シャドーイング練習: 순수 국내파 한국인이 실리콘밸리 빅테크 개발자로 입성한 특급 영어 공부법 - 動画で英語スピーキングを学ぶ

レッスンを作成中...
1
I work at a big tech company.
2
I jokingly say it's a fruit company.
3
Hints, hints.
4
I came from Korea.
5
I didn't study here.
6
I was very desperate to get a job.
7
It was very difficult times.
8
I failed a lot.
9
Honestly, I cannot believe that I'm here.
10
What's more important than learning the language was...
11
Can you introduce yourself?
12
My name is Choi Woo -Hum in Korean, and I go by the English name Sean.
13
I'm an engineer.
14
I work at a big tech company.
15
I jokingly say it's a fruit company.
16
Hints, hints.
17
Yeah.
18
I live here in United States in Bay Area.
19
I've been here with my family for almost 13 years.
20
Can you tell me a little bit more about your job?
21
Like your day -to -day responsibilities or what you're in charge of there?
22
I make iPhone apps.
23
I work in front of computer, just coding.
24
These days I use AI a lot.
25
Have you been doing this the whole time, like the 13 years you've been in the US?
26
Yes.
27
I got a job as a software engineer back in Korea too.
28
And I always wanted to move here in Silicon Valley because this is like a center of all the tech industry.
29
I was like desperately looking for opportunity here for quite a while, like one or two years.
30
I tried many things.
31
I mean, I have talked to people who work in here in Silicon Valley.
32
I made some connections.
33
Also, back in, I think 2011, I was traveling here in Bay Area and I filmed a YouTube video.
34
I made a video about Bay Area and tech industry.
35
And I interviewed many people like we are doing right now who is working in tech industry.
36
And I made some connection there.
37
So yeah, that was a start.
38
Back in Korea, I went to like a tech conference where many tech industry people came
39
and I made a business card and I gave it to many people
40
and I told everyone that I'm looking for a job in Silicon Valley
41
and one of them knew someone who founded the company here
42
so he connected me to the founder so that's how I got the job.
43
Wow that's really cool so a lot of word of mouth networking just putting yourself out there.
44
Yeah that was important putting myself out there.
45
I What I want to tell other people who also want to maybe get a job in the United States
46
or work in tech industry, just put yourself out there and don't be afraid.
47
It's okay if it doesn't work, you know, you don't lose anything.
48
I think it started from my love for United States actually.
49
When I was a kid, I have some relatives who live in here in California, Sacramento, and I have visited them a few times back in the 90s.
50
It takes me, but I fell in love with this California life the sun is shining all the time
51
and to like a younger self it looked like a dream like life here
52
so I wanted to move to the United States
53
and I dreamed about studying here for high school and college
54
that didn't work out but I still had that dream in my mind
55
so after getting a job in Korea I started looking for opportunities here
56
when I was in high school I like drawing I like drawing animator or cartoonist was my dream.
57
I also wanted to put my work out there.
58
Back then the internet was starting.
59
Again, it's a long time ago.
60
So I wanted to make my own website to put my art online.
61
That's how I started programming and later I fell in love with technology.
62
I love making computers like you could build your own computers back then.
63
That was the first computer I bought, which was a MacBook, made by Apple.
64
Back then, no one was using MacBooks around me.
65
So I fell in love with it, how intuitive the user interface is, things like that.
66
So I was like telling everyone to how good this devices.
67
That's really cool how your passion, your life experience, like traveling to California, all of that kind of led you here.
68
That's wild.
69
I admire Steve Jobs.
70
He's one of my heroes.
71
He made a speech in Stanford before he died and he was talking about connecting dots.
72
If you look back your life, everything is just connecting dots.
73
You don't know.
74
That's so true when things are happening, but if you look back later, everything you experience lead to where you are right now.
75
So I believe that.
76
Yeah, I think like you're living proof of that.
77
Thank you.
78
Yeah.
79
Before, like you said, you had this kind of American dream and now you're living here.
80
When you first moved here, was it challenging or was it kind of everything you dreamed of?
81
Were there hardships?
82
Yeah, there was challenges for sure, but for me, it was like my dream coming true.
83
But I think it was more challenging for my wife, Wonji.
84
I asked her to come here with me after we got married, but yeah, there was some challenges, culture shock, things like that.
85
First thing I remember right after I came to the US was
86
that my uncle was picking me up from the airport and he brought me to Taco Bell, the franchise fast food place.
87
And after eating, back in Korea, I'm very used to recycle everything, like separate everything, right?
88
But he was dumped everything in one bucket or one trash can.
89
I was very shocked.
90
That was like first culture shock that I experienced.
91
That's very true.
92
Korea takes like the sorting recycling very seriously.
93
Here it's like everything goes in one bin.
94
Yeah Here in California people are better at recycling and composting, but still it's very different from Korea.
95
Not in Michigan But they're very positive side of American culture.
96
It's very diverse culture here So many races many different people so people are very used to being careful about
97
typing for other people right and that's one of the reasons I wanted to move to America.
98
Even just coming back here this time we were walking down the street
99
and we heard so many different languages around us and I was like wow it really is so global just super international.
100
Yeah especially here in Bay Area there's a lot of different cultures are mixing.
101
Yeah that is really cool I think you get to experience a lot of different cultures in one place.
102
And one good thing about that is that they have really great food from all around the world.
103
We have great Asian food, even Korean food.
104
Mm -hmm.
105
We've been eating well here.
106
Too well, probably.
107
How about language when you first moved here?
108
Did you face any language barriers or how was your English at the time?
109
I think I was lucky.
110
I was exposed to English since I was a kid.
111
My dad traveled to the United States many times.
112
He brought some VHS tapes.
113
Again?
114
A long time ago?
115
Maybe some of the viewers don't know what it is.
116
So he brought like a Disney video tapes.
117
I watched a lot of them without Korean subtitles.
118
That's how I got exposed to English from early ages.
119
Because of that I built like confidence in English.
120
And after I moved here, even though I don't speak perfect English with perfect grammar, I was not afraid of speaking to people and I was actually enjoying it.
121
Enjoying to meeting new people, speaking to people in from different cultures and that confidence was built up and I think that helped a lot.
122
I think that's very important when you learn a language to have a confidence and just try it out.
123
You know, I think the other one is like a social media.
124
In the beginning time of Twitter, there was something called tweet up.
125
Okay, I made a committee with foreign people who live in Seoul
126
and we had like off -site or in -person meetings and made friends with them.
127
I learned a lot of English from them too.
128
I ended up creating like a startup company with people I met at Twitter.
129
Oh that's so interesting.
130
I think a lot of people are always asking
131
and they're always curious about like how to meet foreign friends in Korea to practice their English
132
and I always just tell them to like go to ETA1.
133
Definitely you can use a platform.
134
I think now it's a lot easier with social media to make friends that way.
135
I think I would say it's better if you find friends who speak English who has common interest with you.
136
being in a like, for example, movie community or some sports community, that would be great.
137
Because you have other stuff that you can connect with other than the language.
138
So I think to me, living here in the United States, what's more important than learning the language was learning the culture, I think.
139
That's what I felt.
140
If you think about some Korean people who are living in Seoul, you have lived in Korea for a long time, right?
141
You feel more familiar with them if they understand the culture and they respect the culture.
142
Like, for example, Korean drinking culture, you know?
143
I know nothing about that.
144
try to respect it and their friends will like it more.
145
And I think if you live in different countries like us, you try to learn the culture and what's offending to the people, what makes them happy.
146
Learning those things are more important I think than learning language perfectly.
147
That's a good point.
148
It goes deeper than just learning the grammar, learning the vocab.
149
You have to understand the culture.
150
Huge part of it.
151
When you talk to other people here, and especially like You know, 13 years ago when you first got here, if your English wasn't at the level it is now, now you're really great.
152
But you know, when you first moved here and were engaging in conversation with other people, were they usually pretty friendly?
153
A lot of people worry like, "Oh, I'm slow when I talk," or "If I don't say something right,
154
will people understand me?" Were people pretty good about that when you engage in conversation?
155
Yeah, I think...
156
We are also pretty lucky because we met a lot of people who became our friends who were very nice to us.
157
And they were very understanding of our English not being perfect.
158
And we were involved in like an American church and we made great friends there.
159
And I think that helped us a lot in the beginning to be used to speaking to American people.
160
And like you said, they are very understanding.
161
So it made us to not be afraid of speaking more.
162
Because I always think it does take a lot of confidence and it is scary speaking in a different language.
163
But I think sometimes the biggest critic is yourself.
164
Other people won't judge you, but maybe we judge ourselves too harshly.
165
Yeah, you don't need to do that.
166
Yeah, and I think finding a great community can also probably be a great way to practice.
167
And I also what I learned from working here, working is also a little bit different than just making friends, right?
168
I don't use professional terms, but what I learned was that even people who were born and raised here, some people don't speak perfect.
169
I mean, they don't speak well.
170
100 %?
171
Yes.
172
Yes.
173
And even like me, when I speak Korean, I was not a person who speaks very well.
174
Especially like public speaking.
175
Sometimes when I speak Korean, I feel like, why can I speak well?
176
It takes a long time to think about a word.
177
And I think it's the same when I speak in English.
178
So that thought made me more confident.
179
Like, I think one, The benefit of being a non -native speaker is that you use easier words and you speak slowly.
180
So other people understand you better think.
181
That's a great perspective.
182
Yeah, I never thought of it like that, but that's very true.
183
Yeah, and you also prepare a lot because you're not perfect.
184
You write down, you memorize it and speak it so you don't use a lot of filler words.
185
So that's easier for people who are listening.
186
I think there's some benefit of that.
187
That's true.
188
Because sometimes even I have a hard time understanding other people and they speak really fast.
189
I'm like, wait, what?
190
You said you watched Disney.
191
Do you have like a specific movie you remember watching at that time that kind of made you curious about English or...?
192
Yeah, I learned a lot of my English from movies and TV shows.
193
I also watched a lot of Friends.
194
the American TV show.
195
And I watched many times the whole season.
196
BTS also learned English from France.
197
And also other TV shows like Lost or 24, which are also popular in Korea.
198
Why I have been trying to learn English was to immerse myself in English speaking environment.
199
I intentionally don't turn on Korean subtitle.
200
I always turn on English subtitle though.
201
Sometimes I can understand it.
202
I can read it, right?
203
books in English which doesn't help my reading habit I don't I don't read a lot of books
204
but I also read books that I'm interested in and that I know well.
205
I read a lot about like tech industry and it's easier to digest for me.
206
Working at a big company like this, like you said, the English is very different.
207
It's very professional.
208
And especially in the tech industry, they use a lot of like tech Jargon was that really challenging at first?
209
Yes at first it was challenging, but I Listened to like podcasts to tech industry podcasts and
210
that helped me a lot to getting familiar with the jargon or some terms professional terms and also
211
Listening to other people at work in meetings
212
that helped a lot too Mm -hmm when I heard some phrase
213
that I never or expressions that I've never heard of I I remember that, try to use that in a similar situation in the future.
214
So yeah, I learned from co -workers and friends a lot too.
215
That's really awesome.
216
I love how proactive you are about learning English.
217
That's really great.
218
Your whole journey of learning English is actually very inspirational.
219
But I don't feel like I try hard to learn English.
220
I just enjoy it.
221
I like speaking in English and I think essentially I like learning about new culture.
222
different environment.
223
And that curiosity helped me a lot to kind of learning English without trying too much.
224
That's great.
225
I think if you can find a way that you enjoy it, that's the best way to do it.
226
So now you're working at your dream job.
227
Can you kind of tell me how you achieved that, especially since it's such a competitive market?
228
Honestly, I cannot believe that I'm here.
229
There's a thing called imposter syndrome.
230
I had that when I first get my dream job in a big tech company.
231
Because I came from Korea, I didn't study here.
232
I didn't graduate here.
233
It was hard to compete with other people who graduated here in a more famous school.
234
For my age, usually my peers are younger than me because I came here at an older age, right?
235
But I still love that I'm working here.
236
And because I started at an older age, I have some other different experience compared to other younger people.
237
That's an advantage too.
238
Do you have a specific or practical action item?
239
Start from the company that you don't really like.
240
Make that as a learning experience.
241
And if you think you're ready, you can try a company you like, or you can just try to interview with the company you like, even if you fail.
242
I think it also helps.
243
You have a friend who works in tech industry.
244
You can ask them to do like a mock interview with them.
245
I don't think I can even count.
246
It was like maybe around like 40 -50.
247
Yeah, it was very difficult times.
248
I failed a lot.
249
But as that accumulates, you fail less.
250
You can see that.
251
You can see the progress.
252
I really like respect you for that because I'm sure like that must be so discouraging.
253
You know, you start questioning yourself and am I good enough?
254
Am I on the right path?
255
Can I do this?
256
But like you pushed through all that and you've landed your dream job.
257
So and it's well deserved.
258
Like, that's really cool.
259
But there was also like all the reason that I was very desperate to get a job like a visa
260
If I didn't get a job here, I had to go back to Korea That's another level of pressure that pressure.
261
Yeah, also
262
Recently because I have been working here for a
263
while I got an opportunity to interview other people to hire to my team
264
and if you be in the other side of the interview that helps
265
to know what kind of person you like to hire.
266
So if you flip that if you want to get hired if by someone you can use that knowledge.
267
What kind of person do you like to hire?
268
Maybe it's different every people but for me
269
if you make me laugh during the interview you have a higher chance to get hired.
270
I made you laugh maybe once right?
271
Get a job.
272
That means like not making jokes or anything
273
but try to be comfortable with the interviewer
274
and talk about something that's not related to the interview like maybe you can find common interest with a person.
275
I think that made both of them relaxed.
276
So that's kind of my practical tip for interviews.
277
Recently I interviewed someone and it was very obvious they're using AI to answer the questions.
278
The sound is very like AI.
279
Every sentence They said like, "Oh, in summary, this is this." Don't do that.
280
Keep it, yeah, authentic, genuine.
281
Can you tell me a little bit about the working environment where you are?
282
Maybe the company culture?
283
What do you do to survive there?
284
So I think American culture, especially in the tech industry, it's very important to show what you did, your results.
285
And I'm a kind of shy person, so I'm not used to that too, but I learned that it's important.
286
Same in Korean culture and American culture, but if you try too hard to kind of promote yourself, other people don't like it.
287
Yeah.
288
Yeah.
289
But if you have opportunity and if you can keep the balance of being humble and show yourself more, you have to catch that opportunity and do that.
290
Just there's a line, right?
291
You gotta be careful of the line.
292
There's a line.
293
Definitely.
294
day in the life of someone working at this big company and they always show like all the breakfast buffets, all the lunch buffets, is it really like that?
295
What are some of the perks you get to enjoy?
296
Perks?
297
Companies I have worked at, they had catered free lunch.
298
And my current company, I have to still pay for the food from our cafeteria.
299
have a lot of layoffs recently where other companies had a lot of layoffs.
300
So being frugal like that You know, I think it's positive.
301
Yeah, you're like, I'll pay for my lunch.
302
Yes.
303
I pay for my lunch.
304
Don't fire me.
305
That's so funny.
306
That makes sense.
307
Are you currently working on any projects or do you have any future goals?
308
I cannot talk about my work stuff, but personally, I really like movies.
309
And one of the goals this year was to write more movie reviews.
310
So I started an account on threads.
311
It's called Bay Movie Chat.
312
Bay movie chat.
313
Yeah.
314
Okay.
315
I write movie reviews in Korean, so I connect with movie fans in Korea.
316
Wow.
317
It's very small.
318
I don't have a lot of followers.
319
It's fun.
320
Mm -hmm.
321
To get connected with other people who have same interest.
322
Mm -hmm.
323
Yeah, that's what I'm trying to do this year.
324
What's a movie you've watched recently that you recommend?
325
Recently, I watched Project Hail Mary.
326
I don't know if you have watched it.
327
Yes, loved it.
328
You loved it?
329
Okay.
330
Loved it.
331
Mm -hmm.
332
I didn't love that.
333
No!
334
I had too much expectation so I didn't love it as much as other people but...
335
I enjoyed it, I enjoyed watching it.
336
The one movie I liked recently was 28 Years Later.
337
It's like a horror movie.
338
But I'm a horror movie fan, so I really like that movie.
339
I like horror, but I haven't watched it.
340
I'm like this half the time, but I enjoy it.
341
I know it's a series, right?
342
There's a couple of them.
343
Yeah, the latest one is called The Bone Temple.
344
It's a really great movie.
345
I'll have to watch it.
346
I have to start from number one and watch it, maybe.
347
Okay, I'll do that.
348
Thank you so much for letting me interview you today and for sharing your story with us.
349
Thank you so much.
350
I really enjoyed this chat.
351
I would love to do this again in the future.
352
So hopefully see you again back here.
353
Thank you so much for watching and see you next time.
354
Bye.

このレッスンで学ぶこと

シリコンバレーのビッグテック企業で働く韓国人エンジニアの体験談を通じて、実践的な英語表現とネットワーキングのヒントを学びます。日常会話から職場での自己紹介まで、自然な英語の流れを理解し、shadowing(シャドーイング)で発音とリズムを磨くことができます。YouTubeで英語学習を効果的に行い、IELTS スピーキング対策にも役立つ実践的な内容です。

重要な語彙とフレーズ

  • put yourself out there:自分を積極的に表に出す、機会を求めて行動する
  • word of mouth:口コミ、伝聞
  • desperately:必死に、懸命に
  • front of computer:パソコンの前で(「at the front of」よりも自然な表現)
  • hints, hints:ヒントですよ、ヒント(軽い冗談で暗示する表現)

シャドーイングの実践テクニック

このビデオの会話は自然なスピードで、日常的なトーンが特徴です。shadowing siteでの練習の際は、まず全体を聴いてリズムを捉え、次に1文ずつ真似して発音しましょう。「I jokingly say it's a fruit company.」のような軽い冗談の部分は、イントネーションを意識して繰り返し練習します。shadowspeakやshadowspeaksの方法を使い、発話のタイミングを少し遅らせて追いかけることで、自然な流れを身につけられます。失敗しても大丈夫です—繰り返すことが上達の秘訣です。職場での自己紹介やネットワーキングの場面で使える表現を覚えながら、自信をつけましょう。

シャドーイングとは?英語上達に効果的な理由

シャドーイング(Shadowing)は、もともとプロの通訳者養成プログラムで開発された言語学習法で、多言語習得者として知られるDr. Alexander Arguelles によって広く普及されました。方法はシンプルですが非常に効果的:ネイティブスピーカーの英語を聞きながら、1〜2秒の遅延で声に出してすぐに繰り返す——まるで「影(shadow)」のように話者を追いかけます。文法ドリルや受動的なリスニングと異なり、シャドーイングは脳と口の筋肉が同時にリアルタイムで英語を処理・再現することを強制します。研究により、発音精度、抑揚、リズム、連音、リスニング力、そして会話の流暢さが大幅に向上することが確認されています。IELTSスピーキング対策や自然な英語コミュニケーションを目指す方に特におすすめです。

シャドーイングのやり方: ステップ別の完全ガイドを読む →