Shadowing Practice: Why Are US Politics Today So Divisive?: Crash Course US Government #1 - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Maybe you've noticed.
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The echo chambers are loud.
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The divisions wide.
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Our Fox News dads and our MSNBC moms may as well be living in different dimensions.
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And our majestic eagle friend is looking way less majestic than when we last saw him.
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You okay there, Baldi?
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Stop picking at your feathers.
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You're only going to make it worse.
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So how did we get here?
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Screaming at each other across an ever -growing cavernous divide?
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And what does that mean for the fate of this country?
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Hi, I'm Kushan Avidar, this is Crash Course, and we're answering big questions on US government.
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While it's true that the media we consume contributes greatly to our super -polarized political culture,
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to understand the full scope of what's going on, we have to take an even wider view because this thing we've got going on goes back a long time.
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For decades, there's been a widening divide between the two major political parties in terms of political ideology,
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where people fall on the spectrum of beliefs about how society should work.
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Very simply, from left to right, liberal to conservative.
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And when we say liberal and conservative, we're not actually talking about Democrats and Republicans, at least not yet.
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Liberal really just means falling on the left side of our political spectrum.
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These folks tend to support more government involvement in people's lives.
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Conservatives on the right side of the spectrum want the government to conserve the status quo, which usually means less intervention both socially and economically.
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So for example, a liberal person would probably support government -funded healthcare, while a conservative person might think that's something better left to private companies.
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In a centrist political culture, most voters hold moderate views, falling somewhere between liberal and conservatives.
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Sure, you've got your fair share of leftists and right -wingers, but the largest cluster of voters are hanging out in the middle, and in an election, they could swing either way.
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But in a culture of political polarization, like ours, voters are camped out farther away from each other in their views.
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These days, we tend to think of the political spectrum as falling along party lines,
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with liberal meaning the same thing as Democrat and conservative meaning the same thing as Republican, with a vast, seemingly uncrossable canyon between them.
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But the left -right divide between the parties wasn't always this clear cut.
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So what happened?
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To help explain things, let's head over to my colleague, historian Buff.
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Just Buff, that's his whole name.
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Hi there, Kusha.
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You are not what I was expecting.
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What do you mean?
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Don't worry about it, Buff.
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Go ahead, friend.
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You got it, Kusha.
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Well, back in the day, political parties didn't really mean the same thing they do now.
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There were liberals and conservatives sprinkled throughout both parties.
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I'll give you an example.
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In the wake of the Civil War, in the period known as Reconstruction, who do you think led the charge to expand voting and civil rights for Black Americans?
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It was liberal Republicans from New England.
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And who do you think instituted Jim Crow laws that made it harder for Black Americans to exercise those rights?
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It was conservative Southern Democrats. In fact, the voting records of Southern Democrats in Congress skewed significantly more
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conservative than their Northern Republican brethren until well into the 20th century.
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And here's an interesting way that shows up.
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In 1964, President Lyndon B.
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Johnson, himself a Democrat, signed the Civil Rights Act into law.
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The act made it illegal to discriminate and segregate by race in public spaces, and it generally enjoyed pretty bipartisan support in Congress.
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But the folks who didn't support it, most weren't Republicans.
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They were Dems from Johnson's own party.
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When white, conservative Southern Democrats saw other Democratic presidents like LBJ and his predecessor JFK embracing civil rights legislation,
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it sent a message.
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Democrats became the party more associated with the civil rights movement.
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So those conservative Democrats steadily left the party for the Republican Party, or died out.
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Congress was pretty old, even back in the 60s.
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Meanwhile, those liberal Republicans decided to fully align themselves with the Party of Civil Rights and made the swap over to the Dems.
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Back to you, Kusha.
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I'm sorry.
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Thanks, Buff.
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That is just one example of how party alignment shifted during the mid -20th century, giving us the system we know today,
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with Democrats being pretty universally liberal or left -leaning and Republicans being pretty universally conservative or right -leaning with a,
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you guessed it, ever -widening gap between them.
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These days, when Congress does manage to get legislation passed, it's often not with the same bipartisan support of the days of yore.
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Like 2025's One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed through the House with support from 218 out of 220 total House Republicans and,
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count it, zero Democrats.
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The 1960s set us off on a journey where conservative and liberal have become more and more synonymous with Republican and Democrat.
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And things have started to turn into kind of a self -perpetuating spiral of polarized intensity.
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As the parties become more associated with specific values, like liberal support for LGBTQ plus rights, or conservative support for the Second Amendment,
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they attract people with those same values, which then enforce those conservative or liberal associations.
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All of this makes it a lot easier for people to fit neatly into slots along the left -right continuum, a process known as ideological sorting.
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Essentially, it's become a lot easier to guess which party somebody supports just by their stance on individual things like abortion, taxes, gun control, foreign policy,
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the environment, or importantly, their go -to news network, and a lot harder for voters to hang out in the center.
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But it's not just that Democrats and Republicans have grown apart in terms of how they think about issues.
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They've also grown apart in terms of who they are as people.
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Until recently, you couldn't reliably predict someone's political party based on their gender or race or anything like that.
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But thanks to what's known as social sorting, for the past two decades or so, certain identities have become increasingly tied to one party over another.
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Take gender for example.
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Across the entire US population, men today are more likely to identify as Republicans and women more likely to identify as Democrats.
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To be clear, that doesn't mean there aren't men or women who buck the trend.
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There definitely are.
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It's just that gender is becoming a stronger predictor.
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And so is race.
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White voters are more likely than any other racial or ethnic group to identify as Republican, while Black voters are more likely than any other group to identify as Democrats.
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So even though women in general more often vote Democrat, if we look at exit poll data on votes cast by white women in the 2024 election,
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the Republican candidate Donald Trump comes out four percentage points higher than his opponent Kamala Harris.
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On top of all these other factors, there's a growing geographic divide too.
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People in rural areas increasingly identify as Republicans, while people in urban areas identify as Democrats.
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So thanks to the combined effects of ideological sorting and social sorting, our politics aren't just something we believe, they're becoming who we are.
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So it didn't take just one ingredient to cook up our current situation.
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It was decades of shifting party ideology, calcifying identities, and increasing partisanship from both sides.
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And as the gap between us widens, it's harder and harder to find common ground.
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What do we have left?
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Gardening?
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The Bachelor?
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The Bachelor in Paradise?
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Of course, political polarization has way bigger consequences than, like, it's hard to know what to talk about at family dinner.
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As political affiliation becomes more closely linked to other core parts of who people are,
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it stops being just a political identity and becomes something new — a mega -identity, or one identity and set of values to rule all others.
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The term mega -identity was coined by political scientist Liliana Mason in the 2010s.
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It describes a pattern where someone's partisan identity, whether they define themselves as Republican or Democrat,
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affects how they see and interact with people that identify the other way.
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And as a result, we're more likely to think bad stuff about the other side or even view them as a threat.
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Research has shown a rise in what's known as affective polarization, a kind of polarization that goes way beyond whether or not the two sides disagree on policy issues,
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dipping into big emotions like distrust, animosity, and contempt.
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In other words, the more polarized we get, the less we recognize each other as 3D human beings and the more we cast each other as 2D bad guys.
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And that has direct consequences on Election Day.
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Voters are increasingly motivated less by what they like about their own party's platform
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and more by negative partisanship or their hatred for the other party.
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This isn't new by any means.
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Negative campaign ads were swaying your grandpappy's vote before you were born.
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But as Republicans and Democrats have gotten more polarized, negative partisanship has become increasingly powerful.
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More and more, we're out there voting against someone instead of for someone to the point where we might start to ignore candidates'
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actual political platforms.
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And I know we've been talking about national stuff, but the inability to divorce politics and partisanship can also affect voting habits at the more local level,
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leading to nationalization.
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Basically, as the parties have divided into these two big,
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at -odds camps, voters increasingly cast ballots based on what they know about the national party they identify with or identify against.
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Not necessarily what's happening in their own town.
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And unfortunately for us, our country, and our little eagle friend Baldi,
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all these effects of increasing partisanship feed back into the causes.
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It is a vicious cycle, creating a feedback loop that's really shi - bad.
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Because not only is it seeping into how we, the citizens, interact with each other, but how the people running our government work together to actually get stuff done.
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Just because something's hard doesn't mean it's not possible.
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Our government and our country as a whole has weathered plenty of challenges
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and come out on the other side with a desire to be better.
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And today there are plenty of people, both in the government and on the street, willing to reach across the aisle to work together for a better future.
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Today's super -polarized politics have been brewing for decades, but it's not the end.
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And there are plenty of people thinking there must be a better way.
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So next time, that's exactly what we're asking.
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Why does the US only have two major political parties?
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This episode of Crash Course Big Questions on US Government was produced in partnership with USA Facts,
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a non -partisan civic tech project that makes government data easier to understand.
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For more resources that go along with these videos, go to usafacts .org slash crash course.
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Thanks for watching this episode of Crash Course Big Questions on US Government, which was filmed in Indianapolis, Indiana, and was made with the help of all these nice people.
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If you want to help keep Crash Course free for everyone forever, you can join our community on Patreon.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Why Are US Politics Today So Divisive?: Crash Course US Government”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: Democrat, Republican, conservative, liberal, identify. This video has 136 sentences and 1899 words to shadow. The speech runs for 12:07. The speaker talks at a natural 157 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 84% 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
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| voter noun | /ˈvoʊtɚ/ | Someone who votes or is entitled to vote. |
| partisanship noun | /ˌpɑːtɪˈzænʃɪp/ | An inclination to be partisan or biased; partiality. |
| polarize verb | /ˈpəʊ.lə.ɹaɪz/ | To cause to have a polarization. |
| divide verb | /dɪˈvaɪd/ | To split or separate (something) into two or more parts. |
| polarization noun | /ˌpoʊlərɪˈzeɪʃən/ | The production or the condition of polarity. |
| widen verb | /ˈwaɪdn̩/ | To become wide or wider. |
| bipartisan adjective | /baɪˈpɑɹ.tə.sən/ | Relating to, or supported by two groups, especially by two political parties. |
| majestic adjective | /məˈd͡ʒɛstɪk/ | Having qualities of splendor or royalty. |
| universally adverb | /ˌjunɪˈvɝsəli/ | In a universal manner. |
| ideological adjective | /ˌaɪ.di.əˈlɑ.d͡ʒɪ.kəl/ | Of or pertaining to one or more ideologies. |
| partisan noun | /ˈpɑː.tɪˌzæn/ | An adherent to a party or faction. |
| mega adjective | /ˈmɛɡə/ | Very large. |
| ideology noun | /aɪ.diˈɑ.lə.d͡ʒi/ | Doctrine, philosophy, body of beliefs or principles belonging to an individual or group. |
| interact verb | /ɪn.təˈɹækt/ | To engage in communication and other shared activities (with someone). |
| consequence noun | /ˈkɑn.sɪ.kwəns/ | An effect; something that follows a cause as a result. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| come out verb | /ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/ | To be discovered; to be revealed. |
| die out verb | To become extinct. | |
| go ahead verb | /ˌɡoʊ əˈhɛd/ | To proceed with; to begin. |
| go along with verb | To acquiesce to or comply with a proposal, despite lacking a desire or value for it. | |
| go back verb | To return to a place or state after having been there at a previous time. | |
| pass through verb | To go through, to travel through, to transit or lie across a place or from one place to another. | |
| show up verb | To appear, arrive, or attend, especially suddenly or erratically. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- You're only going to make it worse.
- What do you mean?
- I'll give you an example.
- What do we have left?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | we've been talking · have been brewing |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | you've noticed · there's been · have become |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | are camped · was coined · were born |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | women who buck · Government, which was |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 27 contractions and reduced forms, such as we're, didn't, aren't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: brethren /ˈbɹɛðɹən/, feather /ˈfɛðə/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: partisanship /ˌpɑːtɪˈzænʃɪp/, polarization /ˌpoʊlərɪˈzeɪʃən/, affiliation /əˌfɪliˈeɪʃən/, vicious /ˈvɪʃəs/, socially /ˈsoʊʃəli/
- Long words — get the stress right: partisanship /ˌpɑːtɪˈzænʃɪp/, polarization /ˌpoʊlərɪˈzeɪʃən/, bipartisan /baɪˈpɑɹ.tə.sən/, universally /ˌjunɪˈvɝsəli/, ideological /ˌaɪ.di.əˈlɑ.d͡ʒɪ.kəl/
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 voter, partisanship, polarize.
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.