Shadowing Practice: YOUR HEROES. OUR NIGHTMARE. - Learn English Speaking with Video
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43 sentences
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1
Hi there, Durut.
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It's a pretty messed up world
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when Gen Z here in North America can cosplay as freedom fighters by celebrating the very forces that
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Gen Z in Iran are losing their lives to resist.
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Here you wear their symbols to feel rebellious.
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There they force you into obedience.
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Your heroes are a nightmare.
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Let's talk about a political regime that uses religion to control people.
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Of course, Muslims deserve freedom of belief, but Iranians deserve freedom from government -imposed belief, political Islam.
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And the goalposts indicating the absurdity of support for a murderous ideology here in the West have moved rapidly.
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Your heroes are a nightmare.
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It was only a couple of years ago in this space
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that I did an opening essay about seeing Khamenei's portrait held up admiringly at a Western rally in New York City.
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Some people accused me of making it up.
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Well, now Islamic Republic flags appear regularly on Toronto streets,
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and a Canada -wide poll reported in the National Post found that one in five Canadian respondents aged 18 to 24
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Gen Z wanted Ottawa to politically support the Islamic Republic regime.
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Your heroes are a nightmare.
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So how does this happen?
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Well, let me give you three reasons.
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First, First, the romanticization.
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Dress the mullahs up as resistance, treat opposition to America as proof of virtue, and somehow the prisons, the censorship,
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the compulsory obedience disappear behind a revolutionary pose.
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The regime's enemies, USA, become its moral credentials.
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Second, the silencing.
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Iranians speak out about what this regime has done, and suddenly our motives are on trial.
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Racist, Islamophobic, intolerant.
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We bring our experience, we're handed an accusation.
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The people who demand that lived experience be respected suddenly find ours inconvenient.
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Third, the distortion.
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Deny the killings, minimize the atrocities, let the executions pass without much attention.
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Make the victims disappear from the story and the perpetrators become easier to applaud.
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A dictatorship's reputation improves when its victims are edited out.
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And these forces reinforce each other, right?
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Glorify the regime, discredit its witnesses, obscure its crimes.
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Millions of Iranians carry the consequences of this political project.
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Their testimony does deserve a hearing.
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Solidarity loses its meaning when it requires silence from the people who paid the price.
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So before you raise that flag, listen to the people who have lived beneath it.
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You can put the poster of your new heroes away when the rally ends.
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Some don't have that luxury.
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Iranians have spent nearly 48 years trying to escape this nightmare.
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Your heroes, our nightmare.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “YOUR HEROES. OUR NIGHTMARE”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: nightmare, heroes, Iranians, regime, Gen. This video has 43 sentences and 424 words to shadow. The speech runs for 2:51. The speaker talks at a steady 149 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. Only 71% 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 |
|---|---|---|
| nightmare noun | /ˈnaɪt.mɛɚ/ | A very unpleasant or frightening dream. |
| regime noun | /ɹəˈʒiːm/ | Mode of rule or management. |
| belief noun | /bɪˈliːf/ | Mental acceptance of a claim as true. |
| silence noun | /ˈsaɪ̯ləns/ | The absence of any sound. |
| rally noun | /ˈɹæli/ | A public gathering or mass meeting that is not mainly a protest and is organized to inspire enthusiasm for a cause. |
| disappear verb | /dɪsəˈpɪɹ/ | To vanish. |
| reputation noun | /ˌɹɛpjʊˈteɪʃən/ | What somebody or something is known for. |
| moral adjective | /ˈmoɹəl/ | Of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behaviour, especially conforming to principles of rectitude. |
| racist noun | /ˈɹeɪ.sɪst/ | A person who believes in or supports racism; a person who believes that a particular race is superior to others, or who discriminates against other races. |
| indicate verb | /ˈɪndɪˌkeɪt/ | To point out; to discover; to direct to a knowledge of; to show; to make known. |
| luxury noun | /ˈlʌk.ʃə.ɹi/ | Very wealthy and comfortable surroundings; the state of being that they create. |
| poll noun | /poʊl/ | A survey of people, usually statistically analyzed to gauge wider public opinion. |
| deny verb | /dəˈnaɪ/ | To disallow or reject. |
| rapidly adverb | /ˈɹæpɪdli/ | With speed; in a rapid manner. |
| fighter noun | /ˈfaɪtɚ/ | A person who fights; a combatant. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| hold up verb | To wait or delay. |
| mess up verb | To make a mess of; to untidy, disorder, soil, or muss. |
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 moved · has done · have lived |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | people who demand · people who paid · people who have |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | be respected · are edited |
Pronunciation to watch
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: regime /ɹəˈʒiːm/, reputation /ˌɹɛpjʊˈteɪʃən/, luxury /ˈlʌk.ʃə.ɹi/, execution /ˌɛk.sɪˈkjuː.ʃən/, revolutionary /ˌɹɛvəˈluʃənɛɹi/
- Long words — get the stress right: reputation /ˌɹɛpjʊˈteɪʃən/, execution /ˌɛk.sɪˈkjuː.ʃən/, revolutionary /ˌɹɛvəˈluʃənɛɹi/, testimony /ˈtɛstɪmoʊni/, ideology /aɪ.diˈɑ.lə.d͡ʒi/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like nightmare, regime, belief.
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.