Shadowing Practice: 20 Minutes of REAL English Listening Practice 👂 - Native Conversation with New Vocab! S1E6 (B2-C1) - Learn English Speaking with Video

Cheers.

Cheers Laura.

Happy Sunday.

Happy Sunday?

Does it feel like a Sunday?

No it doesn't.

No because we're working I suppose we're filming.

Normally Sundays are supposed to be like relaxing days.

But I'm pretty relaxed.

This is quite relaxing filming.

What would you associate with a Sunday?

Football on.

Yeah football on.

You don't watch the football.

I don't watch but hearing it in the background, hearing like, oh, that's a great girl, like hearing all that, and maybe like a late morning breakfast, stuff like that.

Yeah, nice.

But today we're not talking about Sundays.

We're not.

We're talking about technology.

Technology.

So I want to know, what is your earliest memory of technology in your house?

Oh my gosh.

As in like something, not like the telly, I suppose, something that was a bit new, a bit interesting, like, oh, this is fun.

I do.

I remember my dad buying a DVD player.

Do you remember getting the DVD?

Yeah, i do i because we had a vhs yeah um

but then that broke so then they've still got it it's a dvd

and vhs player um and so i remember him coming home from work

or from the shop and he had kids look what i brought home yeah a little bit

and um and he had finding nemo on dvd so i know

that it was about 2003 when that happened so

when i was maybe six years old does that sound about

that counts yeah can you imagine there was a time where

we thought vhs's will will always be here that's how we

watch movies like we never conceived of a world without vhs

that was just how we can see same with dvds well

that's how we watch the dvds that's how it works we never be watching a thing about this

and then there was a whole thing about for maybe two years people don't remember this

hd dvd or blu -ray there was a competition what do you remember this

so people think that there was just dvds then blu -ray yeah not then blu -ray

because people like you know

but for the hd movies there was a thing called hd dvd

and different companies would like sided with different ones

so um like universal only did hd dvd and so and

so and so different ones and xbox 360 yeah they created like a additional drive that would only play hd dvd

things whereas playstation 3 playstation 3 had blu -ray

there you go after two years after two years hdvd went bust i don't understand what was

so great about blu -ray was supposed to be just better quality was

that what it was better quality better sound

and it is it is i don't think i read i definitely remember blu -ray being a thing

and i remember being like i remember going to the shops

and seeing that blu -ray is always so much more expensive

and being like what's so great about blu -ray yeah why are we blu -ray

so much yeah did you ever have a blu -ray player

did you have to have a special blu -ray player yeah

but then that's what playstation did really well

so there was a blu -ray player yeah

that was really expensive it's like 400 quid to buy a blu -ray player

but playstation 3 had you could play blu -ray on it oh i think i knew that so

that was a stroke of genius i think the earliest memory

i've got of like sorry we've got a spider on the

wall here oh be careful with him goodbye spider where's he

living i don't know he's gone down there i'm not we're

not scared of spiders in this house we're we're not we're

fine yeah some people get really scared of spiders we're fine um

and we get quite a few spiders so it's

so it's good um my earliest memory is having like a we had a study

and it was like a computer room

and you had like a big fat computer

and a big like thing it was

that it took up didn't take up the whole room

but it was like you come in here to use the

computer i remember crashing the family computer crash oh yeah

because you i broke it

so what happened was there was a thing called LimeWire yeah

did you have LimeWire did you get it I had it

for a bit I don't think I I wasn't to download films

or music music I don't know

if my parents know this we have to say this online

watching this we're gonna get arrested no we're not gonna go it's been too long now everyone was doing it

so all the kids at school were using LimeWire right

and it was a way to just get free music

so you it was like having spot what Spotify is now

but free yeah it was amazing it's I was like how

old it was like unlocking iTunes yeah I was about 10 I think

and all the kids were using it

and they were like have you got LimeWire

and I said no they were like bullying me for it

so if I do go to prison it's only because of peer pressure

and what happened was I went home

and I went download LimeWire I got this music

and I had it for like a day

and I was like this is the best thing ever listening to music

and then I went the next day and turned on the computer

and it was like death had fallen upon

that computer it wasn't nothing was working pop -ups things were crashing everything was just it was like

if it was a robot it'd be going like that and

so what i did was i just turned the whole computer off

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and i just but nothing was obvious

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that it was from limewire it was just like the computer i uninstalled limewire i managed to do

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that and then and then i just turned the computer off and i just

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i just walked out of the room never mentioned it and then my dad the next day went

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what's going on with this computer oh my goodness and i was like Oh, is it?

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You played them.

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I just completely played like something's happened to the computer and never told them we had to get a whole new computer.

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Do they know now?

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They will if you're watching this.

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David, if you're watching.

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I think they probably...

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If anything went wrong in my house or if anything suspicious happened, normally they would think it was me.

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Yeah, and they were probably right.

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I'm guessing they did it.

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The part of the story you're missing here is your dad's going to tell you

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that he was actually buying Peruvian cigars on the black market.

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And that crashed it, yeah.

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Yeah but yeah i just remember that fear of i'd never seen a computer do

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that i didn't think it could do i didn't have a concept of what viruses were

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or whatever and just seeing the computer go into meltdown

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and being like i did this oh man we had like a we had a like a norton internet security

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or something it was well done very good we didn't clearly don't know no

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but what was really annoying about it was that it took up

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so much memory on the computer

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that it slowed the computer down the antivirus stuff yeah

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so it was like oh we'd be better off without this than with it

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and just take the risk no i don't think we did it wasn't up to me yeah

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but um but yeah that was annoying i i do remember also having a nintendo wii yes

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that i was going to say

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that was my next kind of memory of whoa this is

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amazing technology the nintendo wii is brilliant like there was the whole maybe you're not aware of this

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but there was the playstation 3 and xbox 360 battle going on

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so they are at the same time yeah well they always do tend to go though

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because for example if xbox didn't release something for two years

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while playstation everyone would get that and that would just become the thing

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that everyone has so you've got to give them a choice

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so they all tend to come out at the same time

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so um xbox so microsoft had xbox and sony had playstation

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and they had 360 and playstation 3 and then the nintendo

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and then both were kind of split it was quite quite 50 50 yeah

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and then the nintendo we came out

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and everybody bought one like it's they it's

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that i think it's maybe it's not now it's one of the fastest selling things it's the most

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the the wii sports is the one of the most purchased um video games of all time

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because it was packaged in with of course it is yeah nintendo wii um

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because everyone played and everyone could play it it meant

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that like your grandparents could have a go play a video

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game to know the buttons really it's just just do that

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and just like swing it around and it was just it was like mind -blowing

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and you thought at the time this is the future of gaming like it will always be like this

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but then people just kind of got a bit lazy i suppose

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and the novelty wore off

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and people went like i can't be bothered every time i want to play games like stand up

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and stuff i liked just well it wasn't even and then

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and then very quickly it became the we became like pointing

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and clicking yeah you figured out the way to do it

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so no no it wasn't even like it like the actual

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motion controls for a lot of games after it wasn't actually it was it was just pointing and clicking

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so you could do it from your seat it wasn't yeah

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i think i liked the we fit more than the way

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i loved the we fit yeah i remember getting the we

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fit standing on it as like a 10 year old

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and it goes you are obese and you go oh okay then

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and it would go oh yeah mental i mean

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because i was always really tall for my age

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so it thinks i'm like a 12 year old girl standing on there

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and because i'm

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so tall i was bigger like i was you had to put your height yeah maybe you were obese

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i was just a breeze um funny it was good it was

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but it took like eight batteries it had like eight yeah double a batteries underneath yeah

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and the one we have to sit on it

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and just watch the candle yeah

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that was mental make sure the candle doesn't go out

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but i think there's always like new things

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that come out where you think this is it do you remember when you got your first phone

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um yes my because my brother's old nokia

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and the whole point was it was like one of those ones with the buttons

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and just literally just like a little screen

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and i think the whole point was my parents went okay laura can have it

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but we're not going to give her any credit

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so she can have a bit of like a play phone

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it was supposed to be like laura can say i've got a phone

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but there's never going to be she can't use it yeah

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and it was like your brother wasn't using it anymore yeah

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and he had got a new phone

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but then my nan one day went here's 10 pounds for credit on your phone like that

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and then my mom was like we're not really supposed to

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be giving her like credit that's not what we're supposed to do

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but she's given her the present and then from then i had credit on it

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so i must have been nine oh that's mental no

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but it wasn't like an iphone all i could do was text

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and call people

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so i think i literally was just texting my mum going like hi i'm well it was really like yeah

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and to be fair maybe i had a phone did i

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have a phone in primary school i don't know it's weird

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because you you feel like you're a different age that you're like

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when with the age that you are you feel different

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so i don't know actually i'm not sure um i do remember having a phone

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and going to a birth i think i told you this before

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but going to a birthday party

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and i had no pockets um i had no pockets

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but i had a phone with me and then i realized

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when i was in the car

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because my mom my friend's mom picked us up to go to this party

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and then i realized i had the phone in my hand

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but no pockets and it was like a year six kind of

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but or year seven maybe birthday party and like so

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that you know you wanted to dance you wanted to you know run around

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but i had my phone in my hand

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so i thought what am i gonna do

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so i put it in my shoe in your sock wasn't

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it no in my shoe it was just in my shoe

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and i thought the whole time i will just not stand

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on my on one foot i'll just go on my tiptoes basically on one foot

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so i don't squash the screen and then i thought i got away with it

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and we got in the car at the end of the party

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and like it was just completely smashed phones were

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so breakable back then i feel like my phone was breaking

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all of the time yeah they were a lot softer

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and just yeah and i think just maybe maybe

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because we were kids

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and we were more frivolous with them we were throwing them around a lot more maybe

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but then also i don't think that people took them everywhere

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as much as they do now that's true sometimes you would

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just not like for example why would a phone need to

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be waterproof you're not taking it to the bathroom right yeah

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or like you're not taking to the beach why are you

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taking your phone to the beach like just go to the

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beach yeah i was saying this the other day about this is an interesting point

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because i was saying do you remember i said to you like

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when we were younger

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or like no okay i've said before sorry i'm melting down like my computer um

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that because we live in quite a futuristic time

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and we're in a technologically advanced time I can't like I feel like okay

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so when kids were in the 50s they couldn't have imagined social media

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or iPhones they couldn't have imagined that because it was

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so far from what they had whereas now I feel like I can fathom most things

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that will happen in the future like I can imagine lots of stuff

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and I was thinking at one point I was like I don't think there's anything

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that they could surprise me with like technologically with advancements I don't think there's anything they could bring out

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that I'd go whoa but then I thought about it

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and I was like no like ai making songs

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or like ai taking britney spears's voice

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and making her sing bohemian rhapsody i never would have fathomed

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that like like three years ago yeah no even a few years ago i never would have thought

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that technology would be able to do that so there are still things

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that are still surprising me which is mad like i thought you can't surprise me

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but i never would have thought

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that even like the new life the new iphone can you

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can just generate emojis yeah whatever you want you can just put a penguin eat in a pineapple

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and it will generate the emoji and i know

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that that's just a small like silly but you'd never think

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that we'd be able to do that

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but like even like last year i wouldn't have thought like we think emojis emojis are emojis yeah

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but now we will very quickly come to a time where we will say oh

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when i was your age you only had a couple to

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choose from you you just had you had the emojis

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that they gave you yeah and they

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and people will think that's weird what do you think about this whole ai thing

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because i'm i get very scared by it i think it's like a tiger in a cage

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and we're going to let it out and then we're never able to get

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that tiger back in the cage

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and it's just going to be a bit of a disaster

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that's my very pessimistic view on ai yeah no same same

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because we've built a world so far based on us working

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and doing stuff and then what an absolute shift

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when you've got thousands of people who work millions of people who won't have jobs

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because ai's doing it

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but is this what happened in the victorian times industrial revolution you know with people yeah people's jobs going

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because of machines yeah and then the argument is

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that we will just find new um we will just find new jobs to do other than just running ai

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but then ai will get so clever it'll run itself doesn't need people yeah and also i don't like ai creating

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in creative stuff i don't mind it doing like data

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or like stuff but what i don't like is it doing art

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or like music that's that's kind of the thing

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that makes us human now that's what makes us different yeah human expression yeah

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and so the fact that we're going oh hey i can just make music why on earth

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if i was a company

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and i needed to make a jingle for my commercial i needed something

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that went like flowers in the vase like to be in the commercial i could hire a musician

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and i need a drummer and a and a pianist

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and a singer it's gonna cost me loads for them to do

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that or i could just type in ai

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but of course i'm going to choose that because it's cheaper so less

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and less musicians going to get jobs i agree i agree

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i think i think it's um i think what might to happen

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so imagine if we if we have a a statue

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or figurine of something

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if a figurine of um a man in a hat um

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is made in a factory plastic like mass -produced that's gonna be quite cheap

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and very throwaway very disposable but then people still do carve things out of wood

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or like make things out of steel or iron

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or whatever handmade stuff and it's just it just costs more money

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and i think weirdly that will start to happen with like creative things

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so maybe in the future um there'll be music But then, oh, you're going to listen to, like, a real song.

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Did you not?

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Like, maybe people will say, you know, this song is made by an actual person.

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Yeah.

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And they'll go, wow, actually, this is really good.

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Yeah.

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It's like when you have homemade bread versus bread from the shop.

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And it's a novelty when you have homemade bread.

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And they go, oh, I made this myself.

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Like when you have art on the wall and it's an original rather than a print.

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That's the original.

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But you pay the premium.

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But that's not good

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if it becomes a thing of real music is a premium

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of like what you have to pay more no it's not i'm not saying it's good

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but maybe that's just what will happen um yeah

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or like a book will just be it'll be more it'll be a novelty

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that it's written by a person maybe

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but then we're part of the problem like this mug nobody

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like this mug was made in a factory this coaster was

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made in a factory this this this was made in ikea

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this like there might then there will be people who hand make like carpenters who hand make things

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that will hate the fact that people buy flatback furniture yeah

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that will be like i can't believe you're like it already

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exists our friend um one of our friends hates ai hates ai um to the writer yeah

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and he said that um he said

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that it takes away all of all like creativity

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and we need all this stuff and you should use your brain

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so for example if i need if i had 400 people um

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and the names of 400 people

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and i had to put their names in alphabetical order it's more efficient to just put them into chat gbt

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and just say hey can you put this into alphabetical order for example

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and it will um that's more efficient i don't need to use my brain for

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that but he he uses he says

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that we should be using our brain like it our brain is used to having a task

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and working on it that kind of thing

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but then i asked him okay when you're writing something on a word document and

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if you misspell something a little red line appears right the

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red line automatically appears yeah by his logic would he just write

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and then go back

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and have to check it all check all the spelling no he wouldn't it would be there

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when it says that

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when it says there's a little red line under um november he would right click

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and just spell check

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and click the right one he would not go hmm how do i spell

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that go to a dictionary he wouldn't right he wouldn't

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if he and even then

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if he wanted to go to a dictionary what would he do would he actually go to a library

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and find a book of like a dictionary and open it

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and look no he would just google how to spell but

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so we're already cutting corners i think i agree

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that well he i was discussing this with him

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and he said he said what we are doing now is like we've got a chainsaw

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and we are like we have a forest and we have a chainsaw

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so yes it's easier to cut down a tree

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but what ai would do is just we'd have like a lawnmower basically

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that would just cut down an entire forest like that

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and that's not good so it's about moderation same with everything same with like social media

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and phones we're not good at doing moderation no people can't

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moderate why can't we get take ai for the useful things

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and then leave it for the other things why can't we go why can't there be laws

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that say okay we're allowed to use ai for this this this

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but you can't use it for this this this this we're

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just using it for everything like i think ai would be

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great for like kind of administrative things like um uh

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or like data processing or there's lots of good uses for ai

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but then they say look we're drawing a line at but

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but but but but there's no moderation it's just we're using it for everything

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and that's what i think is always the issue we're not

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able to just do it in the healthier manners like i

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don't have i don't have an issue with ai driving a

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car i have no issue with driving a car well that's what ai is driverless cars is AI, isn't it?

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Do they exist?

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Yeah.

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There are videos of people getting in cars in taxis and it's driverless.

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Where are these?

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Where are these cars?

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They're some in the States.

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Really?

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Yeah.

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Goodness.

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So I don't have a problem.

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You know, I don't have a problem with driverless cars

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because driving a car is not something that is fundamentally part of the human experience.

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It's something that we've only started doing in the last like 100 years

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and we're only doing it because we want need to hold on

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so a robot coming in

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and taking over i think fine yeah we we were not put on this planet to drive cars no

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but we were we were put on this planet to um to navigate to navigate

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so to navigate from a to b in

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that walking we can still walk no but people wouldn't walk

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and also people don't walk and also what the equivalent of what you're saying is

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if if we are in the the the tudor era with like henry the eighth around

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if if somebody said hey you don't have to you don't have to ride a horse anywhere

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or ride a carriage anywhere or walk anywhere you can just click your fingers

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and teleport there basically and i know that that's not exactly the same here

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but driverless cars would mean that people just it's one

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another thing

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that people just wouldn't be using their brain for i actually look forward to i look forward to driving

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because we work from home we don't i don't drive every day yeah

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so when i drive i do drive long distances probably like once

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or twice a week and when i do i look forward to it

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because it just it's a bit engaged it engages me actually it engages me whereas if

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if you just have a driverless car it's another it's another

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thing it's another reason to make people just sit somewhere

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and just go on their phone it is true we will just get i think there's there's no way

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that we could have ai being really prevalent in society

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and having a clever society i think it's there's no way

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because as soon as ai is doing everything everyone just goes well why do i bother

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but maybe we'll be happier if we're dumber maybe

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if society is dumber and we have to think less we don't feel

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that maybe we'll be happier well this is probably

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because we'll just be like you know what it's probably as

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intelligent as the general human what do we know look at us

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but i'm guessing if i had to guess this is as intelligent as the human race has ever been probably yeah

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maybe the rome maybe like the egyptians but we'll go backwards

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if ai becomes everywhere surely yeah yeah this fee it my

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opinion it feels like uh we're gonna go we're gonna we're gonna just we're gonna we've taken society

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and civilization so far we're just handing it to technology you take it from here we're gonna sit back

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and we're gonna retire like humans are gonna retire

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and have lived the retirement life

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which will probably sound might be great it might be great

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if we're all a bit yeah going back to what you said about art maybe

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if people have more time people will just make will make

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more things only time will tell what a perfect ending to the video someone's at the door.

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I'll talk to you next time, eh?

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Thank you, Laura.

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Let's go get the door.

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Bye!

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 Practice: 20 Minutes of REAL English Listening Practice 👂 - Native Conversation with New Vocab! S1E6 (B2-C1) - Learn English Speaking with Video

Who Will Benefit from This Video?

Key Vocabulary & Phrases to Add to Your Toolkit

Mastering Pronunciation with Shadow Speech

What is the Shadowing Technique?