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Shadowing practice: Why wasn't there a Scramble for Australia?

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

Full transcript

  1. Australia is a pretty big place and one that was entirely colonised by one country, the United Kingdom.0:00
  2. Britain wasn't the first European country to discover Australia, that was the Netherlands.0:05
  3. And in spite of the fact that all of these nations had interests nearby, there was no desperate scramble for this mass of land and no other European state ever0:10
  4. settled it.0:16
  5. Which raises the question, why?0:17
  6. Why wasn't there a scramble for Australia and why was it just left for Britain?0:19
  7. So the first Europeans to discover Australia were the Dutch in 1606 who promptly named it New Holland after Holland back home.0:23
  8. Over the following century Australia was visited by sailors from many countries who mapped most of its coast.0:30
  9. It wasn't long before the Dutch East India Company considered the idea of colonising New Holland but in the end it decided against the venture.0:34
  10. The reason was that there were no known resources to exploit and there weren't very many indigenous people to do it for them.0:41
  11. Eventually in the latter half of the 18th century the British mapped out the eastern coastline of Australia and found several places of interest.0:46
  12. And two decades later the British government agreed to colonise the area of Botany Bay here.0:52
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  1. There were three reasons that Britain said yes to this.0:56
  2. The first was that the people they were sending were convicts and so it didn't really matter if things didn't work out.0:59
  3. Previously Britain had sent convicts to North America but due to an ongoing event of freedom that was no longer possible.1:04
  4. The second reason was that Britain wasn't looking for resources to sell or people to tax.1:09
  5. Australia sat in a convenient place for raiding French, Spanish and especially Dutch shipping which would help Britain in any future wars and mostly they were just looking to get1:13
  6. rid of convicts.1:20
  7. And the third reason was that the British believed that it would be easy.1:21
  8. Because no other major powers were trying and there were barely any natives there to resist.1:24
  9. The British landed in 1788 founding the settlement of Sydney town in what's now New South Wales.1:28
  10. So after this why didn't any other European power try to keep the rest of Australia out of the hands of the British?1:33
  11. Well to begin the Dutch were fine with it because the British initially conceded half of Australia to them if they ever wanted it.1:39
  12. Well it wasn't long in Europe until the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars changed the balance of power on the continent.1:44
  13. The French did send some ships to investigate potential sites for settlement.1:49
  14. But the British were quick to build small settlements anywhere a valley that the French had shown interest in.1:53
  15. France's previous aggression in the Britain wouldn't allow them to colonise Australia without a war.1:57
  16. The Dutch had lost a lot of prestige in some overseas territories to Britain and were just happy to get Indonesia back.2:02
  17. Spain and Portugal were bankrupt and largely on the decline.2:06
  18. Later on the newly founded Germany would go sniffing around the area.2:10
  19. But the fear of German colonial expansion in the region was one of the main drivers of Australian unification.2:13
  20. At which point no other country would ever get a look in and Australia would be shaped by the British until its independence in the 20th century.2:18
  21. I hope you enjoyed this episode with a special thanks to my patrons James Bisannette, Kelly Moneymaker, Korsho Wolf, Kartowicka, Alec Schwinn, Andy Magee, Jerry Lamden, Roddy Martin, AF Firefly,2:24
  22. Marcus Hasner, Wyon Hockey, Spencer Lightfoot, Marvin Casal, Captain Seidel, Camus Nune, Winston K.2:34
  23. Wood, Miss Iset, Boogaloo Woogaloo, Maggie Paskowski, The McWopper, Gustav Swan, Calling Dr Howard, Dr Fine, Dr Howard, Copper Tone, Shuenin, Spinning Three Plates, Words About Books Podcast, Jim Struhmberg,2:39
  24. Words About Books Podcast and Charles I.2:50

English speaking practice with a fast British history narration

This clip is good english speaking practice because it moves fast: 239 words per minute, quicker than 90% of the catalogue. There is no dialogue and no pauses for reaction, just one narrator from History Matters walking through why Britain ended up colonising Australia while the Dutch, French and Spanish held back. It sits at B2, so the sentences are long and the vocabulary is academic rather than casual.

It is also solid british english pronunciation practice. The narrator's voice is clipped and explanatory, with words like conceded, unification, indigenous and raiding landing clearly enough to copy stress and rhythm from. Across 36 lines you get a single throughline of an argument, which makes it good english listening practice for following cause and reason rather than just catching individual words.

The language in this Scramble for Australia clip

A few lines show what makes this narration worth slowing down for.

  • "Australia is a pretty big place and one that was entirely colonised by one country, the United Kingdom." One breath, one sentence, with an appositive tacked on the end. Practise it as one unit rather than chopping it into two thoughts, since that is how the narrator actually says it.
  • "So the first Europeans to discover Australia were the Dutch in 1606 who promptly named it New Holland after Holland back home." The date is said naturally, not spelled out, and promptly is one of the rarer words in this clip: stress the first syllable and keep it short.
  • "The first was that the people they were sending were convicts and so it didn't really matter if things didn't work out." The connector so it didn't really matter is casual against all the academic vocabulary around it. Say it quickly, the way a person reasoning out loud would, not word by word.

How to work through this history clip for english shadowing practice

Given the pace, do not start at line 1. Build up to the full speed.

  • Start with lines 5 and 6, "Which raises the question, why?" and "Why wasn't there a scramble for Australia and why was it just left for Britain?". Both are short and let you match the narrator's rising then falling question intonation before the sentences get longer.
  • Shadow this line next: "Australia is a pretty big place and one that was entirely colonised by one country, the United Kingdom." Say it once slowly for the words, then again at the narrator's own pace to test your fluently spoken timing.
  • Take line 7 on its own and isolate promptly and 1606. Get those two pieces smooth before you attempt the whole sentence again.
  • Move to line 14 for the casual so it didn't really matter, then line 21, "The British landed in 1788 founding the settlement of Sydney town in what's now New South Wales," for another date said at speed.
  • Once lines 5, 6, 1, 7, 14 and 21 each feel comfortable alone, run them back to back in order. That sequence carries the actual argument of the opening third of the clip, so it also checks whether you followed the reasoning, not just the sounds.
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