Shadowing Practice: Sherlock Meets Jim Moriarty | The Great Game | Sherlock | BBC - Learn English Speaking with Video
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112 sentences
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1
Any luck?
2
Oh, yes.
3
Oh, sorry, I didn't...
4
Jim!
5
Hi!
6
Come in, come in.
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Jim, this is Sherlock Holmes.
8
Ah. And, er...
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Sorry.
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John Watson, hi.
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Hi.
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So you're Sherlock Holmes.
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Molly's telling me all about you.
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You're on one of your cases.
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Jim works in IT upstairs.
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That's how we met.
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Office romance.
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Go.
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Sorry, Ward.
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Nothing.
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Um, hey.
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Hey.
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Sorry.
24
Sorry.
25
Well, I'd better be off.
26
I'll see you at the Fox, about six-ish.
27
Yeah.
28
Bye.
29
Bye.
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It was nice to meet you.
31
You too.
32
What do you mean, gay?
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We're together.
34
And domestic plus must suit you, Molly.
35
You've put on three pounds since I last saw you.
36
Two and a half.
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Three.
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Sherlock.
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He's not gay!
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Why'd you have to spoil?
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He's not.
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With that level of personal grooming?
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Because he puts a bit of product in his hair.
44
I put product in my hair.
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Wash your hair.
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There's a difference.
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No, no. Tinted eyelashes, clear signs of touring cream around the frown lines, those tired crudders' eyes.
48
Then there's his underwear.
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His underwear?
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Visible above the waistline.
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Very visible.
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Very particular brand.
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That plus the extremely suggestive fact that he just left his number under this dish here.
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And I'd say you better break it off now and save yourself the pain.
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Charming.
56
Well done.
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Just saving her time.
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Isn't that kinder?
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Kinder?
60
No, no. Sherlock, that wasn't kind.
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Go on then.
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Hmm?
63
You know what I do, off you go.
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No. Go on.
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I want to stand here so you can humiliate me when I try and diseminate...
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An outside eye, a second opinion.
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It's very useful to me.
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Yeah, I know.
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Really.
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Oh, they're just a pair of shoes.
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Trainers.
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Good.
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Um...
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They're in good, Nick.
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I'd say they were pretty new, except the sole has been well worn, so the owner must have had them for a while.
76
Uh, very 80s, probably one of those retro designs.
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You want sparkling form, what else?
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They're quite big, so, uh, a man's, but...
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But there's traces of a name inside in Felton.
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And adults don't write their names inside the shoes, so these belong to a kid.
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Excellent.
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What else?
83
Uh...
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Uh, that's it.
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That's it.
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How did I do?
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Well, John, really well.
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I mean, you missed almost everything in importance, but, you know...
89
The owner loved these.
90
Scrubbed them clean, whitened them where they got discolored, changed the laces three, no, four times.
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Even so, there were traces of his flaky skin where his fingers had come into contact with him, so he suffered from eczema.
92
She was a well-worn, more so on the inner side, which means the owner had weak arches.
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British made, 20 years old.
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20 years?
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They're not retro, they're original.
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Limited edition, two blue stripes like Naked Eye.
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But there's still mud on them.
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They look new.
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Someone's kept them that way.
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Quite a bit of mud caked on the soil's analysis shows it's from Sussex with London mud overlaying it.
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How do you know?
102
Pollen.
103
Clear as a map reference to me.
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South of the river too.
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So the kid who owned these trainers came to London from Sussex 20 years ago and left them behind.
106
So what happened to him?
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Something bad.
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He loved those shoes.
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Remember he'd never leave them filthy.
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He wouldn't leave them going unless he had to.
111
Hello Sherlock fans.
112
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Sherlock Meets Jim Moriarty”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: Sherlock, mud, jim, shoes, owner. This video has 112 sentences and 581 words to shadow. The speech runs for 4:07. The speaker talks at a steady 141 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. Only 81% 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 |
|---|---|---|
| retro adjective | /ˈɹɛt.ɹəʊ/ | Of, or relating to, the past, past times, or the way things were. |
| underwear noun | /ˈʌndɚˌwɛɹ/ | Clothes worn next to the skin, underneath outer clothing. |
| trainer noun | /ˈtɹeɪnɚ/ | A person who trains another; a coach. |
| trace noun | /tɹeɪs/ | An act of tracing. |
| discolor verb | /dɪsˈkʰʌlə(ɹ)/ | To change or lose color. |
| disseminate verb | /dɪˈsɛmɪˌneɪt/ | To sow and scatter principles, ideas, opinions, etc, or concrete things, for growth and propagation, like seeds. |
| eczema noun | /ɪɡˈzi.mə/ | Synonym of atopic dermatitis. |
| eyelash noun | /ˈaɪlæʃ/ | One of the hairs which grows along the edge of eyelids. |
| humiliate verb | /hjuːˈmɪliˌeɪt/ | To cause to be ashamed; to injure the dignity and self-respect of. |
| overlay verb | /ˌoʊvɚˈleɪ/ | To lay, spread, or apply (something) over or across (something else); to overspread. |
| pollen noun | /ˈpɑlən/ | A fine, granular substance produced in flowers. |
| suggestive adjective | /sə(ɡ)ˈd͡ʒɛs.tɪv/ | Tending to suggest or imply. |
| waistline noun | /ˈweɪstˌlaɪn/ | a line around the body at the waist; its measurement |
| whiten verb | /ˈ(h)waɪ̯.tən/ | (To cause) to become white or whiter; to bleach or blanch. |
| stripe noun | /stɹaɪp/ | A long region of a single colour in a repeating pattern of similar regions. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- Molly's telling me all about you.
- You're on one of your cases.
- What do you mean, gay?
- Why'd you have to spoil?
- You want sparkling form, what else?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | You've put · has been |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | side, which means · kid who owned |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 20 contractions and reduced forms, such as they're, I'd, you're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- Long words — get the stress right: disseminate /dɪˈsɛmɪˌneɪt/, humiliate /hjuːˈmɪliˌeɪt/
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 retro, underwear, trainer.
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.