Shadowing Practice: the most toxic form of discrimination - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Why are some people described as elegant and others as vulgar?

Why is this elegant and this vulgar?

Well there isn't one single answer to that question but I think it's interesting to wonder

what might influence us to use this or that label, vulgar or elegant.

You'll agree with me that elegant has a positive connotation whereas vulgar has a negative connotation so when you call someone vulgar, it's not nice.

Vulgar is often used to describe women who aren't wife material.

It targets how they look but also how they speak.

But vulgar comes from the latin root vulgaris, which means of the people, ordinary, common.

So it's funny to me that a word that used to mean

and still mean of the people is now used as an insult targeting women who aren't respectable.

I want to explore that further.

To be honest with you, this video idea has been sitting on my list for quite some time

but i wanted to find the right time to talk about it and

when i saw the opening ceremony of the olympics i thought

this is it this is the right moment i don't know

if you've watched the ceremony it's okay if you haven't

but anyway during that ceremony french pop singer aya nakamura sang

and you have to know

that aya is very regularly called vulgar now i know a

lot of you don't know who aya nakamura is i asked you on instagram

and on youtube as well if you knew

and the percentage was kind of scary not gonna lie i

thought more people knew who she was you're actually very lucky to be watching this video

because you better know who this woman is she's growing super

fast in fact she's actually very well known in a bunch

of countries all around the world especially france where she's a proper it girl now

but anyway i'm aware that not all of you have reached

that level of cool so i'm gonna provide you with some facts aya nakamura is actually called Aya Koko Danyoko.

She was born in Mali in 1995 and she's a descendant of the Griot cast.

Griot are known for being singers, storytellers, they are often in charge of perpetuating oral traditions.

When she was quite young, her family decided to move to France in Parisian suburbs.

Alongside her studies in fashion, Aya released her first song in 2014 under the name Aya Nakamura.

She chose that name because she was a fan of the TV series Heroes and she liked the character Hiro Nakamura.

In the following year, she released more and more songs, became more and more popular, she collaborated with bigger artists,

had some successful albums, and then things really really changed in 2018 when she released this song.

D'après les remarques, tu m'as eu dans ton lit Oh, Jaja

Jaja was an international hit The music was covered in a

bunch of different languages It has almost 1 billion views on YouTube

That is a lot for a Francophone singer The international fame

got her on Forbes She was nominated for Best International Artist at the BET Awards

And she was going to perform in Coachella Before it got cancelled because of the C word Now, from an outside perspective it seems that everything is going great for Aya.

She is internationally known, she has just performed during the Olympics ceremony.

But to be honest with you, it's not as great as it seems.

There is a significant gap between Aya's fame and how she is treated at home in France.

In fact, as soon as rumors spread that Aya would perform at the Olympics ceremony, a lot of people complained.

There are singers who would probably be better than Ayana Kamoura in this story.

Honestly, if she represents France, it would be really bad.

And in addition, it doesn't represent France at the level of language.

A lot of people are sure, but not our sports minister, AOC.

No, not that AOC, Amelia Odea-Castera.

M'ja-ja, m'ja-ja.

There's a lot of reality, there's a lot of vitality.

I love it.

Anyway, every single time Aya performs in front of a large audience, especially people who aren't necessarily familiar with art,

the backlash gets really, really intense.

She's called ugly, people say she looks like a man, people also say that her songs don't mean anything, that it's basic, that it's not French, blah blah blah.

Now these attacks are characteristic of what sociologists call symbolic violence.

Symbolic violence refers to the subtle and often unnoticed forms of domination and control that are exerted through social norms,

values, and cultural practices.

This concept was invented by Pierre Bourdieu, a badass French sociologist of the 20th century.

He invented this concept because he wanted to complexify the way we understand violence.

We too often reduce violence to its physical forms, but it goes beyond that.

The concept of symbolic violence is super useful, for example, when we talk about colonization.

Colonization is violent in the sense that it kills people, it displaces them.

That's physical violence, we see it.

But colonization is also violent in the sense that it makes the colonized language, lifestyle and traditions inferior to those of the colonizer.

The example I chose, colonization, isn't random to be honest.

As a French and Malian singer, Aya Nakamura carries with her the legacy of French colonialism.

So in this video, I want to look at the insidious ways in

which symbolic violence is exerted and as you understood it by now, we'll look at Aya Nakamura's experience with it.

We'll start by looking at Aya's music and then Aya as a person.

So let's start with the music.

With his French perfectly beautiful, his music perfectly melodious.

Aya Nakamura doesn't sing in French.

We say, listen, we don't understand, it's shit.

very bad at languages and two, we have too much confidence.

But anyway, the problem with Aya's music is that it's French, but a lot of French people don't understand it.

They do make Yaourt out of it.

In this interview, for example, the journalist looked at the Yaourt parodies made of Aya, making fun of the fact that the lyrics can be hard to understand.

And he asks her if she thinks the criticism of her lyrics are legitimate.

And she answers that it's fine to criticize.

The problem is when people judge without even trying to understand.

Aya explains that she comes from Parisian suburbs, the towers, where people have their own language.

So the journalists ask her to explain the meaning of some of those words like Pukki, Jaja, Belek.

And it's something that she has to do very often and can be a bit boring and comfortable at times.

Eventually the journalist asks her what Kable means.

And Aya makes fun of him because Kable is quite popular, you know.

It means to get angry, to be annoyed, or to go crazy.

This segment is funny and interesting to approach from a sociological perspective, because Aya reversed the dynamic of the conversation.

The journalist positions himself as the well-spoken person in the room.

That means a hierarchy is established between the journalist's normal way of talking and Aya's weird words.

That is a form of symbolic violence.

The problem is that Kable is no longer a weird word.

It's actually quite popular among young people.

So the journalist becomes the weirder in the room.

Okay, boomer.

This passage is really cool.

It shows one of bourgeois people's greatest fear, the power of popular culture, the culture of the people, especially black and Arab people in that case.

They just don't get it.

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Bourgeois people are both extremely judgmental of the art coming from working classes because it lacks depth.

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It doesn't obey to their bourgeois norms.

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Bourgeois people demand a certain level of abstraction from artists.

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In this criticism, for example, this guy explains that it's okay to tweak the French language,

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but he insinuates that only those who have a deep understanding of the language can do it.

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He takes the example of great French writers who have used slang in their books, but you know, those writers, actually most of them bourgeois writers,

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also had deep knowledge of the French language, its grammar, its spelling, how abstract it can get, et cetera.

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They could write slang, but they could also master the art of abstraction. So yeah.

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And to him, Aya does not represent that.

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So basically implies that only those who master the norm have the right to challenge the norm.

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So that means that you have to read all the great French writers, the lyricists.

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You must integrate yourself in the canon before you bring something new to the table.

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So again, we see here the hierarchy between different linguistics, heritages.

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The French language is above.

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It's the purest form of expression.

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and other languages which mix French and local languages are inferior.

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They are seen as a deformation of French.

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They aren't understood as something uniquely different.

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And this is, once again, reminiscent of the history of French colonialism.

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Colonization not only meant the dispossession of indigenous land, but also the control of local dialects.

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If you remember, at the beginning of the video, I said that Ayana Kamoura was the descendant of the Griot,

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a caste that was known for storytelling, for perpetuating oral traditions.

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We know that a lot of indigenous communities that were colonized have had to give up on those oral traditions.

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Some of those oral traditions are rediscovered now thanks to the work of amazing scholars working in various fields of research, but a lot of them have disappeared.

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In French colonies, the French language was taught and imposed, but progressively new languages merging French and indigenous tongues emerged.

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We call them Créoles, Créole languages.

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They remind us that languages are dynamic, contextual, practical.

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But elites hate that.

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Practicality has no place in culture.

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Culture is the place where abstraction should prevail.

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Language is a tool to convey one's intellectual superiority.

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So you gotta get deep.

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And Aya doesn't necessarily get deep.

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Even during interviews when journalists try to ask more abstract questions, she tends to go back to practical stuff.

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How she feels, how life is for her, how things impact her.

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Again, bourgeois people don't like that.

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That's not how they function.

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That annoying guy in the video can't force Aya to use normal French or to use abstraction.

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Other people wish they could, but this guy is a good guy, you see.

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He tries to understand.

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He's different.

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However, he wished Aya studied all the French canon to share

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that heritage in her songs so that he and his friends have something to intellectually masturbate on,

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something that can be analyzed and intellectualized to make them sound smart during their expensive Parisian dinner parties.

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But Aya doesn't care.

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She talks about daily life, she talks about the things she likes, she talks about her friends or her enemies,

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she uses the words people around her use, and it resonates with millions of people.

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So to sum it off, working class people tend to prioritize function over abstraction, whereas bourgeois people prioritize abstraction over function.

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That doesn't mean that all working class people don't care about abstraction, and that doesn't mean that abstraction is inherently bad.

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Abstraction is necessary across sciences and art in order to say new things.

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So when I say abstraction, I'm rather thinking about those who think that abstraction equals smart.

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So they use as much abstract language as possible to say nothing of value, nothing new, nothing thought-provoking.

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Okay, so we said that bourgeois people don't like popular culture.

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In fact, they make sure you know that they don't like it.

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The distaste for popular culture allows them to distinguish themselves from middle classes,

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working classes, etc. However, when popular culture gets really popular, like it is the case for Aya, bourgeois people can't afford to hate anymore.

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You see, they love to cultivate their cultural isolation, but they also fear that their isolation feeds anti-rich hate.

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That's why when a working class artist gets really popular, they can't ignore it.

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They have to remain relatable, otherwise people will hate them even more.

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That's why despite criticizing her, they eventually invited ayer on their shows.

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That's why they gave her awards after neglecting her for so long.

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That's why they invited her to big ceremonies like the French Olympic ceremony.

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Ayer's fame makes me think of a line from Medine's Grand Paris.

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La banlieue influence Paname, Paname influence le monde.

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So la banlieue is the name given to suburbs, the towers right behind Paris Ring Road that are known for being quite diverse

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and panam is another name for paris it's a cool name i would say

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so keep that in mind if you want to sound cool you know

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so they say the banlieue influences paris paris influences the world

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he goes on maghreb influences panam panam influences the world

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and also africa influences panam panam influences the world some people

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like me have to make very long video essays to explain something

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and then people just write a few lines and that's it you get it.

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Aya is a tall, confident black woman and for some that's already too much.

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Okay, let's break it down with first the confidence.

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So when you're black and French and famous, there is this expectation that you should be eternally thankful for your success.

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It means that you should be grateful that France and French people gave you the opportunity to succeed.

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It doesn't matter if you were born in France, if you are a French citizen.

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The same rule applies to everybody that is not white.

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We saw it when French beloved actor Omar Sy made a comment on the fact

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that people were concerned when Ukraine was invaded by Russia, but don't necessarily see that these things have been happening in Africa for a long time.

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That did not land well.

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After that comment, many news outlets and commentators suspected Omar Sy of being ungrateful.

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That specific term was used quite a bit.

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By calling him ungrateful, they implied that Omar Sy didn't have the right to criticize France.

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Now let's be clear, you would never hear a thing like this addressed to white French artists.

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The implication was that Omar Sy, a black person, born French, wasn't fully French.

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That he had to earn it by behaving correctly, so by only saying good things about France.

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Similarly, the fact that Aya is confident is perceived as an affront.

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She should too sound and look agreeable and thankful.

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Now, this is compounded by the fact that she's a black woman.

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You might be aware that a lot of stereotypes around black women have circulated across centuries.

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People have called them bossy, loud.

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They are either the mammy or the jezebel, so either unattractive or hyper-sexualized.

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Well, Aya is criticized by some for being unattractive and by others for being vulgar.

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She doesn't correspond to western white beauty standards and haters make sure she's aware of this.

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Actually, Aya is pretty conservative in comparison to American female rappers.

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Some of her dance moves and lyrics are sexual but nothing crazy,

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nothing more than what other white female pop singers do and they don't get called vulgar.

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You see, because symbolic violence is based on the assertion of hegemonic norms aka bourgeois norms, it intersects with many forms of discrimination.

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Racism, sexism, classism, colorism, etc. Yeah, I know we're getting very intersectional now.

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Anyway, I think you better understand by now how symbolic violence works.

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It targets the language, it targets the persona, it targets how the person speaks, how they look, how they hold themselves, how they behave.

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The only thing I haven't talked about yet is probably the most perverse aspect of symbolic violence.

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It's internalization.

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In one of the interviews I showed earlier, Aya used the word normal to refer to the French language as it is taught in schools,

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implying that her way of talking isn't normal.

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She internalized the fact that there is a hierarchy between the two, that her way of talking is to be evaluated according to the norm, according to French taught at school.

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Her way of talking only exists in relation to the superior norm.

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It cannot exist by itself outside that hierarchy.

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I can think of a few public appearances where it seems like Aya feels like she doesn't belong, often during interviews.

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Those interviews are reminiscent of the type of interactions you get between a student and a teacher.

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The bourgeois interviewers expect a good level of French.

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They expect Aya to engage in a more abstract way, or to remain polite as they ask her to translate every single word in her lyrics instead of doing the work themselves.

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So you have to make a parallel between the teacher and the interviewer, and between the student and Aya.

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The teacher has the power to humiliate the student.

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The contrary isn't as obvious.

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Aya doesn't seem to feel comfortable during those interviews

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because she knows she can be humiliated for doing grammatical errors or for answering basic things.

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In fact, a lot of the singers and rappers who come from les banlieues, who come from working class areas, have suffered from that symbolic violence when they were at school.

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Some interviewers managed to create a safe space where Aya can feel like the person she truly is.

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But there have been too many cases where the atmosphere feels like the atmosphere of a classroom with

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that one teacher waiting for the right moment to shame someone publicly.

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Nevertheless, and that will be my conclusion, it was great to see Aya perform at the Olympic ceremony with the garde républicaine.

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She received such a negative backlash from the right and the far right when rumors spread that she would perform.

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So this was a bit of an artistic snare to be honest.

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All to put it more bluntly, this was a very artistic way of saying f* you.

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And sure, there was a lot of work washing during the ceremony.

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Emmanuel Macron used it to improve his global image while facilitating the rise of the far right at home.

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But still, I'm happy that we shed light on all the wonderful people who were part of the ceremony.

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I'm happy

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that Algerian athletes got the opportunity to throw roses in the

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sand to pay tribute to the Algerians who were thrown in the river in 1961.

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I'm happy that the Palestinian delegation was welcomed by the public.

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So yeah, I want to end on this positive note and I hope you enjoyed this video.

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As always, the conversation continues in the comment section.

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Don't forget to like, to subscribe if it's not already done.

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I would like to thank my patrons for their support and a special thanks to top tier patrons Corigi,

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Kodrina, Tristan, Patricia, Christopher, Ian, Donnage, Alex, Manuel, Christopher, and Perry.

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And thank you to...

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No, sponsor of this video here.

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So yeah, that's it.

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I'll see you very soon.

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Salut!

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93 sentences

Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This C1 speaking lesson is built on the video “the most toxic form of discrimination”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: aya, french, language. This video has 242 sentences and 3223 words to shadow. The speech runs for 19:32. The speaker talks at a natural 165 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. Only 79% 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
abstraction noun	/æbˈstɹæk.ʃn̩/	The act of abstracting, separating, withdrawing, or taking away; withdrawal; the state of being taken away.
symbolic adjective		Pertaining to a symbol.
norm noun	/nɔːm/	That which is normal or typical.
colonization noun	/kɔlənɪˈzɛjʃən/	The process of establishing a colony.
criticize verb	/ˈkɹɪtɪsaɪz/	To find fault (with something).
hierarchy noun	/ˈhaɪ.ə.ɹɑː(ɹ).ki/	A body of authoritative officials organized in nested ranks.
elegant adjective	/ˈɛləɡənt/	Characterised by or exhibiting elegance; having grace, refinement, or tasteful simplicity.
banlieue noun		The outskirts of a city, especially in France, inhabited chiefly by poor people living in tenement-style housing.
imply verb	/ɪmˈplaɪ/	To have as a necessary consequence; to lead to (something) as a consequence.
suburbs noun	/ˈsʌbɝbz/	The populated area surrounding a city.
annoy verb	/əˈnoɪ̯/	To disturb or irritate, especially by continued or repeated acts; to bother with unpleasant deeds.
colonize verb	/ˈkɑlənaɪz/	To settle (a place) with colonists, and hence make (a place) into a colony.
connotation noun	/ˌkɑnəˈteɪʃən/	A meaning of a word or phrase that is suggested or implied, as opposed to a denotation, or literal meaning. A characteristic of words or phrases, or of the…
descendant noun	/dɪˈsɛndənt/	One of the progeny of a specified person, at any distance of time or through any number of generations.
exert verb	/ɪɡˈzɝt/	To make use of, to apply, especially of something nonmaterial; to bring to bear.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Meaning
go back to verb	To stem from; to originate in.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on	has been sitting · have been happening
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	you've watched · have reached · has just performed
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	is actually called · was born · are known
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	women who aren · vulgaris, which means · people who aren

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 56 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, doesn't, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “sh” and “zh” sounds: abstraction /æbˈstɹæk.ʃn̩/, colonization /kɔlənɪˈzɛjʃən/, connotation /ˌkɑnəˈteɪʃən/, backlash /ˈbækˌlæʃ/, isolation /ˌaɪsəˈleɪʃən/
Long words — get the stress right: colonization /kɔlənɪˈzɛjʃən/, hierarchy /ˈhaɪ.ə.ɹɑː(ɹ).ki/, connotation /ˌkɑnəˈteɪʃən/, perpetuate /pɚˈpɛt͡ʃəˌweɪt/, prioritize /pɹaɪˈɒɹ.ə.taɪz/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like abstraction, symbolic, norm.

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 technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: the most toxic form of discrimination - Learn English Speaking with Video

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