Shadowing Practice: Storyfun 5 Unit 4 The king's colours - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Students Book, page 28.
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4. The King's Colours My name's Oliver.
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I'm lucky because Dad and I do a lot of travelling together.
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I heard this story on the radio last year.
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I really liked it.
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Many thousands of years ago, in a country where the weather was always hot and dry, there was an important but sad king.
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The king was sad because there weren't many colours in his country.
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The sands and grasses everywhere were yellow, the skies were always blue, and the rocks and stones were all grey.
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All the animals were grey too.
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The camels in the sandy desert, the swans and the eagles, the horses in the hills and the hippos and snakes.
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I want more colours in my country, the king said.
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I want to see white,
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purple, orange, green, pink and black in my country.
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An old woman heard the king and walked for three days to speak to him.
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She was tired after her journey, but she didn't sleep.
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She sat down on a large rock, looked at the king and said, Don't be sad.
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"'I can't give you all six colours—white,
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pink, purple, orange, green, and black—but I can give you three more colours for your country.
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Which three colours would you like most of all?
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The king thought and thought, and then slept, and then thought and thought again, and then slept.
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On the third day, he had an answer for the old woman.
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Most of all, I'd like the colours orange, black and white, he said.
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Orange because that colour is like yellow, but it looks warmer and more interesting.
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Orange in my country could make me happy again.
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I'd like black because I never see black in the day.
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Black is an excellent, strong colour, and black in my country could make me feel stronger again too.
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I'd like white because white is the colour of the light from the moon,
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and I know that white in my country could make my heart sing.
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These three colours could make me the happiest king in the world.
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The woman looked at the king kindly, and, a minute later, a butterfly flew onto his shoulder.
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Its wings were a lovely orange colour.
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The king smiled.
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Amazing, he said.
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After another minute, a big black beetle climbed out from under a rock.
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The king was so happy he jumped up and down and waved his arms in the air.
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I feel stronger!
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Wonderful! he said.
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Another minute later, a beautiful white wolf ran down the hill towards them.
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When the king saw the white wolf, his heart began to sing.
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Excellent, he said.
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But this wasn't enough for the king.
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Please, old woman, make one of the animals in my country orange,
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black and white, he said.
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The old woman said,
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the highest hill, found the food, and carried it carefully back to the old woman.
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The orange butterfly, the black beetle, and the white wolf followed him on his long journey.
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The king put the food on the old woman's rock and waited.
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He waited for a week, and then another week, and another.
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I don't mind.
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I can wait, he thought each time the day ended and the night began.
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But at the end of the third week, he was tired and he fell asleep.
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The next day, the king woke up suddenly in the midday sun.
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He looked at the rock.
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The orange fruit, the black beans, and the white bread weren't there.
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Then something touched his back.
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Old woman, he whispered, is that you?
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But it wasn't the old woman.
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An enormous tiger, an amazing, wonderful, excellent tiger was standing behind him.
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It jumped in the air to show the king its strong orange, black and white striped legs and body,
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and then lay down in the yellow grass in front of the grey rocks under the blue, blue sky.
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Then it waved its tail and turned its head to look kindly at the king.
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Wow! the king said.
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Now I can smile my biggest smile Now my legs,
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arms and back feel strong and straight And now my heart is singing loudly again
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The king often went to wait by the old woman's rock She never came back But red,
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purple and green colours slowly began to appear in his country as well
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Red birds flew above large red strawberries that grew between the grey rocks
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Purple snakes slept between purple sweet potato plants that grew strong and tall from under the yellow grasses
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Green frogs jumped between the pink flowers
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and green pea plants grew high in the blue sky and waved their leaves in the wind
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soon the country was a much more colorful place for the king to smile walk and sing in
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This A2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Storyfun 5 Unit 4 The king's colours”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: king, colour, orange, rock, purple. This video has 71 sentences and 800 words to shadow. The speech runs for 7:20. The speaker talks slowly, about 109 words per minute, so there is time to copy every sound. 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 |
|---|---|---|
| colours noun | Flag denoting the nationality of a vessel, flown from the stern. | |
| purple noun | /ˈpɝ.pl̩/ | A colour between red and blue; violet, though often closer to magenta. |
| grey adjective | /ɡɹeɪ/ | Commonwealth standard spelling of gray. |
| grass noun | /ɡɹɑːs/ | Any plant of the family Poaceae, characterized by leaves that arise from nodes in the stem and leaf bases that wrap around the stem, especially those grown as… |
| wolf noun | /wʊlf/ | Canis lupus; the largest wild member of the canine subfamily. |
| tiger noun | /ˈtaɪɡə/ | Panthera tigris, a large predatory mammal of the cat family, indigenous to Asia. |
| snake noun | /sneɪk/ | Any of the suborder Serpentes of legless reptiles with long, thin bodies and fork-shaped tongues. |
| kindly adverb | /ˈkaɪn(d)li/ | In a kind manner, out of kindness. |
| butterfly noun | /ˈbʌ.tə(ɹ).flaɪ/ | A flying insect of the order Lepidoptera, distinguished from moths by their diurnal activity and generally brighter colouring. |
| beetle noun | /ˈbiːtəl/ | Any of numerous species of insect in the order Coleoptera characterized by a pair of hard, shell-like front wings which cover and protect a pair of rear wings… |
| carefully adverb | /ˈkɛɹf(ə)li/ | With care; attentively, circumspectly. |
| sand noun | /sænd/ | Rock that is ground more finely than gravel, but is not as fine as silt (more formally, see grain sizes chart), forming beaches and deserts and also used in… |
| flower noun | /ˈfloʊɚ/ | A reproductive structure in angiosperms (flowering plants), often conspicuously colourful and typically including sepals, petals, and either or both stamens… |
| desert noun | /ˈdɛz.ɚt/ | A barren area of land or desolate terrain, especially one with little water or vegetation; a wasteland. |
| asleep adjective | /əˈsliːp/ | In a state of sleep; also, broadly, resting. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| come back verb | To return to a place. | |
| jump up verb | To move from one position to a higher position by one jump. | |
| run down verb | To hit someone with a car or other vehicle and injure or kill them. | |
| stand behind verb | To support; express one's support for, especially despite opposition; to stick with a decision. | |
| wake up verb | /ˌweɪk ˈʌp/ | To stop sleeping; to awake. |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 12 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'd, don't, wasn't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
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 colours, purple, grey.
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.