Shadowing Practice: 10 very promising Open Source Projects you haven’t heard of - Learn English Speaking with Video

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I just discovered a way to build a billion dollar startup

entirely from free open source software from the most talented programmers in the world.

Actually, everybody knows that already.

Like, why pay an engineer when you can just use their stuff for free on GitHub?

In today's video, we're going to cheat off the smart kids homework

and look at some of the coolest open source libraries that you've never heard of.

Tools that will make your apps faster, better looking, and less expensive to run.

You'll ask yourself, what the fk?

How have I not been using that already?

And that brings us to library number one, the fk?

Normally, when you type a command into the terminal and make a typo, you just say fk in your head and then retype the command from scratch.

The fk makes this process much more intuitive, allowing you to simply type fk into the terminal, then it will attempt to reformat your command automatically.

To be honest, it's pretty fking useful.

Here's a problem that anybody who's ever built a website has faced.

Even if you work really hard to create a tiny JavaScript bundle, the product manager will eventually tell you to add a bunch of other junk like Mixpanel, Intercom, and Google Analytics.

These third-party scripts clog up the main thread and will make your app slow no matter what.

Luckily, there's an open-source library called PartyTown that can run third-party scripts from a web worker.

JavaScript is single-threaded, but modern browsers allow you to run background jobs via web workers.

PartyTown will offload any scripts that don't deal directly with the UI into a web worker, and that means the only thing on the main thread is your UI, which leads to a faster, more responsive website.

Another problem that every app developer will need need to solve is user authentication.

Firebase is great, but it's somewhat feature limited.

Auth0 is great, but it's expensive.

And that brings us to Super Tokens, which is an open source authentication solution.

It provides SDKs for runtimes like Node and Python, allowing you to quickly self-host a fully featured authentication system with support for OAuth providers,

passwordless login, but most importantly, it deals with session management and security.

Pretty cool, but it's got nothing on this next one.

HiMom is a blazingly fast JavaScript library that can say hi to your mom in record time.

Here's a pro tip if you're building an open source library.

Make sure that the readme includes phrases like blazingly fast, bleeding edge, holistic approach, and game changing

because they make your library better the same way putting flame stickers on a car makes it go faster.

Next up, we have a two-for-one.

Many businesses out there need to build their own full-text search engine, either for internal data or to build a search engine for their customers.

You could go with Elasticsearch, but it's expensive and complicated if you self-host.

There are two very promising open-source alternatives.

One is Melee Search, implemented in Rust, and the other is Zync, implemented in Go.

Both provide a fast, simplified way to build your own search engine.

Now, our next library, trcp, tprc, trpc, is exceptionally cool, but a little harder to explain.

If you're building an API today, there are two main approaches, Rust and GraphQL.

I won't go into the differences right now, although I do have videos for that, but there's another less talked about approach called RPC, or Remote Procedure Call.

And basically, it's just a URL on a server, but unlike REST that corresponds to an entity, it corresponds to a function that you want to run on the server.

This approach actually makes a ton of sense for many modern applications.

TRPC allows you to build entirely type-safe APIs without the need for schemas or code generation like you would with GraphQL.

Overall, I think it has the potential to fundamentally simplify the way we build full-stack web applications.

Speaking of simplification, one company that has simplified the modern database is Airtable.

The only problem is that you have to pay a company to use it.

If only there was an open-source alternative.

NocoDB does exactly that.

It's an open-source Airtable that can be built on top of your own MySQL or Postgres database.

In other words, it's an open-source no-code database or smart spreadsheet.

As a developer, another piece of software you may want to replace is Postman, your HTTP client.

An awesome open source alternative is Hopscotch, which is built with Vue.js and TypeScript entirely as a progressive web app.

Not only is it open source, but you can go use it in the browser right now at Hopscotch.io

and then install it as a PWA on your desktop.

And now it runs in a native window and allows you to interact with your file system.

Now, if you've ever coded in Python, then try JavaScript later, you might be shocked at how difficult it is to work with multi-dimensional arrays.

What is this?

In Python, we have libraries like pandas that can do all kinds of useful stuff to an array or data frame.

Not many people realize that there's a library called DanfoJS

that is inspired by pandas and can do many of the things you know and love, like read a CSV file and process the data within it before it gets sent to a machine learning library like TensorFlow.

That's pretty useful, but the hardest thing in front-end web development is making your website look good.

There's a million different tools out there that can help you do that, but one I've been really loving recently for React is Mantine.

Not only does it have a bunch of well-crafted UI components, like this nice-looking timeline, but it also has a bunch of built-in hooks

that handle many of the annoying things that you'll come across when building a web app, like debouncing an input or paginating a collection of items.

On top of that, it has optional packages for a notification system, rich text editor, and a drop zone for file uploads.

It's so awesome that we use it in one of the demo apps in the full React course on Fireship.io.

Check it out if you want to build a serious app with React.

Now the problem with all the libraries that we've looked at

so far is that they require you to know how to write some code.

If you have an idea for a full stack application, but want to skip the whole learn to code part, an open source tool to check out is Amplication.

It's a tool that can automatically generate both your front end

and back end code based on relationships to data models in a database that you can manage visually.

The back end is built with other open source tools like Node, NestJS, and Prisma, while the front end is based on React.

Even if you do know how to code, this is a tool that can speed up your workflow.

And that gives you 10 new open source libraries to try out in your next project.

Hit the like button and subscribe.

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

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Speaking Goals for This Clip

This video is ideal for practicing conversational fluency and natural pacing in English. The speaker uses casual, expressive language—like exclamations and rhetorical questions—to engage the audience, making it perfect for mastering how to sound confident and relatable. By shadowing this clip, you’ll learn to transition smoothly between explaining technical concepts and adding conversational flair, a key milestone for everyday and professional speaking.

Phrase Bank

"I just discovered a way to..." – Great for introducing new ideas.
"Here's a problem that anybody who's ever... has faced" – Useful for framing common challenges.
"Luckily, there's an open-source library called..." – Perfect for presenting solutions.
"Pretty cool, but it's got nothing on this next one" – Adds emphasis when comparing ideas.
"Speaking of simplification, one company that has..." – Smoothly transitions between topics.

Fix Your Weak Spots

The video’s fast, conversational rhythm helps tackle reduced speech and intonation—two common weak spots. Phrases like "fk" (colloquial for "frick") and "blazingly fast" are spoken quickly, with connected sounds that mimic real-life conversation. Using a shadowing app, practice matching the speaker’s tone: raise your voice for exclamations ("How have I not been using that already?") and lower it for explanations. Focus on blending words like "a bunch of" or "sort of" to avoid sounding too stilted. Shadow speech exercises with this clip will also improve your ability to stress key terms (e.g., "single-threaded," "type-safe") while keeping the flow natural. Whether you use shadowspeak or another method, repeating these phrases aloud will help you sound more like a native speaker in technical and casual settings alike.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	you've never heard · has faced · has simplified
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	can be built · is built · might be shocked
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	Tokens, which is · Hopscotch, which is

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.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: 10 very promising Open Source Projects you haven’t heard of - Learn English Speaking with Video

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