Shadowing Practice: Why Hope Takes Courage, And What It Means To Be Selected For Oprah's Book Club - Ocean Vuong - Learn English Speaking with YouTube
C1
Welcome back, everybody.
134 sentences
If sentences are too short or too long, click Edit to adjust them.
1
Welcome back, everybody.
2
Folks, my next guest tonight is a New York Times best-selling
3
author who has been nominated for the National Book Award and won the MacArthur Genius Grant.
4
His new novel is The Emperor of Gladness.
5
Please welcome to The Late Show, Ocean Vuong.
6
Hi, nice to meet you.
7
Hi, good to meet you.
8
Thanks for being here.
9
Thank you so much.
10
It's an honor.
11
In May, you released your highly anticipated second novel, The Emperor of Gladness.
12
It was an instant New York Times bestseller,
13
and it was selected for Oprah's Book Club.
14
For those who haven't read it yet, what is it about?
15
Well, it starts with a young man who's standing on the edge of a bridge contemplating jumping.
16
And he's stopped by an 82-year-old woman with dementia,
17
and they end up living together in the course of a year.
18
And I think suicide is a very deeply personal subject for me.
19
I lost my uncle when he was just 28 years old.
20
I was 24.
21
He was like a brother to me.
22
And I think at the core of it,
23
suicide is still an act of hope.
24
One does it with the hope of ending tremendous suffering.
25
I would go on to say it's a hopelessly hopeful act.
26
And what was really interesting to me was,
27
what happens for someone who chooses to step away from the ledge right back into a corner?
28
How do you choose life without the tools for living?
29
And it was a question I never got to ask my uncle.
30
And I think fiction at its core gives us a technology to ask questions we never get to ask in life,
31
or is too costly, or the chances are fleeting.
32
You speak in here of...
33
You've spoken of the idea of kindness without hope.
34
What does that mean?
35
Well, the character goes on to work in a fast-food restaurant,
36
and I think many Americans have experienced this, myself included worked at a place called Boston Market
37
and the elephant in the room in in a place like
38
that I think is you're not supposed to ask where do you go after this you know
39
if you go to nursing school
40
if you go to medical school there's a kind of a even HVAC there's a kind of ascendancy
41
that there's a there's an after place but
42
when you work in fast food working minimum wage the the the idea
43
that you're actually trapped is incredibly palpable for everybody involved
44
and I think what you notice then is that everyone is
45
so generous with a kind of kindness because they know
46
that there is nothing else beyond it
47
but they are deeply invested in their own dreams
48
and I think what I learned working in fast food
49
and most of my life as an American is
50
that I'm not interested so much in the American dream as we know it
51
so much as Americans who dream
52
and in every fast food restaurant you see it's full of
53
people with dreams despite not being able to execute them they still hold on to them
54
and they strive towards it and i wanted to amplify
55
that using what i knew best which is language do you think
56
that the dream itself the dreams
57
that they have of something else constitutes a form of hope even if it's not a conscious hope 100 i think
58
I think hope is a beautiful thing because it's kind of always the North Star.
59
And as long as you have that beacon,
60
you move towards, and I do this with my students,
61
the greatest thing you can do as a teacher
62
is to push the horizon back even further because even
63
if your students don't reach their goals they still exceed the limits of where they started from the get-go
64
and i think this is true with any vocation whether it's in a fast food restaurant
65
or writing or entertainment or what have you hope is still the the greatest engine
66
and it begins with language it's not empty and the classroom to me is the most hopeful place
67
Even before a single person steps into it,
68
a teacher or students, the condition of the classroom is aspirational.
69
It's a laboratory of possibility and wonder.
70
And the teacher's only job is to preserve that so that it does not get demolished by cynicism.
71
I think often cynicism can be misread as intelligence in our culture.
72
And hope is often the most courageous thing because it means you're all in.
73
You know, you've gone all into it.
74
Cynicism masquerades as wisdom.
75
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
76
Thank you.
77
Well, listen, speaking of hopeful things happening, here you are.
78
You were chosen for Oprah's Book Club.
79
And I'm just curious...
80
That's a great way for more people to see the art that you do.
81
Was, I mean, growing up,
82
was Oprah a big thing in your house?
83
Oh, my gosh.
84
It was a big thing in my mom's nail salon, because...
85
We were there every day,
86
and I had the best English,
87
So I ran the phones and you know,
88
it's I was so honored to get that call Anytime I get an important call.
89
I stand in front of my mother's altar
90
and my publisher tricked me They said we're gonna have a pub publicity meeting And I said oh gosh,
91
I'm gonna get in trouble So I stood in front of my mother's altar.
92
I said ma help me out here And then they said ah Actually,
93
we're having some trouble with the line.
94
We're gonna call you with an unknown number just pick it up.
95
And then I heard the voice and I knew that voice.
96
I heard it every day at 4 p.m with my mother.
97
And I think what was so beautiful is that my mother,
98
you know, she was illiterate her whole life.
99
She doesn't know what The New Yorker is.
100
She never saw what a literary prize is.
101
But the only time she saw a book for the first time was an Oprah show.
102
And I think what was so beautiful about that show,
103
and even your show, talk shows in general,
104
is that you bring culture to working people.
105
Because a book, even if you get it free at the library,
106
it still takes eight, 10 hours to read.
107
And people like my mother worked eight o'clock in the morning to eight at night.
108
If a customer walks in at 7.55,
109
she has to take them.
110
And that's another hour.
111
She won't be home till nine.
112
And to bring cultural work to the center of people and say,
113
you have permission to access this discourse.
114
And I watched the women in the nail salon look at that show with the books and say,
115
oh, it's about divorce.
116
It's about doubt.
117
It's about migration.
118
It's about trying their best to have kindness as a human being,
119
which is an incredibly hard thing to do.
120
I know that.
121
I don't need to go to school and have a degree to know that.
122
I've lived that.
123
And I think what was so beautiful for me was that it brought the idea of culture
124
and widen it into a town square,
125
and that town square happened to be in the middle of a nail salon in Hartford County.
126
What luck.
127
Ocean, thank you so much for being here.
128
Thank you.
129
Thank you for sharing your story.
130
Thank you.
131
The Emperor of Gladness is available now.
132
Ocean Huang, everybody.
133
We'll be right back.
134
I'm not a man.
Download App
AI scoring for every sentence you speak
TRENDING
Popular
Why practice speaking with this video?
This conversation featuring Ocean Vuong offers rich opportunities for english speaking practice, particularly for learners interested in emotional expression and narrative depth. Engaging with the themes of hope and courage in the context of Vuong's journey can inspire students to explore complex emotions in their own speaking practices. By discussing high-stakes subjects such as suicide and kindness, learners can cultivate their ability to articulate sensitive topics respectfully. The shadowing technique used in this video allows you to mimic not only the words but also the emotional inflections, creating a more dynamic speaking experience.
Grammar & Expressions in Context
In Vuong's dialogue, several key grammatical structures and expressions can serve as crucial learning points:
- Conditional sentences: "If you go to nursing school..." This structure helps express hypothetical situations, which is useful when discussing future plans or possibilities.
- Descriptive adjectives: "deeply personal subject" and "hopelessly hopeful act." These phrases illustrate how adjective placement can enhance emotional expression and clarity in personal reflection.
- Passive voice: "was selected for Oprah's Book Club." Understanding how passive voice is used can help learners frame their sentences to focus on actions rather than actors, crucial in certain discussions.
Common Pronunciation Traps
As you engage with this video, pay special attention to pronunciation challenges that might arise:
- Words like "contemplating" and "dementia": These words contain multiple syllables and may trip up non-native speakers. Break them down into smaller parts, practicing each syllable until you can say them fluently.
- Emphasis on emotional words: Terms such as "hope" and "suffering" are integral to Vuong's themes and should be pronounced with particular emphasis to convey their emotional weight effectively. This approach can be practiced through the shadowspeak technique.
- Speech rhythm: Notice the pacing of Vuong's sentences, especially during emotionally charged moments. Mimicking this rhythm will enhance your fluency and expressive ability, making your spoken English more natural.
By integrating these elements into your learning, you can enhance both your pronunciation and ability to discuss complex themes in english speaking practice. Utilizing the shadow speech technique can further reinforce these skills, creating a more immersive learning experience.
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.
☕ Buy us a coffee
ShadowingEnglish remains 100% free thanks to your support. Server and AI costs are high — your coffee keeps us going! 🙏