Shadowing Practice: The Worst War You Never Learned About, Mapped - Learn English Speaking with Video
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It's 1991, and the Soviet Union is fracturing.
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And down here, another communist party is failing.
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Yugoslavia, a federation of six countries, is ripping itself apart.
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Their economy is in ruin, and they're replacing communism with nationalism, the kind that thrives on focusing on ethnic and religious differences.
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By the end of 1991, Croatia, Slovenia, and Macedonia have all declared independence.
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Macedonia is allowed to leave peacefully, but Slovenia and Croatia fight wars to be independent from Yugoslavia.
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And then you have Serbia, populated primarily by Christian Serbs, and they were not going to let Yugoslavia fully fall apart.
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Together with Montenegro, they attempt to become the successor state to Yugoslavia.
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After all, it was they who held the most power in Yugoslavia, and who comprised the majority of the Yugoslav army.
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They didn't want independent states.
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They wanted to hold on to their majority, to their power.
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Another country in this crumbling federation was the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
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Almost half of this country were Bosnian Muslims, called Bosniaks, and about a third were Christian Serbs,
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similar to the Christian Serbs living up here but living in Bosnia.
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The other 17 % were Croats.
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For a long time, these groups had lived side by side in relative peace.
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They had a common ideology, communism, the idea of Yugoslavia.
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But as all these new countries were being created, no one wanted to end up in a new nation controlled by the other side.
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So it's late 1991, and a largely Croat region declares itself an independent state from Bosnia.
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It wasn't recognized internationally.
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While some Croat leaders want to secede from the country entirely, they first agree to cooperate with the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina,
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acting like a state within a state.
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The next year, Bosnia holds an independence vote.
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63 % of the population turns out, and the results are that 99 % of the voters say yes, they want to be independent from Yugoslavia.
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These numbers imply that it was mostly Bosniaks that voted, with the Bosnian Serbs boycotting the vote,
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as most were against becoming a minority in a new Bosnia.
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So after the independence vote passed, the Bosnian Serbs declared their own state within the borders of Bosnia.
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It was called Republika Srpska.
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No one recognized this new self -declared country besides one, and it was the one that mattered.
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Serbia and Montenegro now had this leader, an important part of the story.
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His name was Slobodan Milosevic.
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He recognizes the new Serb state within
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Bosnia, and this marks the start of the Bosnian War.
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now before we go on we have to look back up here at serbia
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this leader milosevic this guy was a hyper nationalist he made his career stirring up ethnic tensions between serbs croats and bosniacs
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so he's seen all of this as a good thing as
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an opportunity to further his vision of creating a a new greater
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Serbian nation across the former Yugoslavia.
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And remember, Serbia is where the capital of the former Yugoslavia was.
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The Yugoslav army is dominated by Serbs.
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So Milosevic is able to direct
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this professional army to launch an offensive to help the Serbians in Bosnia secure their new claimed territory.
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To fight back, the Bosniaks and Croats form an alliance to protect their own chances of independence.
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But Serbs have this large professional army on their side.
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It's much more powerful, and it quickly surrounds the Bosnian capital city, positioning tanks, artillery, and snipers on the hills around the city,
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blocking roads and supply routes.
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Their goal is to take the capital as fast as possible, and to end this war quickly.
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They start firing indiscriminately, attacking civilian populations with tanks, artillery, and sniper fire, killing thousands in a siege that would last for years.
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And while this city was majority Bosniak, Croats and Serbs lived there too.
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But the Serbs pummeled it anyway.
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The UN quickly attempts to negotiate with Milosevic and Serb forces, and they reach a quick agreement to withdraw the Yugoslav army.
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But what really happens is the Yugoslav army just gives up control of around 100 ,000 Serb troops,
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who mostly continue fighting for the Serbs in Bosnia.
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As Yugoslav forces withdraw from Sarajevo as part of this agreement, the retreating forces are attacked by Bosniak troops.
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An unknown number of Yugoslav army personnel are killed, Bosniak commanders would later be charged with war crimes for this attack.
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As the war rages on, Serbs escalate the brutality all over the country, routinely identifying Bosniak homes, ransacking and burning them down,
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rounding up civilians, separating the men from the women, and sending the men to concentration camps or executing them.
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Women are sent to prisons where they suffer abuses
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and human rights violations that I'm not going to describe here for how atrocious they are.
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You can go to the sources for details.
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The point here is
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that what the Serbs are doing is starting to look like an ethnic cleansing of the land they claimed.
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Meanwhile, the international community is hesitant to get too involved beyond cutting off the Yugoslav economy with sanctions,
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and the UN sends food, medicine, and peacekeeping soldiers.
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They also cut off the flow of weapons from the outside.
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But the UN mostly sticks to its peacekeeping principles.
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Not interfering in the conflict.
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Not stopping the advance of the Serbs or the ongoing ethnic cleansing that has begun.
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But the situation in Bosnia is getting worse.
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The alliance between Bosniaks and Croats is falling apart.
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They start fighting each other.
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So now Bosniak forces are fighting the Serbs on one side and their former allies, the Croats, on the other.
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A war within a war.
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As this new complicated stage of the conflict starts, Croat forces surround and begin an attack in the city of Mostar,
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a city that the two had once defended together back in 1992 against the Serbs.
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Croat forces capture large portions of the city.
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They blow up Bosniak mosques and murder Bosniak civilians in their wake.
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Things are getting bad and in response to these worsening conditions in Bosnia,
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the UN gets NATO forces to come to Bosnia to enforce a no -fly zone,
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basically committing them to shoot down any planes flying over the country.
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But this does nothing to stop the ethnic cleansing that continues to escalate on the ground.
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So the next year, the UN establishes safe zones across the country to protect civilians fleeing the war,
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particularly Bosniaks, who are fleeing ethnic cleansing by the Serb armies.
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But the UN is only as powerful as its member nations are willing to let them be.
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And it turns out member nations are not willing to commit enough troops to actually fortify these safe zones.
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Serb forces regularly show up and attack the civilians in these safe zones.
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The United States, who's still trying to stay out of this war, helps negotiate peace between the Croats and the Bosniaks,
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thus ending the war within the war.
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They sign an agreement in March of 1994, re -establishing the Federal Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
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And most importantly, they renew their alliance to fight against the Serbs.
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Things slowly start to change in 1994.
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Bosnian Serbs decline a peace deal offered by the UN.
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In response, Milosevic, who is now feeling the consequences of being cut off from the global economy, now cuts ties with the Bosnian Serbs,
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refusing to send them more weapons and money.
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He wants to remain in power, controlling his new Yugoslavia, and hopes
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that cutting ties with the Bosnian Serbs who are doing all
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these terrible things will convince the West to begin trading with him again.
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So Milosevic's support is now gone, but even still, the Bosnian Serbs continue their campaign of horror, committing atrocities all over the country.
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But it's not just the Serbs.
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Bosniaks and Croats have also devolved into committing terrible, violent human rights abuses against civilians.
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As the war rages on, NATO continues to enforce their no -fly zone,
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shooting down a Serb jet and getting more and more pulled into this conflict as Serb forces get bolder.
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Former President Jimmy Carter travels to Bosnia and negotiates a four -month ceasefire.
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It mostly holds, with a few exceptions.
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But the ceasefire expires.
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They can't agree on a new one, and the fighting starts again.
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Serb forces are able to steal heavy weapons from the UN and then use them to kill civilians.
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NATO continues to ramp up airstrikes.
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Serb forces respond by taking UN peacekeepers hostage and shooting down a US F -16.
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Serb forces are feeling emboldened at this point.
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They have consistently held around 70 % of the land in Bosnia, and even pushed back UN peacekeepers without major consequences
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and they see an opportunity for one last big offensive to end the war and secure all of this land.
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They just need to take over the UN safe zones, kick the UN out,
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and then take Sarajevo with overwhelming force so
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they target the town of Srebrenica a UN safe zone where
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nearly 10 ,000 Bosniaks are seeking refuge the UN had taken away their weapons.
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They were totally unarmed, but protected by UN forces.
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On July 11th, 1995, 2 ,000 Serb soldiers march into the town.
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They meet no resistance from the UN soldiers,
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who decided to maintain their neutrality and defend supplies and food for their refugees instead of the people themselves.
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But these UN soldiers were really just 370 Dutch soldiers.
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They were outmatched anyway.
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So some retreat, others are captured.
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The Serb forces then round up 8 ,000 Bosniak men and boys, and then they systematically execute them,
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comprising the deadliest genocide on European soil
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World War II.
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The surviving refugees, abandoned by the international community, flee the violence in Srebrenica.
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They flood to other areas, telling the stories of this mass murder.
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The UN would later report that all sides violated the Geneva Conventions, but described the Serb offensive as, quote, systematic ethnic cleansing.
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And at this point, the United States can no longer stand by and watch this happen.
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So in late 1995, the Clinton administration pursues a new strategy.
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They plan for the UN to eventually pull out of Bosnia.
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The US and NATO would keep them safe.
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The plan also ensured that the US would be allowed to send weapons to the Bosnian government.
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The US then proposed a peace plan, one that divided
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Bosnia into two entities, one for Serbs and one for Bosniaks.
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These regions would have some autonomy, and Bosniaks would control 51 % of the country.
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Both sides considered the U .S.'s plan, but the fighting continued.
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But now with the international community squarely on their side, the Croats conduct a successful offensive in 1995 that takes back significant land from the Serbs,
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and the Bosniaks gain momentum in the war.
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The balance of power is shifting, which forces the Serbs back to negotiating table to cut their losses.
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After many rounds of negotiation, and with the Serb forces seeing the tide of the war turn against them,
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the Dayton Accords are signed in December 1995 by the presidents of Croatia, Bosnia, and Serbia.
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On behalf of all of us who would come to see this peace take hold, you have seen what war has wrought,
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you know what peace can bring.
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It was this agreement that eventually gave us these modern borders that divide the country into two.
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You have the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which is composed mostly of Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats, and over here the Republika Srpska,
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composed mostly of Bosnian Serbs, which is somewhat independent with its own political system and its own judiciary,
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but it's still a part of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
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So the war is over.
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Around a hundred thousand people died during this violence and many more millions were forced to flee from their homes.
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The the majority of which were Bosnian Muslims.
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A United Nations criminal tribunal eventually tried 161 people for various war crimes committed during this war.
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Slobodan Milosevic went to jail for the rest of his life because of his crimes against humanity, his war crimes and genocide.
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He died before the end of his trial.
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The war reshaped this country, solidifying the ethnic divides that had been at the root of the conflict.
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Today, Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats live in relative peace, though the country faces new threats to that peace,
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threats that are facing lots of parts of the world.
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Rising nationalism, a reverence for former Serb war criminals, and more calls for Serb independence.
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The memory of the atrocities committed during this conflict still haunts this place, both in the physical scars on the land,
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but most powerfully in the bodies and minds of its people.
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This is a complicated story and there are lots of feelings about it.
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People watching this probably disagree with the way that I frame certain things,
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but we did our best to be fair and factual and to give the best overview we could.
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I appreciate you all watching.
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I hope you enjoyed this map video.
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We're wanting to do more of these.
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I used to do these a lot back in the old days
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when I was at Vox and I sort of moved away from it
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and I want to get back to it
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so leave me a note here in the comments
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if this is a format
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that you like what conflicts you think
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i should take on what complex issues would benefit from being mapped in this way
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so that's it lots going on around here we're making lots of really really interesting stories right now
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that you will be seeing in coming weeks
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or you'll be seeing a week early if you subscribe to nebula okay bye everyone
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “The Worst War You Never Learned About, Mapped”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: Serb, Bosniak, Bosnia, force, Croat. This video has 177 sentences and 2284 words to shadow. The speech runs for 14:04. The speaker talks at a natural 162 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. Only 78% 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 |
|---|---|---|
| ethnic adjective | /ˈɛθ.nɪk/ | Of or relating to a group of people having common racial, ancestral, national, religious or cultural origins. |
| civilians noun | /sɪˈvɪl.jənz/ | Synonym of civvies |
| offensive adjective | /ˈɔˌfɛnsɪv/ | Causing offense; arousing a visceral reaction of disgust, anger, hatred, sadness, or indignation. |
| commit verb | /kəˈmɪt/ | To give in trust; to put into charge or keeping; to entrust; to consign; used with to or formerly unto. |
| negotiate verb | /nəˈɡəʊ.ʃi.eɪt/ | To confer with others in order to come to terms or reach an agreement. |
| flee verb | /ˈfliː/ | To run away; to escape. |
| alliance noun | /əˈlaɪ.əns/ | The state of being allied. |
| federation noun | /ˌfɛdəˈɹeɪ̯ʃən/ | An act of joining together into a single political entity. |
| divide verb | /dɪˈvaɪd/ | To split or separate (something) into two or more parts. |
| relative noun | /ˈɹɛl.ə.tɪv/ | Someone connected by blood, marriage, or adoption; someone in the same family. |
| complicated adjective | /ˈkɑm.plɪˌkeɪ.tɪd/ | Difficult or convoluted. |
| defend verb | /dɪˈfɪnd/ | To ward off attacks against (something or someone). |
| establish verb | /ɪˈstæb.lɪʃ/ | To make stable or firm; to confirm. |
| capture verb | /ˈkæp.(t)ʃɚ/ | To take control of; to seize by force or stratagem. |
| retreat noun | /ɹɪˈtɹiːt/ | The act of pulling back or withdrawing, as from something dangerous, or unpleasant. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| cut off verb | /ˌkʌt ˈɔf/ [ˌkɐɾ ˈɔf] | To remove by cutting. |
| fall apart verb | To disintegrate, to break into pieces. | |
| turn out verb | To end up; to result. | |
| blow up verb | To explode or be destroyed by explosion. | |
| fight back verb | /faɪt bæk/ | To defend oneself by fighting. |
| get back to verb | Return to (an activity) | |
| give up verb | To surrender (someone or something); to inform on (someone). | |
| live up verb | To fulfil the expectations placed upon one. |
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 allowed · being created · wasn't recognized |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | has begun · have also devolved · have consistently held |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | Herzegovina, which is · Serbs, which is |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 8 contractions and reduced forms, such as we're, can't, didn't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: ethnic /ˈɛθ.nɪk/, withdraw /wɪðˈdɹɔ/, thrive /θɹajv/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: negotiate /nəˈɡəʊ.ʃi.eɪt/, federation /ˌfɛdəˈɹeɪ̯ʃən/, establish /ɪˈstæb.lɪʃ/, capture /ˈkæp.(t)ʃɚ/, nationalism /ˈnæʃ(ə)nəˌlɪzəm/
- Long words — get the stress right: negotiate /nəˈɡəʊ.ʃi.eɪt/, federation /ˌfɛdəˈɹeɪ̯ʃən/, complicated /ˈkɑm.plɪˌkeɪ.tɪd/, artillery /ɑɹˈtɪləɹi/, nationalism /ˈnæʃ(ə)nəˌlɪzəm/
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 ethnic, civilians, offensive.
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.