Pratica di Shadowing: 2 English Teachers Answer Your Questions About Learning English! - Impara a parlare inglese con i video

Creazione lezione...
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Hello everyone and welcome back to another video here on the English Sponge YouTube channel.
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Today we're going to be answering your questions.
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Me and Sam are going to sit here and we're going to answer some of the questions that you have sent us.
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About a week ago I left a post here on the YouTube channel asking you guys for any questions
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that you wanted to ask us and so in In this video, we're going to answer some of those questions.
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And so let's begin, Sam, maybe you can give us the first question that our audience has left us today.
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Mohamed from Morocco has asked, first of all, I would like to thank all of you for the amazing and useful videos that you've made for us.
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You're very welcome, Mohamed.
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I've reached the B2 level and I can understand 90 % of what you say, and sometimes I do shadowing practice.
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The thing is, I feel like it's hard to speak.
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What is your advice?
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Yeah, so it's a good question.
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First of all, you said that you are watching our B2 level videos and you can understand 90 % of them, which is obviously a very good place to be.
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considering that you are already in a position where you can understand a lot that means
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that you have already acquired quite a lot of vocabulary this is a very good place to be
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so now you're at the stage you've done really in my
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opinion you've done the most difficult part really you've done the part
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which takes the most amount of time and
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that is getting to like a b2 level acquiring lots of vocabulary
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and now you can even understand our b2 videos now you want to speak okay well yes of course
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if you want to learn to speak you do need to
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put in a lot of hours into speaking the first step
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of course is to acquire the vocabulary by listening to comprehensible input
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but of course once you've done
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that obviously you then need to speak let's see what happens
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muhammad after you get a hundred hours of speaking practice let's
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see how much your speaking practice has improved then i do
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have a video on this channel called how to speak english
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which can sort of show you the more practical ways that you can actually improve your speaking practice
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muhammad at the end of the day the most important thing to do is really obvious
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and very boring it's that you need to speak a lot okay
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if you've already acquired lots of vocabulary by listening there comes a time
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when you need to start speaking so go ahead
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and try to get a hundred hours of speaking practice
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and i promise your speaking will be a lot better
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because you already have a lot of vocabulary a lot of english in your head already okay
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so after a hundred hours of speaking practice you're going to be speaking probably quite well after 100 hours
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so that's my answer sam that's my answer yeah uh just to add a little bit onto
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that james um speaking is like any other difficult skill the
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more hours you have doing it the more comfortable you will become You also need to think about high -value speaking practice.
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One -on -one conversations are very high -value speaking practice.
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In -person conversations are extremely high -value speaking practice.
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When you are first learning how to speak, small two - to three -minute conversations with people you meet.
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Maybe they're tourists in your city, maybe you're traveling and you speak to a cashier.
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Those short two to three minute conversations are really important for building your confidence and making you comfortable using English to communicate.
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That's true.
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Obviously, if you are not in an English -speaking country, there are other good options.
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They're all outlined in my video, how to speak English.
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If you want to learn to speak English, but you're not in an English -speaking country.
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There's really no excuses, I'm afraid.
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You can still learn to speak English if you're in a country where people don't speak English.
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So, let's move on to the next question now.
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So, this question is for Sam.
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This is Gabriel from Panama, I believe.
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He says, Hello from Panama.
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How can I improve my speaking and thinking in English.
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I know English and I can read, write and speak it but I don't feel confident about my English because I don't have anyone to talk to in English.
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Same problem.
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I feel like I can't have a proper conversation because no one in my house speaks English, so I don't really have anyone to practice with.
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Taking an English course is also quite expensive for me, so I was wondering if you have any advice on how I can improve my speaking
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and start thinking more naturally in English.
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Sam.
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yes
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so on the thinking point uh similar to you james i
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made a video uh about translation a couple of weeks ago
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so details of how to stop translating
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and how to start thinking in english can be found in
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that video i laid out a really nice plan
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but it's mainly about starting simple um just naming objects around you in English without resorting to your translation first.
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I think lots of people, when it comes to thinking in English,
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they forget that the more time you spend with the language, the easier it's going to become.
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The worry that people have is that right now I'm struggling to think in English.
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Right now is really, really difficult.
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You almost just have to trust the process slightly more an
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extra 200 300 hours of comprehensible input might take you nine
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months to a year maybe even longer to get it but after
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that year has passed you will likely be much better at
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thinking in english it's a skill like all of the other ones
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now on speaking to people in English
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when you don't have options there are some good things you can do the first one
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that I am thinking about is sort of language exchange events
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cities often run free free events where you can go to
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speak to people in different languages yeah then things like video games online forums anything
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that you're interested in there'll probably be a English speaking subreddit there.
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And that's when you can make some English speaking friends, etc, etc. Yeah, in terms of thinking in English, I find this a bit of an odd question.
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Lots of people say they have a problem with thinking in English.
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But personally, I've never had a problem with this learning Spanish.
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I started thinking in Spanish quite naturally, to be honest.
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And I think it's probably because of the method
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that I use to learn spanish which was comprehensible input i simply listened to such a huge number of hours
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of input in spanish that it just really got deep inside my head
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and i would find myself just sort of thinking about things
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and sometimes talking to myself like in the kitchen in spanish
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and i think that that if you're struggling to think in english it could be
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because you are translating from your native language to English perhaps
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or you just haven't had that that huge amount of input
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that you need to just sort of really just get deep
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in your head you know that's what I would say um
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yeah let's move on to the next question then let's hear it
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so the next question is from Madeleine and she is from Buenos Aires Argentina thanks for watching the videos uh she
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She said,
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which methods to try i don't have anyone to speak english
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with 24 7 to train my ear how can you gain
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the confidence to speak english without making a fool it's funny we obviously keep hearing the same kind of issues
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that people are having in terms of speaking english there are to go to go back to the fundamentals okay
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if you want to speak english there are two steps that you need to follow.
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The first step is you need to acquire the vocabulary that you need to speak with, okay?
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I'm just going to give you an example here, okay?
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Sam, speak Japanese for me.
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Go ahead.
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Konnichiwa.
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That's it, unfortunately.
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That's it.
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So what is stopping Sam from talking more than than he did.
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Well Sam, it's because Sam doesn't know any words in japanese right you can't speak in a language
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if you don't have any vocabulary to use right
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so the first step to speaking is to acquire the vocabulary
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that you need to speak with the second step is to actually practice moving your lips
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and your tongue on your mouth to actually create the words
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and to speak the first step is a long process the second step is not as long okay
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but those are the two steps
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that you need to go through to speak english in terms
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of confidence um first of all as you're generally speaking as
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your english level increases you will become more confident yes
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if you're an a2 beginner it's quite normal to not be very confident in english right
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but if you get to a level where you become a c1 advanced speaker of english you know
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and you you're obviously going be more confident because you just know deeply
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that like you know english well the second the second point is you have to understand
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that people are not really judging your english like
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when you come out
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and speak um native speakers we are not there like criticizing any grammar mistakes you make
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and like making fun of your pronunciation mistakes it's like people
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don't care as much as you think they do most people
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out in the world they really just care about sort of receiving the message you're trying to give them
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and once they get the message
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that that's good enough for them it's like most people are
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not judging you like you like maybe you think they are
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so you should really relax try to relax a little bit
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and just speak english
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when you assuming you've already done a lot of listening you
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should just confidently speak english there There's no reason to really be shy
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or scared of speaking English because people are not judging you that bad.
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Sam, do you have anything to add to that?
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Yeah, it's quite simple what I'm going to add.
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If you want to get good at doing something difficult, you need to make yourself uncomfortable sometimes.
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If you want to gain confidence doing a skill that is very challenging and it can be quite embarrassing,
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quite awkward when you're sort of not super confident in yourself.
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You just have to make yourself uncomfortable.
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The more uncomfortable situations you put yourself in, the easier it will be.
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Soon, those really sort of difficult, worrying, short conversations will be very natural and very easy.
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The more uncomfortable you make yourself using the language the more confident you're going to be
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because the more experienced you are going to be yeah i
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think after you've been through a few uncomfortable situations you will quickly realize
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that there was no need to feel uncomfortable in the first
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place honestly you'll be like why did i why was i
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so scared to speak that was
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so silly you know that's probably how you will feel afterwards
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um good question let's move on to the next question okay
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next question for sam we have a question from um i don't know how to pronounce this username
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but it's atais dorati that is a random guess
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and it's probably wrong it says hi guys i've watched all the videos for my level
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but i'm still far from reaching the required hours should i
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re -watch should i re -watch the same videos until i hit the goal
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or can i move on to the next level kisses from Brazil.
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Sam.
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Yeah, this is the exact problem I have had with Chinese.
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There is simply just not enough content there yet to meet the hour requirement.
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What I would suggest is if you enjoy a video, you can watch it again.
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If you don't enjoy a video, don't force yourself through it just because it's more hours.
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We are not the only people who make comprehensible input.
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There are lots of other really good comprehensible input creators on YouTube,
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and I'm sure you'll be able to find other people who make really enjoyable English learning content as well.
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Obviously, we have a lot of videos now.
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We have a really good platform.
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But if you want to learn this language through this method,
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you do need to get input from multiple sources because there will be things that we miss.
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There will be certain words that you just don't pick up from us, which is why it's really good to try and get a big range of sources,
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huge range of accents, age categories is listen to men, listen to women.
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Try to listen to as much English from as many places.
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as possible yeah that's right so we have about 870 videos
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so far in the future we are planning to hit videos in the thousands okay we are hoping
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that eventually with english sponge you will just have enough comprehensible input in one place
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that you can use we hope to have more than 2 000 videos in the future
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but it's true that we are still growing
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so there is probably not enough content only with us
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but we will keep trying to increase the number of videos
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that we have for you guys
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so moving away from language learning questions to some of the more personal questions
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that you guys asked us the first one is hi I have a question for teacher James
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or teacher Sam what are your specifically what are your favorite specifically british snacks i love the biscuit uh shortbread fingers
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and i love tyrell's flavor of crisps sea salt and cider vinegar excellent crisps great choice
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thank you so james what is your your favorite british snack this is this is the hardest question so far.
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I mean, I'm gonna have to go with certain types of biscuits, okay?
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Like, probably my favorite British style biscuit.
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Like, I'm a big fan of custard creams.
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Custard creams are all very good.
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And probably bourbons.
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And I'm choosing those two because those are like classic British biscuits.
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So I'm gonna go with the custard creams and bourbons.
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That's my answer.
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And Dunkin' tea.
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Respectable.
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Yeah, very respectable.
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I was considering a custard cream as my choice.
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But I think it's shortbread.
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Like Scottish Highland shortbread.
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It's just delicious.
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It's a really buttery biscuit.
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It is beautiful.
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Yeah, there you go.
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James and Sam look like they have great chemistry on the British Culture podcast.
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Okay.
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I was wondering if you guys knew each other before you started English Sponge.
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No, the answer is no. I didn't meet Sam before we started English Sponge.
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But very early on in the early days of English Sponge, Sam offers to join and contribute to the project.
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That is not actually when we met, James.
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You've missed a part of the story.
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Okay.
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If you guys look through some of my old videos, on the English Sponge website,
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you will see that I used to be part of a different English Comprehensible Input channel.
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And once, a very long time ago,
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James contacted us, and he asked us if he could host our videos on the English Sponge website,
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which we said yes.
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We spoke a little bit through emails, and we organized a collaboration together.
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So we actually met through doing a collaboration, which you can still find on the English Bunch website.
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After that, a few months passed and I decided to leave the channel I was working on before, spoke to James, and the rest is history.
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Yes, and actually the very first time that me and Sam met face -to -face was on our Reading, the video in the city in reading with sam walking around
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uh during like near christmas time uh yeah that's the first time um
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but yeah the first time we met we created our first
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viral video yeah that's right that's right it's pretty good going
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actually uh okay love summer 0702 has asked have you ever run into one of your subscribers
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while you were out and about And they recognised you first.
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Yes.
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That has happened three times now.
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In fact, three times people have actually recognised me in real life.
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The first time I was at a language exchange event, and there was a guy attending from Japan, and he sort of said, hey, I recognise you, I've seen your videos.
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That was the first time anybody recognised me in public
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that was a very strange experience the second time was recently
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i was out in birmingham i was walking through the shopping center carrying my camera
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and i was walking through
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and i just heard from behind me english sponge english sponge like
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that and uh and a girl ran up to me
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and said she had watched our videos um the third the
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third uh she was from algeria i believe um the third one was Did she take a photo with you, James?
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No, she didn't take a photo with me.
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She didn't ask.
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You're not famous enough, yeah.
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She didn't ask for my autograph.
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But yeah, she did run over.
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And if you're watching, you may be watching.
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Hello.
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I hope you enjoyed the video in Birmingham, where you're living.
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The third occasion was in London two days ago.
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I was actually out at a pub.
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And a Spanish, no, sorry, an Italian guy came over and said,
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he's he's watched our videos and he recognizes me so yes three times that's happened so far
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i haven't been recognized in public yet uh i've been recognized
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on the internet a few times i've had students um book classes with me uh
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and say hi i'm from i'm from youtube i quite like what you do
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which is a surprise because i don't advertise my my teaching through youtube um
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if you are in santiago and you recognize me please come
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and say hi i would really like that
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that would be a really really nice uh experience for me i'm promised i may look mean
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and scary uh when i'm outside i'm a very lovely person
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if you recognize me feel free to say hi okay
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and finally we have a long comment here from BrisBris
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and we're just gonna do a little bit of a quickfire round here.
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So Sam, I want a quick answer for these questions, okay?
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What's the best place to go on holiday in the UK?
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London.
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Interesting.
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What What countries have you visited so far?
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Many European ones, a few in South America and one in Africa.
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Are you a sweet or a savoury person?
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I am a sweet person.
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If you didn't teach English, what would you do for a living?
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I would be poor yeah what's your favorite film
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or book my favorite film is the wolf of wall street
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and my favorite film is wolf brother what's the meaning of life
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the meaning of life is to simply experience what is around you do you prefer tea or coffee
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tea okay do you see your glass mate mate neither mate that's not in the question uh
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but okay do you see your glass half empty or half full
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i would just drink the water and make it empty
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sam why chili why not peru paddington bear is disappointed uh chili has a very high standard of living
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and excellent access to the mountains
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what's your biggest dream to own my own apartment what's your star sign i am a sagittarius
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nice excellent now james it is your time for the quick fire question
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so i'm ready james what's the best place to go on holiday in the UK?
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Cornwall.
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What countries have you visited so far?
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I've visited 35 countries in three different continents.
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Are you a sweet or a savoury person?
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Sweet.
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If you didn't teach English, what would you do for a living?
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Starve to death.
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What's your favourite Favourite film or book?
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Favourite film...
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The Matrix.
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Boring.
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What's the meaning of life?
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Stay alive, don't die.
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Do you prefer tea or coffee?
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Tea.
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I'm British.
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Do you see your glass half empty or half full?
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Most of the time I see it half empty.
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but i should probably try that's a very british answer that's
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a very good answer what's your biggest dream to make english sponge uh really really successful what is your star sign scorpio
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excellent okay guys i hope you've enjoyed uh listening to me
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and sam answer some of your questions
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if you like this video maybe we will do another video
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like this in a couple of months in the future
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but that's it guys so thank you for watching today and we'll see you in the next video bye

Vocabolario e note di pronuncia per questa lezione

Questo video contiene 313 frasi e 3562 parole da ripetere con lo shadowing. Il parlato dura 25:05. Chi parla mantiene un ritmo costante di circa 142 parole al minuto, comodo per lo shadowing. Il 87% delle parole rientra nelle 3.000 più comuni dell’inglese, quindi il lessico è facile da seguire.

Vocaboli chiave di questo video

15 parole del video che vale la pena imparare, con pronuncia e significato:

ParolaPronunciaSignificato
input sostantivo/ˈɪnpʊt/immissione
sponge sostantivo/spʌnd͡ʒ/spugna
vocabulary sostantivo/vəˈkæb.jə.lə.ɹi/vocabolario
uncomfortable aggettivo/ʌnˈkʌm.fɚ.tə.bl̩/scomodo
acquire verbo/əˈkwaɪɚ/acquisire
skill sostantivo/skɪl/abilità, capacità
naturally avverbio/ˈnæt͡ʃ.(ə.)ɹə.li/naturalmente
translation sostantivo/tɹænzˈleɪʃən/traduzione
wolf sostantivo/wʊlf/donnaiolo
collaboration sostantivo/kəˌlæbəˈɹeɪʃən/collaborazione
scare verbo/skɛɚ/spaventare, impaurire
bore verbo/boɹ/annoiare, tediare
translate verbo/tɹænzˈleɪt/tradurre
snack sostantivo/snæk/spuntino
chili sostantivo/ˈt͡ʃɪli/peperoncino

I phrasal verb che sentirai

ParolaPronunciaSignificato
go ahead verbo/ˌɡoʊ əˈhɛd/procedere, andare avanti
run over verboinvestire

La grammatica di questo video

Le strutture che chi parla usa di più, con le parole esatte del video:

StrutturaNel video
Frasi condizionali if + frase, will/would + verbo — una condizione e il suo risultatoIf you didn't teach English, what would you
Present perfect have/has + participio passato — un’azione passata che conta ancora adessohave sent · has left · has asked
Frasi relative who / which + frase — un’informazione in più su una persona o una cosathem, which is · spanish which was · people who make
Forma passiva be + participio passato — conta ciò che accade, non chi lo facan be found · been recognized · is disappointed

Pronuncia a cui fare attenzione

Chi parla usa 89 contrazioni e forme ridotte, come I'm, you're, don't. Pronunciale nella forma breve, così come le senti.

  • I suoni “sh” e “zh”: translation /tɹænzˈleɪʃən/, collaboration /kəˌlæbəˈɹeɪʃən/, shadow /ˈʃædəʊ̯/, occasion /əˈkeɪ̯ʒən/, delicious /dɪˈlɪ.ʃəs/
  • Parole lunghe — attenzione all’accento: vocabulary /vəˈkæb.jə.lə.ɹi/, uncomfortable /ʌnˈkʌm.fɚ.tə.bl̩/, naturally /ˈnæt͡ʃ.(ə.)ɹə.li/, collaboration /kəˌlæbəˈɹeɪʃən/, disappointed /ˌdɪsəˈpɔɪnɪd/

Come esercitarsi con questo video

  1. Ascolta tutto il video una volta senza parlare e annota le parole che non conosci.
  2. Fai shadowing frase per frase a velocità normale, ripetendo ognuna finché il tuo ritmo coincide con quello di chi parla.
  3. Registrati e confronta con l’originale, facendo attenzione a parole come input, sponge, vocabulary.

Cos'è la tecnica dello Shadowing?

Shadowing è una tecnica di apprendimento delle lingue supportata da studi scientifici, originariamente sviluppata per la formazione dei traduttori professionisti e resa popolare dal poliglotta Dr. Alexander Arguelles. Il metodo è semplice ma potente: ascolti un audio in inglese di madrelingua e lo ripeti immediatamente ad alta voce — come un'ombra che segue il parlante con un ritardo di solo 1–2 secondi. A differenza dell'ascolto passivo o degli esercizi di grammatica, lo shadowing costringe il tuo cervello e i muscoli della bocca a elaborare e riprodurre simultaneamente i modelli di discorso reale. La ricerca dimostra che migliora significativamente la precisione della pronuncia, l'intonazione, il ritmo, il discorso connesso, la comprensione dell'ascolto e la fluidità del parlato — rendendolo uno dei metodi più efficaci per la preparazione alla prova di speaking dell'IELTS e per la comunicazione reale in inglese.

Tecnica dello shadowing: leggi la guida completa passo dopo passo →