosing.
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Hamlet is caught in what Kierkegaard calls lost in the infinite.
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It's a paralysis that comes on when we realise the scale of the choices available to us.
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It's an awareness of the infinite variety of consequences that come in choosing one way or another.
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It's felt in those crux moments as when you leave home
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or after a breakup or if you come into some money or if you want to kill your uncle Claudius.
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We delay by running the countless options over and over in our head because we are scared of making a choice.
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In his most famous speech Hamlet has to make the ultimate decision should we endure
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and carry on or should we just give up?
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And it's a choice that we all have to make every day
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and in every decision because choosing what socks to wear or who to marry is an example of affirming life.
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Every choice commits to now.
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Nietzsche once wrote that the lesson of Hamlet is that knowledge kills action.
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To make a decision, to be anything, requires doing.
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Hamlet's soliloquies are some of the greatest prose ever written but ultimately Hamlet needs to act.
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We all need to act if we want to live.
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Thank you.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 29 sentences and 362 words to shadow. The speech runs for 1:56. The speaker talks fast, about 188 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 84% 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 |
|---|---|---|
| delay noun | /dɪˈleɪ̯/ | A period of time before an event occurs; the act of delaying; procrastination; lingering inactivity. |
| infinite adjective | /ˈɪnfɪnɪt/ | Indefinably large, countlessly great; immense. |
| sock noun | /sɑk/ | A knitted or woven covering for the foot. |
| lesson noun | /ˈlɛs.ən/ | A section of learning or teaching into which a wider learning content is divided. |
| uncle noun | /ˈʌŋ.kl̩/ | The brother or brother-in-law of one’s parent. |
| awareness noun | /əˈwɛɹ.nəs/ | The state or level of consciousness where sense data can be confirmed by an observer. |
| marry verb | /ˈmæɹi/ | To enter into the conjugal or connubial state; to take a husband or a wife. |
| tear verb | /tɛɹ/ | To rend (a solid material) by holding or restraining in two places and pulling apart, whether intentionally or not; to destroy or separate. |
| commit verb | /kəˈmɪt/ | To give in trust; to put into charge or keeping; to entrust; to consign; used with to or formerly unto. |
| painful adjective | /ˈpeɪn.fl̩/ | Causing pain or distress, either physical or mental. |
| realise verb | Non-Oxford British standard spelling of realize. | |
| excessive adjective | /ɪkˈsɛsɪv/ | Exceeding the usual bounds of something; too much (of amount); extravagant; immoderate. |
| consequence noun | /ˈkɑn.sɪ.kwəns/ | An effect; something that follows a cause as a result. |
| scare verb | /skɛɚ/ | To frighten, terrify, startle, especially in a minor way. |
| countless adjective | /ˈkaʊntləs/ | Synonym of uncountable. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| give up verb | To surrender (someone or something); to inform on (someone). | |
| put off verb | To postpone, especially through procrastination. | |
| speak up verb | /ˌspik ˈʌp/ | To talk more loudly or clearly. |
Pronunciation to watch
- Long words — get the stress right: indecision /ɪndɪˈsɪʒən/, paralysis /pəˈɹæləsəs/, soliloquy /səˈlɪləkwi/
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 delay, infinite, sock.
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.