Shadowing Practice: Tolkien Said He Would Have Refused to Go - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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The man who wrote the greatest adventure story in the English language was asked whether he'd have gone on one.
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His answer, he'd have made an excuse.
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And that answer was never broadcast.
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It sat in a BBC archive for 51 years.
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In 1968, the BBC filmed what turned out to be Tolkien's last ever recorded interview.
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They aired a few extracts, then most of it went into the archive and stayed there until 2019.
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So here's what he said about his own hero and why he'd have turned Gandalf down.
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The one real adventure of his life, which he put almost directly into The Hobbit.
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The language that made him fail at university. On purpose.
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And the answer he gave when asked what moves him most in his own book.
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Because it is not the scene you're expecting, and it is not a death.
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That last one is the reason to stay.
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Start with how this even exists.
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1968. A BBC crew films J .R .R.
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Tolkien.
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He's in his 70s.
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The Hobbit came out 31 years earlier.
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The Lord of the Rings is already enormous.
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A few extracts go out on television that year, and the rest, the majority of it, goes into the archive.
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And there it stays.
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1970s, 80s, 90s.
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Through the Peter Jackson films, through the biggest fantasy boom in history, through every documentary anyone ever made about him.
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It came back out in 2019, unearthed for a radio program.
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51 years of Tolkien on tape unheard.
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And the very first thing in it tells you something nobody expects about the man.
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The Hobbit opens with a wizard turning up at a hobbit's door and talking him into a dangerous journey, so the BBC asked Tolkien the obvious question, what if that had been you?
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His answer, if a wizard had come to me as a small boy, the situation would be totally different than that in The Hobbit.
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Then, I should have found some excuse for not going.
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And then the line that explains him completely, I had no desire whatever to place myself in an awkward position just for the sake of adventure,
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not danger, not death, an awkward position.
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And then he adds, and you can hear the amusement in it, I'd been very well brought up to avoid conversations with dubious old gentlemen.
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Gandalf, a dubious old gentleman.
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The man invented the most famous wizard in fiction and said he'd have shut the door on him.
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That's the bit the BBC didn't broadcast, by the way.
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Something that honest and that funny, and it sat in a box for half a century.
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But he did have one real adventure
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and he used almost all of it 1911 tolkien is 19 years old
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and he goes hiking in switzerland here's how he described it in
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that interview one of the cardinal things in the hobbit is
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one of the few adventures i ever went through in my life they crossed mountain passes
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if you've read the hobbit you know
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that scene the storm in the mountains the stone giants hurling rocks in the dark
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that happened minus the giants he says the journey is an actual personal experience.
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Altered, of course.
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And then he delivers the best joke of the entire interview, completely straight.
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We met no goblin, a 19 -year -old on a walking holiday.
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26 years later, it's in a book that has never gone out of print since.
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But the real obsession of his life wasn't mountains.
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Tolkien was at Oxford studying classics, and he got distracted. By Finnish.
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Not by a person.
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Not by a war.
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Not by anything you'd expect.
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By the Finnish language.
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His description of it its formation, its sound texture, is very remarkable.
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And then, it actually makes me quite intoxicated.
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Intoxicated. By grammar.
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Here's what that cost him, in his own words.
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I just went away and learnt this when I should have been doing other things, and people couldn't make out why my essays on Greek drama were getting worse and worse.
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A man tanking his own degree because a language was too beautiful to ignore.
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And that's where Elvish comes from.
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He says so directly.
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The language of Middle Earth started out by being extremely Finnish.
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On a Finnish basis, he said, with some Greek and other languages layered in.
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Later, after the First World War, he took a job at the Oxford English Dictionary writing etymologies.
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He remembered which words?
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Winter, walrus, wampum.
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Wampum sent him into the Algonquin languages of Eastern America, which he'd never touched before.
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His verdict on the job, so it's a wonderful place, a dictionary?
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Now, the question he was really there to answer, they asked Tolkien about Gollum.
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He called the character an example of corruption, straightforward enough.
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And then the interviewer raised one specific scene, and by the account of the Oxford professor who studied these recordings, Tolkien lit up.
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Here's the moment, described by Stuart Lee, professor of English at Oxford, on the radio program that brought the tapes back out.
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Gollum is with Frodo, and he is beginning to change back into Smeagol, the person he was before the ring took him apart.
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In Lee's words, he's winning the battle.
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The good side is winning through.
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Frodo is asleep, and Gollum reaches out to touch him, a creature who has been a monster for centuries, reaching out gently.
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Then Sam wakes up.
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Sam.
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who loves Frodo.
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Sam, whose entire purpose in the story is protecting him.
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Sam, who has been right about Gollum from the beginning.
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And Sam says, take your hands off.
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Here's what Tolkien said about that.
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People have often asked me what moves me most.
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I think the most tragic point in the whole story is the terrible irony that good often does evil.
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Read that again.
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Good often does evil he continues the most tragic moment is
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when sam and his protectiveness says take your hands off
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and therefore defeats gollum's repentance and then the line
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that makes it land because
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that seems to be very true to life understand what he's
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saying in a book with wars with a dark lord with
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entire peoples destroyed the author says the saddest moment is a loyal friend being protective at exactly the wrong second.
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Nobody does anything wrong.
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Sam is right about Gollum.
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Sam is defending someone he loves.
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And that is precisely what destroys the only chance at redemption in the entire story.
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Professor Lee's summary of Tolkien's whole worldview.
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What happens in his mythology is that good can sometimes do excessive evil unintentionally, not evil defeating good.
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Good being good, causing the damage.
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The interviewer put it to him that the morality in his books looked fairly simple.
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Good over here, evil over there.
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Tolkien half agreed and then took it apart.
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The general lines are rather simple, he said.
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But of course, as a matter of fact, it isn't really, is it?
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And then, you see evil on the good side.
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It isn't just goodies against baddies, as they call it modern parlance.
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That is the author of The Lord of the rings in
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1968 personally rejecting the thing his book gets accused of most
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often he wasn't writing a story where the good people are good
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and the bad people are bad he was writing one where the most tragic thing
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that happens is done by the most decent character in it out of love
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and then almost none of that went out on television a few extracts aired
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and the rest waited 51 years in a box one last thing
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and it's the reason today is the day to think about this The Hobbit was published on the 21st of September, 1937.
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The week around that date is now called Tolkien Week, a man who said he'd have found an excuse not to go, who met no goblin in Switzerland,
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who wrecked his own essays learning Finnish, and who thought the saddest thing in his masterpiece was a friend being too protective.
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So does he convince you?
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Is that really the most tragic moment in the book, or would you pick a different one?
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Tell me in the comments, because I suspect a lot of people have a different answer, and I'd like to see them argued out.
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Subscribe if you'd rather hear what the author actually said than what everyone assumes he meant.
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That's what this channel does, the whole story, without the gloss.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 122 sentences and 1408 words to shadow. The speech runs for 7:55. The speaker talks at a natural 178 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 83% 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 |
|---|---|---|
| adventure noun | /ədˈvɛn.t͡ʃə/ | A feeling of desire for new and exciting things. |
| tragic adjective | /ˈtɹæd͡ʒɪk/ | Causing great sadness or suffering. |
| extract noun | /ˈɛkstɹækt/ | Something that is extracted or drawn out. |
| archive noun | /ˈɑɹˌkaɪv/ | A repository or other place for storing material (such as documents and records) no longer in current use, and usually having historical value. |
| wizard noun | /ˈwɪzɚd/ | Someone, usually male, who uses (or has skill with) magic, mystic items, and magical and mystical practices. |
| tape noun | /teɪ̯p/ | Flexible material in a roll with a sticky surface on one or both sides; adhesive tape. |
| broadcast noun | /ˈbɹɔːd(ˌ)kɑːst/ | A transmission of a radio or television programme intended to be received by anyone with a receiver. |
| awkward adjective | /ˈɔk.wɚd/ | Lacking dexterity in the use of the hands, or of instruments. |
| essay noun | /ˈɛs.eɪ/ | A written composition of moderate length, exploring a particular issue or subject. |
| gentleman noun | /ˈd͡ʒɛn.təl.mən/ | Any well-bred, well-mannered, or charming man. |
| protective adjective | /pɹəˈtɛk.tɪv/ | Serving or intended to protect. |
| dictionary noun | /ˈdɪk.ʃəˌnɛ.ɹi/ | A reference work listing words or names from one or more languages, usually ordered alphabetically, explaining each word's meanings or senses, oftentimes also… |
| interviewer noun | /ˈɪntɚvjuɚ/ | One who interviews. |
| ignore verb | /ɪɡˈnɔː/ | To deliberately not listen or pay attention to. |
| defend verb | /dɪˈfɪnd/ | To ward off attacks against (something or someone). |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| hands off | Refrain from touching; refrain from initiating any physical contact. | |
| back out verb | To reverse (a vehicle) from a confined space. | |
| bring up to verb | To raise (something) so that it reaches a particular standard or minimum requirement. | |
| come out verb | /ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/ | To be discovered; to be revealed. |
| go away verb | To depart or leave a place. | |
| make out verb | /meɪk aʊt/ | To draw up (a document etc.), to designate (a cheque). |
| reach out verb | To extend one's hand(s) forward; to reach for something. | |
| start out verb | To emerge suddenly; to jump out. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have gone · have made · have turned |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | was asked · is done · was published |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | man who wrote · man who said |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 18 contractions and reduced forms, such as he'd, I'd, isn't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: mythology /mɪˈθɑ.lə.d͡ʒi/, unearth /ʌnˈɜː(ɹ)θ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: dictionary /ˈdɪk.ʃəˌnɛ.ɹi/, fiction /ˈfɪkʃən/, corruption /kəˈɹʌpʃən/, obsession /əbˈsɛʃən/, redemption /ɹɪˈdɛmpʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: dictionary /ˈdɪk.ʃəˌnɛ.ɹi/, documentary /ˌdɒk.jʊˈmɛn.tɹi/, morality /məˈɹælɪti/, mythology /mɪˈθɑ.lə.d͡ʒi/, intoxicated /ɪnˈtɑksɪkeɪtɪd/
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 adventure, tragic, extract.
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.