Shadowing Practice: How English Has Changed - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Welcome to the Listening Time Podcast.

Hey everybody, this is Connor and you're listening to episode 149 of the Listening Time Podcast.

I hope you're all ready for some English practice and this episode in particular is going to be about English itself.

In today's episode, I want to talk about how English has changed over the centuries.

And I had this idea

and I thought it would be really cool to look at some different verses from the King James Bible,

which is from 1611, so over 400 years ago.

and I thought it would be cool to show you how the language has changed a little bit since then.

It hasn't changed that much.

It's still completely understandable if you read the King James Bible nowadays and you're a native English speaker.

However, there are some interesting changes that we can see.

And I'm a language nerd.

I like languages and I like learning about languages.

So this type of topic is really interesting for me.

And I know that not all of you are language nerds like me,

but I'm sure that you'll still find this episode interesting and

you'll like learning a little bit about some of the different ways that English has changed over the years.

And I want to read another review that I received on Apple Podcasts

because I did that a couple episodes ago and I want to do

that from time to time just to thank my listeners who are also leaving reviews for me.

This one is from Darwish B and this person says,

your episode helps me a lot to gain more vocabulary and ideas, nice words, slow speech, anyone can understand.

Many thanks.

Darwish, thank you for listening and for writing a review.

I really appreciate that.

And if any of you listeners leave me a review on any of the podcast apps,

then I might read it here in an episode.

And of course, remember that if you want my advanced podcast episodes, you can sign up to become a Listening Time family member.

The link is in the description below this episode.

And you also have the link down there to sign up for my U.S.

Conversations podcast, in which I talk to different English teachers from around the country about many things.

It's a lot of fun and great practice for your listening.

So both of those links are down below.

Alright, let's get started.

Are your ears ready?

You know what time it is.

It's listening time.

Okay, let's talk about some of the ways that English has changed over the years.

But first, before we talk about modern English,

I want to mention Old English and Middle English.

Most of you probably aren't too familiar with the different types of English that have been spoken

throughout the centuries.

So Old English is the earliest form of English.

It was the earliest form of English,

and it was spoken between the 5th and 11th centuries, okay?

So a long time ago.

And what's really interesting about Old English is

that native English speakers nowadays can't understand it unless they have studied it before.

So before recording this episode, I read an excerpt.

An excerpt is a short part of a book or an article.

I read a short excerpt from Beowulf.

This is one of the most famous,

if not the most famous works of Old English,

and from this excerpt I understood maybe 5% of the words.

So that shows you how different Old English was from modern English.

So it's almost completely incomprehensible,

meaning it's not understandable at all, even to native English speakers nowadays.

So Old English was a different language really,

and many people make the mistake of using the term

Old English to refer to older modern English like English from the 1600s

or the 1700s for example.

That's not old English.

That's still modern English.

It's just older than today's English.

But the term Old English actually refers to an older language that doesn't really resemble today's English.

So just be careful with that phrase Old English because many people use it incorrectly.

And then after Old English,

there was Middle English from the 12th to the 15th century.

And maybe the most famous or one of the most famous works of literature from this period

was the Canterbury Tales, and before recording this episode,

I also tried to read an excerpt from this work,

and I understood much more of it than Beowulf.

So Middle English is a lot closer to modern English than Old English is.

So Middle English has a lot of words that we can still understand nowadays in modern English.

However, there are a lot of words that we don't understand.

So it's still a different language, kind of.

It's not a different language in the sense that it's Spanish, right?

It's still English, but it can still be very hard to understand for a native English speaker nowadays.

So that was Middle English.

And then after that is when modern English was established, let's say.

And so from that point until now, people have spoken modern English.

However, maybe today, the English that we speak in 2024,

this might be considered contemporary English.

It's not a different language.

It's still modern English.

But if we want to differentiate between the English spoken today and the English spoken in the 1600s,

for example, maybe we can use the term contemporary English for today's version of the language.

So that was a little bit of the history of English.

So now I want to talk about a few different changes

that English has undergone in the past 400 years or so.

By the way, the past participle undergone,

this comes from undergo, this means that you go through some process.

So in this case, English underwent changes.

It went through this process of changing.

So there are many examples that I could point out.

The phrasal verb point out means that you highlight something,

you draw people's attention to that thing.

So I could point out a lot of examples,

but I chose just a few because my time is limited.

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So maybe the first thing that people will notice

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if they read something from the 1600s or a little earlier,

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maybe, they'll notice some different pronouns being used.

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Pronouns like thou, thee, thy, thine.

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These pronouns that start with th and then also the pronoun ye, y-e.

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So let me read you a verse from the King James Bible.

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This is Romans 10, 9,

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chapter 10, verse 9, and this has three of these different pronouns in this verse.

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So listen while I read it.

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That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus

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and shall believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved.

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So you'll notice that we have some interesting pronouns there.

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We have thou, that if thou shalt confess.

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We have thy, thy mouth.

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And we also have thine, thine heart.

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You might be wondering what those mean.

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Well, in the past, English distinguished between the second person singular and the second person plural.

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What does that mean?

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Well, if you're talking to one person, you're talking in the second person singular,

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but if you're talking to more than one person, you're talking to the second person plural.

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So in the second person singular, in the past, in English,

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people would use these TH pronouns.

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Instead of saying you, they would say thou,

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if they are using you as a subject.

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And if if they wanted to use it as an object.

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Instead of saying, to you, they would say, to thee.

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And then the possessive pronouns,

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instead of saying, you're, if it's just one person,

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people would say thy or thine depending on the word after it.

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If the word after this pronoun was a word starting with a vowel

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or an H many times like in this verse thine heart then people would say thine

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but if it was any other word with a consonant other than H then it would be thy,

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thy mouth, like it says in this verse.

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And then I'll read one other verse that has the word thee in it.

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So in John 3, 3, it says, Jesus answered and said unto him, verily, verily, I say unto thee,

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except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

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So here, Jesus is addressing one person.

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He's talking to one person here.

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So he uses the instead of you.

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And then what about if someone was talking to multiple people?

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Well, instead of using these th pronouns, they would use the y pronouns, right?

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Ye, you, etc. So, for example, in John 8, 32, Jesus says,

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and ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

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So, you see there that he uses ye as the subject and then he uses you as an object later on.

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So in that case, he's speaking to more than one person.

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So you might wonder why were there different pronouns?

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what was the purpose of differentiating like that?

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Well in many other languages,

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probably most other languages, there is a difference when you address one person and when you address more than one person.

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If you speak Spanish or if you speak French or many other languages,

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you know what I'm talking about.

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You use a different pronoun and probably a different verb conjugation if you're talking to one person or more than one person.

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And this is actually a very helpful thing

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because it allows your audience to know if you're talking to just one person

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or if you're talking to all of them because nowadays we don't know

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that we only say you whether or not we're addressing a single person

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or multiple people so for example if I call you

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and you're with a friend and I say what are you doing

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and you say I'm at John's house

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if I say you should come over to my house you don't know

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if I'm only referring to you or if I'm referring to you and John I could be saying either thing, right?

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You should come over.

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That could be used for one person or multiple people.

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So I actually think that the way

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that people used to speak in the past was more helpful because it eliminated this mystery.

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It it made it clearer who you were speaking to, right?

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So that's a big change that we can see.

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Obviously, we still understand when we read this in the Bible or in other texts.

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However, it is a notable difference, right?

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And another notable change is with th endings.

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So nowadays when we talk in the third person singular,

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the verb usually ends with an s, like he walks.

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I walk, he walks, right?

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However, in the past, this third-person singular verb ending had a TH instead of an S.

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So, for example, we can see this in the most famous verse of the Bible,

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John 3.16, which says, For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son,

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that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

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So you see that instead of saying believes, it says believeth.

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That th represented the third person singular in the past.

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So walketh instead of walks.

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Pretty interesting, huh?

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I actually really like how that sounds.

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I like that extra syllable, that if at the end of verbs.

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I think it sounds really cool,

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but maybe that's just because older styles tend to sound interesting and cool.

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to modern ears like mine.

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Maybe that's why, but I really like the way that sounds.

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He doeth instead of he does.

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To me, that sounds pretty cool.

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You might not agree, but I actually really like that,

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but I doubt that we'll ever go back to speaking like that again

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and then one other kind of category of changes I wanted to highlight is just certain words

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that had different forms in the past that are kind of archaic now,

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but we can still understand them.

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So for example, the past tense of the word speak is spoke, right?

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However, in the past, people would say spake.

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So for example, in John 8 30,

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it says, as he spake the these words, many believed on him.

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So really it's saying when Jesus spoke these words, that's how we would say it in modern terms.

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However, at that time it was spake, as he spake these words, many believed on him.

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So that's one example.

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Another word I can think of is art, for example, instead of saying are,

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like you are in the past,

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they might have said thou art, right?

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So for example, in John 6,

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69, it says, and we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the son of the living God.

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He doesn't say you are, he says thou art.

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I also really like that form.

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I like that art instead of are,

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but again that might just be me thinking that the archaic version sounds cool.

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And then another one that you'll notice if you read the King James Bible

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or some other text that is from that time, you'll hear the word shout,

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which is like shall, which nowadays in the US we don't even really use this word anymore.

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So that's already kind of old sounding to us.

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And then shout with a T on the end is even older.

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So thou shalt not kill, for example.

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You might remember that from the Ten Commandments, right?

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So that's another one that you'll see that we don't use nowadays.

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So there are a lot of other examples that I could have pointed out,

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but I just wanted to highlight a few.

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And you might ask, can native speakers read English like this and understand it easily?

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I would say yes.

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We just have to get used to it.

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The first time you encounter these words,

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you might be a little bit confused if you've never heard this used before.

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However, once you realize what that word means, then it's pretty obvious after that.

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So you just have to get used to it, but it's very understandable.

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And for example, in high school in the U.S., many of us had to read Shakespeare,

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William Shakespeare, and his style of English was very similar to the style that we saw today,

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and we read that in high school.

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We were teenagers when we read that,

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so it's definitely understandable, but you just have to get used to it, get used to those different words,

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the different pronouns, the word endings,

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things like that, but it's understandable and it's not a problem to read these things.

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And how much will English change in the future?

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400 years from now, will English be really different?

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I don't know, to be honest.

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I'm sure the slang will be very different.

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Idioms and expressions will probably be pretty different.

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The grammar will probably be slightly different because we can see grammar changes that happen over the years slowly but surely,

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so I'm sure the grammar might be a little different.

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So I don't know.

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Hypothetically, If 300 years, 400 years from now,

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people are speaking English, it will probably be similar to today's English,

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but with some pretty noticeable differences like what we just saw.

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But I would guess that it would still resemble the English that I'm speaking now.

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So I don't know, but that's what I would guess.

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All right, I hope that you found this episode interesting.

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I know this one was a little bit different, but I really wanted to talk about this in an episode.

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And if you feel ready to practice with my advanced episodes, make sure to become a Listening Time family member.

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The link is in the episode description down below.

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That's patreon.com slash listening time.

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And if you want my other podcast in which I talk to different English teachers about different topics,

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you can go down and click on that link.

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It's also down below.

255

That's patreon.com slash US Conversations.

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And remember to give this podcast a five-star rating and write a review, and I might read it in the future.

257

All right, thank you for listening to this episode and I'll talk to you on the next episode of Listening Time.

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Vocabulario y notas de pronunciación para esta lección

Este vídeo tiene 257 frases y 2745 palabras para practicar shadowing. La parte hablada dura 28:02. El hablante habla despacio, unas 98 palabras por minuto, así que hay tiempo para imitar cada sonido. El 86 % de las palabras está entre las 3.000 más comunes del inglés; conviene repasar el resto antes de empezar.

Vocabulario clave de este vídeo

15 palabras menos comunes del vídeo, con su pronunciación y significado:

nowadays /ˈnaʊ.ə.deɪz/ (adverbio) — hoy en día, hogaño. At the present time; in the current era.
verse /ˈvɝs/ (sustantivo) — versículo, verso. A poetic form with regular meter and a fixed rhyme scheme.
podcast /ˈpɑdˌkæst/ (sustantivo) — podcast, pódcast. A program, especially an audio program, produced on a regular basis, delivered over the Internet in a compressed digital format and designed for playback on…
singular /ˈsɪŋ.ɡjə.lɚ/ (adjetivo) — singular. Being only one of a larger population; single, individual.
understandable (adjetivo) — entendible. Capable of being understood; comprehensible.
verb /vɝb/ (sustantivo) — verbo. A word that indicates an action, event, or state of being.
excerpt /ˈɛɡzɜː(p)t/ (sustantivo) — excerpta, excerta. A clip, snippet, passage or extract from a larger work such as a news article, a film, or a literary composition.
refer /ɹɪˈfɜː/ (verbo) — referir, remitir. To direct the attention of (someone toward something).
undergo /ˌʌndɚˈɡoʊ/ (verbo) — someterse a, ser sometido a. To experience; to pass through a phase.
highlight /ˈhaɪˌlaɪt/ (verbo) — resaltar, enfatizar. To make prominent; emphasize.
grammar /ˈɡɹæm.ə(ɹ)/ (sustantivo) — gramática. A system of rules and principles for the structure of a language, or of languages in general.
topic /ˈtɑpɪk/ (sustantivo) — tema, tópico. A subject; a theme; a category or general area of interest.
ear /ˈɪə̯/ (sustantivo) — oído, oreja. The organ of hearing, consisting of the pinna or auricle, auditory canal, eardrum, malleus, incus, stapes and cochlea.
helpful /ˈhɛlp.fl̩/ (adjetivo) — servicial, adyuvante. Furnishing help; giving aid; useful.
notable /ˈnəʊtəbl̩/ (adjetivo) — notable, destacable. Worthy of note; remarkable; memorable; noted or distinguished.

Phrasal verbs que vas a escuchar

talk about (verbo) — hablar de, hablar sobre. Used to draw attention to the speaker's characterization of someone or something.
point out (verbo) — señalar, apuntar. To identify among a group of similar subjects, or in a scene where the subject might not be readily seen or noticed, with a gesture of the body.
go through (verbo) — atravesar. To travel from one end of something to the other.
come from (verbo) — ser de. To have as one's origin, birthplace or nationality.
look at (verbo) — mirar, funar. To observe or watch.

Pronunciación a tener en cuenta

El hablante usa 46 contracciones y formas reducidas, como you're, I'm, don't. Dilas en su forma corta, tal como las oyes.

Los sonidos de “sh” y “zh”: shout /ʃaʊt/, differentiate /dɪf.əˈɹɛn.ʃi.eɪt/, establish /ɪˈstæb.lɪʃ/, distinguish /dɪˈstɪŋ.ɡwɪʃ/, conjugation /ˌkɑnd͡ʒəˈɡeɪʃən/
Palabras largas — cuida el acento: differentiate /dɪf.əˈɹɛn.ʃi.eɪt/, eliminate /ɪˈlɪm.ɪ.neɪt/, vocabulary /vəˈkæb.jə.lə.ɹi/, incorrectly /ˌɪnkəˈɹɛk(t).li/, conjugation /ˌkɑnd͡ʒəˈɡeɪʃən/

Cómo practicar con este vídeo

Escucha el vídeo entero una vez sin hablar y anota las palabras que no conoces.
Haz shadowing frase por frase a velocidad normal, repitiendo cada una hasta que tu ritmo coincida con el del hablante.
Grábate y compara con el original, prestando atención a palabras como nowadays, verse, podcast.

Gramática en este vídeo

Las estructuras que más usa el hablante, con las palabras exactas del vídeo:

Estructura	En el vídeo
Present perfect have/has + participio pasado — una acción pasada que sigue importando ahora	has changed · hasn't changed · have been spoken
Voz pasiva be + participio pasado — importa lo que ocurre, no quién lo hace	have been spoken · was spoken · was established

¿Qué es la Técnica de Shadowing?

Shadowing es una técnica de aprendizaje de idiomas respaldada por la ciencia, desarrollada originalmente para la formación de intérpretes profesionales y popularizada por el políglota Dr. Alexander Arguelles. El método es simple pero poderoso: escuchas audio en inglés nativo y lo repites en voz alta de inmediato, como una sombra que sigue al hablante con solo 1-2 segundos de retraso. A diferencia de la escucha pasiva o los ejercicios de gramática, el shadowing obliga a tu cerebro y músculos de la boca a procesar y reproducir simultáneamente patrones de habla reales. Las investigaciones muestran que mejora significativamente la precisión de la pronunciación, la entonación, el ritmo, el habla conectada, la comprensión auditiva y la fluidez al hablar, convirtiéndola en una de las metodologías más efectivas para la preparación del IELTS Speaking y la comunicación en inglés en el mundo real.

Técnica de shadowing: lee la guía completa paso a paso →

Shadowing Practice: How English Has Changed - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Vocabulario y notas de pronunciación para esta lección

Vocabulario clave de este vídeo

Phrasal verbs que vas a escuchar

Pronunciación a tener en cuenta

Cómo practicar con este vídeo

Gramática en este vídeo

¿Qué es la Técnica de Shadowing?