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Shadowing practice: Why are Albanians protesting Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump? | DW News

Listen to the line, then say it out loud
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  1. What do these protests in Albania have to do with Trump's son -in -law, Jerry Kushner, and his wife, Ivanka Trump?0:00
  2. The anger is linked in part to this statement.0:06
  3. An unbelievable, beautiful, 1 ,400 -hectare private island in the middle of the Mediterranean.0:09
  4. Not only the island, but we have five miles of beachfront directly across from the island.0:15
  5. Trump was talking about the uninhabited island of Sassan of the Albanian coast in the Adriatic Sea and the nearby coastal region of Yosemnata.0:21
  6. She said they discovered the area a few years ago while on a French boat and are now planning to turn it into a luxury resort.0:29
  7. The problem, say the protesters, is not just a lack of transparency in the way that it was done, but also that the project is being developed on some of0:37
  8. Albania's most valuable biodiversity areas.0:46
  9. Today we are really talking about works that are unprecedented in terms of impact on unique and very like almost the last remaining ecosystem of this kind in Europe, and0:49
  10. most important in Mediterranean for sure.1:05
  11. The area is not only home to pristine beaches, but also a nature reserve that shelters flamingos, seals and sea turtle nesting sites, and is used by migratory birds.1:07
  12. Protests started when locals saw barbed wire fences being erected and access to the sites was blocked without any public statements being made about the development.1:17
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  1. The size of a protester being dragged violently by a private security guard filled even more anger.1:31
  2. Also on the fire is a decision by the government to change environment laws to allow the project to go ahead with critics saying that national heritage is being privatized.1:38
  3. Albania's anti -corruption agency is now also looking into the project, but Prime Minister Edirama is defending the venture despite calls for his resignation.1:48
  4. The Prime Minister insisted that the venture would align with Albania's ambition to become a major global tourism destination.2:02
  5. Developers partnering with Joe Kushner's investment firm Affinity Partners said they would carry out the plan responsibly.2:13
  6. There is absolutely no way to build in a responsible way in a sense that any impact of this ecosystem will have as I said huge impact on valuable ecosystems2:20
  7. and everything without any impact assessment, environmental impact assessment.2:32
  8. There was no consultation before, but there was also no information about what was going on.2:37

English Speaking Practice with a Fast, B2 News Report on the Albania Resort Controversy

This DW News clip works well for english speaking practice because it moves at 162 words per minute, faster than 27% of the catalogue, and holds B2 vocabulary across 20 lines. The reporter narrates the protests in Albania against a luxury resort project linked to Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, built on the uninhabited island of Sassano, mixing plain narration with quoted officials and protesters.

Because the accent here is mixed rather than one native speaker, you get several rhythms and stress patterns inside a single short recording. That matters if your goal is to speak english fluently across different voices, not just imitate one presenter. The pace does not slow for the interview quotes either, so you have to keep a full B2 sentence together in one breath, the same demand a real news broadcast makes.

English Listening Practice: The Language of This DW News Report on Sassano Island

This clip rewards close english listening practice because the interview quotes carry real, unscripted structure, not tidy written English.

  • "Not only the island, but we have five miles of beachfront directly across from the island." The speaker adds a clause after the fact instead of planning the sentence in advance, which is how people actually talk when excited, not how a textbook writes a sentence.
  • "Protests started when locals saw barbed wire fences being erected and access to the sites was blocked without any public statements being made about the development." One long sentence carries two separate clauses joined by "and", so you have to track who did what to whom across the whole line before it resolves.
  • "There was no consultation before, but there was also no information about what was going on." The repeated "no" and the matching "but there was also no" give the line a rhetorical rhythm worth copying for stress and pause, not just the words.

How to Shadow This B2 English Speaking Practice Clip, Line by Line

Work the report in order rather than jumping around, since the story only makes sense once you have the setup.

  • Start with line 1, the presenter's question about what the protests have to do with Kushner and Ivanka Trump. Shadow this line twice before moving on so the names and the question structure are automatic.
  • Take lines 3 and 4, the quoted description of the island and beachfront, as one unit. Shadow this pair together to practise holding excitement and detail in the same breath.
  • Slow line 12 down on its own. It is the longest, densest sentence in the clip, so break it at "fences being erected" and "public statements" before trying it at full speed.
  • Finish on line 20. Its short, balanced clauses make it the easiest line to say back from memory, which is a good way to check how much of the report you actually absorbed.
  • Repeat the whole clip once at full pace with no pauses to test whether you can hold 162 words per minute for the full 20 lines, then use that as your marker to improve your english accent and pace on the next B2 clip.
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