Shadowing Practice: Video Project 3 - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Asia Catastrophe in Nepal After the flood

More disasters, fewer resources A week after it struck,

it was still hard to gauge the extent of the catastrophe that hit the Himalayas on August 26th.

But it is at least possible to be fairly precise about how it started.

At 8 .37am,

a collapsing glacier and ice rock avalanche crashed down and dammed the Lende River at the border between Nepal and Tibet.

Three minutes later, the dam breached, releasing a fury of water,

rock, mud and ice down the Botei Koshi and Trishuli rivers of Nepal's Rasuwa region.

Shibu Giri saw a wave raise an entire bridge.

Just before it tossed up his lorry, he darted for the forest.

After sleeping in a cave, he was lifted to safety by an army helicopter the next day.

Many were less lucky.

The flash floods swallowed some villages entirely.

A week later, more than 1 ,000 people were known to have died, and more than 4 ,000 were missing.

They included several hundred foreigners, among them busloads of Hindu pilgrims, en route to Kailash, a holy mountain in Tibet.

Some 80 bridges and 40 kilometers of road were wiped out.

The loss of 14 hydropower plants, some still under construction, knocked out 10 % of Nepal's power generation.

Nepal sits where the Indian and Eurasian tectonic plates collide, and the hot monsoon breeze meets the Himalayas' icy winds and shaky slopes.

That makes it one of the most disaster -prone places on earth.

Its region is heating faster than the rest of earth, its glaciers melting twice as quickly as they did in 2000.

So, in the years ahead, more glaciers will collapse, and more lakes are likely to burst their banks.

Nepal is among the world's poorest countries, and looks horribly ill -equipped to deal with the calamities this will bring.

Its Prime Minister, Belendra Shah, is a 36 -year -old former rapper, in post, for a mere six months, after Nepali youths burned down

Parliament a year ago, and kicked out their previous rulers.

His government will have to find as much as $5 billion to meet the costs of recovery,

at a time when the wealthier nations it would once have looked to for help are cutting their foreign aid budgets.

The United Nations Climate Fund lacks the money to honor even existing requests from poorer nations.

America has pledged $3 .6 million in assistance, less than 3 % of its contribution after a devastating earthquake hit Nepal in 2015.

Besides limiting immediate humanitarian relief efforts,

the shortage of funds scuppers plans to build back better by investing in climate -resilient roads, bridges, and villages.

Himalayan nations, meanwhile, are too stingy and suspicious of one another to manage their shared home in harmony.

The Hindu Kush Himalaya has more than 63 ,700 glaciers, but only 38 monitoring stations,

only seven of which meet global standards.

Pema Giamshou, who heads the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development, a research and policy initiative in Kathmandu,

the capital, says Nepal will have to rely on neighbours with greater resources to equip the region with better sensors

and monitors and real -time data sharing.

But China tends to treat hydrologic flow rates as a national security secret, risking leaving its neighbours downstream blindsided.

Perhaps no early warning system would have won Nepal the time to prepare for floods as sudden and ferocious as these.

But to survive the devastation wrought in the years to come by its region's mountains and waters,

it will need more funds and more cross -border transparency.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This speaking lesson is built on the video “Video Project 3”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: Nepal, glacier, nations, Himalaya, flood. This video has 40 sentences and 577 words to shadow. The speech runs for 4:05. The speaker talks at a steady 141 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. Only 72% 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
glacier noun	/ˈɡleɪ.ʃɚ/	A large body of ice which flows under its own mass, usually downhill.
flood noun	/flʌd/	An overflow of a large amount of water (usually disastrous) from a lake or other body of water due to excessive rainfall or other input of water.
disaster noun	/dɪˈzɑːs.təː/	An unexpected natural or man-made catastrophe of substantial extent causing significant physical damage or destruction, loss of life or sometimes permanent…
resource noun	/ɹɪˈzɔːs/	Something that one uses to achieve an objective, e.g. raw materials or personnel.
monitor noun	/ˈmɑ.nɪ.tɚ/	Someone who watches over something; a person in charge of something or someone.
collapse verb	/kəˈlæps/	To break apart and fall down suddenly; to cave in.
neighbour noun	/ˈneɪbɚ/	A person living on adjacent or nearby land; a person situated adjacently or nearby; anything (of the same type of thing as the subject) in an adjacent or…
catastrophe noun	/kəˈtæstɹəfi/	Any large and disastrous event of great significance.
equip verb	/ɪˈkwɪp/	To supply with something necessary in order to carry out a specific action or task; to provide with (e.g. weapons, provisions, munitions, rigging).
meanwhile adverb	/ˈmiːnwaɪl/	During the time that something is happening, often specifically in a different place.
extent noun	/ɪkˈstɛnt/	A range of values or locations.
flash verb	/flæʃ/	To cause to shine briefly or intermittently.
sudden adjective	/ˈsʌd.ən/	Occurring quickly with little or no warning or expectation; instantly.
initiative noun	/ɪˈnɪʃ.ə.tɪv/	A beginning; a first move.
knock verb	/nɑk/	To rap one's knuckles against something, especially wood.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Meaning
burn down verb	To cause (a structure) to burn to nothing.
kick out verb	To eject, dismiss, expel, or forcefully remove (someone or something).
wipe out verb	To destroy (especially, a large number or complete set of people or things); to obliterate.

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	was lifted · were known · were wiped
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	have looked · has pledged

Pronunciation to watch

The “th” sounds: wealthy /ˈwɛl.θi/, earthquake /ˈɝθkweɪk/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: glacier /ˈɡleɪ.ʃɚ/, flash /flæʃ/, initiative /ɪˈnɪʃ.ə.tɪv/, contribution /ˌkɑntɹɪˈbjuʃən/, suspicious /səˈspɪʃ.əs/
Long words — get the stress right: catastrophe /kəˈtæstɹəfi/, initiative /ɪˈnɪʃ.ə.tɪv/, contribution /ˌkɑntɹɪˈbjuʃən/, helicopter /ˈheliːˌkɔptə(ɹ)/, humanitarian /hjuˌmæ.nəˈtɛ.ɹi.ən/

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 glacier, flood, disaster.

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: Video Project 3 - Learn English Speaking with Video

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