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Shadowing practice: Claire’s “Gold Digger” Comments Come Back To Haunt Her (Clip) | Modern Family | TBS

Listen to the line, then say it out loud
Line 1

Full transcript

  1. Okay, the truth?0:00
  2. I sometimes feel like you don't like me.0:01
  3. Wow.0:04
  4. Powerful, powerful stuff.0:06
  5. Claire, tell us how that makes you feel.0:08
  6. Right now, I'm feeling a lot of anger.0:10
  7. No, don't tell me.0:12
  8. Tell her.0:13
  9. Gloria, right now, I'm really angry at Phil.0:14
  10. Well, let's respect the process.0:16
  11. Gloria, I don't know why you think I don't like you.0:20
  12. Well, sometimes when you see me, you make that face.0:23
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  1. What face?0:26
  2. Like this.0:26
  3. I do not make a face like that.0:27
  4. That is so Claire.0:29
  5. Mitchell.0:30
  6. See?0:31
  7. She does that with everyone.0:32
  8. It's just her face.0:34
  9. No, it's not just the face.0:35
  10. From the beginning, I feel like Manny and I are not welcome in this family.0:37
  11. That is so crazy.0:41
  12. No, it's not so crazy.0:42
  13. It's how I feel.0:44
  14. I am sorry if you feel that way.0:48
  15. I really am.0:51
  16. Because from the moment I met you, I have tried to make you feel comfortable with us.0:52
  17. You think it's only my head?0:59
  18. No.1:01
  19. Kind.1:01
  20. I don't know.1:02
  21. I mean, we really love having you and Manny in our family.1:03
  22. Really?1:06
  23. Really.1:07
  24. So, you don't have to be so defensive.1:08
  25. I do that, don't I?1:11
  26. I'm feeling a hug.1:15
  27. I was thinking group hug, but this is a science.1:18
  28. No, I'd be there if I could.1:22
  29. Oh my God, there's hugging.1:23
  30. Haley, get off the phone already.1:24
  31. Where did you go?1:26
  32. You heard him.1:27
  33. He said get out of here.1:28
  34. Oh my God, you're such a girl.1:29
  35. Dad, I was coming to get a beer anyways.1:31
  36. Nice apology.1:34
  37. Nice beer.1:35
  38. Hey, there's our little roast abouts.1:37
  39. You look like you patched things up pretty good, huh?1:40
  40. Yeah.1:42
  41. We can learn so much from the children.1:44
  42. Bet it seems kind of silly now what you're even fighting about, huh?1:47
  43. I made fun of his accent.1:50
  44. What accent?1:51
  45. I made fun of him for having the same thing for lunch every day.1:52
  46. I made fun of him because his mom used to dig coal.1:55
  47. What?2:00
  48. He said you were a coal digger.2:01
  49. Okay, I think we can move on.2:03
  50. Who said I was a coal digger?2:06
  51. That's what my mom told me.2:07
  52. What's a coal digger?2:09
  53. Sweetheart, you heard it wrong.2:10
  54. It's a coal digger.2:12
  55. I'm gonna have to call you back.2:12
  56. Well, I really do not think that I remember ever saying that.2:14
  57. Well, you said in the car, you said at Christmas, you said in Mexico.2:18
  58. Okay, mister, leaves his sweatshirts at school every day.2:23
  59. Suddenly remembers everything.2:25
  60. Thank you.2:26
  61. Honey, what's all in my head, huh?2:28
  62. Oh, listen, Gloria, it was like a year ago before I knew you.2:30
  63. Nice going.2:36
  64. Not my mom and my sister are fighting.2:37
  65. If I say something that everybody else is thinking, does that make me a mean person?2:41
  66. Or does it make me a brave person, one who is courageous enough to stand up and say something behind someone's back to ten -year -old?2:45
  67. Well, she's pissed.2:59
  68. Yeah, she wouldn't even come out of her room.3:01
  69. Did you really have to call her that?3:03
  70. A gold digger.3:06
  71. You know what, Dad?3:07
  72. It was a year ago.3:08
  73. And it was a natural question to ask.3:09
  74. She's a beautiful, hot woman, and you're not exactly, you know...3:12
  75. Not exactly what?3:18
  76. Um, Mitchell, it'll help.3:19
  77. No, you are doing great.3:22
  78. No, see, this is exactly why we sweep things under the rug, so people don't get hurt.3:24
  79. Well, yeah, until you sweep too much under the rug.3:29
  80. Then you got a lumpy rug, creates a tripping hazard.3:31
  81. Open yourself up to lawsuits.3:35
  82. Boy, you can go a really long time without blinkering.3:36
  83. You3:53

A Modern Family therapy scene at 225 words per minute: american accent training on real sitcom speech

This is american accent training on a sitcom argument, not on a textbook dialogue. Claire, Gloria, Phil and Mitchell are sitting in a family therapy session that stops being therapy about a minute in. The clip runs 95 lines at 225 words per minute, faster than 82% of the catalogue, so nobody in it waits for you to catch up.

The level is B2. The vocabulary is ordinary, the delivery is not. People talk over each other, answer in three word bursts, and keep shifting the emotional temperature: hurt, apology, hug, accusation. Most lines are shorter than one breath, which is why the speed is workable. You repeat a line, not a scene.

What happens: Gloria says she has never felt welcome, Claire apologises, everyone hugs, and then a child repeats something Claire once said in the car. This is the kind of scene that pays back if you learn english by watching movies and series: the comedy is carried by delivery, not by vocabulary.

Everyday english from people being polite and failing at it

The everyday english in this scene is defensive english, the kind spoken by someone trying to sound reasonable while getting angrier. Take Claire's apology: "I am sorry if you feel that way." Read it slowly and it is an apology. Say it at this pace with the weight falling on "you" and it stops being one. That stress placement is the whole joke, and it is worth being able to hear and to produce.

Three short lines are worth taking apart before you speak them.

  • "It's just her face." Four words, one real stress, on the last one. The first three collapse into a single quick block. Practise the block, then drop the stressed word on top of it, not four separate words.
  • "I'm gonna have to call you back." This is the single gonna in the whole recording, thrown away at the end of a phone call. Flat pitch, no pause, no rise at the end. If yours rises it sounds like a question and the line dies.
  • "He said you were a coal digger." The line that detonates the scene. It is a child's mishearing of gold digger, so both of those two words carry weight while everything before them stays low and fast.

How to shadow the coal digger argument, line by line, for english speaking practice

Use this scene as english speaking practice in a fixed order, and stay on one line until it sounds like the native speaker rather than like you reading. Five repeats of one line beat one pass through the clip.

  • Start with "I do not make a face like that." It is slow enough to hold and it sets up the flat denial rhythm the rest of the scene reuses. Read it with subtitles once, then say it without looking.
  • Add "That is so Claire." straight after. Opposite shape: this one lands on the name and stops there.
  • Then the apology, "I am sorry if you feel that way.", twice. First as a sincere apology, then the way it is said here. Compare the two recordings.
  • Speed drill on "Nice apology." and "Nice beer." back to back. Two beats each, almost no gap between the speakers. This is where the pace of the clip actually lives.
  • Finish on "He said you were a coal digger." and "Who said I was a coal digger?" at full speed, one after the other, until you stop losing the end of the first line.
  • Then run the passage once at full speed and check your pronunciation word by word. It is free to practise in your browser with no install, and daily practice on one scene beats a new clip every day.
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