Pratica di Shadowing: New Year’s Resolutions┃Learn American English Pronunciation On the Go - Impara a parlare inglese con i video

Welcome to the Rachel's English podcast.

I'm Rachel and this podcast is made especially for non -native speakers, where we try to reveal the idioms,

phrasal verbs, and interesting vocabulary words that Americans use in everyday conversational English.

If you'd like a free copy of the transcript for this podcast, visit rachelsenglish .com slash podcast and search for this episode.

This week, it is the final podcast of 2017, the final week, and we're talking about New Year's resolutions,

goals that you make for yourself to achieve in the upcoming year.

So I'm sitting down with my husband, David, and we're talking about any New Year's resolutions that we are making this year.

Let's get started.

New Year's resolutions.

David, do you make them?

I do make them almost every year.

Do you really?

Yeah, I don't keep them, but I make them.

I feel like you also don't tell them because I didn't know that you've made New Year's resolutions.

Well, then maybe I haven't in the last three or four years.

Okay, but previously you would say you have made them.

I feel like I often have in my adult life.

Okay, And as a kid as well?

No, I don't think so.

I think it was more maybe mid -20s to mid -30s.

How old was I when we met?

Geez, I don't know.

Great.

30 -something.

Upper 30s.

So, okay, so you've been making New Year's resolutions.

What are you resolving to do?

I feel like there have been some common themes for me.

Things like exercise on a regular basis or do daily meditation practice.

So there are things that you already did, but your goal was for more consistency.

Yeah, that's accurate.

How did you do with meeting those resolutions?

Not well.

That's not strong enough.

Horribly.

I think it's interesting.

We make resolutions to try to do things better.

I wonder, do we ever look at why we don't do things well?

Like, why aren't you consistent in working out?

Well, because it gets really cold out and you don't like to run when it's cold.

Like, I wonder

if you came up with looking at the why you haven't been able to do it yet

and then came up with strategies to count to attack

that doubt or that I can't do it today because it's too cold.

If you had a list of strategies as planned as part of your resolution, if it would help people keep them more.

I think it probably would.

Okay, let's come up with a strategy right now exercise more in 2018.

Would you say that would be a New Year's resolution for you this year?

Yeah.

Okay.

Why do you think you don't exercise consistently now?

Well, laziness.

Okay.

Inertia.

Inertia meaning?

Like I'm in a pattern of not doing it, so it's hard to start a new pattern.

Yeah, exactly.

Good definition of inertia.

A body Well, yeah, it gets cold.

But there have been winters where I've run almost every day right through the winter.

So that's not a good excuse.

Well, let's look at the inertia and the laziness.

I mean, how this is really the question that everyone has.

If anyone could solve this, they'd make billions of dollars.

Yeah.

Everyone tries to solve it and they all make some money.

Right.

But then everyone drops out.

I wonder if there's an app for this.

There probably is.

I actually saw, you know, audible .com.

for those of you who don't know audible .com sponsors a

ton of website a ton of podcasts they have not sponsored this podcast

but uh it's an audiobook uh database you can download all sorts of different books read by people famous people

and voiceover artists and um one time i must have been searching something about them

because they started targeting ads at me and one One of the books

that they were recommending was How to Stay Motivated for Exercise.

And I thought, oh, wow, they know me.

Yeah.

They know what I need.

So there is stuff out there on how to stay motivated.

It just made me curious in the moment.

I hadn't thought about this before.

But if there was an app, and maybe it exists, called New Year's Resolutions that had a social component and,

you know, gave you a reminder every other day that said, go running.

Yeah.

You've missed one, better do two in a row.

Stuff like that.

That was also social.

That would be kind of cool.

That would be.

Could help people keep their resolutions.

Any other resolutions you've had as an adult?

Anything not related to exercise?

No, I'm not thinking of anything.

I probably need to be more specific or not more specific, branch out into some other areas.

I don't know exactly what that would be, but.

You know, I do think actually you're on to something by saying be more specific.

What does it mean to be on to something?

100

It's when someone thinks, okay, you've started a good idea.

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We should take that further.

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Like if you're brainstorming how to solve a problem.

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Oh, I think you're on to something.

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Let's explore that.

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I think you're on to something with talking about being specific because if your goal is to exercise more, that's very generic.

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It could be three times a week for a half hour.

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You could set something more specific that might help you keep the goal.

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You know, you were talking about the kind of goal to set.

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Yeah.

110

And you were talking about a SMART goal.

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SMART here being an acronym.

112

An acronym is when you take the first letter of several words and put them together.

113

That is an acronym.

114

And here, the acronym happens to spell an actual word, and that is SMART.

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Yeah.

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What is a SMART acronym and how did you, or sorry, a SMART goal?

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And how did you learn about these kinds of goals?

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Right.

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We were talking about this before the show.

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So one of my friends, Bradley, brought this up when a group of us a couple years ago, we were talking about New Year's resolutions

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and we decided to go around the circle and see if anybody wanted to share what their New Year's resolution was.

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And before we started, he suggested that we all try to do it in SMART format.

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And SMART stands for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and what's the T?

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Timely.

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Timely so instead of us all going around

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and saying I want to run more you know I was forced

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that year at least at the beginning of the year to

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say you know a little something about each of those areas

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how you could measure it well you would know by whether

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or not you ran whether or not it was achievable

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and realistic right getting specific right with your goal so I remember

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that being really helpful both for myself as I was thinking about my goal

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and to hear other people putting their New Year's resolutions into that format was just helpful to,

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yeah, to use that as a sort of a tool to get more specific.

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It does force you to be more thoughtful and detailed about your New Year's resolution,

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I think, when you have to say something that is specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely.

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Speaking of timely, that brings me to what I've decided to do this year, which is a little bit different.

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I find that having a goal for a year is not great for me.

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It's just, it's too much time.

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So I decided to flip the idea of a New Year's

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resolution on its head rather than making a goal to do in 2018.

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I decided towards the end of 2017,

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I was going to make a goal to do before the year was out because that provided more of a time crunch, more motivation to make it happen.

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You said flip on its head.

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Yeah, that means do it the opposite way it's been done.

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Change it around completely.

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So I flipped the idea of a New Year's resolution on

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its head by deciding I had to do it before New Year rather than in the New Year.

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Got it.

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Okay, so my goal was to, before the year is out, sign up for and take my first piano lesson.

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And it looks like I'm going to be able to do that.

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I have the piano getting tuned next week and then the week after that, just in the nick of time.

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It's going to be on the 20th of December, I'm going to have my first lesson.

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We got 10 days to spare.

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Just in the nick of time.

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Yep.

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What does this phrase mean?

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This means down to the wire.

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Oop, another idiom.

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These things mean just before time runs out.

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Is that another?

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Yeah, it is.

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Runs.

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Runs out.

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Okay.

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It becomes so hard sometimes to describe idioms without using other idioms.

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If it's just in the nick of time, That means you have done something just before the allotted time has ended.

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Just before the deadline.

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Just before the deadline.

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So the phrases we used were just in the nick of time.

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You could also say it's getting down to the wire.

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When it's getting down to the wire, that means you are really running out of time on getting something done.

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What was the other moment used?

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Oh, time's running out.

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Almost no time left.

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Right.

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Those are fun idioms.

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So anyway, yeah, I think I'm going to achieve it.

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And I'm looking forward to having that first lesson.

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I decided to have the person come to the house just because I'm a little bit lazy.

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No, it's not that, right?

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I'm not lazy.

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No, no, no, no. It just had to do with spending time.

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I would rather spend the time that I would be commuting to the lesson on practicing.

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You know, time, time is finite.

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It is not unlimited.

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So I feel like with Stoney, with running Rachel's English, I have to,

188

I tend now to make many more choices based on what will save time.

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Whereas I used to make choices based on what will save money.

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Time has become more precious to me than anything now.

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So they're going to come to my house.

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I don't know who it is yet.

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It's going to be a half hour lesson.

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And I'm hoping that in the evenings before dinner, when David's the cook in our family, when David's in the kitchen and Stoney and I are playing downstairs,

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that I can be at the piano

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practicing and that he can hopefully start to get the idea

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that music and making music is an enjoyable way to spend time, is a fun way to be together.

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And I just hope that that starts to become more of a central part of our household.

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And really, I'm prepping him for a desire to study the piano as well, because I would really like to give him lessons in a couple of years.

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Yeah, definitely.

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David, did you have any kind of music lesson growing up?

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No, I didn't.

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So I really think it's great

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that he's going to have piano lessons at the very least

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at the very least I'm also kind of drawn to the

206

violin I don't know I think there are definitely people out there who have studied both

207

but I might have to choose there between the two

208

if you had to choose between piano and violin for Stoney right now which would you choose

209

oh well this is a non -musical person saying this

210

but I feel like I would say piano

211

because I feel like I've heard people say that that is a really generalizable instrument to learn.

212

Generalizable.

213

That's not a word.

214

I don't think so.

215

General?

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What do you mean by that?

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Like versatile?

218

Well, learning that specific instrument gives you a broad general knowledge of music

219

and sight reading and gives you a sense for how other instruments work.

220

Okay.

221

It gives you a general sense of musical knowledge.

222

I don't know if that's true or not.

223

The thing I like about piano is I do think it's very versatile.

224

It can be used for solo performance, and then it's used a lot in ensemble, and it's used a lot in accompanying.

225

So accompanying a singer or a whole chorus or a violinist or that kind of thing.

226

It appeals to me a lot.

227

So if you listened to last week's podcast, where we were talking about a memorable gift that we've received,

228

you know that I had clips from two friends that have been on past podcasts, actually, asking them.

229

And so I asked them not only their most memorable gift, but I also asked them about New Year's resolutions.

230

So let's first listen to Elliot, my friend Elliot, and let's see what Elliot has to say about his New Year's resolutions?

231

I think there was a period in my life where I thought I probably should.

232

I've never been one to make a lot of ones that I actually, as I was making them, I seriously planned on following through with.

233

But I will say last year I made a resolution to run a half marathon, which is something I'd never done before.

234

I'm actually not much of a runner.

235

I don't enjoy it as much as I do other kinds of exercises, but I signed up for it and followed through with it and completed it.

236

And so I was really proud of that as sort of one of the successful examples of a resolution I've made.

237

I would say most of them have sort of been something I intended to do, and then they kind of went by the wayside pretty quickly.

238

Okay.

239

So David, he just said went by the wayside.

240

Yeah.

241

I thought about that too.

242

When something goes to the wayside or goes by the wayside, I guess we use by with that.

243

Uh -huh.

244

That went by the wayside.

245

That means you meant to do it, you wanted to do it, you intended to do it,

246

but for whatever reason, it became less important and you didn't do it.

247

Right.

248

You've moved on.

249

You moved on.

250

Yeah, you know, I meant to mow the lawn, but...

251

The day got really busy, so that went to the wayside.

252

Yep.

253

He also was talking about, I was thinking about the idea of a smart goal.

254

And he made it very measurable.

255

It was very specific.

256

It was to do one half marathon that year.

257

Right.

258

So that does make the goal.

259

That's a much better goal than run more.

260

Right.

261

Choose a specific race and aim to do it.

262

Let's keep listening to

263

that conversation now will you do a second half marathon i am happy to report

264

that i'm signed up for one in november of this year

265

and i'm doing it actually with my company with magoosh a bunch of people are doing it

266

so there's some some good pressure at work from people to keep me motivated

267

and so yes i'm i'm planning to do another one this year uh and

268

so we'll see it's great you know uh though i guess

269

it's harder to find ways to do things like team sports and play basketball and other things so maybe with enough time,

270

I'll, I'll develop a love for running that I didn't have before.

271

We'll see.

272

Is the half marathon in November in the San Francisco area?

273

It's in Berkeley.

274

Actually, it's the Berkeley half marathon at the end of November.

275

And so I've, I've started, I took some time off.

276

Actually, I got a little injury from running in the spring.

277

So I took a little time away and, and for the last few weeks, I've started my training program again.

278

So I'm excited to do that.

279

The, the one I did before the first one I did was in San Francisco.

280

And part of the motivational aspect of that was we got to run along the coastline.

281

It was a beautiful day with the Pacific ocean off to our side.

282

And so that was a nice setting to do this in Berkeley.

283

It will also be special, but maybe not quite as dramatic, but it'll still be rewarding to finish.

284

Yeah.

285

The location makes a huge difference.

286

Yeah.

287

I want to do the, I have it in mind that sometime I'm going to do the Disney world marathon.

288

Yeah, that would be great.

289

I never will.

290

Cause I'm not going to run that far, but if I could be anywhere like to run a marathon, Disney world would be it.

291

You never know.

292

That's exactly the way I sounded a little over a year ago that I would never do this kind of thing.

293

I don't know.

294

When I finished the race, I told myself I'm never doing this again.

295

Uh, and here I am signed up for another one.

296

It's, uh, I I've heard from other runners that kind of happens too.

297

So we'll see, maybe this will become a habit.

298

Now, would you ever do a marathon?

299

No, that I have decided I will not do.

300

What I've learned about training for a half marathon is that, and a full marathon is that at least for me, a full marathon would be completely different.

301

It takes a different kind of training.

302

And I, you know, I'm, I'm, your listeners won't know this, but I'm a tall guy.

303

I'm not, I wouldn't say that my body type is one that's really set up for long distance running, I think probably you end up developing knee problems or something like that.

304

So I think keeping it to a half marathon is ambitious enough for me at this point.

305

That sounds smart.

306

Wow.

307

Marathons, half marathons.

308

David, what's the longest run you've ever done?

309

The longest race?

310

I did a 10 mile run, the Broad Street run in Philadelphia, which is starts from the north,

311

um, North end of the city and run straight down Broad Street.

312

It's a really fun race.

313

Okay, so I actually would have thought that might be kind of boring because it's just on one street the whole time.

314

There's not much elevation change.

315

There's not a lot of nature.

316

Is that right?

317

No, no, it's pointedly not nature -y.

318

But it's great because you run down a street that's the city's most iconic street and is usually obviously packed with traffic.

319

And people line the street and you end up down by all the sports stadiums

320

and it's just it's a great it's a great race

321

so not boring at all urban urban energy urban energy tons

322

of people just you know walking out their front door

323

and cheering and yelling it's great is this something

324

that you will do again no i would love to all

325

right hey maybe that's your gonna be your news resolution for this year maybe

326

that is it that race has gotten so popular that You can't just decide to sign up.

327

You have to win the lottery to get a bib.

328

Okay.

329

A bib is what you wear on the front of your shirt when you're in a race.

330

Right. So when is it?

331

Is it March?

332

It's May. May.

333

I think you should try to enter the lottery.

334

Try to get that.

335

It's true.

336

Go down to the lottery.

337

See if I get it.

338

It could be a really measurable goal for this year.

339

Quite.

340

You know, another thing

341

that I think would be fun is there is a half marathon in Manhattan that talk about urban energy.

342

I think that would be really fun.

343

Yeah.

344

Is that the same day as the New York marathon?

345

No. Okay.

346

I think it's like.. one of the runs people use sometimes to qualify for the New York Marathon.

347

I see.

348

I'm not sure.

349

New York Marathon is something that happens right around my birthday.

350

It's usually the first Sunday.

351

It's the first Sunday of November, right?

352

Mm -hmm.

353

And we a couple times have gone, and before I met David, I went quite a bit.

354

It's just so much fun to watch that.

355

I love seeing the elite racers go by.

356

Oh, yeah.

357

And then when the elite racers are done and it's just all your other more average marathoners, A lot of them have their names written somewhere,

358

so you can shout to them individually.

359

I love doing that.

360

Yeah, that's fun.

361

Cheering people on.

362

That's a lot of fun.

363

All right.

364

Well, I'm going to make it my New Year's resolution to watch the New York City Marathon again this year.

365

Because we missed it.

366

We missed it this year.

367

That's a great goal.

368

I completely agree.

369

So rather than run a marathon, my New Year's resolution is to watch the New York City Marathon.

370

It's measurable.

371

Either we'll be there or we won't.

372

Yep.

373

I'll know if I reach that one.

374

Okay, when I was with my cousin Brooke recently, I also asked her about New Year's resolutions.

375

Let's see what she had to say.

376

Yes, so Brooke, do you make New Year's resolutions?

377

If you do, do you keep them?

378

Yes, I typically do make maybe one New Year's resolution.

379

And my husband and my three children also make resolutions.

380

And we make them public to one another.

381

We write them down and we typically post them in our room.

382

so we can all see what the other folks are working on.

383

And I would say, I mean, it's not high stakes.

384

It's not like if you don't do this, you fail.

385

But it's just a goal that we're trying to aspire to in the new year.

386

So do you keep it posted the whole year?

387

Yes, we do.

388

And generally, does everyone meet their New Year's resolution?

389

They make progress toward their New Year's resolution.

390

So as long as there's growth, that's what we're working for.

391

So what have some of your New Year's resolutions been in the past?

392

Um, my personal New Year's resolutions typically are around wellness and taking care of myself.

393

So maybe like taking time in the morning to do a little bit of yoga each day or, um, reserving like 15 or 20 minutes in my calendar,

394

in my schedule every day to like go on a walk.

395

Um, or like even just take a little time where I don't do anything.

396

Um, so that's typically what, what might have been.

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What about your kids?

398

Are theirs focusing on wellness or what tends to be the focus of their resolutions?

399

Xavier, who is 12, his New Year's resolution for this year was to eat more vegetables.

400

And we actually didn't coach him on that.

401

He came up with that on his own because he tends to have a sweet tooth and he loves candy.

402

And so he was trying to kind of, you know, counteract his sweet tooth with some more vegetables in his life

403

and my daughter who is nine her new year's resolution was to be able to do the splits this year

404

and she's making good progress wow so she's working on her flexibility yes her flexibility i like that resolution

405

david i have another idea for a new year's resolution for you this year and it is to do the splits.

406

Ouch.

407

How close are you to doing a split?

408

It's physiologically not going to happen.

409

I'm nowhere.

410

I'm so not close that I would harm myself if I tried to even make progress.

411

I think actually we might need to define it just in case that's not clear.

412

A split is something that like a gymnast

413

or a very flexible person would do where you're sitting on the ground

414

and one leg is directly forward and one leg is directly backward, but you are completely down on the floor.

415

Yeah.

416

Ouch.

417

I was never able to do a split.

418

No, not even close.

419

And I mean, I took dance.

420

Like I was sort of supposed to be able to do one.

421

Oh, okay.

422

But I couldn't.

423

I never quite got there.

424

No. Maybe if I'd made it a New Year's resolution.

425

Maybe.

426

I don't know if that would be realistic though.

427

The R in smart.

428

Yeah, it would maybe not be a smart goal.

429

But I love this about Brooks family.

430

I love the public aspect so that people can look over your shoulder.

431

That's a real motivator.

432

So I'm thinking

433

that our family should use your flipped on the head idea of it's due by January 1

434

and combine it with the public thing that Brooks family does

435

and every year that anyone in our world mentions New Year's resolutions,

436

all of us have to make one that's due January 1 and we post them on the fridge.

437

I think that'd be good.

438

Okay.

439

So by public, you mean sort of within the family, putting it up somewhere, rather than just saying it, you write it down.

440

Yeah, written down in Sharpie and stuck with a magnet to the fridge.

441

Sharpie is a brand of.. permanent marker.

442

So David's saying you can't make it in pencil where you would maybe erase and change it.

443

It has to be in Sharpie on the fridge.

444

In smart format.

445

In smart format.

446

Wow.

447

He's making a lot of rules here for resolutions, y 'all.

448

Okay, guys, that wraps up this episode.

449

And actually, it may wrap up the podcast.

450

David and I have decided here it is the end of 2017.

451

This is the last podcast of the year.

452

And we've decided that we're going to take a break.

453

We're not planning on recording in January.

454

And this is one of those things where I don't know

455

if it's a break where we will then record again in February, or if it's one of the things where we never record again, or maybe in a year.

456

I don't know, David, what's your gut telling you on the fate of this podcast?

457

Well, I don't know.

458

We may be back.

459

I think it's been a lot of fun, but it is a lot of work.

460

So we have to figure that out.

461

Yeah, basically, it's become a bigger time commitment than I expected it would with the audio editing and the podcast transcript

462

and the artwork for each episode.

463

And it's, yeah, it's a little bit of a bigger commitment than I thought it would be when I started out.

464

So for now, it's going to fall by the wayside.

465

There you go.

466

To use the idiom from earlier in the podcast.

467

So if you've been just loving the podcast, I do apologize.

468

It's gotten some positive feedback and I hate to take away a resource that I've been offering for free.

469

And so it may come back, but in the meantime, there will be a new YouTube video every week as always.

470

And follow me on Instagram and Facebook.

471

And this is just a way you can keep up with us in general, me and David both.

472

Sometimes David and Stoney also make it into photos on the Instagram feed.

473

So there are ways to keep up.

474

And I appreciate all of you listeners out there who have since July been faithfully downloading and listening to the podcast.

475

You are the reason why we are doing this.

476

I'm wishing everyone out there the best in 2018.

477

I hope that you reach all of your English goals.

478

That's it, guys.

479

And until the future, this is Rachel and David.

480

And we're signing out from Philadelphia.

481

See you later, guys.

482

Thank you.

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.

Pratica di Shadowing: New Year’s Resolutions┃Learn American English Pronunciation On the Go - Impara a parlare inglese con i video

Perché questo video è ottimo per migliorare il tuo inglese parlato

Analizziamo il dialogo: espressioni naturali da imitare

Una routine di pratica: shadow speech per migliorare la pronuncia

Cos'è la tecnica dello Shadowing?