501. Shadowing Practice: English Pronunciation & Vocabulary | The Matrix

24 Feb 2026 · 21 min

Episode

24 Feb 2026 · 21 min

0:00

In this podcast episode, English instructor Hadar Shemesh leads a shadowing exercise using a dialogue from the film The Matrix. The episode alternates between the original movie lines (Speaker A) and Hadar’s detailed coaching. Hadar explains how to practice shadowing—listening, pausing, and repeating aloud—to improve pronunciation, intonation, rhythm, stress, and connected speech. She breaks down specific phonetic features such as flap T, vowel reduction, consonant clusters, and word‑linking, and highlights stress patterns and pitch contours. Throughout the lesson she also defines key vocabulary (e.g., "bondage," "pull over your eyes," "Wonderland," "rabbit hole") and offers tips for clear, confident speech. The structure includes an initial preview of the scene, step‑by‑step repetition of sentences, focused commentary on pronunciation and prosody, and a final full‑speed shadowing run‑through. The episode is designed for non‑native English speakers seeking to develop fluency through active, oral practice.

Chapters

Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.
This makes me want to see the movie again, even though I've watched it so many times. Hey everyone, it's Hadar. Thank you so much for joining me. Today we have another episode where we will practice shadowing together. This time with a movie, the Matrix. She Shadowing is one of the most effective and fun practice techniques designed to help you improve your pronunciation, intonation, rhythm, stress, grammar and vocabulary. And today we are going to practice with the scene the Matrix, focusing specifically on pronunciation and prosody, which is intonation, rhythm and stress. I'll also explain important words in the text so you get a little bit of a nice vocabulary practice as well. If you're new to my channel, then hi, my name is Hadar. I'm a non native speaker of English and I am here to help you speak English with clarity, with confidence and with freedom. Check out my website for a ton of free resources@hadarchemish.com and my shadowing playlist. If you like this type of exercise, I have a lot of videos teaching you how to shadow effectively and also helping you practice with fun and TV shows and movies and speeches. All right, so let's get started. Here's how it's going to start. I'm going to show you the scene first. I'll pause it every now and then just to explain a few things. And then we're going to practice it bit by bit. I'll break down a sentence and then we're going to repeat it together. So make sure you close the door. You tell everyone around you that you are busy so that you can practice confidently and out loud. Because practicing in your head doesn't work as well, believe me. Okay, so let's watch the beginning or the scene that we are about to practice together.
Do you want to know what it is? The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.
So pulled over your eyes is when someone hides the truth from you or tricks you so that you don't see what. What is really happening.
What truth? That you are a slave. Neo, like everyone else, you were born into bondage.
Bondage is being controlled or trapped by something with no freedom. Bondage. Bondage.
Born into A prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch. A prison for your mind. Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself. This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back.
No turning back means that you've reached a point where you cannot change your choice or go back to how things were. There's no turning back. Turning, turning.
You take the blue pill. The story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland, and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.
Wonderland is taken from Alice in Wonderland. It's a magical, surprising, or dreamlike place. And a rabbit hole, or the rabbit hole, is a confusing or endless situation where you go deeper and deeper into exploring something or figuring something out without noticing.
Remember, all I'm offering is the truth. Nothing more.
This makes me want to see the movie again, even though I've watched it so many times. But it has been a long time ago. Okay, let's not get distracted. Let's get started. I'm going to teach you a small segment and then I'm going to play it for you to shadow it on your own.
Do you want to know what it is?
So notice how he breaks down the words to emphasize it. What it is. It is. Normally in American English you would say what it is. What it is In North American English, where the T's are flap. Because everything is connected, but he's not connecting them. What it is. Do you want to know what it is? Want? No? These are the stress words. I want you to start paying attention to stressed words and reduced words and then how it affects the rhythm. Da, da, da. Pay attention to the rhythm again.
Do you want to know what it is?
Let's continue.
The Matrix is everywhere.
The Matrix. Matrix may tricks T and R together they lead into a ch Sound. Tricks. Tricks. The Matrixes reduced everywhere. If you struggle with the V and the W. W, W. This is a good word of practice. If you struggle with the R, this is a good word to practice Everywhere. Not every. Don't add a syllable. Every. The Matrix is everywhere.
It is all around us.
Here he does use the flap T because he connects it. It is all. It is all. It is all. In British English, there is no flap T. It is. It is. It is. His pronunciation is American pronunciation, but it's a little heightened. Okay. Almost like poetry. So he doesn't always say it like people would normally speak on the street. Right. It's not super, super colloquial. Daily and conversational. It is all around us. It is. It is all around us. I want you to pay attention to the connected speech here. It is all around us. So here, when we connect words together, the last consonant of the word, if the next word begins with a vowel, it becomes the beginning of the next word. It's not. It is all around us. It's E. The za la rawn does. And when you think about connecting the words like that, it's easier to connect the entire phrase together without thinking of your voice or pausing it or sounding clear. This is clear. Don't be afraid of connecting words together. And that you wouldn't sound clear. No, like you can connect it and still sound clear if you stress the important words and you pronounce the sounds correctly. It is all around us.
Even now, in this very room.
Even now, in this very room. And also, you can notice his dramatic intonation. It's not super casual, which is great. This is exactly what we want to practice, especially as worth noticing, saying connected speech and stress. Even now, in this very room.
You can see it when you look out your window.
You can see it. You can see it. You can see it. You can see it, right? Can. Can see stress. You can see it when you look out your window. Rising intonation. Meaning there's something else that's coming up. Sounds like a comma, right? Window. It's not a full stop.
Or when you turn on your television.
Or when you turn on your television. Here I hear full stop. Because Rising, falling intonation. Look out your window. Or when you turn on your television.
You can feel it when you go to work.
You can feel it. Ta da da da. Okay, so the feel is a little bit more stressed here. It is longer. We hear the nice E sound. You can feel the. It is reduced to a schwa. He connects it. Feel it, feel it, feel it. You can feel it when you go to church, a little faster, but church is still stressed. When you go to church, when you
go to church, when you pay your taxes.
When you pay your taxes now to sound less monotone, even though his pitch is pretty limited. Deliberately then notice how he changes his voice. You can feel it when you go to work. So here he does it slowly. Then he goes a little faster to make it varied. When you go to church. And then he changes the voice a little when you pay your taxes.
It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes.
It is the world, world, world connected together. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes. We practiced it, but notice Again. The connected speech. Here. Pulled over your eyes. Pulled over your eyes. It is the world. Here. The T is flapped. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. To blind. When the word two appears before another word that starts with a consonant. Then two is pronounced as T when unstressed. To blind you from the. From the. From the reduced truth. Trip. True. The truth. Try to connect it together. Don't freak out. The truth. The ch. The ch. The ch. The ch. The truth. The truth. To blind you from the truth. Good. Let's start again from the top. I'll play one line, Pause. Let you say it. Please say it. Don't say it in your head. It doesn't work.
Do you want to know what it is? The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work when you go to church when you pay your taxes.
Good. I hope you paid close attention to the rhythm and the length of the words. Let's move on.
It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.
Good. All right, let's move on to the next part.
What truth?
What truth? What truth?
That you are a slave, Neo.
No connected speech here, right? Because he. He's kind of like saying this really big sentence, important sentence, that you are a slave. Neo, this is not how normal speech is in English because usually words are connected. Unless you want to say something really important, like I am doing right now, that you are a slave, Neo.
Like everyone else, you were born into bondage.
Back to connected speech. Like everyone else, you were. Were. Were born into bondage. So notice how the words that are more important are charged with more energy and they're. They are longer and a little higher in pitch. But I wouldn't say that pitch is what, you know, plays a significant role here. It's just that energy that is invested in those words.
Born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch.
Oh, Notice how crisp his consonants are. Taste or touch. I love it. Okay, pay attention to the rhythm here. Born into a prison. Into a. Into a. Into. It's not into, because the next sound is a vowel sound. So it's into what? So you can connect it into a prison. No, O prison. That you cannot see, smell or taste or touch. Right. Like he's building up speech and the rhythm, kind of, da, da, da, da, da. Cannot smell or taste or Touch. So this is such a good illustration of how each syllable receives a different beat depending on the function in the word or the sentence. Or taste. Longer. Both of them have one syllable or taste. A lot of languages would put the same emphasis. Cannot smell or taste or touch. But here, cannot smell or taste or touch. And that the pauses in between allow you to create that rhythm.
A prison for your mind.
For your mind. A prison for your mind. Here again, because he emphasizes every single word, then we hear the full form. And not fur. Fur for your mind, which is how you normally say it. A prison for your mind. Right. But no, here it's emphasized so we hear the full version of it. Let's do a little bit more, and then I'll let you shadow it on your own. I want to hear that sigh. Put all the emotion in.
Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is.
Okay. It's funny what he does with unfortunately, he's like, unfortunately, right? Stress, stress. Usually you would just stress the four unfortunately. But again, because he breaks the common patterns by emphasizing more words than a normal person would, I think it's like such a. An interesting practice, and it develops a lot of awareness for us. So unfortunately, no one can be told long O is and go. No one can be told what the Matrix is.
You have to see it for yourself.
You have to see it. So usually you would say you have to, have to, have to, have to see it. Have to see it. But here you have to see it for yourself. But if you want to practice a more conversational way to say it, you have to see it for yourself. If you want to do it according to him, you have to see it for yourself.
This is your last chance.
Good. Last chance. Open it for the A. A as in cat. This is your last chance. Both of them have the as in cat, last has an s after the ah. So you hear it clear and crisp. Last chance. Even though it's the as in cat, same phoneme, same sound. Because it appears before an n in American English, it turns more into an last chance. It's a more relaxed version of the as in cat.
This is your last chance. And after this, there is no turning back.
After this. After this. By the way, when you have this schwa r and then a th, like after this, make the r very light and it's going to help you transition from the r to the th. After this, right? You don't have to pronounce the full R sound after this. Might be too heavy for the mouth to pronounce after this which is, by the way, what he does. After this, there is no turning back. We talked about this phrase, turning back. Turning back. Turning back. Good. So now let's take it again from where we left off. So you can shadow it on your own.
That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else, you were born into bondage. Born into a prison that you cannot smell or taste or touch. A prison for your mind. Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself. This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back.
Good. And let's finish it up.
You take the blue pill. The story ends.
You take the blue pill. Blue. Blue. Blue. Try not to make it sound like blue. Right, don't bring the sound all the way to the front, but in the back. Blue. It's here. Blue pill. Pill, not peel pill. You take the blue pill, the story
ends, you wake up in your bed. And believe whatever you want to believe.
You wake up in your bed. You wake up in your bed. And believe. Whatever you want to believe. Believe, Want to believe. Believe Whatever you want to believe. Notice how he emphasizes those words in juxtaposition. This versus this. Believe. Whatever you want to believe.
You take the red pill. You stay in Wonderland. And I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.
You take the red pill, pill, pill, pill. And you stay in Wonderland. Wonder, wonder, wonder. That's a cup. Sound like one cup. Company Love. Wonderland. And I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes. Ah. Oh. Rabbit hole, rabbit hole. How deep? Stressed. The rabbit hole goes. Da, da, da. The rabbit hole goes.
Remember, all I'm offering is the truth, nothing more.
All I am offering. He's not doing. He's not contracting two words together. He's not saying, all I'm offering. All I am offering. Again, not am offering, but am offering is the reduced truth. Again, the key word here. Truth. After this video, you will know how to say truth, I hope, is the truth. The. The. The. The ch. The ch. The ch. The truth, nothing more. Remember, all I am offering is the truth, nothing more. Good. Now you will shadow the last part.
You take the blue pill. The story ends, You wake up in your bed. And believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill, you stay in Wonderland. And I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.
And the last part.
Remember, all I'm offering is the truth, nothing more.
How do you feel? Empowered. Powerful? Dramatic? All of the above. That is it for today. If you want the script with pronunciation notes and connected speech notes and loose transcription like I use in my videos. You can download it. I've prepared it for you. It's absolutely free. The link is below this video. If you're listening to the podcast only the Influency podcast. If you're not subscribed subscribed yet, then it's in the show Notes thank you so much for practicing with me. I hope you enjoyed as much as I did and like I said, if you like this type of content and practice, I have an entire playlist here on my YouTube channel on shadowing with a lot of different practice videos and some examples and recommendations on how to practice shadow shadowing effectively. So check it out like and subscribe if you haven't yet. You know all those things that you say at the end of the video. But more than everything, I just want to say thank you so much for following me, for watching my videos. You are the reason for why I do what I do and I so enjoy seeing you interact and comment because it gives me the motivation to keep on going and to remember why I do what I do. So thank you so much. Have a beautiful, beautiful rest of of the day and I will see you in the next video. Love you all. Bye.