Shadowing Practice: Tony: A Soldier’s Journey - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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In the fall of 1944, U.S.
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Army medic Anthony Tony Acevedo was sent to fight in Europe during World War II.
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He served in the 275th Infantry Regiment, 70th Infantry Division, known as the Trailblazers.
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In freezing temperatures and heavy snow, along with 600,000 fellow Americans, he faced a ferocious German offensive in the Battle of the Bulge.
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During the brutal six-week battle between December 1944 and January 1945, tens of thousands were killed or wounded.
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It was Tony's first combat experience, and he bravely tended to the wounded under machine gun fire.
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We went to battle and on my assignment, I headed with Company B and I just followed.
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I carried my duffel bag and all my equipment with me and
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everybody used to laugh at me and yell at me and say, Anthony, drop that, drop all that stuff.
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They're gonna kill you.
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You're a sore thumb, you.
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I said, no, this is, that's gonna save my life.
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We were marching towards a ridge and I heard an echo.
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Medic!
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Medic!
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Because there were machine guns going on back and forth
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and I was carrying my stuff with me so finally I picked up the sound and I started to head downhill.
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Then I saw up ahead a cave with Germans.
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Well, there were about six Germans in there with machine guns.
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I mean just you thought there were thousands of them.
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and at that time when they start shooting at me, my stuff went up in the air, my duffel bag and everything.
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I fell on the ground and crawled to my helmet.
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And before I knew it, I was with the fellas that were wounded.
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I had my prayer book with me and I would use some phrases that wouldn't be too long, but enough for that person,
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that soldier, to motivate him, make him feel motivated, feel free of fear.
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That's what he was.
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He was afraid.
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The Germans were getting closer and closer.
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We ran out of ammunition until finally we were caught when the Germans came up the hill and we had to surrender.
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When the Germans took us, they forced us to get our boots off and walk down the slope barefooted in the snow.
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It was up to our waist and marched for about almost a mile to the trucks.
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They were sent to Stalag 9B, a camp for prisoners of war near Bad Orb, Germany.
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Tony became prisoner number 27016.
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Conditions in the crowded camp were terrible.
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Tony used the limited medical supplies that he had managed to save in order to treat the sick and wounded.
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In January 1945, German officers began identifying and separating Jewish POWs
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and those whom they believed to be Jews from the rest of the American soldiers.
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Tony was also separated, perhaps because he was Mexican-American.
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The newly separated group, including Tony, were then transported to Berga under Elster, a forced labor camp in Germany.
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Much like the conditions in the prisoner of war camp, food was scarce and prisoners were given little sustenance for the hard days of forced labor.
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The bread was a mix of barley with sawdust, ground glass and ground sand.
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It would make you sick to the stomach.
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Disease and malnutrition would soon plague the American prisoners.
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On one occasion we received a package, a Red Cross package, and that's how I got my diary.
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Throughout his time in the camp, Tony kept a secret diary of his experiences.
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He wrote in it nearly every day.
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In it, he recorded how his group were forced to clear tunnels to make way for an underground factory
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that Nazi officials hoped would be out of sight of Allied bombers.
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March 21, 1945.
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More planes came over today.
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Their bombs were dropped not very far from here.
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Another one of our boys is pretty low today.
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He's not expected to live to light.
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April 3rd, 1945.
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Excellent news today.
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Americans are only a hundred kilometers from here.
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Rumors are that we are to be moved away.
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When the Nazi guards realized that the American troops were closing in, they evacuated the POWs from Berga on a forced march.
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April 9th, 1945.
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We marched 10 kilometers today.
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We started out with 304 men.
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Now we have 287.
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April 20th to 22nd, 1945.
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Day and night, it rained.
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Every man was wet from top to bottom.
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Every 25 yards there lay three or four men.
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Men that couldn't make the march had to drop out.
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They were shot.
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April 23, 1945.
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We were liberated today.
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Of the 350 American POWs at Berga under Elster, approximately 70 died.
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Most of them died or were executed during the forced evacuation of the camp.
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Tony's fountain pen miraculously endured his imprisonment.
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It allowed him to secretly document his first-hand account of life as an American prisoner of war in Germany,
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and would bear witness to the dates and causes of his fellow soldiers' deaths.
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This was, he explained, his moral obligation.
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God gave me that ink to last.
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Thank you.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Tony: A Soldier’s Journey”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: German, prisoner, Tony, camp, forced. This video has 78 sentences and 828 words to shadow. The speech runs for 6:50. The speaker talks at a steady 121 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. Only 80% 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 |
|---|---|---|
| prisoner noun | /ˈpɹɪzənə/ | A person incarcerated in a prison, while on trial or serving a sentence. |
| medick noun | Any of various European and North African herbs, of the genus Medicago, several of which are grown for fodder etc. | |
| duffel noun | /dʌfəl/ | A kind of coarse woolen cloth, having a thick nap or frieze. |
| motivate verb | /ˈmoʊ.tɪ.veɪt/ | To provide someone with an incentive to do something; to encourage; to actuate. |
| diary noun | /ˈdaɪ.ə.ɹi/ | A daily log of experiences, especially those of the writer. |
| barefooted adjective | /ˈbɛɚ.fʊt.ɪd/ | Wearing nothing on the feet; barefoot. |
| barley noun | /ˈbɑɹli/ | A cereal of the species Hordeum vulgare or its grains, often used as food or to make beer and other malted drinks. |
| bravely adverb | /ˈbɹeɪvli/ | In a brave manner. |
| ferocious adjective | /fəˈɹoʊʃəs/ | Marked by extreme and violent energy. |
| liberate verb | /ˈlɪbəˌɹeɪt/ | Often followed by from: to allow or cause (someone or something) to be free; to set free, to release. |
| malnutrition noun | /ˌmæl.nuˈtɹɪʃ.ən/ | A lack of adequate nourishment. |
| miraculously adverb | /məˈɹækjələsli/ | In a miraculous manner. |
| sustenance noun | /ˈsʌs.tə.nəns/ | Something that provides support or nourishment. |
| evacuate verb | /ɪˈvæk.ju.eɪt/ | To leave or withdraw from; to quit; to retire from. |
| scarce adjective | /ˈskɛɚs/ | Uncommon, rare; difficult to find; insufficient to meet a demand. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| come over verb | To affect in a sudden, unprecedented or surprising manner; to overwhelm a person's ordinarily contrary impulse. |
| come up verb | To emerge or become known, especially unexpectedly. |
| drop out verb | To leave (school, a race, etc.) prematurely and voluntarily. |
| move away verb | To go away from a place, especially when permanently changing one's residence. |
| pick up verb | To lift; to grasp and raise. |
| walk down verb | To continually advance (on an opponent) and punch (the opponent) in order to control the fight and dominate the opponent, while shrugging off the opponent's… |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 6 contractions and reduced forms, such as gonna, couldn't, they're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: ferocious /fəˈɹoʊʃəs/, malnutrition /ˌmæl.nuˈtɹɪʃ.ən/, evacuation /ɪˌvækjuˈeɪʃən/, ammunition /ˌæmjuˈnɪʃən/, obligation /ˌɑ.blɪˈɡeɪ.ʃn̩/
- Long words — get the stress right: malnutrition /ˌmæl.nuˈtɹɪʃ.ən/, miraculously /məˈɹækjələsli/, evacuate /ɪˈvæk.ju.eɪt/, evacuation /ɪˌvækjuˈeɪʃən/, ammunition /ˌæmjuˈnɪʃən/
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 prisoner, medick, duffel.
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.