Shadowing Practice: How to Explain Anything To Anyone (Even If It's Complex!) - Learn English Speaking with Video

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I'm going to show you how to explain anything to anyone no matter how complex the topic is.

I'm talking when you're trying to explain technical workflows to non-technical stakeholders, walking a client through changes they don't fully understand, or trying to pitch a complex idea to your team.

And after 15 years of coaching communication to Fortune 500 companies and millions of people around the world, I see this one pattern constantly.

The smartest, technically brilliant people, they tend to struggle the most when it comes to communicating things they know.

And look, if that's you, it's not your fault.

Because nobody ever taught you how to translate what's up here to come out of here.

In a clear and concise, coherent way.

So today I'm going to teach you how to do just that using what I call the clear filter.

And I'll walk you through this in a second.

But first let me explain why people feel the need to use complex language.

When I was younger, I used to explain things in a really, really complex way.

And it wasn't because I didn't understand the topic.

It was because I wanted to appear smart.

And by making it sound complicated, I felt smart and that made me feel good.

For example, I used to talk about tax with my friends.

I was studying accounting at the time.

Yes, I was fulfilling the Asian prophecy.

And my friends were studying pharmacy and medicine, also fulfilling the Asian prophecy.

And they didn't know much about tax.

And because I felt less smart than them, when I showed them how to do their tax returns, I deliberately used big words and acronyms to sound clever.

I'd say something like this.

Based on your accessible income and carried forward deductions,

we'll maximize your concessional contributions and apply the available offsets to minimize your taxable income.

Which is just a complicated way of saying, you earn this much and you can claim a few things, so we'll set it up so that you don't pay more tax than you need to.

But I didn't say it like that.

I said the unnecessarily complicated version.

And I felt great saying it like that, because I knew none of my doctor friends would get it.

and it made me feel better than them

and we'd end up in this weird situation where i was over complicating everything to feel more important

and confident and they were pretending to follow along

because they didn't want to seem stupid two people having a conversation that's a complete bloody waste of time

and if you do what i do because you lack confidence

or if you just speak in a complicated way

because you don't know any better then let me tell you

what it's going to cost you people won't understand you which then causes them to disengage but most professionals You know what?

They're really good at pretending they're still engaged.

When in actual reality, they've already mentally checked out thinking about the movie Obsession and how bloody brilliant it is.

Great movie, Curry Barker.

Well done, mate.

No, no, no, don't do that!

And if you don't fix this problem, over time, people start avoiding interactions with you.

Because they see you as somebody who's confusing, overly complicated, and way too technical to actually talk to.

You'll be stuck in that technical role as the cog in the machine.

Which brings us to the first part of the clear filter.

The C stands for calibrate.

Before you explain anything to anyone, you need to first know your audience.

How much do they already know about the topic you're about to speak on?

Most people skip this completely.

If you assume they know everything you know, you'll speak at a level that loses them immediately.

If you assume they know nothing, then you can come across like you're speaking down to them.

So this first calibrating step involves asking qualifying questions to determine how much your audience already knows

so you can meet them where they are.

If for example, you're in a one-on-one situation with someone you might say something like this, before I go any further how familiar are you with this topic?

However if you're preparing for a speaking event email the organizer ahead of time

and ask on a scale of beginner to expert where would

you say most of the audience sits with this topic I'm going to speak on?

And if you're opening a group session impromptu and you had no time to prep then ask the group directly a question.

Ask something like this, quick question before I start

Raise your hand if you have had a year's worth of experience in this area.

Okay.

Raise your hands if you've had two years.

Okay, now raise your hands if you had three years.

And sometimes if you already know you're walking into a group of specialists, go deep, use the technical language, use the jargon, have the in-depth discussion.

But you need to know where they're at first.

One simple question asked up front tells you everything you need to know.

Know your audience before you speak to your audience.

The second part is link.

Connect what they don't know to something they already know.

You do this by using either an analogy, a metaphor, or a simile.

I want to show you what this looks like from someone who's extraordinary at linking, Dr. Michelle Thaler.

She spent her career at NASA, understands astrophysics at a level that would make most people's heads spin, but let me share with you a clip where she takes something really complicated

and makes it easily digestible by using an analogy.

The human brain is just as far away from perceiving the

way the universe really is as a grasshopper is perceiving quantum mechanics.

Isn't it wonderful what she just did?

Even though you and I don't have a deep understanding of astrophysics like she does, we were still able to understand the concept she was sharing.

Now imagine she didn't do that and imagine she read something like this to you.

I mean, look at it.

Can you even get past the second sentence?

No, no, I mean, seriously, try to read it.

Try.

It's crazy, huh?

No one could do it.

Not me, not you, and no, don't you go pretending in the comment section that you knew exactly what that meant because none of us did.

Learning how to link the unknown to the known is a powerful skill set.

Now, let me give you my own example.

I do a lot of corporate trainings with engineering teams, very technical teams.

And when I'm pitching my two-day communication workshop to a tech company, instead of walking through the full curriculum and speaking in a complex way like this,

on day one, we separate vocal image from visual image, and then we deconstruct a vocal image into five core concepts.

First, we've got rate of speech, then we've got volume, tonality, pitch and melody, and then the strategic pausing, which combines all together into vocal archetypes that each trigger different listener responses.

And then on day two, we formalize the narrative structure by breaking stories down into discrete incidents built around peak emotion, peak action, or the key lesson learned.

And then we derive a single governing point so the story actually holds their attention.

Yeah, that's how I used to do it, because I thought that would make me seem like an expert.

And normally when I do this the clients look confused

and I can literally see them disengage And then I end up not winning the business.

Whereas what I do now is I use a simple metaphor

music and then I link it to Communication

which is something most people don't usually understand fully again the linking the known to the unknown

That's the magic

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and this is what I say now on day one I'm

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going to teach your engineers how to play their instrument being their voice and their body language language.

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Then on day two, I'm going to teach them how to write great music.

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And that's how to structure their ideas so that they're clear and compelling.

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And if you want a more detailed breakdown of the two-day syllabus, I'll send you the PDF.

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That's it!

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Two full days of content in under 20 seconds!

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And every single time I watch the other person nod and then they say, Oh, then that's exactly what my engineers need.

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So learn how to use analogies, metaphors, and similes.

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Find the link between the known and the unknown and make it simple for people to understand.

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By the way, if you want to learn how to go deeper into frameworks like the Clear Filter

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that I'm walking you through right now, I put together a free two-hour training where I'll teach you the top three communication frameworks I use in professional

112

and personal conversations to help you speak with more structure, clarity, and confidence.

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So you stop rambling and speak more coherently.

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Just click the link in the description or scan the QR code on screen to get access.

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It's completely free.

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Let's keep going.

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The next part of the filter, E, is for envision.

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Some ideas are too hard to just describe with words alone.

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And when you hit one of those, draw it.

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Literally.

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I mean draw a shape, a triangle, a circle, a rectangle, draw a simple diagram.

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And in this example with Envision, I'm going to be a little bit cheeky here.

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I'm going to combine Envision with the next part of the filter, which is A for abstraction.

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And abstraction is taking a complex idea and boiling it down to its simplest form.

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One of the questions that people ask me all the time is they say, Vin, how do you actually get good at public speaking when you're starting from zero?

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And if I was to answer that without envisioning and abstracting, it sounds something like this.

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First, you're unconsciously incompetent.

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Then on your journey, you move to the next point where you become consciously incompetent.

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Then most people get stuck there.

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However, if you continue the journey, then you move into conscious competence.

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And very few get to the final step where they reach unconscious competence, which is a state of mastery that, once again, most never get to.

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Oh, you see what the problem is?

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When you explain it like that, the listener's brain has to work harder to understand you and remember what you're talking about.

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But the moment you envision it by drawing it out as a contextual model and you abstract it by simplifying the language, watch what happens.

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So the question is, well, what does it look like when you're on the journey of improving your public speaking ability?

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Well, the first part of your journey, you start here.

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Unconscious incompetence.

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Here you simply don't know what you don't know.

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And that's okay.

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everybody starts there we all start by not knowing anything about anything

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but then when you watch a video like this

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and you subscribe to a YouTube channel about public speaking then you begin the learning journey

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and you move to the second phase

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and you move to conscious incompetence in other words what this

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is is now you know now what you don't know for example you now know

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that in order get rid of the ums

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and the ahs you need to learn how to pause more

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and the reason you um and ah is simply

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because you're uncomfortable with silence that's all now you know how bad ums

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and ahs are you know how bad filler words are using like

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so do you know what i mean using them excessively you now understand destroys your clarity

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which then now moves us to the next stage of learning

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which is conscious competence and what this stage essentially means is that You're doing it, but you still have to think about it.

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Here, you know now to get rid of the ums and the ahs, you just replace it with a pause.

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So you're doing it already, but you still have to cognitively think about it

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because your brain is in overdrive trying to replace so many different types of behaviors.

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Which now moves us to the final stage of learning which is unconscious competence.

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This is where you reach a state of mastery.

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You no longer have to think about it because the behaviors become automatic.

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So if you go back to the pause example, originally when you're learning it in the conscious competence phase, that you're doing it but you still have to think about it,

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that pauses will still seem a little bit unnatural.

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But once you get to unconscious competence, now here the pauses are automatic and they come across completely natural.

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Wasn't that way easier to understand?

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And I know what you're thinking.

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Vin, by simplifying the language and dumbing it down for other people like this, doesn't it make you seem dumb?

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Well, let me ask you this.

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At any point in this video while you were learning with me, did you feel like I didn't know what I was talking about?

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Did I seem dumb?

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Or were you more engaged because you were able to follow along?

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Here's a trap that most experts fall into.

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Experts don't realize that there's a difference between being a great expert and actually being a great leader.

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Being a great expert means you personally have deep knowledge on a subject.

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Good for you.

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But if you want to be a great leader, you have to develop the skill of teaching because great leaders create other great leaders,

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and they do that by passing on what they know through the skill of teaching.

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And to be a great teacher, you need to be able to simplify your ideas, which makes the transfer of knowledge more effective.

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And that's the best part about great leaders.

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They grow other leaders.

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Whereas most of the time, a great expert who doesn't know how to become a great leader, they only grow themselves.

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Einstein famously said, if you can't explain it to a dog, then you don't understand it.

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Wait, wait, wait, sorry Peter, was that the right quote?

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No. No. No. No. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. We were having a nice day.

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Actually then, what the quote actually is, if you can't explain it to a six year old, you don't understand it well enough.

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That's the quote silly billy.

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That's what it was.

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Nice work, Peter.

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And to the last part of the filter, R stands for repeat.

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This one's simple, but never skip it at the end of your explanation close

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the loop come back to the shape of your idea one more time let me show you what I mean

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and right there my friends is the clear framework first you've

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got C for calibrate here's where you need to know your

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audience before you even start ask the qualifying questions then you've

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got L for link connect the unknown to something they already understand by using an analogy a metaphor

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or a simile then you've got envision here's where you draw it make it visible, use contextual models.

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Then you've got abstraction, this is where you distill the message to its simplest form.

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And then R, repeat what I've literally just done to you in this segment of the video.

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Being able to simplify something is one of the most important traits of a great communicator and therefore a great leader.

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It means you understand what you know so deeply that you can translate it for anyone.

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So pick one complex idea this week that you need to explain to someone

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and run it through the clear filter and watch what happens.

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And if you want to keep building on what you've been learning today, click on the link in the description for my free two-hour training to learn more about communication frameworks

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or just scan the QR code to access it right there.

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Woordenschat en spreektips bij deze les

Deze spreekles op niveau B2 is gebaseerd op de video “How to Explain Anything To Anyone”. Deze video bevat 202 zinnen en 2719 woorden om na te spreken. Het gesproken deel duurt 13:31. De spreker praat snel, ongeveer 201 woorden per minuut, dus reken op verbonden en ingeslikte klanken. 85% van de woorden hoort bij de 3.000 meest gebruikte Engelse woorden; de rest kun je beter vooraf bekijken.

Belangrijke woorden in deze video

De 15 moeilijkste woorden uit de video, met uitspraak en betekenis:

Woord	Uitspraak	Betekenis
competence zelfstandig naamwoord	/ˈkɑm.pə.təns/	competentie, bekwaamheid
pause zelfstandig naamwoord	/pɔːz/	pauze
simplify werkwoord	/ˈsɪmplɪfaɪ/	vereenvoudigen, versimpelen
analogy zelfstandig naamwoord	/əˈnæləd͡ʒi/	analogie
metaphor zelfstandig naamwoord	/ˈmɛt.ə.fɚ/	metafoor
unconscious bijvoeglijk naamwoord	/ˌʌnˈkɑnʃəs/	bewusteloos
conscious bijvoeglijk naamwoord	/ˈkɑn.ʃəs/	bij bewustzijn, alert
abstraction zelfstandig naamwoord	/æbˈstɹæk.ʃn̩/	abstractie
calibrate werkwoord	/ˈkæl.ɪ.bɹeɪ̯t/	kalibreer
simile zelfstandig naamwoord	/ˈsɪməli/	vergelijking
vocal bijvoeglijk naamwoord	/ˈvoʊ̯.kəl/	vocal
astrophysics zelfstandig naamwoord	/ˌæs.tɹoʊˈfɪz.ɪks/	astrofysica
contextual bijvoeglijk naamwoord		contextueel
incompetence zelfstandig naamwoord	/ɪnˈkɒm.pə.təns/	incompetentie
incompetent bijvoeglijk naamwoord	/ɪnˈkɒmpətənt/	incompetent

Phrasal verbs die je zult horen

Woord	Betekenis
come across werkwoord	overkomen
check out werkwoord	onderzoeken
end up werkwoord	belanden, terechtkomen

Zinnen om te herhalen

Korte, volledige zinnen uit de video die je in alledaagse gesprekken kunt gebruiken:

I'd say something like this.
Raise your hands if you've had two years.
Isn't it wonderful what she just did?
Can you even get past the second sentence?
Here you simply don't know what you don't know.

Grammatica in deze video

De structuren die de spreker het meest gebruikt, met de exacte woorden uit de video:

Structuur	In de video
“Used to” used to + werkwoord — een vroegere gewoonte of toestand die niet meer klopt	used to talk · used to do
Betrekkelijke bijzinnen who / which + zin — extra informatie over een persoon of ding	filter, which is · competence, which is · learning which is
Present perfect have/has + voltooid deelwoord — iets uit het verleden dat nu nog telt	have had · you've had

Uitspraak om op te letten

De spreker gebruikt 79 samentrekkingen en verkorte vormen, zoals you're, don't, I'm. Spreek ze kort uit, zoals je ze hoort.

De klanken “sh” en “zh”: envision /ɪnˈvɪʒn̩/, unconscious /ˌʌnˈkɑnʃəs/, conscious /ˈkɑn.ʃəs/, abstraction /æbˈstɹæk.ʃn̩/, deduction /dɪˈdʌkʃən/
Lange woorden — let op de klemtoon: analogy /əˈnæləd͡ʒi/, astrophysics /ˌæs.tɹoʊˈfɪz.ɪks/, incompetence /ɪnˈkɒm.pə.təns/, incompetent /ɪnˈkɒmpətənt/, cognitively /ˈkɑɡ.nɪ.tɪv.li/

Klanken die Nederlandstaligen lastig vinden:

Stemhebbende eindmedeklinker — /b/, /d/, /g/, /z/, /v/ niet verscherpen: pause /pɔːz/, disengage /ˌdɪsɪŋˈɡeɪd͡ʒ/, perceive /pɚˈsiv/, formalize /ˈfɔɹ.məlaɪːz/, overdrive /ˈəʊvə(ɹ)ˌdɹaɪv/
/æ/ — opener dan de Nederlandse “e”: analogy /əˈnæləd͡ʒi/, abstraction /æbˈstɹæk.ʃn̩/, calibrate /ˈkæl.ɪ.bɹeɪ̯t/, astrophysics /ˌæs.tɹoʊˈfɪz.ɪks/, mastery /ˈmæs.tɚ.i/
/g/ — een harde plofklank, geen Nederlandse “g”: disengage /ˌdɪsɪŋˈɡeɪd͡ʒ/, cognitively /ˈkɑɡ.nɪ.tɪv.li/, grasshopper /ˈɡɹæsˌhɑpəɹ/, jargon /ˈdʒɑː.ɡən/, rectangle /ˈrɛktæŋɡl̩/

Zo oefen je met deze video

Luister de hele video één keer zonder te spreken en noteer de woorden die je niet kent.
Begin op 0,75× snelheid, spreek zin voor zin na en ga terug naar normale snelheid zodra het makkelijk gaat.
Neem jezelf op en vergelijk met het origineel; let daarbij op woorden als competence, pause, simplify.

Wat is de Shadowing-techniek?

Shadowing is een wetenschappelijk onderbouwde taalleermethode die oorspronkelijk is ontwikkeld voor professionele tolkentraining en gepopulariseerd door polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. De methode is eenvoudig maar krachtig: je luistert naar native Engelse audio en herhaalt het onmiddellijk hardop — als een schaduw die de spreker volgt met slechts 1–2 seconden vertraging. In tegenstelling tot passief luisteren of grammaticadrills, dwingt shadowing je hersenen en mondspieren om echte spraakpatronen tegelijkertijd te verwerken en te reproduceren. Onderzoek toont aan dat het de uitspraaknauwkeurigheid, intonatie, ritme, verbonden spraak, luisterbegrip en spreekvaardigheid aanzienlijk verbetert — waardoor het een van de meest effectieve methoden is voor IELTS Speaking-voorbereiding en echte Engelse communicatie.

Shadowing-techniek: lees de volledige stap-voor-stap-gids →

Shadowing Practice: How to Explain Anything To Anyone (Even If It's Complex!) - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Woordenschat en spreektips bij deze les

Belangrijke woorden in deze video

Phrasal verbs die je zult horen

Zinnen om te herhalen

Grammatica in deze video

Uitspraak om op te letten

Zo oefen je met deze video

Wat is de Shadowing-techniek?