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Shadowing Elizabeth Gilbert

Success, Failure and the Drive to Keep Creating — Gilbert compares the disruption of success with the disruption of failure and describes returning to writing. At about 210 words per minute, with long sentences, this is a demanding short talk. Original video on YouTube: Elizabeth Gilbert — Success, Failure and the Drive to Keep Creating.

Elizabeth Gilbert — Success, Failure and the Drive to Keep CreatingStart from the beginning
  • Level: B2–C1
  • Accent: American
  • Length: 7 min · 88 lines to practise
  • Speed: about 210 words a minute (faster than most talks)
  • Words: about 1,450; the talk asks 4 questions
  • Timing: Sada measures how far behind the speaker you are on every line

What to focus on in this talk

Start with a few caption lines at reduced speed before attempting a full paragraph.

What this talk trains

Elizabeth Gilbert speaks for about 7 minutes: roughly 1,450 words in 88 caption lines. The pace stays fairly even, about 207 words a minute in the first quarter and 207 in the last. Overall it is faster than 65 of the other 66 talks on Sada. Its sentences average 27.8 words, longer than the middle of the library (14.3), and 13.0% of its words fall outside the 3,000 most common English words (library middle: 12.9%). It asks 4 questions, so there is plenty of question intonation to copy. Phrases that fast speech often shortens come up again and again: “going to” (6 times) and “got to” (2 times).

Lines from across the talk, and what each one trains

One line from each quarter of the talk. Press a line to open it in Sada, ready to record. “Linking” marks words that run together: a word ending in a consonant sound joins the vowel that starts the next one.

  1. 0:59 But it also left me in a really tricky position moving forward as an author

    Linking: say “But it”, “it also”, “in a” without a break between the words.

  2. 3:21 with that unpublished young diner waitress who I used to be, thinking about her constantly,

    “used to”: fast speech often shortens it to “usta” when a verb follows. Listen for whether the speaker does here. Several commas: say it in short chunks first, then as one line.

  3. 5:06 I don't know, your home is that thing to which you can dedicate your energies

    “don't know”: fast speech often shortens it to “dunno”. Listen for whether the speaker does here. One of the quicker lines: about 245 words a minute by the caption timing, against 210 for the whole talk.

  4. 5:35 And you know what happened with that book?

    A question: listen to where the voice rises or falls at the end, and copy it.

Words that keep coming up

Words outside the 3,000 most common English words that Elizabeth Gilbert uses more than once. The number is how often each is said. Look up any you don’t know, then press it to practise the line where it first comes up.

How the pace changes through the talk

Part of the talkWords a minute
First quarter207
Second quarter217
Third quarter210
Last quarter207

The fastest minute starts at 5:22 (about 246 words a minute): practise that minute once the rest feels easy. The slowest starts at 4:21 (about 191): a good minute to warm up with.

Measured from the caption timing, so the numbers are close, not exact.

How the talk opens: press any line to practise it

  1. 0:12 So, a few years ago I was at JFK Airport about to get on a flight,
  2. 0:17 when I was approached by two women who I do not think would be insulted to hear themselves described
  3. 0:22 as tiny old tough-talking Italian-American broads.
  4. 0:26 The taller one, who is like up here, she comes marching up to me, and she goes, "Honey, I gotta ask you something.
  5. 0:33 You got something to do with that whole 'Eat, Pray, Love' thing that's been going on lately?"
  6. 0:38 And I said, "Yes, I did."

How to practise this talk

  1. Warm up on the slowest minute (from 4:21) or on the opening lines above.
  2. Then take the chosen lines above one at a time: linked words, a shortened phrase, a line said in chunks, a quick line, a question.
  3. On each line, press Record and say it after Elizabeth Gilbert (Repeat) or along with them (Shadow), then open Compare and go again until every word is green.
  4. Save the fastest minute (from 5:22, about 246 words a minute) for last.
  5. At one minute a day you finish the whole talk in about 7 days, and Sada shows your first try against your latest.

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