Shadowing Practice: 01.a Earthquakes Conversation - Effortless Real English - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
1
hey check this out you know what eric asked me when i got into work this morning
2
i have no idea what do you ask you he asked me if i felt the earthquake last night
3
earthquake you've got to be kidding i didn't feel an earthquake
4
i know that's what i said he told me it actually
5
woke him up last night you know what yeah it was like it went it happened at like, uh, four 42 in the morning.
6
So we must've been sleeping, but I mean, it's possible that, you know, even if we had been awake, we might not have felt it because, you know, maybe it, uh,
7
wasn't felt, you know, this far North, but, uh, I mean, I thought he was pulling my leg when he first talked about it.
8
Well, I guess that's not so far fetched considering we live on a major fault line here.
9
Yeah.
10
But actually I think this earthquake was, uh, on a different fault line um
11
because you know eric lives uh just uh south of san jose yeah
12
and uh the earthquake he said was due east of san jose
13
so he was obviously a lot closer to the epicenter than we were
14
so i don't i'm not even sure it was felt here yeah
15
that makes sense well you know i've experienced quite a few earthquakes in the past several years
16
but i've been living here now a little over two years I think I've only experienced one here.
17
It was really strange, too.
18
I should say each earthquake has been a completely different experience.
19
But the one I felt here, I was standing outside a restaurant talking to AJ and another friend, and all of a sudden,
20
it just felt like this shift.
21
It's really hard to explain, but it made me think of like a cartoon, like how in the cartoon, like buildings might just shift to the right and then shift right back.
22
Yeah, without falling.
23
Yeah, without falling.
24
And I had no idea what was going on for a few minutes afterwards.
25
And then I realized, oh, that must have been an earthquake.
26
Yeah, you know what I usually notice? the times
27
that i've been at home here and uh there's been an earthquake it's almost as
28
if there's this really big train or like a gigantic mac truck going by
29
and uh suddenly i start to hear the heater shaking
30
and um it's like the noise is like uh is loud for like a second and then it's gone. So it's really weird.
31
You know, it's almost like the first couple of times I felt it, I wasn't even aware it was an earthquake while it was happening.
32
Well, that's so funny you say that because one that I experienced in Bangkok, it actually was after the tsunami.
33
And so later I found out that it was, it was aftershock from the tsunami.
34
But anyway, I was in a building up on the ninth floor and suddenly there was all this rattling.
35
And I'm thinking to myself, it just, it was so irrational.
36
I'm thinking to myself, God, there's like a train going by and I can't believe that this building is shaking so much from the train.
37
And of course a train wouldn't have made a building
38
or at least me up on the ninth floor feel something to that effect.
39
And I think it happened about two times.
40
And that one wasn't until several days later when I was talking to people and they were like, oh, did you feel the earthquake?
41
Then it dawned on me, oh, that was an earthquake.
42
Yeah, I know.
43
It's crazy how when you're not used to feeling them, you could think it's something else.
44
Yeah.
45
Yeah, totally.
46
I've been living here for a while now and I've definitely felt my share of earthquakes.
47
I mean, when you live here, it's a given that you're going to experience earthquakes.
48
You just hope that you're not going to be here for the big one.
49
Right.
50
When I first moved here, it was five years after the Loma Prieta earthquake, which was a very big earthquake here.
51
And there are a lot of people who lived here who
52
I met who had actually been living in the area when the earthquake hit.
53
So it was interesting to get their perspective.
54
And it also like made me remember where I was when I heard about the Loma Prieta earthquake.
55
I was watching the World Series on TV and, you know, it was taking place in San Francisco go.
56
So as I'm watching it, suddenly the announcer starts saying, wow, I think we're feeling an earthquake here.
57
And the cameras started shaking.
58
And all of a sudden, the TV coverage cut out.
59
So, you know, I wanted to get a rundown of what happened.
60
So I turned to the news station and within a few minutes, they were discussing this gigantic earthquake.
61
That had hit San Francisco, and they started showing pictures,
62
maybe 30 minutes later, of these people who were trying to weed through the rubble of these buildings that had been, like, coming down.
63
So, I mean, it was pretty scary, I'll tell you what.
64
Yeah, well, you know, the three months I was living in Japan, I experienced two.
65
Both of those were very different, very different from the one I'd experienced here and also very different from the one in Bangkok.
66
But one of them, I was actually up in my apartment, which was on the fifth floor of a building, and I was woken up at about five o 'clock in the morning to the building swaying.
67
And because earthquakes are like a dime a dozen in Japan, they've built a lot of their buildings to absorb the shock.
68
So that's why it was swaying.
69
It was really, it's a very surreal feel.
70
Hi, this is Kristen Dodds, and this is Joe Weiss,
71
and we just wanted to let you know that this material is copyrighted in the year 2008 by Learn Real English,
72
LLC, www .learnrealenglish .com.
📺 Same Channel
A212
02.b What Is Success? MS - Effortless Business English
Business EnglishWorking Adults
B11
03.d Solve a Problem Vocab - Effortless Business English
Business EnglishWorking Adults
B11
02.a Trip to Washington Conversation - Effortless Real English
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
A21
03.c Solve a Problem POV - Effortless Business English
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B11
02.e What Is Success? Commentary - Effortless Business English
Business EnglishWorking Adults
B11
1.01a Day of the Dead - Effortless Original English
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B11
Unit 17 Watching TV - Listening Practice Through Dictation 2
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
A21
01.b Financial Liberation MS - Effortless Business English
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B21
03.a Solve a Problem - Effortless Business English
Business EnglishWorking Adults
C11
01.a Financial Liberation - Effortless Business English
Business EnglishDaily ConversationWorking Adults
A21
1.01b A Day For The Dead MS - Effortless Original English
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B14
02.c What Is Success? POV - Effortless Business English
Business EnglishWorking Adults
B16
02.a What Is Success? - Effortless Business English
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B126
Unit 12 The Summer Music Festival - Listening Practice Through Dictation 1
TeensDaily ConversationHigh School Students
B13
02.d What Is Success? Vocab - Effortless Business English
Business EnglishWorking Adults
B13
2.04a Meddling Mother-In-Law - Effortless Original English
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B15
Unit 18 He's Famous! - Listening Practice Through Dictation 1
TeensDaily ConversationHigh School Students
A251
Unit 7 Cell Phone Messages - Listening Practice Through Dictation 1
KidsTeensDaily Conversation
A2Article #22 My Worst Fear - Learn English via Listening Level 02
TeensDaily ConversationHigh School Students
B124
Unit 11 Gold - Listening Practice Through Dictation 1
Daily ConversationHigh School StudentsUniversity Students
✨ Recommend Video
B13
105 sentences
Earthquakes Conversation| Learn Real English Conversations
Daily ConversationHigh School StudentsUniversity Students
B1100
29 sentences
Talking to a Neighbour About the Noise
British AccentDaily ConversationWorking Adults
B21
100 sentences
Train Your Ear to Hear English Rhythm and Melody
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B213
44 sentences
5-Minute English Shadowing Practice | Ep 11: "Find Your Footing" (B1-B2 Level)
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
B18
25 sentences
Thousands React After Strongest Earthquake in Years Hits Victoria | 10 News
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B21
195 sentences
老闆突然問我「Any thoughts 」，我腦子瞬間一片空白｜Real Life Office English
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
B22
130 sentences
If You Can Understand Him, Your English Is Incredible
British AccentDaily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C11
28 sentences
宮城で震度5弱 帰宅時間を直撃 新幹線ストップ 1週間程度は同程度の地震に注意【もっと知りたい！】【グッド！モーニング】(2026年5月16日)
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B11
813 sentences
English Podcast For Learning English Conversation | How To Talk About Yesterday in English
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B1233 sentences
Learn English While You Sleep ||| Daily English Conversation Phrases You Need to Know ||| English
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B1 speaking lesson is built on the video “01.a Earthquakes Conversation - Effortless Real English”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: earthquake, felt, experienced, train, san. This video has 72 sentences and 1024 words to shadow. The speech runs for 6:03. The speaker talks at a natural 169 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 82% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| earthquake noun | /ˈɝθkweɪk/ | A shaking of the ground, caused by volcanic activity or movement around geologic faults. |
| shake verb | /ˈʃeɪk/ | To cause (something) to move rapidly in opposite directions alternatingly. |
| tsunami noun | /(t)suːˈnɑːmi/ | A very large and destructive wave, generally caused by a tremendous disturbance in the ocean, such as an undersea earthquake or volcanic eruption; often a… |
| gigantic adjective | /d͡ʒaɪˈɡæntɪk/ | Very large. |
| sway verb | /ˈsweɪ̯/ | To move or swing from side to side; or backward and forward; to rock. |
| ninth adjective | /naɪnθ/ | The ordinal form of the number nine. |
| cartoon noun | /kɑɹˈtun/ | A humorous drawing, often with a caption, or a strip of such drawings. |
| aftershock noun | /ˈæftɜɹʃɔk/ | An earthquake that follows in the same vicinity as another, usually larger, earthquake (the "mainshock"). |
| epicentre noun | /ˈɛpɪˌsɛntɚ/ | The point on the land or water surface directly above the focus, or hypocentre, of an earthquake. |
| rattle noun | /ˈɹæ.təl/ | Any of various plants of the genera Rhinanthus and Pedicularis, whose seeds produce a rattling noise in the wind. |
| rubble noun | /ˈɹʌb.əl/ | The broken remains of an object, usually rock or masonry. |
| rundown noun | /ˈɹʌndaʊn/ | A rough outline of a topic or situation. |
| heater noun | /ˈhitɚ/ | A device that produces and radiates heat, typically to raise the temperature of a room or building. |
| irrational adjective | /ɪˈɹæʃ.(ə.)nəl/ | Not rational; unfounded, nonsensical or wrong-headed. |
| announcer noun | /əˈnaʊnsɚ/ | One who makes announcements. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| come down verb | To descend, fall down, collapse. |
| cut out verb | To refrain from (doing something, using something etc.), to stop or cease (doing something). |
| find out verb | To discover, as by asking or investigating. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | must've been sleeping · i've been living |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | i've experienced · I've only experienced · has been |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | wasn't felt · was felt · was woken |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | earthquake, which was · people who lived · people who were |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 26 contractions and reduced forms, such as I've, I'm, wasn't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: earthquake /ˈɝθkweɪk/, ninth /naɪnθ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: shake /ˈʃeɪk/, aftershock /ˈæftɜɹʃɔk/, irrational /ɪˈɹæʃ.(ə.)nəl/
- Long words — get the stress right: epicentre /ˈɛpɪˌsɛntɚ/, irrational /ɪˈɹæʃ.(ə.)nəl/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like earthquake, shake, tsunami.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.