Shadowing Practice: How to NOT Fail a Technical Interview - Learn English Speaking with Video

The single worst moment of my life was the moment I was born.

I wish that were true, but as a software engineer, I've experienced far worse things during technical interviews.

If you're lucky enough to survive tutorial hell before the age of 25, and find a way to impress the algorithms that automatically read your resume, you get dropped into a high-stakes life-or-death game with a six-figure salary on one side and RVs on the other.

You can tell yourself the interview process is broken, and maybe it is, but like most things in life, you can't control it and just have to play the game.

In today's video, you will experience the psychological rollercoaster ride that is the technical interview.

Along the way, you'll learn the secrets to high-pressure problem-solving on the spot, and how to impress the interviewer even if you totally suck at writing code.

To make this hyper-realistic, I've invited a special guest who's conducted hundreds of interviews in the real world.

Let the story begin.

It's been a long, difficult year of hashtag learn to code.

I've turned down dates with beautiful women, stopped doing flat-earth research, and even canceled Netflix, all for the opportunity to stare at a computer screen for the rest of my life.

Thanks to this awesome video I watched on YouTube, I finally landed an interview with Big Scary Tech Corporation.

I've got dozens of leak code questions and a bunch of half-finished Udemy courses under my belt.

Nothing can stand in my way now.

I'm about to jump on this call and change my life forever.

Hello, Mr. Fireship.

My name is the Prime Gen. Welcome to hell.

Welcome to hell.

I'm just kidding.

I'll be conducting your interview today.

You know, let's just get straight into it.

I'm going to ask you actually a classic question.

It's called FizzBuzz.

I want you to print out numbers 1 through 100.

But if it's divisible by 3, I want you to print out fizz.

If a number is divisible by 5, please print out fuzz.

But if it's divisible by both 3 and 5, please print out fizz and buzz.

Fizzbuzz, how cliche is that?

I mean, I just built my own compiler in JavaScript last night.

This is too easy.

Wait a minute.

I have no idea what I'm doing here.

Hashmap, link list.

Mom, mom, why am I so dumb?

Wait, directed graph.

I can't do it.

I'm just gonna tell him I can't do it.

Binary treat.

I'm an imposter.

I'm blacking out.

A few moments later.

Mr. Fireship, before we write any code, let's just talk about the problem.

How would you kind of approach a problem like this?

You know what?

I think I've already failed this interview, which means I don't care anymore.

And magically, when I stop caring, the anxiety goes away.

Screw the code.

Let's just talk about the problem.

Okay, so it looks like we have three conditions here.

And when we have conditions, we use a conditional statement like if.

One way I could represent this is with a flowchart on a whiteboard.

Or if that's not an option, I might start by writing some pseudocode because I don't want to worry about syntax or boilerplate before I even know what I'm going to implement.

For each iteration of the loop, we have a number.

If it's divisible by 3 and 5, we print FizzBuzz.

Otherwise, if it's divisible by 3, we print Fizz.

Or if it's divisible by 5, we print Buzz.

And finally, just print the number if none of these are true.

Wow, so this is actually a very simple problem when we take the time to break it down.

I was totally overthinking it.

I was expecting something with a really complex solution, because this is Big Scary Tech Corporation after all.

You know, I can't give you the answers, but I do really want to see you succeed.

So feel free to ask questions as we go along.

That solution looks pretty good.

So how would you take that and turn it into code?

I'm most comfortable in JavaScript, so I'll go ahead and use that for the implementation.

First, we'll need a loop that iterates 100 times.

As I'm writing this code, I'm not thinking about getting things done quickly, but rather I'm taking my time and making sure I fully understand the requirements before wasting my time writing a bunch of code that I'll have to correct later.

What's really important is that I think out loud and explain my decisions throughout the process.

Normally, I like to use for each for loops, but in this case, I'm going to use a traditional for loop and not for each, because I happen to know that 4 will result in better performance.

Now, even if what I'm saying isn't totally correct, it's important for the interviewer to understand my problem-solving process.

Saying something is almost always better than saying nothing at all.

Unless, of course, you say some dumbass st, in which case it may be optimal to just shut the fk up.

Before you set foot into the Thunderdome, you should practice literally saying everything out loud as you solve a problem.

Personally, I hate talking while I write code, and it just takes a lot of practice to get comfortable with this.

Follow the ABC rule I just made up, which doesn't mean always be coding, but always be chatting.

Another tip is that if you get confused and freeze up, don't just sit there, but try to come up with a question.

The longer you sit there and stare at the headlights, the more likely you are to lose your composure.

We can't have anyone freak out out there, okay?

We've gotta keep our composure!

We've come too far!

There's too much to lose!

much to lose!

Keep our composure!

I'm a little confused here, so I might ask a question like, should the program take an input and return an answer for a specific index, or should it always iterate over all 100 answers?

Good question.

A loop is just fine.

Now I feel like I'm going in the right direction, so what I'll do next is create a few conditional statements that line up to what I sketched out on the whiteboard.

Now the tricky thing about FizzBuzz is determining if one number is a multiple of another number.

I guess I could divide by the target number, and if it's an integer, it's a match, but if it's a decimal, then it's not a match.

That should work, so when it's 3 will log fizz, when it's 5 will log buzz, but if it's false on both of these, then we'll just console log the number.

Yeah, I think that looks good.

Let's go ahead and use bun to run it, just to show off my knowledge of blazingly fast JavaScript tooling.

And yes, it works perfectly.

I'm a goddamn genius.

Interesting.

What can you do without magical type conversion?

Do you know what modulo is.

Oh man, he's not impressed at all.

I'm such a loser.

Modulo?

100

I've never even heard that word in my life.

101

Oh wait, are you talking about the remainder operator in JavaScript?

102

Yeah, you do have the modulo operator correct.

103

Why don't you give it a try?

104

Yeah, that would make more sense here.

105

What it does is give us the remainder when doing division, so if that number is zero, then we know that it's a multiple of whatever number we're trying to divide by.

106

That gives us a solution that isn't so dependent on the loosely typed nature of JavaScript.

107

It's usually a good idea to avoid language-specific magic.

108

The interviewer might be a C developer with 50 years of experience who's going to think your clever little JavaScript tricks are mid-AF.

109

The modulo operator is available in basically every language, so it's best to stick with that.

110

This is looking pretty good, but can you make FizzBuzz print on a single line?

111

Oh yeah, that's kind of not correct, is it?

112

Okay, I think I have an idea, but I remember reading this article that's messing with my head right now that said the else keyword is an anti-pattern.

113

Maybe I should stop believing everything I read on the internet.

114

Let's give it a try and talk through it.

115

We'll We'll first check for the fizzBuzz condition, then use if-else a couple times to check for fizz and buzz.

116

And then finally we'll use else to log the number itself.

117

Not only does this put fizzBuzz on a single line, but the code is just more simple now.

118

In fact, I don't think it can get any better.

119

Oh, that looks correct.

120

Now, what happened if I wanted to add some more conditions?

121

Let's say 7 is BAS.

122

How are you going to deal with that?

123

Ah man, I knew it.

124

L statements really are garbage.

125

Always believe everything you read on the internet.

126

It's never failed me.

127

When you have a lot of conditions to check, one thing you generally want to do is try to extract the data out of that statement.

128

We can easily do that here by defining a variable for the thing we want to print.

129

Now we could set up a switch statement to check all the different conditions, but I think using IF is just as good if not better.

130

As you can see here, I have GitHub Copilot enabled, but let's Just keep that on the down low because I really need this job.

131

Now, instead of console logging here, we'll just mutate the variable.

132

This allows us to eliminate the fizz buzz check and can also scale better if we decide to add additional words to it.

133

Impressive.

134

Very nice.

135

Impressively very nice.

136

Blazingly correct.

137

Now, how would you describe the performance of your algorithm?

138

I would describe it as strong to quite strong.

139

As you can see when I run it, there's almost no lag time because my holistic approach is so blazingly fast.

140

Well, that's one way to describe it.

141

I was more talking about Big O time complexity.

142

Oh yeah, I guess I should have studied Big O a little better before doing this interview.

143

If the FizzBuzz game were to go on forever, I'd say we have linear time complexity, or O of N.

144

However, technically, the game is only played for 100 steps, which would simplify down to O1, or constant time.

145

Wow, I can't believe it's been an hour already.

146

I blacked out.

147

Where the hell am I?

148

Is this heaven?

149

Oh hey, congratulations, you've got the job.

150

Here's your offer sheet with a $400,000 salary and the job is fully remote with unlimited vacation time.

151

Your first task you'll be working on is changing all of the blue buttons to a slightly different color blue.

152

Wow, I can't believe it.

153

I've spent the last two years pouring my blood, sweat, and tears into this, and my mom is going to be so proud.

154

Hold on just one second.

155

Uh, it looks like we've just implemented a hiring freeze.

156

Um, I'm gonna have to rescind that offer.

157

Bruh!

158

Congratulations, now you know how to bomb your technical interview just like me.

159

Make sure to subscribe to the Primogen for more awesome developer content.

160

Thanks for watching, and I will see you in the next one.

📺 Zelfde Kanaal

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Woordenschat en spreektips bij deze les

Deze video bevat 160 zinnen en 1918 woorden om na te spreken. Het gesproken deel duurt 8:24. De spreker praat snel, ongeveer 228 woorden per minuut, dus reken op verbonden en ingeslikte klanken. Slechts 81% van de woorden hoort bij de 3.000 meest gebruikte Engelse woorden, dus de woordenschat is pittig.

Belangrijke woorden in deze video

15 woorden uit de video die het leren waard zijn, met uitspraak en betekenis:

Woord	Uitspraak	Betekenis
loop zelfstandig naamwoord	/luːp/	lus, strop
buzz zelfstandig naamwoord	/bʌz/	zoem
solve werkwoord	/sɒlv/	oplossen
operator zelfstandig naamwoord	/ˈɑpəˌɹeɪtɚ/	bediener
impress werkwoord	/ɪmˈpɹɛs/	imponeren, indruk maken
interviewer zelfstandig naamwoord	/ˈɪntɚvjuɚ/	interviewer, interviewster
confused bijvoeglijk naamwoord	/kənˈfjuːzd/	verward, in de war
congratulations	/kənˌɡɹæt͡ʃəˈleɪʃ(ə)nz/	gefeliciteerd, proficiat
salary zelfstandig naamwoord	/ˈsæləɹi/	salaris, loon
developer zelfstandig naamwoord	/dɪˈvɛləpɚ/	ontwikkelaar, ontwerper
implement werkwoord	/ˈɪmpləmənt/	implementeren, (in de praktijk) toepassen
divide werkwoord	/dɪˈvaɪd/	verdelen
variable bijvoeglijk naamwoord	[ˈvæɹ.i.ə.bl̩]	veranderlijk, variabel
freeze werkwoord	/ˈfɹiːz/	bevriezen
remainder zelfstandig naamwoord	/ɹəˈmeɪndɚ/	rest, restant

Phrasal verbs die je zult horen

Woord	Uitspraak	Betekenis
come up with werkwoord		bedenken, verzinnen
go away werkwoord		weggaan
set up werkwoord	/ˌsɛt ˈʌp/	bereiden, voorbereiden
show off werkwoord		zich aanstellen, pronken met

Uitspraak om op te letten

De spreker gebruikt 63 samentrekkingen en verkorte vormen, zoals I'm, can't, I've. Spreek ze kort uit, zoals je ze hoort.

De klanken “sh” en “zh”: congratulations /kənˌɡɹæt͡ʃəˈleɪʃ(ə)nz/, conditional /kənˈdɪʃ.ə.nəl/, sheet /ʃit/, vacation /veɪˈkeɪ.ʃən/, implementation /ˌɪmplɪmənˈteɪʃən/
Lange woorden — let op de klemtoon: operator /ˈɑpəˌɹeɪtɚ/, congratulations /kənˌɡɹæt͡ʃəˈleɪʃ(ə)nz/, developer /dɪˈvɛləpɚ/, complexity /kəmˈplɛk.sɪ.ti/, conditional /kənˈdɪʃ.ə.nəl/

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 loop, buzz, solve.

Grammatica in deze video

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

Structuur	In de video
Present perfect have/has + voltooid deelwoord — iets uit het verleden dat nu nog telt	I've experienced · I've invited · I've turned
Lijdende vorm be + voltooid deelwoord — het gaat om wat er gebeurt, niet om wie het doet	was born · is broken · is only played

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 →

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Belangrijke woorden in deze video

Phrasal verbs die je zult horen

Uitspraak om op te letten

Zo oefen je met deze video

Grammatica in deze video

Wat is de Shadowing-techniek?