Shadowing Practice: 18 Natural English Phrases You’ll Actually Use in Conversation - Learn English Speaking with Video

If your plan has ever backfired or you felt a little off kilter, don't worry.

In today's lesson, I'm going to teach you exactly what these phrases mean.

I'm going to teach you 19 natural phrases

that you can start to use in your everyday English that will make you sound like a native English speaker.

And honestly, it will make you more comfortable in your conversations because you'll feel like you can really express yourself.

And when others use these phrases, you'll understand exactly what they mean.

If you want to become my student, make sure to visit EnglishWithKayla .com where you can join my monthly membership.

You can learn more about the phrases in today's lesson, and I'll have plenty of lessons waiting there for you as well.

Let's get started.

I'm going to teach you these 19 phrases that will help you in your everyday English.

If you give someone a thumbs up on something, it means it gets your approval.

We'll give a thumbs up.

Yeah.

A lot of times in the United States, we talk about movies as getting two thumbs up meaning it was very good it was pretty good now

if we say oh yeah you get the thumbs up on

that that means i approve of it it's good you know it's not neutral

but it's just saying like i like it it's good

but it's not saying you know this is the best thumbs up means good

or literally we might just say hey i give

that a thumbs up you might not literally put your thumbs up to say good

but in the united states this is what we mean

when we say

that something gets a thumbs up your friend maybe they're not

actually an artist maybe they make a picture they draw a picture for you

and they say what do you think of this

and you might say i give it a thumbs up

that means i approve of it it's pretty good you're not saying it was amazing

and you're not saying it was bad you're just giving your approval one phrase

that i used the other day in my natural english i

was like i need to teach my students this phrase is scratch

that uh scratch that so sometimes

if you're thinking out loud maybe you're just kind of casually saying your ideas you're thinking

and you're saying what you're thinking at the same time you might say something

that is not exactly what you want so you might say ah scratch

that I mean that means take that off the list

or erase that pretend like I didn't just say

that we're gonna change what we're doing here

so the other day I was telling my husband what I needed from the grocery store

and I say can you just buy a gallon of milk

and then i say scratch

that actually two two gallons of milk we're going to need more

so it's kind of like you're going back on what you just said

because you realized that you need more of something

or you need something changed you need a different scratch

that i'm going to need this instead so it just means forget

that or erase that it's a really nice common idiom

that we use in the united states do you know what it means to pick favorites you pick your favorites

when we talk about picking favorites we usually are talking about parents grandparents teachers

you know they're kind of giving favoritism towards either a group of students or children

or just one in particular so sometimes we say good parents should not pick favorites

so if there's you know they have many siblings in the family they shouldn't say oh this kid's my favorite

or they shouldn't treat one kid better than the other same with teachers

or you could just kind of jokingly say this in a

workplace as well like hey don't pick favorites to your boss

so you can use this in a joking way like i

just did like haha are you picking favorites meaning you're treating one person better than the rest

because you like them more

or you can use this in a serious way as well like

that coach tends to pick favorites and he only plays the players

that he likes rather than saying you know they treat everyone fairly so

when we use this phrase pick favorites it means they treat

people better than others depending on who they like they don't

give fair treatment to everyone this next phrase it's a little complicated to start using

but it's really a nice phrase to have

and to be able to start using

so I'm going to teach it to you

so there's something to be said about learning English online

and there is something to be said when I say this it means

that there are a lot of benefits for learning English online.

It's the exact same way but this is how we naturally say this in English.

There's something to be said about working from home.

This means working from home has a lot of benefits.

It's good.

Or you might be thinking about you know how busy you want to be

and you might say there's something to be said about having no plans on a weekend.

Meaning it's nice to be free and have no plans and not be super busy on a weekend.

So this is used in really casual context

when you want to express how good

or how beneficial something is there's something to be said about waking up early in the morning

and exercising right away it means there's something to be said

it means there is a benefit to this one phrase

that my husband always uses is a stick in the mud you are such a stick in the mud

if someone is not being fun.

They're being very strict.

They don't want to try new things.

he'll say, you're being a stick in the mud or that person's a stick in the mud.

Oftentimes, if I'm not being very spontaneous or very flexible, he'll say, stop being such a stick in the mud.

So this isn't a super insulting phrase.

Like I don't get really mad when he says this, but it just means, you know, be more flexible, be more open, have more fun instead of being a stick in the mud.

If someone is really boring and they don't want to try new things, you could use this phrase.

It's not super insulting.

It's pretty playful, but it's a good phrase to use

when you're trying to get someone to have more fun and to lighten up.

This next phrase, if you've ever been to a really great restaurant, you've been on a great vacation, you can use this.

So if you want to say that a restaurant was really good, you can say it was top notch.

Top notch.

That restaurant was top notch.

The food was top notch.

The service was top notch.

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The vacation we went on was top notch you're just saying everything was the best

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or extremely high quality

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when you use this phrase top notch means the same as high quality in english this idiom is just used

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when we're describing things that were really great experiences

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so we often use this when we're talking about certain products like food restaurants hotels

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and a lot of times we're using top notch to describe our experience

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or to describe the skills that someone has or the service

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that they gave we don't necessarily say

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that shirt is top -notch to mean it's really good

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but you could say the quality on this shirt is top -notch meaning it's not going to fall apart easily

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or get damaged easily it feels like it was well made have you ever heard an english speaker say

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that something was off kilter feels off kilter

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so off kilter we can use this to mean

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that something is unbalanced like you could say my chair is off kilter right now meaning it's wobbling

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Or that table looks a little off kilter, meaning it's uneven or unbalanced.

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A lot of times we use off kilter to mean that something didn't feel quite right.

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That conversation was off kilter.

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I feel like that person wasn't being super honest.

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So this would be a way that we use this more idiomatically to mean like just something was off.

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It didn't feel like completely usual.

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It felt unusual.

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It doesn't mean there's a big problem.

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You could say, my stomach felt a little off kilter yesterday.

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This means it felt a little sick.

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Like maybe you didn't barf or have any big problems, but something just didn't feel settled in your stomach.

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You felt just a little bit sick, just a little off kilter.

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It was off kilter.

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In the news or in your everyday conversations, you might hear the phrases high stakes or low stakes.

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Thrilling high stakes adventure.

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It's a very low stakes situation.

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If something is high stakes, it means that it's very serious and it's going to have serious consequences.

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So you might say this decision is really high stakes.

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Now, if you say, don't worry, it's just low stakes, it means no matter what happens, it's not going to have big consequences.

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So a presidential election, we might say, has some really high stakes.

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You know, whoever wins, they could send us into this war, they could spend money on this in our country.

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In the United States, when we talk about politics we usually say things are high stakes meaning they're very important

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now

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when we think about decisions in our everyday life like what

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am i going to eat what am i going to wear

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who am i going to hang out with a lot of

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times these are low stakes meaning they have low consequences

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so like maybe i wear a red shirt don't worry it's

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low stakes i can wear the blue shirt tomorrow it's not

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going to have high consequences another common way you'll hear these

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phrases use you could say the stakes are high here meaning

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that the consequences are going to be big

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so a lot of times in sports we say you know

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this is the championship game the stakes are high meaning whoever wins will win the championship

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and whoever loses will lose the championship

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so obviously you can use this phrase in many different ways

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or if you say the stakes are low don't worry you're telling a person

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that they shouldn't be so stressed about a decision or stressed about their actions because whatever happens they will be okay.

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There's not huge consequences.

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Many times we talk about plans, comments, jokes backfiring on us.

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What does backfire means?

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It backfires.

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This means that whatever we wanted to happen the opposite happens instead.

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So for instance you might try to make a joke to make a situation more funny

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or more light but instead the person takes offense to your joke

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and they get more serious and they get angry at you

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so you could say well that joke really backfired I'm sorry or maybe you have a plan to save money

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and you try out the plan

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and instead you end up spending more money you could say

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my plan really backfired here i ended up spending way more money you might have an old boyfriend

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or an old girlfriend and you want them to be jealous of you know your new boyfriend

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or your new girlfriend and you kind of show them you post some pictures online of you

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and you know you text

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that person like what do you think of my new boyfriend

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they might say he seems cool like have fun like i

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don't want anything to do with you you may say well

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that plan really backfired i didn't make them jealous i actually made them more uninterested

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so something like that could backfire we either say the plan backfired

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or the plan backfired on me meaning it did not work

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how i wanted it to it worked the opposite speaking of relationships

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when two people are really in love

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and then they slowly lose interest we can say they fizzled

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out fizzled out this means there wasn't like a big breakup

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there was no big powerful fights it just means they slowly slowly gradually lost interest

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and ended the relationship we can also use fizzle out for things

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when we're talking about my excitement fizzled out like i was really excited for my birthday

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but as it got closer my excitement kind fizzled out i

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was like oh this is a lot of work to have a big party

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or whatever so when things are kind of gradually ending

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or gradually going down like excitement emotions a relationship we say

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they fizzled out sometimes we can literally talk about a light

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or a candle fizzling out meaning it's slowly you know dimming going down sometimes

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when you're in a conversation with someone

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and you start losing interest in the conversation

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or you start you know losing things to talk about like

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you're kind of running out of things to talk about

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because our conversation kind of fizzled out meaning you know it

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started out like we were having a really good conversation

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and really you know clicking having good energy

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but it started to fizzle out

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and we didn't really care about it anymore we didn't want

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to talk to each other anymore not like you're fighting just like you're losing interest one phrase

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that i really like to use

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and i've taught before is to up the ante they're up in the ante

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so this is kind of like raising the stakes

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or like raising the consequences or adding some motivation to something

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so for instance maybe you say let's bet ten dollars on

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this just to kind of up the ante you could think of ante as excitement

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or motivation here maybe you're golfing with someone

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and you're gonna say to up the ante let's bet a hundred dollars on this game

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so you're kind of increasing the risk

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and increasing the pressure on the game you're trying to make the situation either more competitive

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or more intense by upping the ante i use one of these phrases the other day

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so i had to write it down to teach you

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if you say that something is either a hard ask or a tough ask.

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It's a tough one.

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It means you're asking a lot of a person.

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You're asking for kind of a big favor

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or you can't expect them to actually do this just out of the kindness or whatever it might be.

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You could be at work and you can say, I know this is a tough ask, but do you think you can finish this by Friday?

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I really need it.

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Meaning you know that it's kind of a favor.

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You're asking someone to do something that's very difficult.

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You're kind of showing the person that you know you're asking a lot of them

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or you're asking for something unrealistic by saying i know this is a tough ask

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or this is a hard ask

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and you can say to someone hey that's a really hard ask

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or that's a tough ask meaning you're asking me for something

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really unrealistic maybe your friend says hey could i borrow your

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car for a whole week you might say that's a tough

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ask i really need my car meaning that's you know asking for a pretty big favor

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This next idiom is really useful as well.

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If we think about someone standing on a cliff, you know, not a real cliff, but in their mind, we call that an emotional edge.

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If we say we're going to push them over the edge,

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it means you can cause someone who's already stressed to become super overwhelmed and just make the situation really bad for them.

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For instance, maybe your friend has a really hard week they've been busy at work, they've had some family problems, and they're supposed to get on an airplane to go home.

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Their airplane, their flight, gets delayed.

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So now they are pushed over the edge.

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They're so overwhelmed and stressed out.

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They already had a lot going on.

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They say, oh, my flight getting delayed really pushed me over the edge.

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This just means it became too much.

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It was another problem on top of all my other problems.

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A lot of times when we say, oh, that really just pushed me over the edge it means you have big problems going on

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and just a small thing

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really kind of push you over the emotional edge it made you really stressed out

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because you have too much going on

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so you can see this phrase is very useful for someone who's very busy

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and has a lot of work or things going on in their life.

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in english if we can't think of a word

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that is good enough to describe something

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or describe a situation we can say well for lack of a better word it was

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and then you fill in the blank for lack of a

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better word let me give you an example here maybe you are at a party

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and two of your exes show up so maybe it's an ex -girlfriend

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or ex -boyfriend two of them show up and you're at the party

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and you're like this is so weird this is so

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and you say for lack of a better word awkward meaning

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it's extremely awkward you just don't have the right word to describe it

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because the situation is kind of extreme or a lot of times you know

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if there's something very sad

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that happens you can say ah for lack of a better

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word this is such a tragedy meaning it's extremely tragic it's

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extremely sad you can't describe how sad the situation is with just words it shows

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that you can't really describe the situation with words you don't have the perfect word for it

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so you're just using what you have it's used often in extreme situations

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or it can be a good situation as well like for

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lack of a better word i am ecstatic right now this

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just means you're very very happy you've probably heard english speakers

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say whatsoever whatsoever this is kind of a dramatic expression we

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use to say at all let me give you an example

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because i know this word is kind of confusing for english

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learners you could say something like i am not interested in

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becoming famous whatsoever this just means at all like this sounds very unappealing for you

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so this just adds emphasis in any sort of situation you

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use this word for instance instead of saying i have no

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interest in becoming famous it's kind of neutral like it doesn't

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sound very good to you you can say i have no interest whatsoever it's becoming more dramatic you're emphasizing

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that you really don't want this thing

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when we talk about networking either just socially with old friends

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or in professional situations sometimes we say reach out to this

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person maybe you could reach out to someone this just means contact this person either

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if you've never met them before and they could be helpful to you

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or you might say i'm going to reach out to an old friend i've met them before

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but i just kind of want to talk with them again communicate with them kind of rekindle

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or restart the relationship so oftentimes we use this

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when we're talking about reconnecting with someone talking with someone we haven't talked to in a

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while or talking with someone new

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but sometimes we just say i will reach out to you

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on friday this just means like i'll talk to you on friday to see

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if you're available

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or you know i'm just going to talk to you at

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this later date it can be with a good friend

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or family member as well

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that you use this phrase on podcasts all the time I hear the hosts introduce a topic

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or introduce a guest at the beginning

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and then you know at the end of their introduction they

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say without further ado without further ado I'm not really sure the origins of this phrase

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but it just basically means like I'm not going to keep talking

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or keep introducing this person let's just get started it's kind

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of like a way to end your introduction left without further ado I'm going to talk with Kayla now

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or without further ado I'm going to introduce this topic that's important and you've been waiting for.

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So I'm pretty sure ado just means like without further unnecessary talking or whatever it might be.

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This is a really interesting phrase in English that you'll hear especially podcasts

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or any sort of talk television show or whatever it is.

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You'll hear this phrase at the beginning.

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An interesting phrase that I'm sure is used in other languages as well is

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when you want to say that you're going to give someone a last piece of advice

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or a literal gift before you leave you can say this is my parting gift

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I just wanted to give you a parting gift here's this photo of us before I leave

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or as a parting gift I'm going to give you this

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advice it just means like the last thing before you actually leave either

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if you're leaving for a long time

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or you're going away to a far distance

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or just you know you can kind of use this in

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a more playful way like as a parting gift before i go for the day even

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if you're going to see the person tomorrow you can use this phrase sarcastically too

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if someone leaves you something that you didn't want you could say wow

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that was quite the parting gift like for instance

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if someone left you a big mess you must say oh

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thanks for the parting gift meaning thanks for this big mess before you left all right i hope

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that you guys take these phrases and use them in your everyday life.

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Thank you for sticking with me through this lesson.

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If you want to learn more about these phrases, check out englishwithkayla .com and you can get the guide to this lesson,

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a quiz, and you can ask questions in the community as well.

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Make sure to visit my website.

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And if you're in the mood to learn more English, check out the next video on screen.

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I'll be happy to teach you there.

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Thanks again for watching.

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Goodbye.

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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 →

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