Shadowing Practice: Stealing Rembrandt | ADVANCED | practice English with Spotlight - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Welcome to Spotlight Advanced.
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I'm Andrew Devis.
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And I'm Megan Nolet.
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Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting.
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It is easier for people to understand, no matter where in the world they live.
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St. Patrick's Day is one of the biggest celebrations of the year in Boston, Massachusetts.
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The day honors St. Patrick.
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He helped bring
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Christianity to Ireland.
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Many people who are not
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Irish still have parties.
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They play loud music and drink alcohol.
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For a few hours, they forget the worries of their everyday lives.
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People are not paying attention to much else happening around them.
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They assume everything is fine and can wait until morning.
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But one night following
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St Patrick's Day, everything was not fine.
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People did not know that some things would be gone in the morning.
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They had no idea that 13 famous works of art worth hundreds of millions of dollars would be missing.
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Today's Spotlight looks at a robbery.
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A robbery is when someone takes something that does not belong to them.
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This robbery took place on March 18, 1990, in Boston, Massachusetts.
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St. Patrick's Day has just ended.
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It was 12 .30 in the morning.
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A few people leaving a party walked home near the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in downtown Boston.
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They passed a car that was sitting 100 feet from the side door to the museum.
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Two men wearing police uniforms sat in the car.
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The people kept walking without saying anything to the men.
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The two men in police clothing did not get out of their car for another 50 minutes.
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At 1 .20 in the morning, the two men in police clothing walked to the museum's side door.
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They flipped a switch to speak to the security guards sitting inside the museum.
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Two security guards were on duty that night.
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The two men told the guards that someone had reported a problem at the museum.
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They needed to come in to investigate.
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One of the guards, Richard Abath, saw on his security television screen that the men outside were wearing police uniforms.
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Abath had not heard there was a problem at the museum, but he let the men in.
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The policemen entered a waiting area.
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Abeth still had to let them into the main museum.
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The men said Abeth looked like a criminal for whom they had been looking.
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They demanded Abeth let them in.
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When Abeth did, the men caught Abeth and the other security guard and handcuffed them.
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Handcuffs are metal restraint devices designed to hold a person's wrists together.
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One of the men wearing police clothing said, This is a robbery.
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The two robbers, or thieves, were just acting like policemen.
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They put the security guards in the museum's basement, the floor below ground level.
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They tied fabric around the guards' heads and eyes.
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The thieves handcuffed the guards to a pipe.
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The thieves told the guards that if they did not tell the police about them later, they would send them money in a year.
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It was now 1 .35 in the morning.
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The Boston Police Department did not know that two thieves were inside the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum.
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The thieves walked to the Dutch Room on the second floor.
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This room held many great works of art by Dutch artists.
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The thieves destroyed the alarm that sounded when someone got too close to a painting.
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The thieves took two paintings off the wall.
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They cut the glass around the paintings.
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The paintings were Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee and A Lady and Gentleman in Black,
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both by the painter Rembrandt.
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Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee is Rembrandt's only seascape painting.
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The thieves used knives to cut the paintings out of their frames.
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They took other famous works of art from the Dutch Room, including the Concert by Vermeer.
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The concert is one of only 34 paintings Vermeer completed.
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He is considered a master.
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The concert is worth $250 million.
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It is the world's most valuable stolen object.
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The thieves moved to a room called the Short Gallery.
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They stole six things, including five pieces by the French artist Degas.
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The final painting stolen was Chez Tortoni by the French artist Monet.
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It hung in the blue room.
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The thieves then visited the guards in the basement and asked if they were okay.
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The thieves left the outer wooden frame for Chey Tortonie at the security director's workstation.
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They carried the stolen artwork through the museum's side door to their car.
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The thieves left at 2 .45 in the morning.
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They stole 13 works of art valued at over 500 million dollars.
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The thieves spent 81 minutes in the museum.
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It is considered the biggest museum robbery in history.
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A few hours later, other museum security guards arrived for their shift.
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They could not find anyone to let them in.
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They called the security director, who came to the museum with his keys.
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When they went inside and did not find
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Abbott and the other guard, the director called the police.
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Boston Police Department officers came and searched inside the building.
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They found Abbott and his co -worker blindfolded and handcuffed in the basement.
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The Federal Bureau of Investigation, or FBI, took control of the case.
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They questioned Abath and his co -workers many times.
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The FBI talked to the people who walked by the two thieves sitting in their car before the robbery.
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The FBI made images of the thieves' faces based on what the witnesses remembered.
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Investigators searched the museum for fingerprints and other evidence that could identify the thieves.
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They found none.
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They questioned members of local gangs connected to a criminal organization called the Boston Mafia.
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But no one told the FBI anything about the Gardner Museum robbery.
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For many years, the FBI suspected a bath had been involved in the robbery.
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Several strange things happened involving a bath.
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The Gardner Museum's rules for workers clearly stated that security guards were not to let anyone in without official permission, including police.
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Abath said he did not know about that rule.
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That was why he let the two thieves in who were wearing police clothing.
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On the night of the robbery, before the thieves arrived, Abath walked through the museum, making sure everything was okay.
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This was part of his job.
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Twice, Abath walked through a room room called the Blue Room.
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The museum used motion sensors in each room.
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The FBI later reviewed the records for the motion sensors
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that showed no one entered the Blue Room during the 81 minutes of the robbery.
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The final painting that was stolen was named Chey Tortonie from the Blue Room.
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If the thieves did not enter the Blue Room, who took Chey Torton?
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Only one person had been in the Blue Room that night.
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Abbath.
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Also, while walking through the museum, Abbath opened and closed the side door to the museum.
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Abbath said he had done this to make sure the door was working correctly.
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But investigators considered two other possibilities.
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One was that Abath opened the side door to signal to the thieves sitting in their car
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that it was time to enter the museum.
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The other was that Abath opened the door to take the painting Shaito Tony out to the two thieves in their car.
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Finally, the FBI questioned how nicely the two thieves had treated Abath and his fellow guard.
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It seemed strange to the FBI that the thieves were so concerned with the guards' well -being, unless they were working with Abbott.
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Abath denied any involvement in the robbery.
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For years he remained a suspect and was questioned again many times,
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but Abath promised he was not working with the thieves and did not know them.
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Abath said, The investigators wanted to know if I had taken the painting, Shea Tortoni, and hid it somewhere.
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I told them.
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As I have said a hundred times before and since, I had nothing to do with the robbers or the robbery.
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Abbott spent the rest of his life in Vermont with his wife.
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They lived in a small home.
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Abbott worked as a teacher's assistant.
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If he had been involved in the robbery, Abbott's life didn't show any signs of wealth from selling the stolen artwork.
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It has been more than 35 years since the robbery at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, but the FBI still has not arrested anyone.
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None of the 13 stolen works of art have been found or returned.
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Many questions remain unanswered.
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Who were the thieves?
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Why did they take the paintings?
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Where is the artwork now?
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Why did the thieves leave the frame for Shait or Tony on the security director's workstation?
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Why did they steal some pieces but not take other valuable paintings?
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The Gardner Museum has offered a $10 million prize for information leading to the recovery of the stolen artwork.
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Until then, the museum still believes in the power of art to change people's lives and better the world.
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The Gardner Museum proudly displays its remaining artwork, alongside empty frames where the stolen paintings were once hung.
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The empty frames will not be taken down until the paintings are returned.
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Who are some of your favourite painters?
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Why do you think the robbers who stole the paintings from the Gardner Museum have never been caught?
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Do you think anyone will ever find the missing paintings?
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You can leave a comment on our website at www .spotlightenglish .com.
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You can also find us on YouTube, Facebook, TikTok, Instagram and X.
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You can also get
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Spotlight episodes delivered directly to your Android or Apple device through our free official
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Spotlight English app.
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The writer of this episode was Peter Anderson.
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The producer was Michio Ozaki.
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The voices you heard were from the United Kingdom and the United States.
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All quotes were adapted for this episode and voiced by Spotlight.
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No AI or artificial intelligence was used in this episode.
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Spotlight episodes are written, voiced, and produced by real people for real people,
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no matter where in the world they live.
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This episode is called Stealing Rembrandt.
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We hope you can join us again for the next Spotlight episode.
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Goodbye!
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “Stealing Rembrandt”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: thieves, museum, painting, guard, robbery. This video has 153 sentences and 1686 words to shadow. The speech runs for 12:52. The speaker talks at a steady 131 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
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| thief noun | /ˈθiːf/ | One who carries out a theft. |
| robbery noun | /ˈɹɑbəɹi/ | The act or practice of robbing. |
| steal verb | /stiːl/ | To take illegally, or without the owner's permission, something owned by someone else without intending to return it. |
| artwork noun | /ˈɑɹtˌwɝk/ | A painting, drawing, sculpture or other piece of creative, visual art. |
| clothing noun | /ˈkloʊðɪŋ/ | Any of a wide variety of articles, usually made of fabrics, animal hair, animal skin, or some combination thereof, used to cover the human body for warmth, to… |
| worker noun | /ˈwɝ.kɚ/ | One who works: a person who performs labor for a living; traditionally, especially, manual labor. |
| basement noun | /ˈbeɪsmənt/ | A floor of a building below ground level. |
| investigator noun | /ɪnˈvɛs.tɪˌɡeɪ̯.təː/ | One who investigates. |
| bath noun | /bɑːθ/ | A tub or pool which is used for bathing: bathtub. |
| arrive verb | /əˈɹaɪv/ | To reach; to get to a certain place. |
| uniform noun | /ˈjunɪˌfɔɹm/ | A distinctive outfit that serves to identify members of a group, company, prison inmates, etc. |
| painter noun | /ˈpeɪntɚ/ | An artist who paints pictures. |
| sensor noun | /ˈsɛn.sɚ/ | A device or organ that detects certain external stimuli and responds in a distinctive manner. |
| policeman noun | /pəˈliːsmən/ | A police officer, usually a male. |
| everyday adjective | /ˈɛvɹiˌdeɪ/ | Appropriate for ordinary use, rather than for special occasions. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| walk through verb | To explain (something) to (someone), step by step. |
| get out of verb | To leave, exit or escape from; to become free of. |
| take down verb | To remove something from a wall or similar vertical surface to which it is fixed. |
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 | is considered · had been involved · was stolen |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | has just ended · have said · has been |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | people who are · people who walked |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 3 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, didn't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: thief /ˈθiːf/, clothing /ˈkloʊðɪŋ/, bath /bɑːθ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: celebration /ˌsɛl.ɪˈbɹeɪ.ʃən/, artificial /ˌɑː.tɪˈfɪʃ.əl/, workstation /ˈwɝkˌsteɪʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: investigator /ɪnˈvɛs.tɪˌɡeɪ̯.təː/, investigate /ɪnˈvɛs.tə.ɡeɪt/, celebration /ˌsɛl.ɪˈbɹeɪ.ʃən/, artificial /ˌɑː.tɪˈfɪʃ.əl/
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 thief, robbery, steal.
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.