Shadowing practice: Real English® 5 Subtitled - What is your nationality? - CC Double

This clip is a short street interview where one interviewer walks up to different people and asks the same question: "What nationality are you?" It is rated A1, the easiest level in the catalogue, and the answers are almost always a single word: "Austrian," "Dutch," "German," "Mexican," "Danish." That repetition is what makes it useful for english speaking practice: you hear the same question shape from an american accent again and again, at a pace of 185 words per minute, until the rhythm sits in your ear.

The scene itself is nothing more than a presenter with a microphone stopping people on the street, asking their nationality and sometimes their name, then moving on. With 65 lines total, it is short enough to run through more than once in a single sitting, and short enough that you will not lose track of who is answering what.

The core sentence never changes across the clip, so the fastest way to improve your english accent here is to lock onto its rising question intonation before you touch the answers.

• "What nationality are you?" the question that repeats through nearly every line. Practise the stress on nationality and the rising pitch on "you" until it comes out automatically.
• "Are you from London originally?" answered with "No, I'm Danish." The interviewer's guess turns out wrong, and the flat, confident "No" at the start of the reply is worth copying on its own.
• "I'm also Mexican." the word also links one speaker's answer to the person answering right before them. Say it with the same light stress it carries in the recording.

This clip suits english shadowing practice for beginners: the sentences are short, the vocabulary is a handful of nationality words, and the same question comes back so often that you get many attempts inside one recording.

• Start with line 2, "What nationality are you?" Say it out loud five times before moving on, since you will hear it again on lines 11, 18, 20, 22, 26 and 40.
• Move to the one word answers: "Austrian," "Dutch," "German," "Mexican," "Danish." Say each on its own, matching the flat, clipped delivery you hear in the clip.
• Take line 33, "Are you from London originally?" together with its answer, line 34, "No, I'm Danish." Shadow the question first, then the answer, so you practise both sides of the exchange.
• Finish on line 30, "I'm also Mexican." It is the longest answer in the clip, so it is the best check that you can keep pace with the interviewer at 185 words per minute.