Shadowing Practice: How I use a pocket brush pen - Learn English Speaking with Video

Hey y'all, Austin Kleon here.

Today I want to talk to you about a tool I cannot live without.

It's a Pentel Pocket Brush Pen.

And I've been using this for years.

And whenever I get sort of bombed out with my diary habit, I unleash what I call the magic of the brush here.

And I sort of wanted to show you how I use it in my diary.

So I'm gonna actually just do a diary entry today for you.

So These things are really.. these are so so magic.

So that the way that these brush pens work is they have a little

cartridge just like you'd have with a fountain pen.

They kind of look like this and then there's a like synthetic brush on the end of it.

And this thing, I think this is like 10 years old and it keeps a really nice point and

And one of the things I really like about working with the brush, I'm going to turn a light on here so you can make sure to see me well,

is it just gets this really nice kind of fun line.

Like if you press hard, you get big fat lines.

If you press really lightly, you get little skinny lines.

So you can have a lot of fun with this.

So when I get kind of bombed out, I just love the loose and playful nature of this.

And it's a Monday.

Sometimes I write the time.

But a lot of times when I start my diary, I don't really know what I'm going to write about for the day.

So often I'll just start drawing.

Like lately I've been drawing a lot of ghosts.

This brush is just so responsive.

Sometimes I'll just do a bunch of ghosts until I come up with an idea.

Just do-do-do-do-do.

I never have anything planned when I sit down with my diary.

I just kind of like sit down with it and just kind of let it go.

And this might be too messy for some people,

but for me there's just something really loose and freeing about the brush.

And this is something I learned from my hero Linda Barry, who you probably hear me talk a lot about.

But the big deal today is that my son Owen is turned nine years old. So, alright.

Owen is nine.

And I am feeling the feelings.

because it is true i am feeling the feelings today

and then sometimes i'll just do like there's something about you know miss linda tells us

that if you just kind of keep your

brush or your pen in motion new ideas come and

so i just have so much fun with this brush

and i don't worry about writing too much or anything like

that the other thing that miss linda tells us is that if you write really slowly, interesting things will come.

So I was somebody when I was younger, I thought free writing, you had to like write really fast and just let it all like kind of out.

But there's something about just going really really slowly like even

if you just start making an s sometimes the word will appear

that you need but I just you know if you just kind of concentrate on making the letters

and breathe in and do what Miss Linda tells us.

You just kind of slow down.

But there's just something magic about the rush.

There's something about slowing down and just letting things come

and I just I just love it it just it just really frees me up

so this Pentel brush pen

and you can do all kinds of things with this let

me let me find you like another entry sometimes I'll do

these kind of wild pages where I make like little comics

sometimes oh this is a drawing I'll copy a drawing from

my from my my six-year-old this is my idea for Muppets at Walden there's just there's a

but yeah I do a lot of my comics this way

so I heard my diaries this way

and I'll draw a lot of comics in there and and

and the words come along with them

but there's just something magic about the brush

so to tell you a little bit more about the pen like

so I have three of these bad boys

and I've never had any problems with them and they come with this little cartridge.

Now these cartridges do they sort of go away real quickly, like they get used up really fast.

So I was on YouTube the other day and I found out that if you buy a,

if you buy a blunt tip syringe, you can get these like anywhere really.

It's actually hard to buy them in person.

You just got to go online.

And a pot of ink.

You can actually refill these bad boys yourself.

So you literally just kind of like stick the...

Stick it in there like that.

And you want to use a syringe because there's nothing really this thin that will fit in these little cartridges.

Then you just stick the syringe in there.

And you can fill the cartridge back up.

I didn't get enough ink.

Just like that.

And then you have like a brand new cartridge

and then you can just unscrew the pen and just stick it right back in there.

And then any excess ink you just kind of squeeze back out.

The other really fun thing that I wanted to show you is that I discovered the other day

is if you have a syringe full of ink, check this out, it basically becomes a,

I don't know if this will work now, it becomes an airbrush.

So you can do these kind of crazy little ink effects here.

You got to be a little careful because it can get messy real quick.

So yeah, so I don't know when this turned into a craft channel, but anyway.

So the Pilot Pocket Brush Pen.

Love this thing.

and I'll put a link to it in my newsletter and below the video.

Anyway, happy writing and drawing and I hope this wasn't too dorky

and maybe it was a little bit of fun for you.

Bye!

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Vocabulario y notas de pronunciación para esta lección

Esta lección de conversación de nivel B1 se basa en el vídeo “How I use a pocket brush pen”. Las palabras que más se repiten: brush, pen, cartridge, ink, diary. Este vídeo tiene 93 frases y 1066 palabras para practicar shadowing. La parte hablada dura 8:06. El hablante mantiene un ritmo constante de unas 131 palabras por minuto, cómodo para el shadowing. El 83 % de las palabras está entre las 3.000 más comunes del inglés; conviene repasar el resto antes de empezar.

Vocabulario clave de este vídeo

Las 15 palabras más avanzadas del vídeo, con su pronunciación y significado:

Palabra	Pronunciación	Significado
brush sustantivo	/bɹʌʃ/	pincel, cepillo
cartridge sustantivo	/ˈkɑɹtɹɪd͡ʒ/	cartucho, cartuchera
diary sustantivo	/ˈdaɪ.ə.ɹi/	diario, diario personal
syringe sustantivo	/səˈɹɪnd͡ʒ/	jeringa
messy adjetivo	/ˈmɛsi/	desordenado, desprolijo
airbrush sustantivo		aerógrafo
refill sustantivo	/ˈɹiː.fɪl/	refill, reservida
unleash verbo	/ʌnˈliʃ/	desatar, libertar
unscrew verbo		desatornillar, destornillar
playful adjetivo	/ˈpleɪfl̩/	juguetón
responsive adjetivo	/ɹɪˈspɑn.sɪv/	responsivo, respondiente
newsletter sustantivo	/ˈn(j)uzˌlɛtɚ/	boletín de noticias, boletín informativo
blunt adjetivo	/blʌnt/	romo, obtuso
fountain sustantivo	/ˈfaʊn.tɪn/	fuente, chafariz
squeeze verbo	/skwiːz/	exprimir, apretar

Phrasal verbs que vas a escuchar

Palabra	Significado
slow down verbo	desacelerar, decelerar
back out verbo	dar marcha atrás, echarse atrás
back up verbo	retroceder, ciar
come up with verbo	ingeniar, ingeniarse
find out verbo	averiguar, anoticiarse
go away verbo	irse, marcharse

Gramática en este vídeo

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

Estructura	En el vídeo
Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — una acción que empezó antes y continúa	I've been using · I've been drawing
Verbo + -ing enjoy, keep, stop… + -ing — verbos seguidos de la forma en -ing	start drawing · start making
Futuro con “will” will + verbo — una decisión, una promesa o una predicción	I'll just start · I'll just do · will come
Futuro con “going to” be going to + verbo — un plan o algo que se ve venir	gonna actually · I'm going to turn · I'm going to write

Pronunciación a tener en cuenta

El hablante usa 21 contracciones y formas reducidas, como I'll, don't, I'm. Dilas en su forma corta, tal como las oyes.

Los sonidos de “th”: synthetic /sɪnˈθɛtɪk/, breathe /bɹiːð/
Los sonidos de “sh” y “zh”: brush /bɹʌʃ/, unleash /ʌnˈliʃ/

Sonidos difíciles para hispanohablantes:

s + consonante al inicio — sin añadir una “e” delante: squeeze /skwiːz/, skinny /ˈskɪni/
/z/ — sonora, no /s/: newsletter /ˈn(j)uzˌlɛtɚ/, squeeze /skwiːz/
/dʒ/ — no es la “y” ni la “ch”: cartridge /ˈkɑɹtɹɪd͡ʒ/, syringe /səˈɹɪnd͡ʒ/

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 brush, cartridge, diary.

¿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 →

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