Shadowing Practice: Take Action If You Want Changes - President Obama Motivational Speech - Learn English Speaking with Video
Choose a practice mode
Each mode opens a full-screen practice room.
71 sentences
If sentences are too short or too long, click Edit to adjust them.
1
You have to go through life with more than just passion for change.
2
You need a strategy.
3
I'll repeat that.
4
I want you to have passion.
5
You have to have a strategy.
6
Not just awareness, but action.
7
Not just hashtags, but votes.
8
You see, change requires more than righteous anger.
9
It requires a program, and it requires organizing. At the 1964
10
Democratic Convention, Fannie Lou Hamer, 5 feet 4 inches tall, gave a fiery speech on the national stage.
11
But then she went back home to Mississippi and organized cotton pickers.
12
And she didn't have the tools
13
and technology where you can whip up a movement in minutes if you had to go door to door.
14
But to bring about structural change, lasting change, awareness is not enough.
15
It requires changes in law, changes in custom.
16
If you care about mass incarceration,
17
let me ask you, how are you pressuring members of Congress to pass the criminal justice reform bill now pending before then?
18
If you care about better policing, do you know who your district attorney is?
19
Do you know who your state's attorney general is?
20
Do you know the difference?
21
Do you know who appoints the police chief?
22
And who writes the police training manual?
23
Find out who they are, what their responsibilities are.
24
Mobilize the community, present them with a plan, work with them to bring about change, hold them accountable if they do not deliver.
25
passion is vital, but you've got to have a strategy.
26
And your plan better include voting.
27
Not just some of the time, but all of the time.
28
It is absolutely true that 50 years after the Voting Rights Act, there are still too many barriers in this country to vote.
29
There are too many people trying to erect new barriers to voting.
30
This is the only advanced democracy on Earth that goes
31
goes out of its way to make it difficult for people to vote.
32
And there's a reason for that.
33
There's a legacy to that.
34
Change requires more than just speaking out.
35
It requires listening as well.
36
In particular, it requires listening to those with whom you disagree and being prepared to compromise.
37
When I was a state senator, I helped pass Illinois' first racial profiling law,
38
and one of the first laws in the nation requiring the videotaping of confessions in capital cases.
39
And we were successful because early on, I engaged law enforcement.
40
I didn't say to them, oh, there's this, you guys are so racist, you know, you need to do something.
41
I understood, as many of you do,
42
that the overwhelming majority of police officers are good and honest and courageous and fair and love the communities they serve.
43
And we knew there were some bad apples and that even good cops with the best of intentions,
44
including, by the way, African -American police officers might have unconscious biases, as we all do.
45
So we engaged and we listened and we kept working until we built consensus.
46
And because we took the time to listen,
47
we crafted legislation that was good for the police because it improved the trust and cooperation of the community.
48
And it was good for the communities who were less likely to be treated unfairly.
49
There will be times when you shouldn't compromise your core values, your integrity.
50
And you will have the responsibility to speak up in the face of injustice. But listen.
51
Engage.
52
If the other side has a point, learn from them.
53
If the wrong, rebut them, teach them, beat them on the battlefield of ideas.
54
And you might as well start practicing now because one thing I can guarantee you, you will have to deal with ignorance,
55
hatred, racism, foolishness, trifling folks.
56
I promise you, you will have to deal with all that at every stage of your life.
57
That may not seem fair, but life has never been completely fair.
58
Nobody promised you a crystal stair.
59
And if you want to make life fair, then you've got to start with the world as it is. So that's my advice.
60
That's how you change things.
61
Change isn't something that happens every four years or eight years.
62
Change is not placing your faith in any particular politician, and then just putting your feet up and saying, okay, go.
63
Change is the effort of committed citizens who hitch their wagons to something bigger than themselves
64
and fight for it every single day.
65
Now it's your turn.
66
And the good news is you're ready.
67
And when your journey seems too hard, And when you run into a chorus of cynics who tell you
68
that you're being foolish to keep believing or that you can't do something
69
or that you should just give up or you should just settle,
70
you might say to yourself a little phrase that I have found handy these last eight years.
71
Yes, we can.
Download App
Everything you need to speak fluently
AI PronunciationScore every sentence
IPA PracticeMaster every sound
VocabularyBuild your word bank
Vocab GameLearn while playing
Same Channel
B21
There Is No Such Thing As Failure - Oprah Winfrey Speech to Young People
TeensDaily ConversationUniversity Students
B25
How to Stop Comparing Yourself to Others -Oprah Winfrey
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B2Choose What You Love Most - First Lady Michelle Obama Motivational Speech
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
FOR YOU
Recommend Video
C11
332 sentences
1984 DNC Tale of Two Cities Speech (Full)
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B2464 sentences
Video
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
C122
54 sentences
Shadowing english with Barack OBAMA | American English accent (lesson #1)
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
C11
92 sentences
AOC Speaks at March on Washington 2026
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
![THIS WILL CHANGE YOU! Navy Seal Admiral William H. McRaven [MOTIVATIONAL SPEECH]](https://img.youtube.com/vi/mMEq0r97T_k/mqdefault.jpg)
C11
93 sentences
THIS WILL CHANGE YOU! Navy Seal Admiral William H. McRaven [MOTIVATIONAL SPEECH]
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B24
48 sentences
Obama video truyền cảm hứng || Tiếng anh phụ đề song ngữ, phát triển bản thân
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
C11
43 sentences
everyone must watch
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B247 sentences
Legally Blonde 2 - Speak Up!
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B25
330 sentences
Barack Obama graduation speech: Arizona State University (ASU)
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C11
214 sentences
President Obama speech at Jesse Jackson funeral: Full video
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B21
43 sentences
The difference between Trump and Obama
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B22
122 sentences
Obama Candid Answers To Intern Questions- Full Video
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “Take Action If You Want Changes - President Obama Motivational Speech”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: requires, fair, passion, voting, strategy. This video has 71 sentences and 813 words to shadow. The speech runs for 5:41. The speaker talks at a steady 143 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. 86% 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 |
|---|---|---|
| passion noun | /ˈpæʃən/ | A true desire sustained or prolonged. |
| engage verb | /ɪnˈɡeɪd͡ʒ/ | To engross or hold the attention of; to keep busy or occupied. |
| awareness noun | /əˈwɛɹ.nəs/ | The state or level of consciousness where sense data can be confirmed by an observer. |
| barrier noun | /ˈbæɹi.ə/ | A structure that bars passage. |
| compromise noun | /ˈkɑmpɹəˌmaɪz/ | The settlement of differences by arbitration or by consent reached by mutual concessions. |
| organize verb | /ˈɔɹɡənaɪz/ | To arrange in working order. |
| enforcement noun | /ɪnˈfoɹsm(ə)nt/ | The act of enforcing; compulsion. |
| guarantee noun | /ˌɡæɹ.ənˈtiː/ | Anything that assures a certain outcome. |
| custom noun | /ˈkʌstəm/ | Frequent repetition of the same behavior; way of behavior common to many; ordinary manner; habitual practice; method of doing, living or behaving. |
| anger noun | /ˈæŋɡə/ | A strong and unpleasant feeling of displeasure, hostility, or antagonism, usually combined with an urge to yell, curse, damage or destroy things, or harm… |
| racist noun | /ˈɹeɪ.sɪst/ | A person who believes in or supports racism; a person who believes that a particular race is superior to others, or who discriminates against other races. |
| crystal noun | /ˈkɹɪstəl/ | A solid composed of an array of atoms or molecules possessing long-range order and arranged in a pattern which is periodic in three dimensions. |
| citizen noun | /ˈsɪtɪzən/ | A resident of a city or town, especially one with legally recognized rights or duties. |
| vital adjective | /ˈvaɪtəl/ | Relating to or characteristic of life. |
| cop noun | /kɑp/ | A police officer or prison guard. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| find out verb | To discover, as by asking or investigating. |
| give up verb | To surrender (someone or something); to inform on (someone). |
| go back verb | To return to a place or state after having been there at a previous time. |
| go through verb | To travel from one end of something to the other. |
| speak out verb | To assert or promote one's opinion; to make one's thoughts known. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- Do you know who your state's attorney general is?
- Do you know the difference?
- Do you know who appoints the police chief?
- That's how you change things.
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 10 contractions and reduced forms, such as didn't, you're, you've. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: passion /ˈpæʃən/, cooperation /koʊˌɑ.pəˈɹeɪ.ʃən/, racial /ˈɹeɪʃəl/, structural /ˈstɹʌk(t͡)ʃəɹəl/, politician /ˌpɑ.ləˈtɪʃ.ən/
- Long words — get the stress right: cooperation /koʊˌɑ.pəˈɹeɪ.ʃən/, integrity /ɪnˈtɛɡɹəti/, politician /ˌpɑ.ləˈtɪʃ.ən/, incarceration /ɪŋˌkɑː(ɹ)səˈɹeɪʃən/
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 passion, engage, awareness.
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.