Shadowing Practice: Stephen Colbert on the End of 'The Late Show,' What's Next & Why CBS Might Have "Saved" His Life - Learn English Speaking with Video

The show is like a flaming toboggan ride every day

and you know the trick is to not hit any trees on your way down the mountain You know before 12 30.

There's so much to think about every day to do the show

that I actually don't have that much time to think about the show ending

So we're just going to run as fast as we can right through the tape

or right into the brick wall whatever it feels like when we get there

The minute I found out I was lying down on my

couch uh with I think a sock over my eyes because I was trying to I'm gonna rest.

One of my manager came in and said, do you have 15 minutes to talk?

I'm like, in person?

We never talk in person.

What is this about?

And he said that this is the last season.

So I took the sock off and I sat up and I said, I'm sorry, I'm awake.

Could you say that one more time?

Next year will be our last season.

The network will be ending the Late Show in May.

It's getting much realer.

Every moment's getting a little more precious.

I tried never to take for granted like being in the Ed Sullivan, having a Broadway theater, having that tremendous audience, have the ability to work with the funniest people I know every day

and make jokes about the things that make me most anxious every day.

But at the same time, you can't really dwell on that ending because you don't have time for it.

Any more you can think about walking and still walk or swallowing and not choke on your own tongue.

You just have to do the show.

We'll meet again.

Don't know where, Don't know when

It's a funny thing with the Colbert Report I knew how I wanted it to end because Well, I picked the date Somehow about me picking the date And picking the year and everything I went,

okay, it's going to be December 18th, 2014 I remember I went to my assistant, Amy Cole And I said, Amy, what's the last day of 2014?

Good production And she said, oh, it's December 18th I said, oh, good to know And I went down

and I sat at my desk And I thought for a second And I thought of the entire show I'm like, oh, okay, that's what it'll be It kind of all came in one And we rewrote and noodled and everything, but I had the idea.

This time, it wasn't my choice, it wasn't my date.

I think that's why I didn't come all at once.

And one or two elements came to me like, what about this, what about that?

And then we've had meetings over the last few months.

And recently, it all just gelled.

It's not written, but I know what I want to end up.

And luckily, it looks like it's going to.

You can't do this forever.

You have to think about, well, when is the right time to end your tenure?

I didn't think this soon. Who knows?

Maybe CBS saved my life because it takes a lot of bone marrow to do the show every day.

Now I'll be stepping down with enough time, enough energy to do other things that I want to do.

The thing I found myself reading over

and over again were the six chapters early on in The Fellowship

that y'all never developed into the first movie back in the day.

And I thought, oh, wait, maybe that could be its own story that could fit into the larger story.

This Lord of the Rings thing I was working on before the show was canceled.

This has been years I've been thinking about it.

I've been working on it with my son since COVID, actually, and then working on it with Peter Jackson and Philip Loins and Fran Walsh for almost two years now.

So that wasn't a post-show idea.

That was an idea, and I'm glad they liked it, and now I'll have time to work on it, but that wasn't part of the what will I do next feeling.

I wonder if I could do any of this while I was still doing the show.

So we'll land this plane and we'll check out the view from there.

But I don't think I could really have a big plan beyond this.

I can finally speak unvarnished truth to power and say what I really think about Donald Trump.

Starting right now.

I don't have any fear of the administration doing anything to me.

I mean, how silly would it be?

How silly would it be?

I mean, listen, my present situation aside, like the ending of the show aside, which people can speculate all they want and I can't argue with their speculations,

you know, but we're clowns.

How much does it diminish the office of the presidency to even notice what we say?

You know, that guy needs to know how to pick his battles.

I mean, metaphorically and literally.

I'm an actor, you know, I'm an actor and a writer.

And I became a writer because nobody would cast me in anything and I had to write for myself.

And I always imagined that's what I'd be doing after the Colbert Report because that was an acting job.

And when I got this, at first I was like, no, I can't go do that job.

That's, I'm not a standup, I've never been myself.

My mom had started to be an actress.

I got the bug of wanting to perform by hearing her talk about it.

She had been accepted to CIT, Carnegie Institute of Technology, now Carnegie Mellon,

to that program, and then got very sick and had to delay going for a year.

And right as she was getting better, my father asked her to marry him.

And she said yes and had 11 children rather than having an acting career.

I was at Northwestern University and this guy named Chris Path, who I was friends with there said,

hey, there's this thing in Chicago called the Herald Improv.

They're doing at this club called Cross Currents under the Belmont L and it sounds really interesting.

Do you want to go check it out?

So I went and the first night I saw it, I had a deep feeling and I don't know why, but I thought I have to do this.

I was drawn to it immediately.

And it wasn't just that I was lazy and you didn't have to learn lines, but that was attractive, but I loved it.

There was a guy I saw on stage that first night named Dave Pasquese, who's an incredible performer.

And I saw him and I went, oh, I kind of want to, I don't know what he's doing up there, but he's got a secret, and I would like to know what that secret is.

And so that was a...

Maybe that might be the moment that turned me into sort of the direction of what the rest of my career was.

Stephen!

John!

How are you?

You know, in this new spirit of bipartisan compromise in the Senate, is there still a lot of partisan bickering over witnesses and trial procedure?

No, John.

Now it's over merchandising and product placement.

I was at The Daily Show before John got there.

Craig Kilburn leaves.

We don't know who's going to take over for The Daily Show.

And then it gets announced that it's Jon Stewart.

And Evie and I are watching, like, I don't know, maybe Entertainment Tonight or something like that.

And it's announced that it's going to be Jon Stewart.

And Evie says, Jon Leibowitz, he's not funny.

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And what I didn't know was that she had known Jon when he first came from New York to be a comedian.

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And she goes, John would be the guy at the party, not talking to anyone, like nursing an Amstel light in the corner.

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And she was like, no, his roommate was the funny one.

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And John was just this quiet guy who like never over his voice.

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And then later when I finally met John in person, first of all, John, at his press conference,

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there was a press conference at Comedy Central to announce that John Stewart was going to be the guy.

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And John and I hadn't met at this point.

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I said to my producer at the time at The Daily, I said, wait a second, isn't the sort of thing that we at The Daily Show would go cover?

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Aren't we self-important enough that we would think whoever our new host is, is going to be, why aren't one of us there in the press gaggle?

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Because I knew there was going to be one at this press conference at Comedy Central.

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And they said, you want to go, you can go.

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So I went over there, got the cube that said Daily Show on it

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and put on my little tie and I'd be like that and got the lander and everything.

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And I stood up and I said, Stephen Colbert, Daily Show.

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Can you please address, it said to Doug Herzog, the president of the company.

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This is for the president of Comedy Central, Doug Herzog.

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Mr. Herzog, could you address how John, being named today the host, affects my ability to get that job?

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And John looked to Degas Hartsock and said, you told me he wasn't funny.

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And that's how we met.

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And then afterwards, I went up and said, hey, and then it turns out we knew a bunch of people.

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He was like, wait, you know Evie McGee?

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I said, I know her very well, actually.

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And then I wasn't there for almost the first year of John at the Daily because you know writing, producing, and starring in Strangers with Candy

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which we did not know how to do and so we would work 24 hours a day.

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Whenever I was back we'd have a good time together and say can't you come back?

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I'm like hey, minute shows when the doors open that big I come flying back because here's the thing, the Daily Show with Craig Kilburn was good you know it made really made a name for itself

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and the great writers and producers and a great game

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and everything but when John came in it turned into a totally different beast.

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He turned it into something where he invited us to mean what we were saying, or rather to do satire, which is not quite the same thing as jokes about current events.

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He invited us to do satire, and that was really attractive to me.

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And so I flew back to work with him, and we immediately hit it off.

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The first thing I came back for was the Republican convention

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in philadelphia in 2000 and then i never left again i came back for that

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and then i was there solidly for the next five years

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this is the very first time i'm sitting behind my new

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desk isn't this beautiful jimmy can we get a shot of

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this this was a happy accident this gig was never the

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goal i mean i love the hype i mean i grew up on johnny carson

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and i was first generation david letterman like his first year in late night was my first year in college

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and so we perfectly you know I was just a core audience for him.

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Just for the record, I'm not replacing David Letterman.

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His creative legacy is a high pencil mark on a doorframe that we all have to measure ourselves against.

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They basically offered it to me, and then four months later, Dave stepped down, and they said, hey, we meant that, do you want to do it?

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I went, yeah, I do.

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But in between, I basically did four months of therapy, thought, hey, why wouldn't I want to do this?

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My sister Mary was sort of the deciding factor for me.

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I would have talked to my mom about this, but she had passed at this point point and

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so uh nobody knew that i had been offered this job by my family

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and i asked my sister mary i said mary could you

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come up she lives in dc i said could you come

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up to new york i just want to talk to you about something she said sure

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so she she gets on the train she comes up the

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next day she goes what's going on kiddo well you know dave is stepping down

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and she just burst into a huge smile

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and i said okay okay mary

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if this show works out cbs should send you a bouquet of flowers

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because I'm going to take the job because you just smiled.

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Her happiness for me getting the gig is the thing that really sealed her for me.

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You wrote me a letter after my mom died and in it you said I hope you find peace in your grief.

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When Anderson came in to talk to me for his show, I know that his mother had passed recently

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and I had written to him about that

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and I didn't know he was going to talk about it

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but he brought it up and we talked about it and had a good conversation I thought.

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Your dad was killed in a plane crash.

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You were 10 years old, along with your two brothers, Peter and Paul.

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I was out of the country when it actually went up, and my daughter joined us.

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We were family vacationing in Iceland.

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She goes, Dad, did you see what's going on online?

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It was like, like 10 million people had seen it in the first 24 hours or something.

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I was very surprised.

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I had no idea that, I mean, it makes sense because everybody experiences grief, if you're lucky,

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you know if you love someone enough to feel the great loss of

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that but i was very surprised because it's not something

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that i had talked about publicly

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and it felt innate to my view of the world

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but i didn't realize that experience that i had had would be

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so meaningful to other people because so many other people experience it.

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It seems obvious and a very simple thing to realize, but it did take me by surprise.

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You're dressed like a pearl.

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Because the 30th anniversary is pearls.

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For the people out there who do not know, this is actually, tonight is actually our 30th anniversary.

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Part of the joy for the audience is that she takes the piss out of me because she sure can.

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Do we ever fight?

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Oh, I know.

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Did you not read my email that I sent you?

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We've got to make some decisions about whatever it is.

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No, we don't really fight.

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We don't really have Donnie Brooks.

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She's great company.

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I try to be equally good company.

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I don't think I am as good company as she is.

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We laugh a lot.

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She's the best laugh.

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She's the laugh I want to get more than anybody else.

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That's the best.

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We grew up in the same town.

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Like, wow, I must be doing okay.

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I can't believe Heavy McGee's going out with me.

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We went on our first date was December 26, 1990.

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And then we got engaged December 22, 1992.

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I was going to wait till December 26.

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But my friend Scott Weary, he said, no, man, you got to ask her before Christmas, because she's going to want to show that ring on Christmas morning to everybody at church.

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And I said, you're absolutely right.

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So December 22.

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I remember when my daughter Madeline was born, she was born in september in chicago and

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so by the time we were taking her out in the

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world it was getting chilly her head in her little buggy

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and just tucked in and bonded with just only her little face showing

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that little thing and walking her along and i remember walking her outside

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and going yes that's a tree that's a tree that's

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that blue things that's the sky those are clouds

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and remember going i can't wait till you can talk back

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and you know people say like oh there are certain ages

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that are perfect you know like six is perfect you know

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or like right before they become a teenager

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and they still think you're pretty great you know like 11

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or something like that 12 or something like that

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but having an adult child you know

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if you've got a good relationship with them is the best

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to lose an argument with an adult child over something you thought you knew about.

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I mean, if you can take it, it's pretty great.

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I think my son turned in his last assignment today, his thesis, his senior thesis.

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I think he got turned in today.

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But the last week of the show is Monday he graduates.

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Thursday is my last show.

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And Saturday my brother gets married.

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All my brothers and sisters and then husbands and wives and everything are coming to the last show.

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And then we're all getting on the train the next day and going down to D.C.

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to go to Tommy's wedding.

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The next day, focus is not on me.

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Focus is on my brother.

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So much better.

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And we'll get drunk and we'll sing.

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We all think we have good voices.

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That's the great danger of our family, especially the men.

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They really think we have good voices.

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We'll get drunk and we'll sing on the dance floor.

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It'll be great.

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I want to thank everybody who reached out to me over the weekend, including one text from an unknown number offering a high-paying IT work-from-home job for only two to three hours a day.

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Yes, I am very interested.

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I love going out every night and talking about what happened today.

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Because again, it's a selfish endeavor.

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I want the audience to feel better.

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I'm the host.

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It's like I'm hosting a party.

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That's the idea.

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But I'm also getting a lot out of it.

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We're all getting a lot out of it.

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I'll miss that as much as I'll miss the audience.

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That camaraderie of us feeling better about our day, being able to talk about it.

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So that's it.

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I'm gone.

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Just like .

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I hope they laughed.

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I hope they felt better at the end of the day.

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I mean, that's it.

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We're there.

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We're the last thing you see.

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You know, a lot of things happen in a day, but we bat last.

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And so we get the last take that people hear before they go to bed.

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And I hope it made the day better.

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.

Shadowing Practice: Stephen Colbert on the End of 'The Late Show,' What's Next & Why CBS Might Have "Saved" His Life - Learn English Speaking with Video

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What is the Shadowing Technique?