Shadowing Practice: Why the Monarchy Should Have Died With the Queen - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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Like most of the country, these past two weeks, my thoughts have been with the Queen.
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But also like most of the country, this has been through no choice of my own, and instead the result of an impressively unrelenting torrent of news coverage,
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business disruptions, and obsessive displays of performative grief on a scale that would put even the most ambitious propagandist to shame.
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You currently can't walk for two minutes anywhere in central London without being met with some morbid black
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and white depiction of Her Majesty's face.
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And if you've turned on any British news channel recently, you'll have seen a thin, delicate strip of text informing you of Russia's alleged war crimes against Ukraine,
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the murder of an Iranian woman for refusing to cover her hair, or the search for missing people in Italian floods,
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with these stories being relegated to the bottom of the screen to make room for the main feature,
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rolling coverage of William and Charles shaking hands with members of the public.
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Prince William, greasing people, having lots of chats with people,
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conversations, asking them about how long they've been queuing, what kind of footwear they're wearing.
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Too soon?
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It's been suggested by a noble few
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that it may be something of a cheap tactic to choose now of all times to criticise the monarchy, and that I should wait until later out of respect for the Queen and her family.
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Well, for what it's worth, I did wait.
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The Queen died more than two weeks ago now, and I even waited until after the funeral.
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And so I would only ask, how long would you have me wait?
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Another week?
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Two weeks?
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A year?
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Let's not forget that the woman who just died claimed an entitlement to rule over us by birthright, and occupied the throne of the country I live in by virtue of inheritance.
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So how long, in your view, do I have to wait before I'm once again allowed to criticise the head of state in my own country of birth.
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And that's not to mention the fact that our entire news media has almost exclusively,
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for weeks now, been an unceasing exhibition of fawning deference to the royal family.
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And so if after all
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that the British people can't handle a single critical voice like mine without getting teary -eyed with rage, then it may be suffering from royal hysteria,
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and therefore all the more in need of hearing it.
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Besides, I do respect the Queen.
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What I don't respect is the institution of hereditary monarchy, which is not the same thing.
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We've not just been asked these past weeks to respect a monarch as a human being, which is a perfectly reasonable request,
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but to respect and celebrate the monarchy as a legitimate political
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and cultural institution by recognizing the seriousness in the death of
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this particular elderly lady as far more deserving of attention
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and respect than any other of the few hundred thousand people who also died on the 8th of September.
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We can see the evidence of this, of course, in the incessant referral to members of the House of Windsor as Highness and Majesty,
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and not just by adorning sycophants either, but by news broadcasters, the papers, and even leaders of foreign states.
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Think about that phrase for a moment, Your Royal Highness.
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It's worth remembering that Highness is a relative term them.
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Higher than what, exactly?
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Who is it that these fellow homo sapiens deem themselves to be higher than, and on what grounds?
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Usage of this excruciating label is at once a reminder and reinforcement of our position not as citizens but as subjects,
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and subjects of a monarch whose political status has been inherited by virtue of mere bloodline.
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This is what I'm being asked to respect, and I find myself simply incapable of such a thing.
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But I understand, of course, why they keep up with this language.
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It's clear to me that the linguistic submission, in using terms like majesty and highness,
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are as essential to the continuation of the monarchy as are the crowns and the capes.
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Why?
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Because if you were to remove these things, what would this family be left with?
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Without the deference, without the jewels, without the ceremony, who are these people?
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The monarchy, especially that lukewarm and impotent form of British monarchy that doesn't anymore possess any real political power to speak of,
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appears to me nothing more than thinly disguised celebrity.
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An obsession over celebrities is tiresome enough when it isn't being funded by the taxpayer.
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A moment's reflection reveals that their highness is our lowness.
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And so when a news broadcaster refers to His Royal Highness King Charles III, they're not just asserting their own position as a subordinate,
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which they're welcome to do if they wish, but also mine, and yours, and subordinate to a controversial hereditary dynasty whose right to rule is still,
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I'll remind you, officially legitimized by the authority of a god that doesn't exist.
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How is this not more controversial? our only lawful and rightful liege lord.
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Charles III, by the grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and of his other realms and territories,
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King, Head of the Commonwealth,
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Defender of the Faith, to whom we do acknowledge all faith and obedience with humble affection,
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Beseeching God, by whom kings and queens do reign, to bless his majesty with long and happy years to reign over us.
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God save the king!
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God save the king!
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Of course, I'm not this month's only royal critic.
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You may have seen that some sullen individuals decided to protest the monarchy in person.
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And what happened?
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One woman in Scotland was arrested and charged with breach of the peace for simply holding up a sign in Edinburgh reading, Fuck imperialism, abolish the monarchy.
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Arrested and charged.
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Or consider Simon Hill.
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Hill attended the proclamation of Charles as King in Oxford, a ceremonial event with no royalty present,
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and after remaining perfectly silent during the first part of the event concerning the death of the Queen, simply heckled who elected him, as Charles was declared the new king.
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Naturally, he was also arrested.
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One man in Edinburgh decided to heckle Prince Andrew, former friend and alleged fellow hobbyist of convicted paedophile and sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein,
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calling him a sick old man.
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The protester was dragged away by the police, not before being assaulted twice by members of the public, public, and has since also been charged with an offence.
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The men who attacked the protester, of course, were not even questioned.
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Later, a barrister in London was accosted by the police for, get this, holding up a blank piece of paper in Parliament Square for fear
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that he might write something offensive on it in the future, like, not my king, which may amount to a crime.
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Can somebody explain to me why it is
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that peacefully protesting this decrepit institution must be put on hold
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out of respect for the death of a woman who I really don't wish to insult, but frankly never met and just don't care that much about.
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I hope you'll excuse my boldness in refusing to be considered as lesser on account of my bloodline,
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my hesitation to respect a weeks -long national ceremony predicated on that natural inequality of birth,
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and my assertion of the right to criticise the monarchy even at a time when people are sad.
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The fact that protesters are being arrested, however, shouldn't really come as that much of a surprise, given our monarch's exceptional status within the law of the UK.
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You might not be aware of the fact
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that our new king is exempt from a considerable number of laws that the rest of us commoners are bound by. For example,
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our new king won't be paying a single penny's worth of
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tax on the £650 million estate he just inherited from his mother.
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The rest of us have to pay 40 % of any inheritance over £325 ,000 to the government, meaning that because of this immunity,
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Charles has avoided paying £260 million of inheritance tax.
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He also isn't liable to pay income tax or capital gains tax.
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Since the 90s, the monarch has paid income tax voluntarily, but why on earth is that choice up to them?
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Perhaps most controversially, the king is also exempt from racial, ethnic, and sexual equality laws.
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Meaning that it is impossible for any of the king's employees to make a complaint to the courts
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if they experience sexist or racist discrimination.
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In fact, it's actually impossible to bring any civil or criminal proceedings against the king.
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Why is the monarch exempt from the law in this way?
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Now there's a good question.
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But fear not, because the royal family's official website has the following to say.
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Although civil and criminal proceedings cannot be taken against the sovereign as a person under UK law, the monarch is careful to ensure that all their activities,
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in a personal capacity, are carried out in strict accordance with the law.
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Well that's good, as long as he tries his best, I suppose.
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Now some have objected to me
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that since the monarchy doesn't have any real power to speak of anymore and is mostly symbolic, it's not really worth all the fuss that I'm making over it.
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Well, aside from the myriad legal immunities, financial benefits, cultural significance and one -to -one influence over the Prime Minister, perhaps this is right.
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But then in the same breath I'm told
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that the monarchy is somehow integral to our political system and we couldn't hope to abolish it.
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These two thoughts are difficult to reconcile.
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If the monarchy does have this power and significance, then it holds both, in my view, illegitimately.
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And if it doesn't have these, then it becomes a redundant institution and there's not much point in keeping it around.
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You can't have it both ways.
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The monarchy can't both be completely powerless and inert, and yet simultaneously integral to the upkeep of our political system.
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Now, if you still insist on asking, why now, to make this criticism of mine, consider
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that one of the primary republican critiques of the monarchy is
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exactly the kind of obsessive display of civility most evident in times like these.
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Look at how, for instance, the Speaker of the House of Commons recently said on television that the funeral of the Queen is,
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quote, the most important event the world will ever see, to absolutely no objection from the panel.
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We should not allow anything to overshadow the most important event the world will ever see, and that's the funeral of her majesty.
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Or consider how upset you might be
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if you were the child of this mother who said
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that attending the queen's lying in state was a more important event in her life than the birth of her own children.
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I think it's the best thing I've ever done in my life.
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Even having my children, Lily and Luca, I think this tops that.
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It's like a bizarre neurosis has taken over the nation.
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When I see footage of North Koreans tripping over themselves to
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wail in the streets over for the death of Kim Jong Il, I think at least they're being forced to do it.
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I'm sure the new monarch would hate to be seen as some kind of despot who won't allow or can't handle criticism,
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so if anything, I'm doing him a favour by offering at least one dissenting voice against the Niagara of complacence
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that currently floods our news media.
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I also made reference earlier to performative grief, and how dare I?
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Well of course I recognise that not all of the grief is performative.
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Far from it.
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Naturally, many of those who knew the Queen personally are genuinely heartbroken.
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Then I see
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that even some members of the public who never knew the Queen personally at all are nonetheless genuinely upset by her passing.
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But then I see members of the press, news presenters, journalists, television companies, expressing, as if nobody is capable of coming up with original phrasing,
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how deeply saddened they are about the passing of the Queen.
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Okay, maybe they too really are sad about it.
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But how about Ladbrokes, the gambling company, who also claimed to be in mourning?
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Or as I saw in Leicester Square in London, the Hippodrome Casino's Magic Mike Live show, who were also paying their respects?
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Or FunkyPigeon .com, who were equally devastated?
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Or perhaps Ann Summers, the sex shop, who proudly displayed their grief for the Queen just above their lingerie and dildo collections?
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All of this is a tad evocative of the corporate rebranding that takes place every June, when companies create a rainbow logo to demonstrate their support of Pride Month,
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as if anybody actually believes that these companies care about anything other than profit.
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Why do these companies, who are about as disconnected from royalty as it's possible to be, feel the need to publicly affirm their fictional grief?
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Because they think it's what's expected of them.
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Only by having the temerity to suggest that such displays of obviously manufactured sentiment not only ridiculous,
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but also offensive to those who are genuinely mourning, can we let these companies, and the public more broadly, know that it's perfectly permissible to not actually care
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that much about the passing of a woman who you've never met nor interacted with?
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And all of this would be true even
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if the person in question didn't claim to rule over me by right of blood, and didn't demand to be called Highness and Majesty on account of that birthright,
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and didn't ground their authority in a fictional god, and the ceremonies weren't subsidized by the taxpayer.
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Once these things are factored in, I believe that it becomes not only permissible to refuse to partake in this circus of performative grief,
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but permissible and even advisable to also criticize it.
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Of course, a great many people chose to show up in their thousands and watch the procession, and queued for up to 24 hours just to catch a glimpse of the cloth
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that covers the box in which the queen's body is lying.
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Naturally, I defend anybody's right to do this.
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If you want to grieve, then by all means grieve.
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I'm just asking you to understand that not everybody shares this compulsion, nor thinks it an event worthy of a national shutdown, non -stop rolling news coverage,
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and a bizarre taboo on having anything negative to say about the existence of hereditary monarchy in the 21st century,
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to the extent that its protesters are being arrested in the streets and to relatively little objection.
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Some of us, in fact, are quite insulted by the suggestion that God has elected some people as rulers and others as subjects,
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and that there's no amount of personal achievement that can alter one's category.
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Support this mythical state of affairs publicly if you choose, but please be aware of the elitist, aristocratic principles you're thereby legitimizing.
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and why not everybody takes too kindly to them.
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I've thought for a long while now that it's high time
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that we did away with this surreal and mystifying element of our country's constitution.
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And now that the Queen is dead, and Charles is taking her place, we've been met with a perfect opportunity to discuss its future, or non -future, in British politics.
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And if you want my view, I think the monarchy should have died when the Queen did.
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But if calling for the abolition of the monarchy is too much to ask for, and by the way, calling for the abolition of the monarchy is still technically illegal in the UK,
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so whoops, I guess, then can we at least stop obsessing over it, and can its supporters, at the very,
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very least, recognise the controversy of their position?
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Finally, please don't interpret what I'm saying as in any way hostile to the Queen personally.
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I'm constantly reminded, when I raise my democratic concerns, of what a wonderful woman she reportedly was,
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and how much she did to unify our country and engender unprecedented national spirit.
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It troubles me not at all to accept that she did these things and did them well, but let's not pretend as if these are relevant qualifications in determining who should rule a nation.
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If providing national unity and community spirit
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and just generally being a good person are sufficient warrant for being the head of state, then we may as well declare Harry Kane or Gareth Southgate to be the King of England.
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It's nothing against them personally to suggest that, despite their achievements in this regard, heads of state in the 21st century ought to be elected by the people.
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I've been Alex O 'Connor, or Cosmic Skeptic.
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If you like my videos, please do consider subscribing.
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A special thanks as always to my top tier supporters on Patreon, without whom I simply couldn't make these videos.
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If you want to support the channel, the link to my Patreon is in the description.
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Thank you for watching, and I'll see you in the next one.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 185 sentences and 2881 words to shadow. The speech runs for 16:44. The speaker talks at a natural 172 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. Only 80% 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 |
|---|---|---|
| monarchy noun | /ˈmɑnɚki/ | A government in which sovereignty is embodied within a single, today usually hereditary head of state (whether as a figurehead or as a powerful ruler). |
| grief noun | /ɡɹiːf/ | Suffering, hardship. |
| monarch noun | /ˈmɑnɚk/ | The ruler of an absolute monarchy or the head of state of a constitutional monarchy. |
| majesty noun | /ˈmæd͡ʒ.əs.ti/ | The quality of being impressive, great, dignified, powerful, sovereign, or any combination thereof. |
| institution noun | /ˌɪn.stɪˈtʃuː.ʃən/ | A long-established organization or type of organization, particularly one involved with education, public service, or charity work. |
| naturally adverb | /ˈnæt͡ʃ.(ə.)ɹə.li/ | In a natural manner. |
| ceremony noun | /ˈsɛɹ.əˌmoʊ.ni/ | A ritual, with religious or cultural significance. |
| refuse verb | /ɹɪˈfjuːz/ | To decline (a request or demand). |
| funeral noun | /ˈfju.nəɹ.əl/ | A ceremony to honor and remember a deceased person, often distinguished from a memorial service by the presence of the body of the deceased. |
| genuinely adverb | /ˈd͡ʒɛn.ju.ɪn.li/ | In a genuine manner; truthfully, truly. |
| inheritance noun | /ɪnˈhɛɹɪtəns/ | The passing of title to an estate upon death. |
| exempt adjective | /ɪɡˈzɛmpt/ | Free from a duty, obligation, rule, law, etc. |
| offensive adjective | /ˈɔˌfɛnsɪv/ | Causing offense; arousing a visceral reaction of disgust, anger, hatred, sadness, or indignation. |
| protest noun | /ˈpɹoʊ.tɛst/ | A formal objection, especially one by a group. |
| remind verb | /ɹəˈmaɪnd/ | To cause one to experience a memory (of someone or something); to bring to the notice or consideration (of a person). |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| hold up verb | To wait or delay. |
| come up with verb | To manage to produce, deliver, or present (something) by inventing, creating, thinking of, or obtaining it. |
| do away with verb | To abolish; to put an end to; to eliminate. |
| keep up with verb | To manage to remain beside or just behind someone or something that is moving away from one. |
| make over verb | To renovate or to convert to a different use, particularly houses, offices, or rooms within them. |
| take over verb | To assume control of something, such as a business or enterprise, and sometimes by force. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have been · has been · you've turned |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | being met · being relegated · been suggested |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | woman who just · monarchy, which is · being, which is |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 51 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, can't, doesn't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: thin /ˈθɪn/, ethnic /ˈɛθ.nɪk/, worthy /ˈwɝ.ði/, throne /θɹəʊ̯n/, nonetheless /ˌnʌnðəˈlɛs/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: institution /ˌɪn.stɪˈtʃuː.ʃən/, controversial /ˌkɑn.tɹəˈvɝ.ʃəl/, fictional /ˈfɪkʃənəl/, objection /əbˈd͡ʒɛkʃən/, abolition /ˌæb.əˈlɪʃ.ən/
- Long words — get the stress right: institution /ˌɪn.stɪˈtʃuː.ʃən/, naturally /ˈnæt͡ʃ.(ə.)ɹə.li/, ceremony /ˈsɛɹ.əˌmoʊ.ni/, genuinely /ˈd͡ʒɛn.ju.ɪn.li/, inheritance /ɪnˈhɛɹɪtəns/
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 monarchy, grief, monarch.
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.