The Jackdaw and the Pigeons Intermediate shadowing lesson
This is Aesop's fable about a jackdaw, a small bird of the crow family, that paints itself white to live with the pigeons, read by a LibriVox volunteer. The sentences are long and have many parts, but the reading is calm and clear, so it helps you keep going through long sentences at intermediate level.
- Intermediate
- Audio
- 0:49
- 6 sentences
Free, no account needed. The app plays one sentence and waits for you to say it.
The sentences
The Jackdaw and the Pigeons. A jackdaw, watching some pigeons in a farmyard, was filled with envy when he saw how well they were fed, and determined to disguise himself as one of them in order to secure a share of the good things they enjoyed.
So he painted himself white from head to foot, and joined the flock.
And so long as he was silent, they never suspected that he was not a pigeon like themselves.
But one day he was unwise enough to start chattering, when they at once saw through his disguise, and pecked him so unmercifully that he was glad to escape and join his own kind again.
But the other jackdaws did not recognize him in his white dress, and would not let him feed with them, but drove him away.
And so he became a homeless wanderer for his pains.
Words and phrases
- envy
- the wish to have what someone else has
- disguise himself as
- change how he looks to seem like someone else
- a share of
- a part of something that is divided
- from head to foot
- all over the body
- flock
- a group of birds
- suspected
- thought something was wrong without being sure
- saw through
- were not fooled by
- his own kind
- animals of the same type as him
How to practise this clip
Listen for where the reader pauses at the commas in the long first sentence, so you know where to take a breath.
- Listen to a sentence before you read it.
- Say it right after, at the speaker's pace, with the same pauses.
- After the first round, hide the text and practise from the sound alone.
Source
Aesop's Fables, read for LibriVox, public domain