Pratica di Shadowing: 2016 Stanford Commencement address by Ken Burns - Impara a parlare inglese con i video
Caricamento...
1
Stanford University.
2
Please join me in warmly welcoming our commencement speaker, Ken Burns.
3
President Hennessy, members of the Board of Trustees, distinguished faculty and staff, proud and relieved parents,
4
calm and serene grandparents, distracted but secretly pleased siblings,
5
ladies and gentlemen, graduating students of the class of 2016, good morning.
6
I am deeply honored and privileged that you have asked me here to say a few words at so momentous an occasion,
7
that you might find what I have to say worthy of your attention on so important a day,
8
especially one with such historical significance.
9
One hundred and twenty-five years.
10
Wow.
11
Thank you, too, for that generous introduction, President Hennessey.
12
I always feel compelled, though, to inoculate myself against such praise by remembering
13
that I have on my refrigerator door at home an old and now faded cartoon that shows two men standing in hell,
14
the flames licking up around them, and one guy says to the other, apparently my over 200 screen credits didn't mean a damn thing.
15
They don't, of course.
16
There is much more meaning in your accomplishments, which we memorialize today.
17
I am in the business of memorializing, of history.
18
It is not always a popular subject on college campuses today,
19
particularly when at times it may seem to some an anachronistic and irrelevant pursuit,
20
particularly with the ferocious urgency this moment seems to exert on us.
21
It is my job, however, to remind people with story,
22
memory, anecdote, feeling of the power our past also exerts to help us better understand what's going on now.
23
It is my job to try to discern patterns
24
and themes from history to enable us to interpret our dizzying and sometimes dismaying present.
25
For nearly 40 years now, I have diligently practiced and rigorously maintained a conscious neutrality in my work,
26
avoiding the advocacy of many of my colleagues trying to speak to all of my fellow citizens.
27
Over those decades of historical documentary filmmaking, I have also come to the realization that history is not a fixed thing,
28
a collection of precise dates, facts, and events that add up to a quantifiable, certain, confidently known truth.
29
History is a mysterious and malleable thing, constantly changing, not just as new information emerges,
30
but as our own interests, emotions, and inclinations change.
31
Each generation rediscovers and re-examines that part of the past, which gives its present new meaning,
32
new possibility, and new power.
33
The question becomes for us now, for you especially, What will we choose as our inspiration?
34
Which distant events and long dead figures will provide us with the greatest help,
35
the most coherent context, and the wisdom simply to go forward?
36
This is in part an existential question.
37
None of us get out of here alive.
38
An exception will not be made in your case and you'll live forever ever.
39
You can't actually design your life.
40
If you want to make God laugh, the saying goes, tell her your plans.
41
The hard times and vicissitudes of life will ultimately visit everyone.
42
You will come to realize that you are less defined by the good things that happen to you, your moments of happiness and apparent control,
43
than you are by those misfortunes and unexpected challenges
44
that in fact shape you more definitively and help to solidify your true character, the measure of any human value.
45
You especially know that the conversation that comes out of tragedy and injustice needs to be encouraged,
46
emphasis on courage.
47
It is through those conversations that we make progress.
48
A mentor of mine, the journalist Tom Brokaw, recently said to me, what we learn is more important than what we set out to do.
49
It's tough out there, but so beautiful too.
50
And history, memory, can prepare you.
51
I have a searing memory of the summer of 1962, when I was almost nine, joining our family dinner on a hot,
52
sweltering day in a tract house in a development in Newark, Delaware, and seeing my mother crying.
53
She had just learned, and my brother and I had just been told, that she would be dead of cancer within six months.
54
But that's not what was causing her tears.
55
Our inadequate health insurance had practically bankrupted us, and our neighbors, equally struggling working people,
56
had taken up a collection and presented my parents with six crisp $20 bills, $120 in total,
57
enough to keep us solvent for more than a month.
58
In that moment, I understood something about community and courage, about constant struggle and little victories.
59
That hot June evening was a victory,
60
and I have spent my entire professional life trying to resurrect small moments moments within the larger sweep of American history,
61
trying to find our better angels in the most difficult of circumstances,
62
trying to wake the dead to hear their stories.
63
But how do we keep that realization of our own inevitable mortality from paralyzing us with fear?
64
And how do we also keep our usual denial of this fact from depriving our lives and our actions of real meaning, of real purpose?
65
This is our great human challenge, your challenge.
66
This is where history can help.
67
The past often offers an illuminating and clear-headed perspective from
68
which to observe and reconcile the passions of the present moment just when they threaten to overwhelm us.
69
The history we know, the stories we tell ourselves,
70
relieve that existential anxiety, allow us to live beyond our fleeting lifespans,
71
and permit us to value and love and distinguish what is important and the practice of history,
72
both personal and professional, becomes a kind of conscience for us.
73
As a filmmaker, as a historian, as an American, I have been drawn continually to the life and example and words of Abraham Lincoln.
74
He seems to get us better than we get ourselves.
75
158 years ago, in mid-June of 1858,
76
Abraham Lincoln, running in what would be a failed bid for the United States Senate, at a time of bitter partisanship in our national politics,
77
almost entirely over the issue of slavery, spoke to the Republican State Convention in the Illinois State House in Springfield.
78
His political party, the Republican Party, was brand new, born barely four years before,
79
with one single purpose in mind, to end the intolerable hypocrisy of chattel slavery
80
that still existed in a country promoting certain unalienable rights to itself and the world.
81
He said, a house divided against itself cannot stand.
82
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
83
Four and a half years later, he was president, presiding over a country in the midst of the worst crisis in American history,
84
our Civil War, giving his annual message to Congress, what we now call the State of the Union.
85
The State of the Union was not good.
86
His house was divided.
87
But he also saw the larger picture.
88
The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present.
89
The occasion is piled high with difficulty, he said, and we must rise with the occasion.
90
As our case is new, we must think anew and act anew.
91
We must disenthrall ourselves, and then we shall save our country." And then he went on,
92
"'Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history.
93
The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation.
94
We say we are for union.
95
The world will not forget that we say this.
96
We know how to save the Union.
97
In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free.
98
Honorable alike in what we give and what we preserve,
99
we shall nobly save or meanly lose the last best hope of Earth.
100
You are that latest generation he was metaphorically speaking about, and you are, whether you are yet aware of it or not,
101
charged with saving our union.
102
The stakes are slightly different than the ones Lincoln faced.
103
There is not yet armed rebellion, but they are just as high.
104
And before you go out and try to live and shape the rest of your life, you are required now to rise,
105
as Lincoln implored us, with the occasion.
106
You know, it's terribly fashionable these days to criticize the United States government, the institution Lincoln was trying to save,
107
to blame it for all the ills known to humankind.
108
And my goodness, ladies and gentlemen, let's be honest, it has made more than its fair share of catastrophic mistakes.
109
But you would be hard pressed to find in all of human history a greater force for good.
110
From our Declaration of Independence to our Constitution and Bill of Rights, from Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and the 13th,
111
14th, 15th, and Women 19th Amendments, to the Land Grant College and Homestead Acts,
112
from the Transcontinental Railroad and our National Parks to Child Labor Laws, Social Security, and the National Labor Relation Acts,
113
from the GI Bill and the Interstate Highway System to putting a man on the moon and the Affordable Care Act,
114
the United States government has been the author of many of the best aspects of our public and personal lives.
115
But if you tune in to politics, if you listen to the rhetoric of this election cycle,
116
you You are made painfully aware that everything is going to hell in a handbasket,
117
and the chief culprit is our evil government.
118
Part of the reason this kind of criticism sticks is
119
because we live in an age of social media where we are constantly assured that we are all independent, free agents.
120
But that free agency is essentially unconnected to real community,
121
divorced from civic engagement, duped into believing in our own lonely primacy by a sophisticated media culture that requires you know,
122
desperately needs you to live in an all-consuming disposable present, wearing the right blue jeans,
123
driving the right car, carrying the right handbag, eating at all the right places,
124
blissfully unaware of the historical tides that have brought us to this moment,
125
blissfully uninterested in where those tides might take us.
126
Our spurious sovereignty is reinforced and perpetually underscored to our obvious and great comfort,
127
but this kind of existence actually ingrains in us a stultifying sameness that rewards conformity,
128
not courage, ignorance and anti-intellectualism, not critical thinking.
129
This wouldn't be so bad if we were just wasting our own lives, but this year our political future depends on it,
130
and there comes a time when I
131
and you can no longer remain neutral silent we must speak up
132
and speak out for 216 years our elections though bitterly contested have featured the philosophies
133
and characters of candidates who were clearly qualified that is not the case this year
134
One is glaringly not qualified.
135
So before you do anything with your well-earned degree,
136
you must do everything you can to defeat the retrograde forces that have invaded our democratic process,
137
divided our house, to fight against, no matter your political persuasion,
138
the dictatorial tendencies of the candidate with zero experience in the much malign but subtle art of governance.
139
Who is against lots of things but doesn't seem to be for anything,
140
offering only bombastic and contradictory promises and terrifying Orwellian statesman.
141
A person who easily lies, creating an environment where the truth doesn't seem to matter,
142
who has never demonstrated any interest in anyone or anything but himself and his own enrichment.
143
who insults veterans, threatens a free press, mocks the handicap, denigrates women, immigrants, and all Muslims,
144
a man who took more than a day to remember to disavow a supporter who advocates white supremacy
145
and the Ku Klux Klan, an infantile, bullying man who,
146
depending on his mood is willing to discard old and established alliances, treaties, and long-standing relationships.
147
I feel genuine sorrow for the understandably scared
148
and they feel powerless people who have flocked to his campaign in the mistaken belief that,
149
as often happens on TV,
150
A one can be waived and every complicated problem can be solved with the simplest of solutions.
151
They can't.
152
It is a political Ponzi scheme.
153
And asking this man to assume the highest office in the
154
land would be like asking a newly minted car driver to fly a 747.
155
As a student of history, I recognize this type.
156
He emerges everywhere and in all eras.
157
We see nurtured in his campaign an incipient proto-fascism,
158
a nativist, anti-immigrant, know-nothingism, a disrespect for the judiciary,
159
the prospect of women losing authority over their own bodies.
160
African Americans again asked to go to the back of the line.
161
Voter suppression gleefully promoted.
162
Jingoistic saber rattling.
163
A total lack of historical awareness.
164
A political paranoia that predictably points fingers, always making the other wrong.
165
These are all virulent strains that have at times infected us in the past,
166
but they now loom in front of us again, all happening at once.
167
We know from our history books that these are the diseases of ancient and now fallen empires.
168
We know from our history books that these are the diseases of ancient and now fallen empires.
169
The sense of commonwealth, of shared sacrifice, of trust, so much a part of American life is eroding fast,
170
spurred along and amplified by an amoral internet
171
that permits a lie to circle the globe three times before the truth can get started.
172
We no longer have the luxury of neutrality or balance or even bemused disdain.
173
Many of our media institutions have largely failed to expose this charlatan,
174
torn between a nagging responsibility to good journalism and the big ratings a media circus always delivers.
175
In fact, they have given him the abundant airtime he so desperately craves,
176
so much so that it has actually worn down our natural human revulsion to this kind of behavior.
177
Hey, he's rich, he must be doing something right.
178
He's not.
179
Edward R.
180
Murrow would have exposed this naked emperor months ago.
181
He is an insult to our history.
182
And do not be deceived by his momentary good behavior.
183
It's only a spoiled, misbehaving child hoping somehow to still have dessert.
184
And do not think that the tragedy in Orlando underscores his points.
185
It does not.
186
We must disenthrall ourselves, as Abraham Lincoln said, from the culture of violence and guns, and then we shall save our country.
187
This, ladies and gentlemen, is not a liberal or conservative issue, a red state, blue state divide.
188
This is an American issue.
189
Many honorable people, including the last two Republican presidents, members of the party of Abraham Lincoln,
190
have declined to support him.
191
And I implore those Vichy Republicans who have endorsed him to please, please reconsider.
192
We must remain committed to the kindness and community that are the hallmarks of civilization and reject the troubling,
193
unfiltered Tourette's of his tribalism.
194
The next few months of your commencement, that is to say your future, will be critical to the survival of the Republic.
195
The occasion is piled high with difficulty.
196
Let us pledge here today
197
that we will not let this happen to the exquisite yet deeply flawed land we all love
198
and cherish and hope to leave intact to our posterity.
199
Let us nobly save, not meanly lose, the last best hope of Earth.
200
Let me speak directly to the graduating class.
201
Watch out, here comes the advice.
202
Look, I am the father of four daughters.
203
If someone tells you they've been sexually assaulted, take it effing seriously and listen to them.
204
Maybe someday we will make the survivor's elegant statement, as important as Dr. King's letter from a Birmingham jail.
205
OK, try not to make the other wrong, as I just did with the presumptive nominee.
206
Be for something.
207
Be curious, not cool.
208
Feed your soul, too, every day.
209
Remember, insecurity makes liars of us all, not just presidential candidates.
210
Don't confuse success with excellence.
211
The poet Robert Penn Warren once told me that careerism is death.
212
Do not descend too deeply into specialism either.
213
Educate all of your parts.
214
You will be healthier.
215
Free yourself from the limitations of the binary world.
216
It is just a tool, a means, not an end.
217
Seek out and have mentors.
218
Listen to them.
219
The late theatrical director Tyrone Guthrie once said, we are looking for ideas large enough to be afraid of again.
220
Embrace those new ideas.
221
Bite off more than you can chew.
222
Travel.
223
Do not get stuck in one place.
224
Visit our national parks.
225
Their sheer majesty may remind you of your own atomic insignificance, as one observer noted.
226
But in the inscrutable ways of nature, You will feel larger, inspirited,
227
just as the egotist in our midst is diminished by his or her self-regard.
228
Insist on heroes and be one.
229
Read.
230
The book is still the greatest man-made machine of all.
231
Not the car, not the TV, not the smartphone.
232
Make babies.
233
One of the greatest things that will happen to you is that you will have to worry,
234
I mean really worry about someone other than yourself.
235
It is liberating and exhilarating, I promise.
236
Ask your parents.
237
Do not lose your enthusiasm.
238
In its Greek etymology, the word enthusiasm means simply, God in us.
239
Serve your country.
240
Insist that we fight the right wars.
241
Convince your government, as Lincoln knew, that the real threat always and still comes from within this favored land.
242
always forget that.
243
Insist that we support science and the arts, especially the arts.
244
They have nothing to do with the actual defense of our country.
245
They just make our country worth defending.
246
Believe, believe, as Arthur Miller told me in an interview for my very first film on the Brooklyn Bridge,
247
believe that maybe you too could add something that would last and be beautiful. And vote.
248
indelibly underscore your citizenship and our connection to each other when you do.
249
Good luck and Godspeed.
Obiettivi di parlato per questo clip
Questo video di Ken Burns è perfetto per lavorare sulla fluency e sulla capacità di seguire un discorso lungo e articolato in inglese. Attraverso la sua narrazione calorosa e ricca di dettagli, puoi esercitarti a capire l'intonazione, le pause e il ritmo di un discorso pubblico, fondamentali per migliorare la tua comprensione e la tua capacità di esprimerti in contesti formali. Inoltre, è un'ottima occasione per praticare il shadowing in inglese, una tecnica che consiste nel ripetere immediatamente le frasi pronunciate dal speaker, aiutando a rafforzare la memoria muscolare e la pronuncia.
Banca di frasi riutilizzabili
- "I am deeply honored and privileged" – Per esprimere gratitudine in contesti formali.
- "It is my job to remind people" – Per spiegare il proprio ruolo o compito.
- "History is a mysterious and malleable thing" – Per descrivere concetti complessi in modo vividamente.
- "The hard times and vicissitudes of life" – Per fare riferimento alle difficoltà e alle mutate circostanze.
- "We must disenthrall ourselves" – Per esprimere la necessità di liberarsi da pregiudizi o vincoli.
Correggi i tuoi punti deboli
Il discorso di Burns presenta una serie di sfide per la pronuncia inglese, come la corretta enfasi su parole chiave (es. "community", "courage") e la gestione delle pause tra le frasi lunge. Attenzione anche alla pronuncia di dittonghi come "ai" in "malleable" o "ea" in "searing". Per migliorare, prova a usare la tecnica del shadow speak: ascolta una frase, pausa e ripetila immediatamente, cercando di imitare il tono e il ritmo. Un shadowing site può aiutarti a sincronizzare la tua voce con quella del speaker, ma anche un semplice ripetizione attenta al video può fare la differenza. Ricorda: la chiave è la costanza, perché la pronuncia si migliora con la pratica costante!
Cos'è la tecnica dello Shadowing?
Shadowing è una tecnica di apprendimento delle lingue supportata da studi scientifici, originariamente sviluppata per la formazione dei traduttori professionisti e resa popolare dal poliglotta Dr. Alexander Arguelles. Il metodo è semplice ma potente: ascolti un audio in inglese di madrelingua e lo ripeti immediatamente ad alta voce — come un'ombra che segue il parlante con un ritardo di solo 1–2 secondi. A differenza dell'ascolto passivo o degli esercizi di grammatica, lo shadowing costringe il tuo cervello e i muscoli della bocca a elaborare e riprodurre simultaneamente i modelli di discorso reale. La ricerca dimostra che migliora significativamente la precisione della pronuncia, l'intonazione, il ritmo, il discorso connesso, la comprensione dell'ascolto e la fluidità del parlato — rendendolo uno dei metodi più efficaci per la preparazione alla prova di speaking dell'IELTS e per la comunicazione reale in inglese.