Shadowing Practice: 21 October 2026 - Learn English Speaking with Video
Choose a practice mode
Each mode opens a full-screen practice room.
34 sentences
If sentences are too short or too long, click Edit to adjust them.
1
1 .8 Part 1
2
With me today I have Mariana Liva Di Taki, head chef of Morito Restaurant in London.
3
Mariana, what was your favourite food when you were a child?
4
Well, at home we ate a funny mixture, because of my parents.
5
Fresh fish, bacon and eggs for breakfast on Sundays, and traditional apple pies.
6
But my favourite was fish.
7
We ate fish every day, which my dad caught.
8
In fact, my dad still goes fishing every night.
9
Wow.
10
Yeah, we were really lucky, because not all families could do that.
11
Could eat fish every day.
12
Even on an island, fish is expensive, unfortunately.
13
Did your dad catch fish for the family or for the restaurant?
14
For both, except for lobsters.
15
When he caught a lobster, he never sold it.
16
It was always for us.
17
We boiled it and ate it with lemon and olive oil.
18
You don't need anything except lemon and olive oil when fish and seafood is really fresh.
19
That's how I cook lobsters nowadays in the restaurant, in Morito.
20
Were you interested in cooking when you were a child?
21
Oh, yes.
22
I spent every evening in our restaurant, and instead of playing with the other children, I usually helped in the kitchen.
23
I wrote down recipes which I wanted to cook for the family in a small blue notebook.
24
So your love of food and cooking came from your parents?
25
From my parents and also from my aunt, and from many inspiring ladies who surrounded me when I was growing up.
26
My aunt, Thea Kula, had animals, a garden, olive trees and grapes.
27
In the summer, I often spent all day with her.
28
She knew everything about wild food in Crete.
29
She only ate what she had grown or found or made herself.
30
Such a beautiful way to eat.
31
Did you ever eat out as a child?
32
Never in the evening, because our restaurant was open for dinner seven days a week.
33
But occasionally, my mum used to buy me and my brother souvlaki for lunch, a sort of Greek sandwich with pita bread.
34
Inside it has pork, tomato, red onion and lots of thick yoghurt.
Download App
Everything you need to speak fluently
AI PronunciationScore every sentence
IPA PracticeMaster every sound
VocabularyBuild your word bank
Vocab GameLearn while playing
FOR YOU
Recommend Video
B12
32 sentences
SEtalk: What My Grandmother's Kitchen Taught Me
American AccentDaily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
160 sentences
BELLA HADID | CHICKEN SHOP DATE
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B21
224 sentences
Which Menu Will Make It? ⏲️ | MasterChef Australia | S18 Ep59 | Clip
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B21
116 sentences
Like
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B2153 sentences
Paying Strangers to Cook For Me in NYC (Thom)
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B21
387 sentences
a (chatty) wellness week in my life: new recipes, exercise routine, mental wellness & more
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B21
54 sentences
7-day free trial of semi retirement
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B1274
9 sentences
Day 5 - Food, Cooking & Family Meals | 21days speaking challenge
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B21
234 sentences
Uncle Roger RECREATE JAMIE OLIVER RAMEN
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B21
397 sentences
I Review A Restaurant In Someone's House! 10 ⭐⭐⭐!
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B21
48 sentences
Part 1: Everything I made for my Nonno’s 100th birthday!
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B21
172 sentences
I Turned My Apartment Into a Fine Dining Restaurant
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “21 October 2026”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: fish, restaurant, ate, lobster, olive. This video has 34 sentences and 358 words to shadow. The speech runs for 2:27. The speaker talks at a steady 146 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. Only 81% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| olive noun | /ˈɑ.lɪv/ | A tree of species Olea europaea cultivated since ancient times in the Mediterranean for its fruit and the oil obtained from it. |
| lobster noun | /ˈlɑb.stɚ/ | A crustacean of the Nephropidae family, dark green or blue-black in colour turning bright red when cooked, with a hard shell and claws, which is used as a… |
| aunt noun | /ɑːnt/ | The sister or sister-in-law of one’s parent. |
| lemon noun | /ˈlɛmən/ | A yellowish citrus fruit. |
| egg noun | /ɛɡ/ | An approximately spherical or ellipsoidal body produced by birds, insects, reptiles, and other animals, often housing an embryo within a membrane or shell… |
| thick adjective | /θɪk/ | Relatively great in extent from one surface to the opposite in its smallest solid dimension. |
| occasionally adverb | /əˈkeɪʒənəli/ | On occasion: at relatively infrequent intervals, from time to time, sometimes. |
| chef noun | /ʃɛf/ | The presiding cook in the kitchen of a large household. |
| recipe noun | /ˈɹɛs.ɪ.pi/ | Any set of instructions for preparing a mixture of ingredients. |
| pie noun | /paɪ/ | A type of pastry that consists of an outer crust and a filling. (Savory pies are more popular in the UK and sweet pies are more popular in the US, so "pie"… |
| mixture noun | /ˈmɪkst͡ʃɚ/ | The act of mixing. |
| bacon noun | /ˈbeɪ.kən/ | Cured meat from the sides, belly, or back of a pig. |
| sandwich noun | /ˈsæn(d).wɪd͡ʒ/ | A dish or foodstuff where at least one piece, but typically two or more pieces, of bread serves as the wrapper or container of some other food. |
| nowadays adverb | /ˈnaʊ.ə.deɪz/ | At the present time; in the current era. |
| inspire verb | /ɪnˈspaɪə(ɹ)/ | To infuse into the mind; to communicate to the spirit; to convey, as by a divine or supernatural influence; to disclose preternaturally; to produce in, as by… |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| grow up verb | To mature and become an adult. |
| write down verb | To produce or set (something) down in writing; to record something. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- Mariana, what was your favourite food when you were a child?
- Did your dad catch fish for the family or for the restaurant?
- Were you interested in cooking when you were a child?
- Did you ever eat out as a child?
Pronunciation to watch
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: occasionally /əˈkeɪʒənəli/, chef /ʃɛf/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like olive, lobster, aunt.
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.