Shadowing Practice: Virtual Egypt: The Biggest Egyptian Temple - Karnak - Learn English Speaking with Video
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The Great Temple of Amun-Ra in the site of Karnak, in the ancient city of Thebes is the grandest of all Egyptian temples.
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It was not built upon one complete plan, but owes its size, disposition and magnificence to the work of many kings.
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It is placed in an immense enclosure along with other ancillary temples that got built over time and a sacred lake, all surrounded by a wall 9 meters thick, and it is connected by an avenue of sphinxes with the temple of Luxor.
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you can see how the notion of axis and procession that was already established in the journey from the valley temple through the causeway to the pyramid, is transformed in this new building type, Egyptian temple, and in fact the procession begins long before you ever penetrate this big gate.
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We have an avenue lined with sphinxes, ram headed lion figures each protecting a small pharaoh figure between their paws, and before you even get to the sphinxes we see these two stone needles called obelisks over here, obelisks were commemorative landmarks for pharaohs made out of a single piece of stone, and in some temples behind the obelisks we see colossal statues so there are many things stretching out to the desert enforcing the notion of procession, enforcing the idea of the axis, and a gate.
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The gate in the Egyptian temples is called a pylon, and they're interesting forms because in part they're wall-like, defining the edge of a precinct, but they're also gate-like, permitting the axis to thread through.
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The temple of Amun Ra had six pairs of pylons, added by successive rulers, and consists of various courts and halls leading to the sanctuary, and a large ceremonial hall by Thutmose III in the rear.
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If you look at the pylon you might ask why does it have that shape, well, again, Egyptian architecture is mimetic of a vernacular way of building, vernacular means common to the people, so vernacular architecture is the common popular way of building.
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When I talked about the step pyramid of Djoser up on the Nile delta we saw that there was a vernacular way of building that had to do with reeds and mud and kind of weaving an architecture that then got picked up in the stone articulation of the buildings.
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Here in Karnak we don’t have the same growth of river reeds, and the vernacular Architecture might have been mud brick, and if you want to build a mud wall, it gets thicker toward the base and tapers more toward the top and you begin to get that message recapitulated in the characteristic form of the pylon.
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When you penetrate the main pylon, you’ll arrive to a great courtyard with rows of columns on both sides, and with a channel of columns in the center, enforcing the axis of the temple and the notion of procession.
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To the right is the temple of Ramesses III, whose courtyard has columns with statues of the pharaoh attached.
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The feeling of just walking inside this small temple is from another world, as it has some inscriptions that are well preserved, some still have traces of color even.
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If we go back to the main courtyard of the Amun-Ra temple, you can see that there are many sphinxes in the lateral side, these used to be part of the sphinx avenue in the entrance, but were relocated when the pylons were built.
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Beyond the courtyard is the second pylon, which gives entrance to the vast hypostyle hall built by Seti I and his son Ramesses II.
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This is the Great Hypostyle Hall in the Temple of Amon Ra, a hypostyle hall is a covered architectural enclosure supported by rows of large columns placed closely together, which can resemble a forest of columns.
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The roof of enormous slabs of stone is supported by 134 columns in 16 rows; the central avenues are about 24 meters in height and have columns 21 meters high and 3.6 meters in diameter, with capitals of the papyrus-flower, while the side avenues are lower with columns 13 meters high and 2.7 meters in diameter.
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So the central avenue is taller in order to admit light through the clerestory, which are these huge windows on the sides.
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We don’t see this method of clerestory lighting fully developed again until the middle ages in the gothic cathedrals in Europe.
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The scale of Egyptian architecture is astonishing, you go there and you really do feel something extraordinary, you have an overwhelming reaction to how small you are and how big this architecture is, and that sense of being overwhelmed by an experience of landscape or architecture is called the sublime.
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You can see that the columns are really close together.
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The tight spacing was necessary because stone cannot span very far, but it's also great, it's just as the physical experience of being around these huge columns, and getting the shade of the columns is breathtaking.
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All these columns were carved with inscriptions and reliefs in color, and give names of the royal personages who contributed to its grandeur, and praise the gods to whom it was dedicated.
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The color has mostly disappeared, but you can see here and there a few traces of it in the architecture.
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Beyond this point the temple becomes more ruinous and harder to follow, but several major features stand out, such as the obelisk of Hatshepsut, which is one of the largest obelisks in Egypt, and the sancta sanctorum, the sanctuary of the temple, where the statue of Amun was placed.
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If you continue your way toward the right, you’ll find the sacred lake, which was used by priests for ritual washing and ritual navigation, and you'll also find these precincts with more pylons, but it's worth looking for a moment at how disorganized this plan is, I mean we get the Amon Ra temple behaving in a fairly normative way, and this axis is perpendicular to the Nile River which is way over here, and so there is that same journey along the causeway from the funerary barge taking you in there, then we get certain other temples like this one where the pylons are not behaving quite so axially as we would expect from the Egyptians, and the reason for that is, a larger engagement of the site is being responded to, here it's all about the Nile and the path, the procession, here it's all about making a connection to another temple precinct, a pre-existing temple complex, so sometimes, when you start analyzing buildings, you might look at something, and you couldn’t find a way of making sense out of it, like why this thing is so messy?
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but if you find a site plan and you find information, you might get it, that the local condition is compromised to make sense out of the regional condition or the larger site idea, so some of those things are happening over here.
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Let's look at the type of Middle and New Kingdom Egyptian temple.
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Temples were of two main classes; the mortuary temples, for ministrations to deified pharaohs; and cult temples, for the popular worship of ancient gods.
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But by the New Kingdom, both mortuary and cult temples had most features in common.
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We have some constituent parts that are conserved regardless of how much difference we have, like the notion of the threshold, the pylon, that begins to structure a procession in a hierarchical fashion, you can read the pylons in plan because they are these massively thick walls, and then you get a series of hypostyle halls, that you can also read in plan because they’re these halls full of columns.
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Constituent parts laid out in quite different ways spatially, but nonetheless close enough to the normative type to deserve that title of Egyptian temple.
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This is the temple of Khonsu, located here in a corner of the Amon Ra complex, and this one's good to look at because it's so clear, the Amon Ra temple is so big and messy that it’s hard to read the type in its clarity.
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If we look closely to these temples we can begin to see ideas of organization that go beyond the simple notion that there's a big axis, we see how hierarchy is established by this telescoping scale, and by telescoping scale I mean spaces gathered together and made more and more condensed, so we have the world out here, we have the channel of space here, we have a courtyard surrounded by a double colonnade on three sides, we have this hall full of columns called hypostyle hall, smaller chambers that become more and more condensed like a telescope, so the size of the space in plan enforces the sense that this is hierarchically more and more exclusive, and if you look at the section this telescoping action is happening in two ways, the floor is stepping up, the roof is stepping down, you're getting more and more compressed.
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So, as you penetrate and move forward through the temple, you keep walking through increasingly darker, increasingly smaller rooms that have lower and lower ceilings, and at the end, there was the statue of Amun and his solar vessel, that were processioned throughout the city, dressed in rich garments and smeared with ointments and perfumes, so the sanctuary felt like a small, dark, and silent place, just like the humid and silent depths of the earth, where Amun, the subterranean and hidden god got his power.
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If you'd like to see some of the pictures I took in these amazing sites go follow me on Instagram, because I've been posting a lot of images from Egypt and from other incredible places.
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Thanks for watching, please support me with a like, and I'll see you very soon, goodbye!
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What You'll Learn
This video builds practical speaking skills for IELTS speaking practice and everyday communication. You’ll learn to describe complex structures (like temples) with clarity, using sequential language (“beyond the courtyard,” “to the right”) to guide listeners. It also helps you explain historical concepts simply, a key skill for academic or travel-related conversations. Plus, you’ll practice linking ideas logically—perfect for organizing thoughts in speaking tasks.
Listen For These Sounds
The speaker uses connected speech that’s common in natural English. Notice how “it was not built upon one complete plan” becomes “it wuz not built upon wun complete plan” (reducing “was” to “wuz” and “one” to “wun”). Listen for linking in phrases like “the work of many kings” (“the work uh many kings”) and “a sacred lake” (“a say-kred lake”). These reductions and links are essential for understanding fast, fluent speech—critical for improving English pronunciation.
Say It Like a Native
Mirror the speaker’s rhythm by stressing key terms: “grandest of all Egyptian temples,” “immense enclosure,” “colossal statues.” Pause slightly before important details (e.g., “The gate in the Egyptian temples is called a pylon—and they're interesting forms…”). This stress and pacing create natural flow, making your speech more engaging. Use this video for shadowing practice: repeat phrases aloud immediately after the speaker to mimic their tone and cadence. It’s a proven way to sound more native, whether you’re using a shadowing site or practicing on your own.
Learning English with YouTube has never been more effective—this clip combines cultural insight with actionable language tips. Perfect your skills, and you’ll soon speak with the confidence of a seasoned traveler or scholar.
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 not built · is placed · was already established |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | together, which can · clerestory, which are · Hatshepsut, which is |
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.