Shadowing Practice: My January Books - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Hey guys, I wanted to talk about all the books I read and listened to in the month of January.
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So I started off the month with Ripe by Sarah Rose Edder.
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One of my reading resolutions for 2025 was to kind of stray away from classic literature
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and read more modern releases and that is why I decided to start the year with this one.
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I would say this book largely but not totally centers around disillusionment, that modern disillusionment.
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It reminded me a lot of The New Me by Halle Butler because both deal with that bitterness that comes with disillusionment.
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They also both take place in workplaces, although the main character here I think is less unlikable than the one in The New Me.
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Her name is Cassie, she's in her 30s, and she's just landed a job working in Silicon Valley in tech.
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Cassie has dealt with depression, feelings of dread, and anxiety nearly her whole life.
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She says she's been born with a black hole that's followed her around since.
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Literally, there's a black hole hovering above her head.
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At first, I thought Cassie was dealing with some imposter syndrome at work, but as I got to know her more, I didn't really see that as the case.
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Even though she constantly doubts herself and she doesn't think she's right for the job, when the moment actually comes for her to deliver, she does.
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It's almost like she dissociates and becomes this hard -working, titan tech machine.
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However, that version of her who is willing to work herself into the ground, do morally questionable things, she feels that is not the real her.
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In fact, it's making her miserable.
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But she feels that she has to dissociate in order to survive in the workplace.
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And yes, she is making a lot of money from this job
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but she's also working somewhere where the rent is very high
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in fact she says on page 103 the way wild amounts of wealth brush up against extreme poverty
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and displacement here is like nothing i've ever seen i'm somewhere
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in the middle neither wealthy nor displaced just suspended in the air writhing having our little panic attacks
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when she's not this hard -working titan trying to make a
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living just trying to get by she's with her black hole over
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and over in the novel you see her try to connect
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with other people in her life such is her mother and her father.
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She says that from a young age, her mother has continuously stung her like a bee.
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She tries to express herself to her dad, but he feels like, what more could you want?
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You've made it.
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You can't come back home.
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You have a job that everyone wants.
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On page 20, she says, in the end, it was endless meetings, corporate pressure, profit goals.
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It was nowhere near as exotic as it seemed at the dinner table.
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When you're young, every part of life seems big and monumental.
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Once older, you can see it for what it is.
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Smaller pieces of a larger game you have no choice
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but to play it's criticizing capitalism hustle culture and toxic workplaces
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that have been born from this hustle culture the kind of company
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that wants their workers to think of them as family
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but at the same time they weaponize access to their workers livelihood we have tech ceos megalomaniacs wanting more
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and more to the point of corruption
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and cassie is stuck running in this corporate wheel like a hamster i finished this on january 3rd
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and i can definitively say that I did like this.
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However, I do still feel unsure about the way in which the book veered towards the end.
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Part of me feels like there was no other way it could veer
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and that there were obvious hints strewn throughout the story.
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Would I recommend this book?
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You know, when I shared this on my Instagram story, I got so many messages from people saying that they did not like this book at all, and I understand that.
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I think it's a polarizing one.
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I think if what I'm saying about this book piques your interest and you read the blurb, you like what you're reading, I would pick this one up.
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I didn't dislike it.
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Once I finished Ripe, I moved on to The Last Sane Woman by Hannah Regal.
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Reading the blurb of this one, I had really high expectations.
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The story starts with our main character, Nicola, and she's visiting a feminist archive, and she tells the woman working that she wants to read about women who cannot make things.
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Very interesting request.
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The archivist then brings out a series of one -sided letters written by a woman named Donna.
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Thus, Nicola begins to read these letters by Donna and finds that her and Donna have a lot of eerie similarities.
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They're both artists who feel insecure yet protective of the art that they create.
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Yeah, I didn't love this one.
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I thought it was sad and that certain parts were impactful, but mostly I felt confused while reading this.
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The story does alternate between Donna's voice and Nicola's voice, and most of the time I was kind of confused about who was speaking.
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I'm not sure if it was the author's intention to have the two women blur into one another.
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For me, it just didn't work.
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And then in the latter half of the book we hear
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from susan who is donna's friend she was writing the letters
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to susan we never get to read susan's responses to donna
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because nicola doesn't have those letters even during susan's parts i would get confused
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and i think this confusion would cause my mind to drift
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and then two pages would pass
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and i would realize oh i have no idea what i have just read i would then go back
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and reread and that was getting kind of annoying yeah it's a book about making art
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and these women who struggle
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because they have this desperate desire to create something in this world yet they feel
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that their art is never good enough wherever they go to find inspiration invigoration they feel as
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if they don't belong the inspiration is not there do i recommend this i don't think
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so i also was not feeling the prose personally
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and i think this is one as the years pass i'm going to totally forget after
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that i moved on to she's always hungry by eliza clark I think I've now read everything
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that Eliza Clark has published boy parts and penance.
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I don't think Eliza Clark is a writer for everyone.
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However, I do think she's doing something that is very trendy right now and I feel bad calling it trendy.
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Not weird girl literature.
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I would call it jaded girl literature featuring the unlikable nasty female narrator.
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I don't at all mean this in a diminutive manner.
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I love an unlikable female narrator.
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I resonate with them.
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It is trendy though because
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so many books like this have been published in the last 10 years
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and i don't think all of them have pulled this off
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eliza clark though she does this is not gratuitous nasty writing
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which i usually cannot stand anyways this is a collection of
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short stories as you can guess from the title they all
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center around hunger literal hunger for food also hunger to be beautiful
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and loved companionship survival power there's a greedy hunger these stories are dark disgusting creepy
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but some of them also make me teehee a little bit clark's writing is usually very sharp and scathing.
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I think she's clever, and I would recommend these short stories if this sounds like your type of writing.
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Then I listened to the first audiobook I've ever been able to finish, and that's Down the Drain by Julia Fox.
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Listen, I chose this book not knowing anything about Julia Fox.
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I just have seen some of her fashion photos from the street.
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What else was there to know about her?
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A lot.
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Julia Fox has had such a crazy life, at least crazy from my perspective, and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to her regale her stories.
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She narrates essentially from childhood until today.
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Her writing feels very honest and raw, also humorous and raunchy.
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There are also some parts that are very touching and relatable.
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I have personally never felt or thought anything negative about Julia Fox, but I do think this book really humanizes her.
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What is interesting is I've never been able to listen to an audiobook fully before, and I do think if I had read this book,
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I would not have enjoyed it as much as listening to Julia Fox herself narrate her story.
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There were certain parts, I remember one part in particular, where I could really hear the raw emotion in her voice
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and i think that just lended the story more power she has really been through it
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and it's iconic that she's here to tell these stories
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and she's more successful than ever i loved the last few
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lines i felt proud of her she doesn't care what anyone thinks
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because she's so firm in herself
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and i think that's very admirable then i went on to
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read the pearl by john steinbeck you guys know i love
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east of eden east of eden is one of my favorite
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books one i read i think two years ago now
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and i still think about it this pales in comparison however
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i do think it's unfair to compare this to east of
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eden in the first place even though both were written by
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steinbeck anyways this was good it's about a fisherman named kino his wife
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and his baby son one day they're out fishing
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and he comes across a pearl
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and we're talking about the pearl of pearls a giant pearl he has essentially hit the jackpot
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so they start making plans they can take their baby to
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the doctor they can send him to school they can make a better life for themselves nope no, because everyone knows about the pearl.
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There is a giant target on their back.
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While dodging all the evil people that are trying to take this pearl away from him, Kino himself kind of starts to lose it.
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All he can think about is the pearl and keeping his pearl and the injustice of other people taking it from him.
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He's relying on this pearl for his happiness.
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This read to me like a fable.
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In fact, I think the little intro of this story calls this a fable, a parable.
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Yeah, it definitely reads like a parable and the moral lesson is very obvious like you can't miss it.
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It's a short read.
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I do think if you have not read and studied this for school it is well worth the read.
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I also listened to the book This Here Flesh by Cole Arthur Riley.
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This was recommended to me by Hannah's Reading Again on TikTok and Instagram.
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After my success with Down the Drain I wanted to try more memoir audiobooks.
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I think it's just nice hearing people's own voice as they read their own story
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but I actually wish I had read this one.
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I listen to audiobooks when I'm doing other things like walking
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or driving or cleaning and there were so many moments
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when listening to this where i desperately wanted to underline
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or highlight something that she had just said i couldn't
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so i would try to memorize that part
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so i could google it later
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if you are interested in this book i recommend buying a
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physical copy this book is not about one thing i would call it
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contemplations spirituality and selfhood first and foremost also self -esteem belonging largely the African -American identity and like calling in life.
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She quotes Toni Morrison, Audre Lorde, and James Baldwin quite a lot and gives context to those quotes.
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I really liked those parts actually.
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I did feel that the book had a very loose flow and that she was jumping from topic to topic.
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I'm not sure if that's because I listened to it however I do think that it worked here.
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Her writing is very poetic and vulnerable.
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In one of my reading vlogs I did quote a section I liked which I'll put on the screen here.
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Yeah mostly I would say
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if you're interested in reading a book about spirituality as related to selfhood
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and identity i would highly recommend this i am not particularly
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spiritual myself however i still did enjoy this the last book
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i i guess consumed in january was stay true by hua shu
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and this is also one i listened to it was pretty
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short i think i finished it in about three days
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and i don't feel like i listened to it for very long during those three days okay
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so just like this here flashed down the drain this memoir is about selfhood and being true to yourself.
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As you can guess by the title, it veers into other related areas such as friendship largely, Asian -American identity, politics as related to Asian -Americans,
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the marginalization of Asian -Americans and how that can be experienced so differently.
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And I would say just identity in general as a human being, that universal experience of searching for yourself and your purpose.
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And I would say the latter half of the book centers mostly around grief and trauma.
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Okay, so I do think this book is worth reading.
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I also feel that memoirs sometimes get a pass from being too criticized, because how can I cut down someone's story?
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I can't.
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I simply can't hua shu is writing about himself
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and his life in regards to a tragedy
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that deeply affected those two things and i feel deeply for
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that and i only respect it i also feel
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that i would have liked this more
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if i had read a physical copy of it i'm not sure how old hua shu was
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when he was in college but there were a lot of things he was referencing
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that i had no idea about pop culture things like music
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and i was curious i wanted to see in writing maybe they were also things
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that people from California and specifically Berkeley could relate to more.
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Another reason why I wish I had read this is because his voice sounded so eerily familiar to me.
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I feel like someone I know was narrating this in my ear.
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Yeah what I'll say is there were some elements to the writing
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that I didn't really like and there were some statements he made that kind of made me roll my eyes a bit.
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Overall though I appreciate his vulnerability in telling his story.
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I do think it's an impactful story and one
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that will deeply move a lot of people so if you're interested in reading this, I highly recommend it.
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Those were all the books I read and listened to in January.
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I also read Daughter by Claudia Day for most of the month, but I have not finished that yet.
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I've been taking my time with it.
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Same with The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin.
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I feel like these two books are better read at a slower pace so I can really take them in.
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Anyways, let me know what you guys read in January, any standouts, anything you disliked.
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I'm always keen to know this.
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¿Qué aprenderás en esta lección?
En esta práctica, trabajarás tu speaking inglés con un video sobre libros leídos en enero. Analizarás vocabulario moderno, expresiones coloquiales y la estructura de una reseña personal. Ideal para mejorar tu fluidez, especialmente si buscas práctica de speaking para el IELTS o simplemente quieres aprender inglés con videos de la vida real. La conversación es informal, con un tono relajado, perfecto para practicar "shadowspeaks" (imitar la pronunciación y ritmo).
Vocabulario y frases clave
- Disillusionment: Desilusión. En el video, se usa para describir la sensación de decepcionamiento con la vida moderna.
- Imposter syndrome: Síndrome del impostor. La idea de no merecer el éxito, aunque se logre.
- Dissociate: Disociarse. Refiere a separarse de uno mismo para sobrellevar situaciones estresantes.
- Hustle culture: Cultura del "esfuerzo obsesivo". Critica la presión por trabajar sin descanso.
- Polarizing: Polémico. Un libro que divide opiniones, como el que se presenta.
Consejos para practicar "shadow speech"
El video tiene un ritmo medio, con pausas naturales al hablar de emociones y detalles del libro. Para imitarlo bien: 1. Escucha un fragmento corto (5-10 segundos) y repítelo inmediatamente, copiando la entonación (subidas y bajadas de voz) al hablar de la depresión de Cassie o la crítica al capitalismo. 2. Presta atención a frases como "writhing having our little panic attacks" – practica la conexión entre palabras para sonar más natural. 3. Graba tu voz y compárala con el video: notarás cómo mejorar el tempo. Esta técnica es genial para práctica de inglés hablado y te ayudará a sentirte más cómodo al expresar opiniones personales.
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 dealt · i've ever seen · You've made |
| Voz pasiva be + participio pasado — importa lo que ocurre, no quién lo hace | been born · have been born · is stuck |
| Oraciones de relativo who / which + oración — información extra sobre una persona o cosa | women who cannot · women who struggle |
¿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.