Shadowing Practice: it’s time to start participating in your own life. - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Most people believe their real life will begin shortly.
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Not today, of course.
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Today is mostly emails, laundry, and watching someone on the internet renovate a farmhouse in Portugal.
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Thank you.
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But soon, soon they'll start the novel or the business, or maybe the version of themselves who wakes up earlier, drinks less coffee, and somehow knows how to make a dinner party feel.
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It's effortless.
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Soon they'll become the person whose life they keep bookmarking. In the meantime...
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They watch.
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And by they, I of course mean most of us.
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We watch people move to cities we haven't visited, watch people fall in love in apartments with very good lighting.
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We watch people start companies, quit jobs, train for marathons, buy sourdough starters, and explain their morning routines as if mornings were something that required strategy.
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And the strange thing is that this has become a perfectly acceptable way to spend a life.
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observing other people appear to live theirs.
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There's now an entire economy built around it.
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You can watch someone build the life you want in 10 tidy minutes right here on YouTube.
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You can watch them wake up at 5 in the morning, journal, meditate.
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Drink some form of green liquid, answer emails from a laptop beside a window, and then say something encouraging about designing your life.
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It's very convincing.
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Mostly because it looks like the beginning of a story.
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And most of us, if we're being honest, feel a little like we're still waiting for ours to start.
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The peculiar thing about waiting for your life to begin is that it feels extremely responsible.
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Mature, even.
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People say things like, "I just need to get a few things sorted first." Which, yeah, sounds reasonable because there are always a few things to sort.
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Money, mostly. Or time.
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the vague but persistent feeling that you aren't quite the person who should be doing the thing yet.
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The strange assumption here is that there will eventually be a moment when you are.
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There'll be a version of yourself who's slightly more organized, more confident, and definitely more qualified to begin.
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This future self is very capable.
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Unfortunately, this future self is also fictional.
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But we spend a surprising amount of time preparing for them.
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We save ideas for them, trips for them, conversations for them, entire careers for them.
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We say things like, "One day I'd love to live somewhere else for a while,"
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which is a charming phrase because one day is the most accommodating timeline ever invented.
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One day asks nothing of you.
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It's not that people are lazy.
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Laziness would actually require a decision.
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What most people are is something closer to provisional.
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They're living a sort of draft version of their lives.
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The good dishes are saved for later.
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The interesting risks are postponed.
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The strange idea that keeps returning, the one that might embarrass you a little, is carefully placed into the category of Eventually...
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Meanwhile, the present continues in a very determined way.
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The calendar fills, the weeks acquire momentum, years begin to move with a slightly unsettling efficiency.
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And yet the feeling persists that the real narrative is somewhere ahead.
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You're merely warming up.
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Part of the problem, of course, is comparison.
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There's always been comparison, but it used to require leaving the house.
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Now it arrives continuously, you barely even have to participate.
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You open your phone and find people who appear to have things figured out.
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They're living in cities you admire, pursuing projects that sound suspiciously like the ones you once mentioned at dinner.
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Except they've somehow begun.
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You watch them document the process.
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They talk about the leap they took, the move they made, the decision that changed everything.
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But this is where it becomes slightly misleading.
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Because the leap, when described afterward, sounds intentional.
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as though it were always the plan.
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But if you listen carefully, the people who actually changed the shape of their lives rarely began with a plan at all.
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They started in a small, sometimes mildly humiliating way.
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They signed up for the class, eventually sent the email, bought the train ticket, and then spent three weeks wondering if they'd made a terrible mistake.
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This doesn't look impressive in real time, it almost always looks like confusion.
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But confusion, it turns out, is the beginning of most interesting lives.
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What's deceptive about watching other people live is that you're almost always seeing the edit.
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The uncertainty has been trimmed away, the awkward pauses are gone.
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The parts where someone doubted themselves in a kitchen at midnight have been replaced with a helpful voiceover.
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Life, unfortunately, does not provide a voiceover.
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This is obviously an exception.
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But it does mostly provide unimpressive moments in which you could do something slightly braver than usual, and often don't.
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Consider the number of people who've been meaning to write a novel for the past decade.
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These people aren't unserious about the novel.
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They've thought about it extensively.
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They've described it to friends.
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Many of them own very good notebooks.
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What they're waiting for, generally, is the moment when writing the novel will feel justified, or when they'll feel sufficiently prepared to begin a thing that might turn out badly.
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This moment has remarkable staying power.
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It can last 15 years.
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The same thing happens with other ambitions.
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People talk about learning a language or living somewhere new for a while.
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Finally starting the project they bring up every few months with an apologetic tone, as though the idea itself has begun to feel slightly embarrassing from overexposure.
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These conversations often occur in comfortable settings: restaurants, living rooms, long walks where everyone agrees that someday they will do something interesting.
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The advantage of "Someday," of course, is that it places the entire burden of action on a version of you who doesn't currently exist.
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And in the meantime, something else fills the space.
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Observation.
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You watch other people do the thing.
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You watch them move cities, start companies, publish books, train for marathons, quit jobs with alarming confidence.
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They explain the decision later with a clarity that suggests the entire thing was inevitable.
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It rarely was.
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Most lives that look intentional from the outside began in a way that felt, at the time, somewhat premature.
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Someone applied before they felt qualified, moved when it didn't seem especially sensible.
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And someone began something with absolutely no proof it would work.
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From a distance, this reads as boldness.
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Up close, it usually looks more like impatience.
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Because eventually, a realization occurs you notice
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that the life you keep imagining in the future is suspiciously dependent on decisions you've been postponing in the present.
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This realization doesn't arrive at a meaningful moment.
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You aren't gazing out at the ocean thinking about your future, you're doing something forgettable.
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Answering emails, sitting in traffic, pretending to listen while someone tells you how they've completely changed their life.
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And then it occurs to you: somewhat rudely.
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What if nothing notable is going to happen before the part you've been waiting for?
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And what if the life you're waiting to start is already underway, with or without your participation?
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Once that possibility occurs to you, it becomes slightly harder to remain a spectator.
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you My therapist says this thing, often enough that I've started hearing it in places she's not.
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What's in the way is the way.
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I hate it.
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Not real hate, just the kind of mild, domestic hate you reserve for people who are right too often.
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The hate that sounds like, huh, while you stir your coffee too loudly or nod a little too fast.
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I've rolled my eyes at it more than once, not out loud, I'm not that dramatic, but in that half -smile, sure, okay, way, you respond to something that sounds like it should be true,
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but mostly just feels like a lot of work. And still, it lingers.
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It follows me into parts of the day I don't have language for.
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The parts where I'm not stuck exactly, but circling something I don't want to name.
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Because I know what she means.
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I know what she's trying to do.
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I just don't want to be the kind of person who's in her own way.
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I want to be evolved, I want to be the kind of person who maybe was a mess once, but now works out because it's fun and drinks water before she's even thirsty.
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I think that's what she's trying to get me to see, that the thing I keep calling in the way might actually be the way through.
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which is So irritating because what's in the way is me.
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But I could never see it that way.
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I'd laid my life out like a nice, polite sidewalk.
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Flat, sensible, and absolutely no cracks.
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Also well -lit, you know, in case anyone passing by needed directions.
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I told myself it was caution.
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I've certainly called it maturity, and when all else fails, I've called it some thoughtful, evolved thing I probably read in a Brene Brown caption, but...
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Really?
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I was just.. trying to be easy to digest.
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like a saltine cracker stable predictable.
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Not exactly anyone's favorite, unless you're sick, of course, but no one's problem either.
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Careful in a way that looked responsible on the surface and afraid underneath.
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What looked like a block was really choreography.
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I was keeping things small and neat and narratable.
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I got very good at it.
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What's in the way is the way.
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God, I hate how right she was.
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Because once you see it, it becomes difficult to pretend you're still waiting for the conditions to improve.
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the conditions were never really the issue.
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I was.
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I had built a life where nothing had to challenge me so I could remain a spectator in my own life.
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someone observing events from a comfortable distance occasionally offering commentary.
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It was a very pleasant position, actually.
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You get to imagine the life you might live without the inconvenience of attempting it.
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The future remains flattering.
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The version of you who eventually gets around to things stays impressive.
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largely because they never have to show up.
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And once you recognize that arrangement, it becomes harder to ignore how often the same thing is happening everywhere else.
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Not because people lack ambition, most people have plenty of that.
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What they lack is the willingness to be slightly embarrassing in public while the story is still forming.
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Observation is safer.
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You can study other people's decisions, admire them, even narrate them a little.
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all while assuming your own life will become interesting later.
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But the uncomfortable part is that there is no separate moment when the narrative officially begins.
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There's no signal that the camera has turned in your direction.
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You've been in the scene the entire time.
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The only real question is whether you're still standing off to the side explaining it.
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or finally doing something that makes the explanation unnecessary. so.
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Which is it?
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Spectator or...
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Participant.
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Vocabulario y notas de pronunciación para esta lección
Esta lección de conversación de nivel B2 se basa en el vídeo “it’s time to start participating in your own life”. Este vídeo tiene 155 frases y 1840 palabras para practicar shadowing. La parte hablada dura 10:41. El hablante habla a un ritmo natural de unas 172 palabras por minuto, cercano a una conversación cotidiana. 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 |
|---|---|---|
| embarrass verbo | /ɪmˈbæɹəs/ | avergonzar, abochornar |
| spectator sustantivo | /spɛkˈteɪtə/ | espectador |
| postpone verbo | /pəʊstˈpəʊn/ | posponer, postponer |
| suspiciously adverbio | sospechosamente | |
| intentional adjetivo | /ɪnˈtɛnʃənəl/ | intencional |
| evolve verbo | /ɪˈvɑlv/ | desarrollar |
| ambition sustantivo | /æmˈbɪʃ.ən/ | ambición |
| leap verbo | /ˈliːp/ | saltar, brincar |
| admire verbo | /ədˈmaɪɹ/ | admirar |
| sensible adjetivo | /ˈsɛn.sɪ.bəl/ | razonable, sensato |
| meantime sustantivo | /ˈmiːntaɪm/ | entretanto |
| someday adverbio | algún día | |
| observe verbo | /əbˈzɜːv/ | servar, observar |
| observation sustantivo | /ˌɑbzɚˈveɪʃn̩/ | observación, vigilancia |
| marathon sustantivo | /ˈmæɹəθən/ | maratón |
Phrasal verbs que vas a escuchar
| Palabra | Pronunciación | Significado |
|---|---|---|
| turn out verbo | resultar | |
| bring up verbo | levantar, alzar | |
| figure out verbo | averiguar, captar | |
| show up verbo | comparecer, personarse | |
| wake up verbo | /ˌweɪk ˈʌp/ | despertarse, recordar |
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 | you've been postponing · you've been waiting |
| Present perfect have/has + participio pasado — una acción pasada que sigue importando ahora | haven't visited · has become · There's always been |
| Voz pasiva be + participio pasado — importa lo que ocurre, no quién lo hace | are saved · are postponed · has been trimmed |
| Oraciones de relativo who / which + oración — información extra sobre una persona o cosa | person who should · people who appear · people who actually |
Pronunciación a tener en cuenta
El hablante usa 45 contracciones y formas reducidas, como you're, don't, I've. Dilas en su forma corta, tal como las oyes.
- Los sonidos de “th”: marathon /ˈmæɹəθən/, thirsty /ˈθɝs.ti/, thoughtful /ˈθɔːtfəl/, theirs /ðɛɚz/, therapist /ˈθɛɹəpɪst/
- Los sonidos de “sh” y “zh”: realization /ˌɹɪə.laɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/, intentional /ɪnˈtɛnʃənəl/, ambition /æmˈbɪʃ.ən/, observation /ˌɑbzɚˈveɪʃn̩/, confusion /kənˈfjuːʒən/
- Palabras largas — cuida el acento: realization /ˌɹɪə.laɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/, intentional /ɪnˈtɛnʃənəl/, apologetic /əˌpɑləˈd͡ʒɛtɪk/, choreography /ˌkɔɹiˈɑɡɹəfi/, humiliate /hjuːˈmɪliˌeɪt/
Sonidos difíciles para hispanohablantes:
- s + consonante al inicio — sin añadir una “e” delante: spectator /spɛkˈteɪtə/, stir /stɝ/, starter /ˈstɑɹ.tɚ/
- /v/ — no es /b/: los dientes tocan el labio inferior: evolve /ɪˈvɑlv/, observe /əbˈzɜːv/, observation /ˌɑbzɚˈveɪʃn̩/, deceptive /dɪˈsɛp.tɪv/, renovate /ˈɹɛn.ə.veɪt/
- /z/ — sonora, no /s/: realization /ˌɹɪə.laɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/, observe /əbˈzɜːv/, observation /ˌɑbzɚˈveɪʃn̩/, laziness /ˈleɪ.zi.nəs/, gaze /ɡeɪz/
Cómo practicar con este vídeo
- Escucha el vídeo entero una vez sin hablar y anota las palabras que no conoces.
- Empieza a velocidad 0,75×, haz shadowing frase por frase y vuelve a la velocidad normal cuando te resulte fácil.
- Grábate y compara con el original, prestando atención a palabras como embarrass, spectator, postpone.
¿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.