Shadowing Practice: 2.03e Lost Custody Commentary - Effortless Original English - Learn English Speaking with Video

Okay, this is the commentary for Lost Custody, the Dear Abby letter.

This is an interesting letter.

It reminds me of my old social work days.

Before I became an English teacher, I was a social worker.

And I had various jobs.

I worked with runaway teenagers, homeless teenagers for a while.

and I also worked for a short time in a government agency that would deal with custody, right?

We would investigate children who had been abused and decide,

you know, should the parents have custody or should the government take custody or should someone else have custody?

To be honest, I hated that job and I quit pretty quickly.

I did not last very long in that job.

It was a horrible job.

But no, I did have some other very nice social work jobs.

In general, social work was fine, but that job in particular was pretty terrible, as you can imagine.

A lot of terrible situations for the children, and sometimes I didn't agree.

I didn't think that, you know, the government should take custody of some of the children.

Anyway, really kind of a terrible situation.

But anyway, in this letter, we've got this mother, young mother, and she's worried about losing custody of her child, her son.

Now, some of the people who write Dear Abby, you will see, they're a little strange.

Sometimes the letters, you know, they're kind of funny too, actually, sometimes.

It's a little bit like watching Jerry Springer.

Jerry Springer is a TV show here in America, and they get all these really crazy Americans with all these horrible,

terrible problems, and they get on the show and they argue and yell at each other.

Well, Dear Abby is not that bad, but there's still a little bit of that in some of these letters where you're kind of thinking, you know, wow, these people are strange.

I thought this was strange, for example, when the woman says in the second paragraph,

on our honeymoon, Derek told me if I ever divorced him that he'd make sure he would get custody of our son.

So that seems like a bad sign, doesn't it?

They're on their honeymoon.

They just got married.

And already the husband's threatening her and saying he's going to take the son if they get a divorce.

Also from that sentence, I think we can realize that they already had a son when they got married.

So she must have gotten pregnant and had the baby before they got married.

or else they wouldn't be talking about this on their honeymoon, right?

So anyway, that's a bad sign, right?

They're on the honeymoon and they're already, he's threatening her already just on the honeymoon.

So, uh-oh, bad sign.

And then his mother, the mother-in-law, also threatened her saying, I'll tell the judge that you're an unfit mother if you ever try to leave my son.

So, uh-oh, these are warning signs to me, right?

I think if I'm in a relationship and the mother-in-law is threatening me if I leave, and the husband's threatening me if I leave, maybe that tells you something.

Maybe this guy's not such a good guy.

Maybe other women have left him many times in the past.

Maybe both the husband and the mom realize he's a bad guy, and she probably will want to leave in the future.

I don't know.

That's what I understood when I read that second paragraph, that, uh-oh, bad sign, something's wrong already.

And then, of course, we see that obviously there is something wrong, that the husband belittles her all the time.

So, you know, when a husband belittles his wife, uh-oh, that's pretty terrible.

Also a bad sign, right?

He's saying terrible things, insulting his wife.

Obviously, this is not a good guy.

Okay, so in that first paragraph, she says, Derek refuses to support his family,

meaning to support your family means to make money for your family.

You know, you buy food for them, you make money, you work.

We call all of that together, supporting your family.

So he's obviously, he doesn't have a job, not for a year, and he won't support his family.

Okay, so strike one, two, three.

Now when we say that's a little bit of slang, you probably know, but when we say strike one, strike two, strike three, that comes from baseball.

It's slang in American English.

And if you get three strikes, it means you're finished, you're out, you're gone.

So these are three very bad signs, right?

The mother-in-law's threatening, the husband's threatening and he won't work.

Okay, anyway, then she says, my son is my world, meaning my son is everything for me.

He's everything in my life.

I don't care about anything else.

I only care about him.

And the son won't let his father hold him.

Okay, hold him in his arms.

That's also a bad sign.

But then the woman says, because I'm on disability, I don't know if I have a chance to get custody.

And then she says, what should I do?

Should I stick it out with my husband or should I take the chance of losing my son?

Okay, now as a social worker, I've worked in this kind of situation in this field before.

So this situation, we never know, right?

With Dear Abby, we don't know the whole truth.

Only one person's writing and they don't include all the information we need to give good advice.

Now, Abby doesn't care.

She gives advice anyway.

But, you know, most of us would want to know more.

For example, she's on disability.

What does that mean?

Well, because I've worked in social work, I know that disability might be something very serious, but I also know it could be something that's not serious.

In the United States, some people can get disability if they have a mental problem.

For example, they're very depressed.

They're medically depressed.

They're always depressed.

Well, sometimes they get a lawyer and they can get disability.

They can get money from the government because of that.

Sometimes people who are alcoholics or drug addicts can get disability.

They can get money from the government because they are alcoholics or drug addicts and they have a hard time working.

So obviously these are not such serious physical problems.

So this woman, we don't know.

We have no idea.

She might be in a wheelchair and can't walk, or she might be a former alcoholic.

We really don't know what the disability is.

And of course, it would be a big important point to know

if she has disability because she has a mental problem that's very serious, maybe she's not a fit mother.

Maybe she would be an unfit mother.

However, if she has some just physical problem, obviously it's no problem at all.

She could easily get her son.

So it's hard to know what to tell this woman, right?

100

I would say in normal situations in the United States, the mother has an advantage with custody.

101

When they go to court, if everything is generally equal, the mother has a better chance to keep custody of the child.

102

Now, is this fair?

103

I don't know.

104

We talked about this in my class in San Francisco.

105

Some people said, well, that's not fair.

106

And I don't know, is it fair or not?

107

But it's true.

108

And I don't know, I guess this has historical reasons.

109

People just have this idea that, well, you know, mothers take care of children.

110

They're better at taking care of children than fathers.

111

Of course, that's not always true.

112

But that is an idea that's in the United States and that is in the legal system,

113

even in the courts, so that a mother often has an advantage against a father

114

if they get a divorce and both want custody.

115

The mother typically has an advantage.

116

Now, many other things are important also, their income, what kind of person they are, that kind of thing.

117

So it's complicated.

118

But anyway, since this guy sounds quite bad, he hasn't worked for a year.

119

He obviously has some problems.

120

Probably this mother would get custody unless she has a serious mental problem.

121

My guess is that if she went to court, she would get custody of the child.

122

But anyway, but it's hard to know.

123

We don't know the details.

124

Well, okay.

125

And then I guess I'll talk now a little bit about my social work background in general.

126

When I worked in this field of custody, I worked for a place called the Department of Family and Children's Services in Georgia.

127

Georgia is a state in the United States.

128

Georgia is in the southeast, next to Florida.

129

Atlanta is the big city in Georgia.

130

And I got this job because I was desperate for money, to be honest.

131

I had decided, in fact, to live in my van, live in my car for a while.

132

Now, I did this by choice.

133

No one forced me to do it.

134

And I could get a job if I wanted to.

135

But I just decided I wanted to live very, very simply.

136

So I lived in my van for a while.

137

And I gave away all my stuff, all my possessions I gave away.

138

except for just a few clothes and things.

139

And I wanted to see if I could live very, very simply without much money.

140

However, at some point, I had no money at all.

141

And I decided, oh, I better get a job.

142

I better work a little bit, make some money.

143

And I had a social work degree.

144

I had a master's in social work.

145

This was before I got a master's in teaching English.

146

So it was very easy for me to get a job in social work.

147

And especially the government agencies always need people.

148

So I went and I got a job at the Department of Family and Children's Services.

149

And the pay was great since I was living so simply.

150

The money was nice.

151

I needed the money.

152

However, I quickly realized it was a very terrible organization.

153

And the worst part for me was that the social workers,

154

the workers, had such terrible attitudes about the people they were supposed to help.

155

They thought they were stupid.

156

They thought they were lowlifes, they would call them.

157

Lowlife means a very low-status person.

158

So they just had terrible, terrible attitudes about these people they were supposed to help.

159

And they would insult them and belittle them.

160

Not directly to them.

161

They wouldn't belittle them directly.

162

But talking to each other, the social workers would laugh and tell jokes and belittle the poor people who would come in.

163

And indirectly, they would belittle the poor people themselves.

164

You know, they didn't give them much respect.

165

They did not give them the same respect that they gave people who had money.

166

And this bothered me a lot, a lot, a lot.

167

because as a social worker and as a teacher, I think that respect and equality are very,

168

very important, especially as a social worker, because in a social work situation, these people have some serious problems.

169

They might have economic problems.

170

They don't have much money.

171

They may have physical problems.

172

They may have mental problems.

173

Anyway, they're in a weak position.

174

And because they're in a weak position, it's easy to put yourself above them and treat them badly,

175

which is what a lot of these social workers were doing.

176

But it's wrong.

177

It's wrong to do that.

178

And I felt very strongly it was wrong and that we had to try very hard to keep ourselves equal with them,

179

treat them with the same exact respect we would treat anybody.

180

I feel I give the same respect to my social work clients as I would Bill Gates or the president.

181

In fact, for the president, I'd give more respect to the clients.

182

Anyway, so I started to have kind of arguments with the social workers.

183

I didn't agree with a lot of their approaches, a lot of their attitudes.

184

And finally, I decided to quit.

185

I decided I cannot work for this kind of organization that treats people so badly, especially people who need help.

186

So I quit the job.

187

And, you know, eventually I left social work.

188

And this is mostly the reason when I tell people I was a social worker, I worked in the emergency room, or I worked with homeless people,

189

everybody thinks, and I say, oh, I quit.

190

It was too stressful.

191

And everybody always thinks, oh, you quit because those people are terrible.

192

You quit because it's hard to work with those people.

193

But that's not true.

194

That's not why I quit.

195

I quit because I couldn't work with the other social workers.

196

It was not the clients that I had problems with.

197

Yes, the clients could be difficult, but I understood them.

198

I understood they were having some serious life problems, and I felt respect for them because they were having such trouble and still surviving.

199

I know that I could not survive some of those situations myself.

200

I'm not that strong.

201

So I had respect for my clients, even the very difficult ones, but what I could not respect were the other social workers who were so mean,

202

so superior, so arrogant.

203

I just found this again and again and again in many different organizations where they would treat their clients so badly.

204

They're supposed to be helping them, but instead they're disrespecting them.

205

And finally, I just decided, you know, I don't like this.

206

I don't like working in these kinds of organizations i want

207

to help people i do not want to belittle them

208

and at the same time

209

that this was happening you know i had gone abroad i lived in japan i lived in korea

210

and i realized i love traveling and i loved meeting people from other countries

211

and i became more and more interested in teaching

212

and i loved it it's so much fun to every day i would go to school

213

and go to class and I would meet people from other countries

214

and learn from them and they would learn from me and it was just so much fun.

215

I really loved it and finally I decided, you know, this is what I really love to do and social work's nice but I love teaching.

216

It's my passion and this is what I want to do

217

and so I went back to school and I got my master's degree in teaching English and I

218

worked in Thailand for a while and started this website, etc. Anyway, so there's my life story in a nutshell in a very quick summary.

219

All right, so that's all for today's commentary for the lost custody letter.

220

More Dear Abby letters will be coming, and I hope you enjoyed this one.

221

See you next time.

222

Bye-bye.

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Bu dersin kelimeleri ve konuşma notları

Bu B1 seviyesindeki konuşma dersi “2.03e Lost Custody Commentary - Effortless Original English” videosuna dayanıyor. En çok tekrarlanan kelimeler: custody, mother, worker, terrible, anyway. Bu videoda gölgeleme çalışması için 222 cümle ve 2529 kelime var. Konuşma bölümü 15:23 sürüyor. Konuşmacı dakikada yaklaşık 164 kelimeyle, günlük konuşmaya yakın doğal bir hızda konuşuyor. Kelimelerin %86’i İngilizcede en sık kullanılan 3.000 kelime arasında; geri kalanına başlamadan önce bakmakta fayda var.

Bu videodaki önemli kelimeler

Videodaki en ileri düzey 15 kelime, telaffuzu ve anlamıyla:

Kelime	Telaffuz	Anlam
custody isim	/ˈkʌstədiː/	vesayet, velayet
disability isim	/dɪsəˈbɪlɪti/	engellilik
belittle fiil	/bɪˈlɪt.əl/	küçümsemek
threaten fiil	/ˈθɹɛt.n̩/	gözünü korkutmak, tehdit etmek
honeymoon isim	/ˈhʌn.iˌmuːn/	balayı, cicimayı
litter isim	/ˈlɪt.ɚ/	altlık
alcoholic isim	/ˌæl.kəˈhɔ.lɪk/	alkolik, ayyaş
paragraph isim	/ˈpæɹəɡɹæf/	paragraf, fıkra
depressed sıfat	/dɪˈpɹɛst/	çökkün, keyifsiz
sling isim	/ˈslɪŋ/	kol askısı
addict isim	/ˈæd.ɪkt/	bağımlı, müptela
insult isim	/ɪnˈsʌlt/	hakaret, aşağılama
teenager isim	/ˈtiːnˌeɪ̯d͡ʒə/	genç
arrogant sıfat	/ˈæɹəɡənt/	kibirli, tekebbürlü
yell fiil	/jɛl/	bağırmak

Tekrar etmeye değer cümleler

Videodan, günlük konuşmada yeniden kullanabileceğiniz kısa ve tam cümleler:

He's everything in my life.
I don't care about anything else.
We really don't know what the disability is.
And I don't know, is it fair or not?
We don't know the details.

Bu videodaki dil bilgisi

Konuşmacının en çok kullandığı yapılar, videodaki sözcüklerin aynısıyla:

Yapı	Videoda
Koşul cümleleri if + cümle, will/would + fiil — bir koşul ve sonucu	if I ever divorced him that he'd make · if she went to court, she would get
İlgi cümlecikleri who / which + cümle — bir kişi ya da şey hakkında ek bilgi	children who had · people who write · people who are
Present perfect have/has + fiilin üçüncü hâli — geçmişte olan ama şimdi de önemli olan bir eylem	have left · I've worked · hasn't worked
“might / may” ile olasılık might/may + fiil — mümkün ama kesin olmayan bir şey	might be · might have · may have

Dikkat edilecek telaffuzlar

Konuşmacı don't, they're, you're gibi kısaltılmış biçimleri 57 kez kullanıyor. Bunları duyduğunuz gibi kısa söyleyin.

“th” sesleri: threaten /ˈθɹɛt.n̩/, cloth /klɒθ/, southeast /sawˈθɪjst/
Uzun kelimeler — vurguyu doğru yere koyun: disability /dɪsəˈbɪlɪti/, alcoholic /ˌæl.kəˈhɔ.lɪk/, commentary /ˈkɑ.mənˌtɛ.ɹi/, indirectly /ˌɪn.dɪˈɹɛk(t).li/, equality /ɪˈkwɑ.lɪ.ti/

Türkçe konuşanların zorlandığı sesler:

/w/ — dudaklar yuvarlak, /v/ değil: runaway /ˈɹʌnəweɪ/, wheelchair /ˈ(h)wilt͡ʃɛɹ/, southeast /sawˈθɪjst/, equality /ɪˈkwɑ.lɪ.ti/
Kelime başındaki ünsüz kümesi — araya ünlü eklemeyin: threaten /ˈθɹɛt.n̩/, sling /ˈslɪŋ/, wheelchair /ˈ(h)wilt͡ʃɛɹ/, stressful /ˈstɹɛsfəl/, cloth /klɒθ/
/æ/ — “e”den daha açık: alcoholic /ˌæl.kəˈhɔ.lɪk/, paragraph /ˈpæɹəɡɹæf/, addict /ˈæd.ɪkt/, arrogant /ˈæɹəɡənt/

Bu videoyla nasıl çalışılır

Videonun tamamını konuşmadan bir kez dinleyin ve bilmediğiniz kelimeleri not edin.
0,75× hızla başlayın, cümle cümle tekrar edin ve kolaylaşınca normal hıza dönün.
Kendinizi kaydedin ve orijinaliyle karşılaştırın; custody, disability, belittle gibi kelimelere özellikle dikkat edin.

Gölgeleme Tekniği Nedir?

Gölgeleme, başlangıçta profesyonel tercüman eğitimi için geliştirilen ve çok dilli Dr. Alexander Arguelles tarafından popüler hale getirilen, bilim destekli bir dil öğrenme tekniğidir. Yöntem basit ama güçlüdür: ana dili İngilizce olan bir sesi dinler ve hemen yüksek sesle tekrar edersiniz — konuşmacıyı 1-2 saniye gecikmeyle takip eden bir gölge gibi. Pasif dinleme veya dilbilgisi alıştırmalarının aksine, gölgeleme beyninizi ve ağız kaslarınızı gerçek konuşma kalıplarını eşzamanlı olarak işlemeye ve yeniden üretmeye zorlar. Araştırmalar, telaffuz doğruluğu, tonlama, ritim, bağlı konuşma, dinleme anlama ve konuşma akıcılığını önemli ölçüde geliştirdiğini göstermektedir — bu da onu IELTS Konuşma hazırlığı ve gerçek dünya İngilizce iletişimi için en etkili yöntemlerden biri yapar.

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Bu dersin kelimeleri ve konuşma notları

Bu videodaki önemli kelimeler

Tekrar etmeye değer cümleler

Bu videodaki dil bilgisi

Dikkat edilecek telaffuzlar

Bu videoyla nasıl çalışılır

Gölgeleme Tekniği Nedir?