Prática de Shadowing: Where Did Democracy Come From, and Does It Still Work? - Aprenda a falar inglês com vídeo
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Does it ever feel like our democracy is broken?
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Like most Americans, I grew up learning that democracy was the best form of government, full stop.
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But then, what am I supposed to make of American life today?
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A recent poll found that more than half of Americans think our democracy isn't going well.
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So what's the deal?
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Is it possible democracy isn't all it's cracked up to be?
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Hi, I'm Ellie Anderson, and this is Crash Course Political Theory.
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This might feel like a distinctly modern problem, but a government run by the people, for the people, has had critics for centuries.
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Like, when the French philosopher Alexei de Tocqueville visited the United States 200 years ago, he was pretty skeptical.
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And way before that, the Greek philosopher Plato had mixed feelings, too.
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In one of the earliest written works of political theory,
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The Republic, Plato drew a contrast between what was tantalizing about Athenian democracy and what was realistic.
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He worried that citizens in a democracy would enjoy, quote, too much of the unmixed wine of freedom.
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And he imagined the typical citizen living life by their own whims, saying, Sometimes he drinks heavily while listening to the flute.
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At other times, he drinks only water and is on a diet.
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Sometimes he goes in for physical training.
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At other times, he's idle and neglects everything.
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And sometimes, he even occupies himself with what he takes to be philosophy.
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Honestly, sounds like me every January when I try to start all my New Year's resolutions at once.
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But to Plato, this was chaos.
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Without a firm set of values to live by, Plato worried citizens in a democracy would veer willy-nilly from one conviction to another.
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And if that were the case, how could society be stable?
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Like, if everyone can do, think, and feel however they please, do we lose track of what's true?
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Do we let personal feelings become more important than objective facts?
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I've never in my life done that.
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From what I can tell, no democracy, past or present, has fallen because of too much flute listening.
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But joking aside, I can still see the essence of Plato's worry in this central contradiction.
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The beauty of a democracy, and the danger of it, are one and the same.
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Everyone gets a say, even if their say is ill-informed, factually inaccurate, or driven by fear, hate, or paranoia.
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I was taught that democracy was an invention straight out of 6th century Athens.
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But with a little digging, I learned that origin story isn't quite right.
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For instance, the ancient Greeks practiced slavery, and they didn't consider women and children citizens.
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Not super democratic of them.
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And people were practicing democratic decision-making long before them.
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Like, much of what we know about prehistoric hunter-gatherers suggests that they gave everybody in the group an equal say, and made collective choices.
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Hunter-gatherers were often organized into very small groups.
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But when you're dealing with 50 million people, instead of, say, 50, it gets harder to reach a decision that everybody's happy with.
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So I guess it shouldn't be surprising that in the modern world, democracy gets such mixed reviews.
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Let's have a look at the polling, shall we?
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Yeah, turns out it's not just a US problem.
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In 36 other democratic countries surveyed, people agreed.
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Democracy is… mid.
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Mixed reviews aside, I still think that some form of democracy is better than a government run by, say, the military or a king.
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But people don't always agree on which version of democracy is best.
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So I did a deep dive on the different types of democracy
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and what thinkers of the past had to say about them.
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As is often the case, a good place to start is with the philosopher Jurgen Habermas, who describes three models of democracy.
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Let's think about them through one of the most contentious group decisions of all time.
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Imagine you and I and everyone else watching this video are on a road trip.
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How should we decide what to listen to?
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Let's start with the Republican view, which, by the way, isn't Republican in the partisan sense that we commonly use.
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This meaning of Republican describes the perspective that democracy is a shared civic value, where liberty is exercised in service of a common good.
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So in our road trip scenario, we figure that learning something during our time together would help us all.
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Hypothetically, we'd take a vote and listen to an educational podcast, like, I don't know, Crash Course Pods the Universe, or Overthink, hypothetically.
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But the liberal model of democracy, which again doesn't mean liberal in the colloquial, partisan sense, would take a different approach.
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It emphasizes individuals' rights.
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So we might decide to all listen to our own thing in our own headphones.
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I keep my 60s folk, you keep your mumble rap to each their own.
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And then there's the third view, which Habermas believes is the best of both worlds.
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According to the deliberative model, it's super important for diverse people with diverse views to talk it out and reach some kind of consensus.
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The space where we might do this, whether literal or virtual, is called the public sphere.
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So after talking it through, we'd all agree as rational adults that of course we should listen to American treasure,
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friend of all people, unifier of worlds, Dolly Parton.
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Right?
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Right?
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Okay, maybe that's a bit optimistic.
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Reaching consensus isn't easy, not even in a public sphere the size of a minivan.
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And there's another problem.
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The issue of representation.
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Where we consider who represents whom.
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Maybe each citizen should represent themselves.
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Like in a direct democracy, where individuals weigh in directly on national issues.
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That's a system favored by about two-thirds of the world today.
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And yet, the most common form of democracy today is a representative democracy, where citizens elect officials who deliberate on their behalf and,
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ostensibly at least, vote in their interest.
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But what does it really mean to have someone vote on your behalf?
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I could go my whole life being represented by someone who doesn't look, think, or vote like me.
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And it turns out, I'm not the only person who's wondered about this.
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There's a growing debate about whether representative democracy is truly the best way.
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On one hand, it's convenient to elect someone to research and weigh in on the issues for you, rather than hauling yourself to the polls for every little thing.
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I mean, none of us has time to be experts on everything.
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But there are also risks in putting your trust in someone whose decisions might not reflect what you'd actually want.
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And then there are questions about whose opinions are most important on particular issues.
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But who falls in and out of bounds isn't always so clear-cut.
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This is such a fundamental issue for democracy that it's even got its own super creative name.
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The boundary problem.
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When it comes to public education, should a parent's opinion matter more, or a teacher's?
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Or when determining oil regulations, should a former oil executive, if elected, be able to serve on the board?
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These are weighty questions.
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Who should represent whom and when should their voices count?
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I could go down that rabbit hole for days and still never get a straight answer.
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And then there's also the question of participation.
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Are people actually using their voices?
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In the United States, 2020 saw the highest voter turnout of any presidential election since 1900.
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But even then, only two-thirds of people eligible to vote actually made it to the polls.
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Which doesn't necessarily mean non-voters don't care or want to participate.
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In some states, there are barriers in place that restrict voting, like voter ID laws, shortened voting times, and so forth, that disproportionately affect the elderly,
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folks with disabilities, and people of color.
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On top of that, when people feel their votes and voices don't matter, they tend to stop using them.
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Which raises the question, can a decision really be considered democratic?
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If a large chunk of the population didn't even weigh in?
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It's messy, right?
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Just look at the news.
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There's so much conflict about how democracy should work, sometimes it feels like we should just scrap the whole thing and start over from scratch.
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And while it seems that there certainly are some folks who advocate for that, I'm more interested in a different, less pessimistic perspective.
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Bear with me.
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Maybe the struggles of modern democracy are a feature, not a bug.
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thinkers advocate for the model of radical democracy, one where we continuously debate and intentionally extend the ideals of equality,
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especially to marginalized groups whose voices have long been sidelined.
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The philosopher John Dewey subscribed to this view, seeing democracy less as a political institution and more as a way of life.
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He believed we should work to build communities that allow individuals to do their own thing.
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The trick in his words is to
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harmonize the development of each individual with the maintenance of a society in
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which the individual activities will contribute to the common good.
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I just love his use of harmonize here.
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Like, the idea is to keep the individual, the society, and the common good in tune, which requires ongoing tweaking.
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More contemporary scholars Ernesto LeClau and Chantal Mouffe say that radical democracy is the root of democracy.
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I'm a sucker for etymology, So I love how literal this is.
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The word radical comes from the Latin word for root.
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And because roots are the deepest part of a plant,
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we use the word radical to describe something as fundamental before we used it to describe something as extreme.
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Okay, my producer's telling me to cool it on the etymology lesson.
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Until next time, fellow word nerds.
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Anyway, Laclau and Mouffe advocate for agonism, an approach to radical democracy that makes space for a variety of ideas,
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rather than blotting them out by striving for agreement.
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And they say that differences aren't wrinkles to be smoothed over, but nuances to be accommodated, the very spirit that keeps democracy going.
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For example, the philosopher and activist Cornel West has long argued that democracy in the U.S is broken.
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But that doesn't mean he wants another form of government entirely.
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He argues that radical democracy is the only way to save it and avoid giving in to cynicism.
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For him, the path forward is to expand democracy, to point out injustices, push for reforms, and demand equality of power and resources.
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So, okay, democracy is more complicated than picking out a road trip playlist.
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But I'd still say that it's sort of like music, in that we don't always agree on which version is best.
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Getting it right is high stakes.
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And if it feels messy, complicated, and challenging, well, maybe it's supposed to feel that way.
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Maybe we're supposed to struggle with democracy, revise it, fight for it, because the project is never finished.
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Next time, we'll talk about liberty
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and what happens when one person's version of the good life means a bad life for someone else.
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I'll see you there.
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Thanks for watching this episode of Crash Course Political Theory, which was filmed at the Bastille studio 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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Sobre Esta Aula
Nesta aula, você terá a oportunidade de praticar e aprimorar suas habilidades de conversação em inglês através de um vídeo informativo que aborda a origem e a relevância da democracia nos dias de hoje. O conteúdo do vídeo apresenta reflexões de pensadores famosos e debates contemporâneos sobre este tema complexo. Você irá desenvolver sua compreensão auditiva e enriquecer seu vocabulário, enquanto aprende a expressar suas próprias opiniões sobre a democracia e seus desafios.
Vocabulário e Frases Chave
- Democracy – democracia
- Government – governo
- Citizen – cidadão
- Philosopher – filósofo
- Collective decisions – decisões coletivas
- Public opinion – opinião pública
- Stability – estabilidade
- Mixed reviews – críticas mistas
Dicas de Prática
Para maximizar sua experiência de aprendizagem com este shadowing site, comece assistindo ao vídeo com atenção, focando nas nuances de pronúncia e entonação dos falantes. Em seguida, tente a técnica de shadow speech, onde você repete as falas logo após ouvi-las, imitando o ritmo e a entonação. A velocidade do vídeo é moderada, o que facilita a prática. Quando você escutar partes mais complexas, pause e repita frases específicas até que se torne confortável com a pronúncia.
Lembre-se de que a prática de conversação em inglês não se limita apenas à repetição. Tente, após algumas rodadas de shadowspeaks, formular suas próprias opiniões sobre a democracia, utilizando o novo vocabulário aprendido. Isso não só ajudará a fixar o que aprendeu, como também tornará seu aprendizado mais dinâmico e interessante.
Por fim, ao aprender inglês com YouTube, busque sempre por vídeos com diferentes temas e estilos de fala, isso enriquecerá seu vocabulário e compreensão auditiva, essencial para um aprendizado eficaz.
Gramática neste vídeo
As estruturas que o falante mais usa, com as palavras exatas do vídeo:
| Estrutura | No vídeo |
|---|---|
| Voz passiva be + particípio passado — o foco está no que acontece, não em quem faz | is broken · was taught · were often organized |
| Present perfect have/has + particípio passado — uma ação passada que ainda importa agora | has had · has fallen |
| Orações relativas who / which + oração — informação extra sobre uma pessoa ou coisa | someone who doesn · Theory, which was |
O que é a Técnica de Shadowing?
Shadowing é uma técnica de aprendizado de idiomas com base científica, originalmente desenvolvida para o treinamento de intérpretes profissionais. O método é simples, mas poderoso: você ouve áudio em inglês nativo e repete imediatamente em voz alta — como uma sombra seguindo o falante com 1-2 segundos de atraso. Pesquisas mostram melhora significativa na precisão da pronúncia, entonação, ritmo, sons conectados, compreensão auditiva e fluência na fala.