Shadowing Practice: Why Workers Stopped Getting Big Raises - Learn English Speaking with Video
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37 sentences
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1
Kevin Warsh was on Capitol Hill as part of the semiannual monetary policy hearings that Congress holds.
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We're delighted that you're here.
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Your report to Congress is important, and we do count on the factual nature of that.
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The cost of living was a big theme in Bush's testimony.
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What I'm hearing from people in my state is that it's not necessarily full employment with good wages.
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Warsh himself acknowledged a number of times that inflation has been higher than 2% for 63 consecutive months.
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We think a lot about real take home pay.
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The part that the Fed can do a lot about is the real part. If inflation were lower, real take home pay would be higher.
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That's just the arithmetic.
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Wages are a pretty big issue for the Fed.
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As we were coming out of the pandemic and all of the stimulus was out there, it was having a tremendous effect on wages. Wages were through the roof over time.
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That has evened out. Of course, something like that's not going to continue forever.
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When we talk about wages, you have to take inflation into account. People have still gotten raises, but that has gotten eaten away by rising energy prices. The level of real wages has stayed flat or declined, even though people are still sometimes getting actually bigger paychecks than they used to be.
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Job switchers are getting a much better bang for their buck as far as wages go.
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Job stayers? Not so much people at the lower end of the income spectrum?
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Not so much in terms of whether wages are keeping up with inflation. People at the higher end of the spectrum are doing better.
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Wages have moved up at a reasonable pace, but it's likely that as productivity moves up more, we should see wages move more.
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So the Fed, in its report to Congress this month, said productivity is starting to look really promising. Productivity is basically how much gets produced for a given hour of work.
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Generally speaking, productivity is the thing that makes economic growth happen.
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The US economy for a long time was in a kind of productivity slump that people really worried about.
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The big question for a long time is, what is the United States going to do to try to get productivity to increase again?
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I think Kevin Warsh made AI as one of his top task force priorities because he wants to get out in front of the issue.
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If this cycle, Congressman, is like the previous positive technology shocks, the US will be richer, will be more productive, there'll be more labor, there'll be more wages, there'll be more compensation.
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Kevin Warsh personally selected the three members of this task force.
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They are Marc Andreessen, a venture capitalist, Charles Jones, who is a former Stanford economist who's recently gone to anthropic, and Asha Sharma, who is the CEO of Xbox at Microsoft. Those are all sort of big bullish pro tech voices. The kind of big changes that Kevin Warsh is talking about at the Fed have not really materialized. He's got a guy, for instance, advising him who says economic growth used to be 2% for 150 years in U.S.
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history. And now AI is going to make it be 5%.
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But those numbers really haven't shown up yet.
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Can you understand why a task force that is led by people in large part, who are likely to get richer by AI might not be the most credible people.
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The Fed can act on wages indirectly.
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It can raise or lower interest rates.
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It's not a perfect tool.
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It's not an exact tool, but it is the main tool that the Fed has to influence economic conditions.
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What we can do in making sure that people are confident that the change in prices is at such a level, that they don't have to think about it, and they don't have to talk about it.
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That is consistent with long term Treasury yields being lower, and that's also consistent with mortgages being more affordable.
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Kevin Warsh was sent to the Fed by Donald Trump with the anticipation that at some point, he's going to offer lower interest rates.
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And Chairman Warsh's contention behind the ability to do that is the fact that AI is going to result in a strong productivity boom.
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Warsh, his own colleagues don't believe that case right now. It's going to be interesting to see how well he's able to sell that.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Why Workers Stopped Getting Big Raises”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: wages, Warsh, productivity, Fed, Kevin. This video has 37 sentences and 750 words to shadow. The speech runs for 4:23. The speaker talks at a natural 171 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 83% 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 |
|---|---|---|
| productivity noun | /ˌpɹɒdʌkˈtɪvəti/ | The state of being productive, fertile, or efficient. |
| inflation noun | /ɪnˈfleɪ.ʃən/ | An act, instance of, or state of expansion or increase in size, especially by injection of a gas or liquid. |
| anthropic adjective | /ænˈθɹɒp.ɪk/ | Of or pertaining to mankind or humans, or the period of humanity's existence. |
| arithmetic noun | /æɹɪθˈmɛtɪk/ | The mathematics of numbers (integers, rational numbers, real numbers, or complex numbers) under the operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and… |
| bullish adjective | /ˈbʊlɪʃ/ | Having a muscular physique, built ‘like a bull’. |
| materialize verb | /məˈtɪɹiəlaɪz/ | To cause to take physical form, or to cause an object to appear. |
| paycheck noun | /ˈpeɪ.t͡ʃɛk/ | A periodic payment, usually in the form of a paper check, received by an employee from an employer for work performed. |
| semiannual adjective | Biannual: occurring twice a year | |
| stayer noun | /ˈsteɪ.ɚ/ | One who, or that which, upholds or supports; a prop. |
| switcher noun | One who or that which operates a switch. | |
| factual adjective | /ˈfæk.tʃ(u)əl/ | Pertaining to or consisting of objective claims. |
| indirectly adverb | /ˌɪn.dɪˈɹɛk(t).li/ | In an indirect manner. |
| contention noun | /kənˈtɛnʃən/ | Argument, contest, debate, strife, struggle. |
| anticipation noun | /ænˌtɪs.əˈpeɪ.ʃən/ | The act of anticipating, taking up, placing, or considering something beforehand, or before the proper time in natural order. |
| credible adjective | /ˈkɹɛdəbl̩/ | Believable or plausible. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| eat away verb | /it‿əˈweɪ/ | To physically corrode or erode (something) gradually. |
| keep up with verb | To manage to remain beside or just behind someone or something that is moving away from one. | |
| move up verb | To promote, put onto a higher level. | |
| show up verb | To appear, arrive, or attend, especially suddenly or erratically. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| “Used to” used to + verb — a past habit or state that is no longer true | used to be |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | has been · has evened · have still gotten |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | is led · was sent |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 10 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, there'll, haven't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: anthropic /ænˈθɹɒp.ɪk/, arithmetic /æɹɪθˈmɛtɪk/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: inflation /ɪnˈfleɪ.ʃən/, bullish /ˈbʊlɪʃ/, contention /kənˈtɛnʃən/, anticipation /ænˌtɪs.əˈpeɪ.ʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: productivity /ˌpɹɒdʌkˈtɪvəti/, arithmetic /æɹɪθˈmɛtɪk/, materialize /məˈtɪɹiəlaɪz/, indirectly /ˌɪn.dɪˈɹɛk(t).li/, anticipation /ænˌtɪs.əˈpeɪ.ʃən/
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 productivity, inflation, anthropic.
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.