Shadowing practice: The Wedding | The Incredibles | Official Clip

This clip is the wedding scene from The Incredibles, a back and forth between Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl that turns into vows in under a minute. It sits at B2, and at 205 words per minute it moves faster than 65 percent of the catalogue, so it is a good test of whether you can keep pace with real American speech, not slowed down speech.

There are 42 lines, most of them short. That is what makes this useful for english speaking practice: you are not memorising one long monologue, you are repeating quick exchanges, the kind of rhythm daily conversation actually has, right down to the interruptions.

A few lines carry more than they look like on the page. Quote them out loud before you shadow this movie clip and listen for where the stress falls.

• "A simple thank you will suffice." Formal word choice, suffice, dropped into a casual argument. Practise landing suffice without slowing the sentence down.
• "Whatever happened to ladies first?" followed by "Well, whatever happened to equal treatment?" The two lines mirror each other. Match your partner's rhythm on the second line to hear how a reply can reuse a sentence shape.
• "A fact I exploited to do my job." Three stressed syllables in a row, exploited, do, job. Say it slowly first, then bring it back up to speed to hear how the stress carries the meaning.
• "I pronounce this couple husband and wife." The one line in the clip that names its own word, pronounce, a good line to check your own vowel against a native speaker's.

This clip rewards working it in order rather than jumping around, since the exchange builds toward the vows.

• Start at line 9, "Sure you've got him", through line 14, "My job, you mean." This is the fastest stretch of back and forth in the clip, good for shadowing english speaking practice at full speed before you slow anything down.
• Isolate "A simple thank you will suffice" on its own and repeat it five times, checking suffice each time rather than the whole sentence.
• Move to "Whatever happened to ladies first?" and its reply. Say both parts yourself so you feel the shift in stress between the two.
• Slow down "A fact I exploited to do my job" until each stressed word is clear, then bring it back to the clip's own speed.
• Finish on "I pronounce this couple husband and wife" and "We're superheroes." These two close the scene and are worth repeating until they come out as fast as the original, since this whole clip is about keeping up, not slowing down.