Shadowing Practice: What I did when art wasn't fun - Learn English Speaking with Video

I think everyone hears this all the time.

If you want to get good at art,

you're gonna have to practice.

A lot.

So you do.

But for some reason, drawing is kind of frustrating.

Maybe you feel like, how are you supposed to have fun if everything you draw doesn't even look good?

Or maybe you feel stuck because you feel like you've been working so hard,

but you're not getting any better.

I know how it feels.

Trust me, because oh boy, I've been there.

It took me a while,

but eventually I managed to learn to enjoy art again.

And in this video, I'll try to explain how I got there.

So getting frustrated with your art is understandable,

especially if you're just getting started.

But this applies even if you've been at it for a while.

You've spent so long on this one drawing.

You've been working so hard.

But somehow it just doesn't come out like you want it to.

That's frustrating.

I think one of the problems when it comes to how people see art is

that some people really don't understand the scale of it.

They don't understand how much time you really need to get good at art.

They think it looks something like this,

when in fact it looks more like this.

And I think this misunderstanding makes sense because all people see from artists is the final results.

The final painting, or maybe just the time lapse for one single painting.

They're not really seeing all the practice

and training the artists did to be able to get to that point in the first place.

That's why watching an artist's time lapse and just copying their process rarely works.

You can't copy the process without one illustration and expect it to turn out the same way.

You also have to keep in mind all the practice the artist did before even starting this one illustration.

I think it kind of makes sense if we compare art to long distance running.

I don't think anyone in the world expects a couch potato to be able to start running ultra-marathons anytime soon,

even if he did practice really hard.

And somehow you get artists getting immediately discouraged that their art isn't looking good right away.

Like running, art takes consistent practice and dedication in order to build up your skills.

But running has one big advantage over art in that your progress is clear and measurable.

You get faster, you can run farther,

you can easily see that you're getting better.

You don't really get that in art.

In fact, I think people are notoriously bad at noticing their own improvements.

So this is just a hypothesis.

But I think that's also why so many artists tend to cling to social media.

I feel like we all know that social media success does not equate good art,

but at least there are numbers.

At least we can measure it,

and at least we can see the number go up.

Okay, maybe you're like, whatever YouTube video,

I already know all this stuff.

I know it takes a long time, but I'm not improving.

I keep doing all the stuff everyone is telling me to,

but I'm not getting any better.

So this is what we call a plateau.

Often when people first start learning a new skill,

they quickly start seeing improvements.

They get encouraged and keep going.

But then they hit a wall.

And I'm just gonna say,

that's just how it works.

Plateaus are inevitable and the sooner you can accept that, the better.

People tend to want to believe that improvement is linear and the graph looks like this.

The more effort and time you put in, the better you get.

Except, the reality is, it looks more like this.

Or maybe even get worse.

You can be doing everything right, it's not your fault.

And this feeling sucks.

But if you zoom out of the graph,

you'll see that it still goes up over a long time period.

It's just a bit of a bumpy road,

and you just have to know that.

So at this point I've told you that focusing on results can be frustrating.

I've also said that focusing on improvement can be frustrating.

So what are you supposed to focus on?

This might be hard to understand,

but if you can, try to focus on the actual creation process.

I don't know about you guys,

but I used to feel anxiety when faced with a blank canvas.

I used to get so caught up with results and improvement that I felt fear whenever I started a new drawing.

What if the drawing wasn't good?

What if I wasn't improving?

What if I wasn't talented?

What if all of this was just a waste of time?

I spent more time worrying about drawing than actually drawing.

I think it really helped when I started thinking of each drawing more like an adventure,

an exploration, except since we're starting with a blank canvas,

the possibilities are basically limitless.

I may have some rough idea of what I want before I get started,

but I don't really know how it's going to end up until I try,

and the process of finding out is what I find fun.

And of course, while I would prefer for it to be good,

it's not really the end of the world if it isn't

because the final drawing is more of a byproduct rather than the goal.

Other things you can do to help find the fun in

art is to have a good understanding of what you really enjoy trying.

Yes, it's important to practice and eat your art vegetables,

but you have to make sure to make time to draw what you love as well.

And it's even better if you manage to develop taste for vegetables.

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So is there a particular media you really enjoy?

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Do you like illustration?

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Do you like designing characters that's something you'll have to find out

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because if you genuinely have fun drawing you'll find

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that it becomes much easier to keep up the habit i

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think people tend to overestimate their own ability to do things

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that they don't enjoy just think about how crowded the gym is in january

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and compare it to how it looks in february just one month later another thing

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How do you feel when you see art that's better than yours?

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Do you feel inspired?

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Or do you feel frustrated and disappointed in yourself that you can't draw like that?

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I definitely used to feel unhappy whenever I saw better artists out there.

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It even got to the point where I stopped looking at other artists altogether.

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I just felt so bad about myself.

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And instead of being able to celebrate my fellow artists successes,

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I was only bitter that they could do what I could not.

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It was definitely not a good point in my life and I'm grateful that I was able to move past that.

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It definitely took a while to get myself out of that mindset.

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And the first thing was to remind myself exactly how long other people had been practicing for.

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And I don't mean how old they are or how many years they've been drawing.

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In my opinion, that's just not really a very useful metric.

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Drawing for a year can mean that they drew for an hour every weekend

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or that they were literally grinding for 10 hours a day.

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There's a really huge range in what one year means.

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So I didn't realize that initially.

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I picked up drawing relatively late,

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so initially it was really frustrating to me that people 10 years younger than me were so much better than I was,

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and they still are.

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But despite being so much younger than me,

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those people have probably practiced far more than I have.

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I spent most of my life not drawing.

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It makes sense that they're better than me.

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So expecting myself to be as good as them with

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so much less work put in means that I kind of expected myself to be some kind of super genius,

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which, well, no, I'm obviously not.

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So it doesn't make sense for me to expect myself to be good as them

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because I just haven't practiced as much as they have.

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So instead of worrying about whether I had that talent,

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I just decided to draw instead of worrying about what I can't change anyway.

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I started to be a little bit more patient

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and kinder to myself and that made drawing so much less stressful for me.

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Okay so this was a little rambly but if you managed to make it all the way to the end, thanks.

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And if you are understandably frustrated about art,

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I hope it helped you a a little bit.

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If you enjoyed the video,

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I'd appreciate it if you did the YouTube stuff,

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and if there's anything else you'd like to see from me,

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please let me know.

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So good luck out there artists,

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and remember to have fun!

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Vocabulario y notas de pronunciación para esta lección

Esta lección de conversación de nivel B2 se basa en el vídeo “What I did when art wasn't fun”. Las palabras que más se repiten: drawing, artist, practice. Este vídeo tiene 149 frases y 1530 palabras para practicar shadowing. La parte hablada dura 8:11. El hablante habla rápido, unas 187 palabras por minuto, así que espera sonidos enlazados y reducidos. El 87 % de las palabras está entre las 3.000 más comunes del inglés, por lo que el vocabulario es fácil de seguir.

Vocabulario clave de este vídeo

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

Palabra	Pronunciación	Significado
frustrate verbo	/ˈfɹʌsˌtɹeɪt/	frustrar
illustration sustantivo	/ˌɪləsˈtɹeɪ̯ʃən/	ejemplo, ilustración
lapse sustantivo	/læps/	desliz, lapsus
plateau sustantivo	/plæˈtoʊ/	meseta, altiplano
vegetable sustantivo	/ˈvɛd͡ʒ.tə.bəl/	verdura, legumbre
canvas sustantivo	/ˈkæn.vəs/	lona
graph sustantivo	/ɡɹæf/	gráfico, gráfica
equate verbo	/ɪˈkweɪt/	equiparar, homologar
limitless adjetivo		ilimitado
measurable adjetivo	/ˈmɛʒəɹəbəl/	medible, mensurable
misunderstand verbo	/mɪs.ʌn.də(ɹ)ˈstænd/	malentender, tomarlo mal (a)
overestimate verbo	/ˌəʊvəɹˈɛstɪmeɪt/	sobrestimar, sobreestimar
understandably adverbio		comprensiblemente
discourage verbo	/dɪsˈkɝɪd͡ʒ/	descorazonar, acobardar
understandable adjetivo		entendible

Phrasal verbs que vas a escuchar

Palabra	Pronunciación	Significado
find out verbo		averiguar, anoticiarse
come out verbo	/ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/	revelarse, salir a la luz
end up verbo		terminar, ir a parar
go up verbo		subir
keep up verbo		continuar con, continuar así
pick up verbo		coger, asir
turn out verbo		resultar

Frases que vale la pena repetir

Frases cortas y completas del vídeo que puedes reutilizar en la conversación diaria:

Trust me, because oh boy, I've been there.
You've spent so long on this one drawing.
What if I wasn't improving?
What if I wasn't talented?
How do you feel when you see art that's better than yours?

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 working · they've been drawing
“Used to” used to + verbo — un hábito o estado pasado que ya no es cierto	used to feel · used to get
Oraciones condicionales if + oración, will/would + verbo — una condición y su resultado	if you genuinely have fun drawing you'll find · if there's anything else you'd like
Present perfect have/has + participio pasado — una acción pasada que sigue importando ahora	I've been · you've been · You've spent

Pronunciación a tener en cuenta

El hablante usa 50 contracciones y formas reducidas, como don't, I'm, you're. Dilas en su forma corta, tal como las oyes.

Los sonidos de “th”: hypothesis /haɪˈpɒθɪsɪs/, altogether /ɔl.tuˈɡɛð.ɚ/, marathon /ˈmæɹəθən/
Los sonidos de “sh” y “zh”: illustration /ˌɪləsˈtɹeɪ̯ʃən/, measurable /ˈmɛʒəɹəbəl/, dedication /ˌdɛdɪˈkeɪʃən/, exploration /ˌɛkspləˈɹeɪʃən/
Palabras largas — cuida el acento: illustration /ˌɪləsˈtɹeɪ̯ʃən/, measurable /ˈmɛʒəɹəbəl/, misunderstand /mɪs.ʌn.də(ɹ)ˈstænd/, notoriously /nə(ʊ)ˈtɔː.ɹɪ.əs.li/, overestimate /ˌəʊvəɹˈɛstɪmeɪt/

Sonidos difíciles para hispanohablantes:

/v/ — no es /b/: los dientes tocan el labio inferior: vegetable /ˈvɛd͡ʒ.tə.bəl/, canvas /ˈkæn.vəs/, overestimate /ˌəʊvəɹˈɛstɪmeɪt/, inevitable /ɪˈnɛvɪtəbəl/
/dʒ/ — no es la “y” ni la “ch”: vegetable /ˈvɛd͡ʒ.tə.bəl/, discourage /dɪsˈkɝɪd͡ʒ/, genuinely /ˈd͡ʒɛn.ju.ɪn.li/
/h/ — una aspiración suave, no la “j”: hypothesis /haɪˈpɒθɪsɪs/, unhappy /ʌnˈhæpi/

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 frustrate, illustration, lapse.

¿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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