Shadowing Practice: 2709 - When Ugly Doesn’t Mean What You Think it Means - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Lindsay, how are you today?
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Good, Aubrey.
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I'm excited to be on the microphone.
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How about you?
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How's it going?
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Excellent.
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Yes, I'm great.
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I have a question for you.
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Okay.
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Have you ever gotten a bill that was higher than you expected it to be?
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Oh my gosh.
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Kind of every time I eat out now.
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Every time I go to a restaurant.
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Yeah.
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Every time I go to a restaurant, my bill is ugly.
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I mean, what about you?
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Anything astronomically high?
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I can think of a specific example when once we're at a restaurant
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and the server recommended the seafood salad and it wasn't on the menu
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but like that sounds amazing and he brought this giant salad
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that had all of this like lobster and crab and
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when the bill came just the salad was 250 dollars
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and we were like oh my god oh
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we should have asked okay how much it was okay i i was about to chime in
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and say i had something similar happen
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but what happened to me was we were kind of upsold into a plate instead of spending like $12.
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It was a $35 meal.
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But now that you've said $250, I can't say anything.
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It was shocking.
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It was shocking.
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That's insane.
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Even that, 12 to 35 sounds a lot.
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Wow.
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$250.
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It was a lot.
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Which this was years ago.
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So inflation, that doesn't sound so much today.
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Oh, it'd be a thousand dollar plan.
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Right.
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Exactly.
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It was so much.
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And we just, cause it was, it was, we were with, it was my husband and I,
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we were trying to find a place to do our wedding luncheon.
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So it was a nicer place than we would usually go to.
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We were with his parents and my parents.
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And so we, they like split the bill and was fine.
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But both of us were just like, whoops.
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Oopsies.
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Didn't mean to do that.
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Sorry.
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I mean, they should have told you.
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They really should have.
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That felt really sneaky for us.
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That's sneaky.
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This is great.
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Get a bigger tip.
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That's kind of the definition of sneaky in a way, isn't it?
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Yeah, it felt that way.
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But I loved that you called, you know, your bill ugly.
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This came up recent.
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This was inspired by a recent episode when we were talking about my AC bill.
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And in the summer, my electric bill is always really ugly.
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But it's interesting how we use this word ugly as slang to mean terrible, disappointing, upsetting, right?
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Because of course, that's not how we usually use the word ugly.
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Yeah.
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So today we're going to show you four fun slang ways to describe something
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that is kind of disappointing or difficult or terrible or something that you dread, a bad situation.
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because that's also fun to connect about when things go terribly wrong.
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Yeah, for sure. For sure.
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So guys, go ahead and hit that follow button right now, wherever you're listening.
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If you are on YouTube, which you might be because this video is there.
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If you want to watch our videos and learn that way, you have that option too.
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So you can hit subscribe right there on the All Ears English YouTube channel.
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Definitely do that.
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But if you're in podcasting, go ahead and hit follow on the podcast.
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Awesome.
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So we are going to share four slang phrases that we use.
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And we're going to share both the literal meaning, how we usually use it, and then how we use it as slang to mean,
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like you said, you know, terrible, disappointing.
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Yes.
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Love this.
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Okay.
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So for the word ugly, starting off here, I mean, the familiar meaning that we all know is just unappealing, unattractive.
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Maybe you think a hat looks ugly on you, for example, you might say that, or I don't know.
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It's kind of a basic word.
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I feel like maybe kids might use this word a lot.
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Yeah, probably.
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Or I might say something like, you know, some people might think this painting is ugly, but I love it.
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So often we'll use this word to talk about like style, taste, you know, that someone else, you know, you might find furniture and be like,
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the average person might think this is ugly, but I think it's cool.
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That's what, like I said on a previous episode, we're looking around at houses in Denver.
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And that's a thing that happens for sure.
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When you walk into, when you're home shopping, there's a lot of ugly stuff that you see
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because people renovate their own homes and they go by based on their own taste.
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Or the first condo we moved into had all of this wallpaper and it was all so ugly.
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One of them had like giant red chili peppers all over on the walls.
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Like they just were all terrible.
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How did someone choose this?
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Oh, that's so funny.
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But then what if we want to use, go out of the literal meaning and be more of a C2 level speaker where we're using
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kind of different meanings for something, what does it mean?
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Yeah.
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So we use this to mean unpleasant, difficult, disappointing.
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So for example, my credit card bill maybe is going to be ugly after this vacation, right?
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So it's just an interesting way of like saying, I'm not looking forward to it.
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It's going to be ugly.
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Ugly or their argument ended up getting ugly.
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This is so ugly is used frequently when it comes to an altercation, some kind of a, um,
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when people are kind of going up against each other in some way, right?
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This is going to get ugly or a game, right?
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Someone got wiped out, just defeated.
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There was like no contest.
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That's a good example, right?
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It'd be like, Ooh, it was ugly.
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It was ugly.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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And so it's interesting.
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It's kind of whatever it, whatever you're talking about, we can use it in a lot of different contexts.
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We're just wanting to share that something was unpleasant.
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It did not go well for someone.
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Exactly.
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And then painful.
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Now, what does it mean literally?
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Yeah.
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So of course, this familiar meaning is causing pain.
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You might say it was extremely painful when I injured my shoulder, but very similar to ugly.
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We also use painful as slang to mean something's unpleasant or difficult.
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Like that medical bill is going to be painful.
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Right.
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Or watching my old audition tape was so painful.
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I had this experience.
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I was in this like talent competition in high school when I was like 17.
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And then some friends found the tape and played it.
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I was playing like
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Phantom of the Opera dressed as the Phantom of the Opera with the white mask.
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It was so embarrassing.
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It was painful to watch. So embarrassing.
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We're looking at photos.
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I remember when I had, I played clarinet, which I hated the clarinet, but I played it in school and I went to a concert
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when I was in fourth grade and my mom dressed me in this awful,
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awful um like tie thing like a female tie thing that like you wear with a sweater you know you know
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exactly what you mean
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you're looking at these old photos of you're like i i
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have one where i was wearing like a bolo tie
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and one with like a brooch at my neck what was i doing
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so painful and it's so painful to look at photos
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or even honestly looking back on any of your
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if you have a body of work right for example
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this podcast like maybe it would be painful to go back and listen to episode one of Voller's English, right?
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Audio quality.
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We found our voice.
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Audio quality, awkwardness.
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I know when we started recording, we were recording live
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and there was like a humming refrigerator in the background of every episode for the first like 20 episodes.
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I'm curious if you listeners have thought this.
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If you go back into the archives and listen, you're like, wow, this is painful compared to the current episodes.
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It was pretty ugly, pretty painful.
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So, all right, let's move on to the next one, Aubrey.
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Brutal.
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Yes.
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Of course, the familiar meaning is violent or cruel.
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You might say the scenes in the film depicted brutal military tactics.
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But we also use this as slang just to mean unpleasant or difficult that something was brutal.
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Yes, exactly.
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And then in this more slang meaning that hike was brutal.
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I say this every time I go for a hike, right?
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I didn't realize how steep it would be.
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Yeah.
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Or we say this a lot in Arizona.
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We'll say, oh, the heat today is brutal or the heat was brutal yesterday.
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So it's interesting because some of these are definitely collocated more often with specific things.
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Like you could say, oh, this heat is painful or ugly, but we don't really, we're much more likely to say that it's brutal.
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So as you're listening to English, pay attention to which, when do you hear this used as slang?
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What types of things is it being collocated?
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Exactly.
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Exactly.
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I think the brutal is about often collocated with physical experiences, right?
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The heat is a great experience, the physical hike, but you're right.
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It's not always just choose a random thing to use one of these adjectives for.
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It is collocated with certain types of topics.
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That's interesting.
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It is interesting.
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Yeah.
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Hey, quick question.
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If so, we made a free guide for you.
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It'll help you avoid those common mistakes and start speaking more naturally in real conversations.
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Go grab it in the description below.
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And if this is helpful for you, make sure that you like and subscribe.
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We're here five times a week to help you connect in English.
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All right.
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We're back from break.
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And the last one is no joke.
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Yes.
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Yes.
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Okay.
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And this is interesting we do use this more literally to mean I'm not exaggerating.
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You might say like, I waited in line for three hours, no joke.
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And what I mean is just like, I'm not exaggerating.
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I actually waited for three hours.
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Yeah.
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This episode, this could be its own episode, just the phrase, no joke, honestly.
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Um, but in the slang sense, let's flip over to the slang sense, unpleasant or difficult, or also kind of to be taken seriously,
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I think is another, um, yeah that's interesting so we use it um synonymously with these right painful ugly brutal
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and to say something's no joke
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but we this one's a little more flexible we'll also use it with other things as well
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so a couple examples you know as soon as i saw the prices on the menu
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i knew the bill was going to be no joke
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and this you could say was going to be ugly painful brutal it was going to be no joke
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and that's that meaning of just like it was not going to be good yeah
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so i I feel like these days when I go out for dinner, it's all like exciting and fun in the beginning.
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And then as you get closer to when the bill's coming, I feel like the mood kind of gets like, was this worth it?
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It's funny.
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Or airports, right?
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Getting through airport security was no joke.
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I couldn't believe how long the line was.
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Um, and then I have another example.
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I have a friend, so I live in Colorado, but I had a friend who I used to hike with in Boston
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and she came out to Colorado when we were both still living there to hike,
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um, Mount Evans or one of the big hikes, big famous hikes.
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And the difference between a New Hampshire hike and a Colorado hike is substantial, right?
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14 ,000 feet versus 4 ,000.
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So she would always say, you know, that hike is no joke, right?
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Let's, you know, prepare for it, trained for it.
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Yeah.
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And like, like you said, it's more like, yes, difficult, but likes to be taken seriously.
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To be taken seriously.
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Interesting.
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So yeah, that is a little more flexible.
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Let's do a role play here and use a few of these.
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I am asking my friend Lindsay here about a recent vacation.
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I'll start us out.
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Okay.
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Okay.
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How was your trip to the mountains?
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Honestly, it was kind of brutal.
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It was so much hotter than we expected.
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Oh no. That's always painful when you want to spend time outdoors and the weather doesn't cooperate.
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Yeah, we tried to go hiking, but the heat was no joke.
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We had to turn back after less than a mile.
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What a bummer.
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Well, at least you missed the rain here.
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It was ugly.
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Rained all weekend.
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Oh my gosh.
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Yeah.
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Okay.
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So these are good.
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And we mentioned hiking again.
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That's so funny.
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These plans are very synced up with who we are here.
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I try to be creative with the role plays, but sometimes I'm like, this is just something I would say.
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This is a conversation I would have.
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Oh, for sure.
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All right.
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So the first thing that you said was, how was your trip to the mountains?
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I said, honestly, it was kind of brutal, right?
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It was much hotter than expected, than we expected.
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Yeah.
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And this is interesting too.
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If it would be strange if you just said, honestly, it was kind of brutal, full stop.
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Because this, when we use these words, we're sort of intentionally building drama for whatever we're going to share was difficult or tough.
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So we're going to say this like, oh, it was brutal.
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And we're going to immediately share why right
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you wouldn't want to just like wait for them to be like really oh what was
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so terrible yeah i mean in this case
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it could have been anything else it could have been i could have said oh
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you know we were in a small cabin
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we had no child care my in -laws were there like you could be any lost our keys right right
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so you gotta give us any situation
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yeah for sure and then what did you say aubrey after
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that i said oh that's always painful when you want to spend time outside and the weather doesn't cooperate.
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So this is a fun way to use that too.
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Here I could have said, now it's interesting.
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We probably wouldn't say that's always ugly when you want to spend time outdoors.
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This is if we're talking about an experience that was frustrating, we would use brutal and painful and be like,
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oh, that's always brutal when, or that's painful when.
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Yeah.
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Or an experience is frustrating is the word.
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I think something is like dangled in front of you, but you can't do it right in a way.
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Yeah.
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So that's an interesting note here that we wouldn't really use ugly for something that's frustrating, but we would use brutal and painful.
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Right.
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And then I said, yeah, we tried to go hiking, but the heat was no joke.
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And again, that's to be taken seriously.
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Right.
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Yeah.
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And we definitely could also say the heat was brutal, painful, but no joke works perfectly.
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And then you said, what a bummer.
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Well, at least you missed the rain here.
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It was ugly, rained all weekend yeah
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so this is more ugly is used more for like disappointing right yes
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so um because you likely had plans to do fun things outside on the weekends
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and be like oh it was
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so ugly it rained all weekend disappointing yes it makes me think this weekend
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that my friend is coming out to meet our son from new hampshire fun
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and it never ever rains in colorado like we've been having the hottest
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we've been like you've been having a crazy hot summer in the hundreds every day
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and then it's supposed to rain like all weekend just just the weekend
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that she's coming out that sounds like murphy's law right the percentage of likelihood
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that it'll rain is directly proportionate to how much your friends
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visiting like to spend time outside hiking in the sun she is an outdoorsy hiker person yes
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if she's a person that loves rain then it wouldn't be raining
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no of course it would be sunny yeah that's life for you you gotta just roll with it aubrey right
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What can we do?
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What can we do?
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So guys, go over to 2671, Splash Into Summer Part 4.
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That is our summer series.
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How's your summer going?
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Yes, that was such a fun series.
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If you missed any of those episodes, scroll up, check them out.
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These are so great for having conversations about what someone's doing over the summer or what they did.
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Yes.
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And for a takeaway, I mean, this is the hallmark of a high B2C1 level speaker when we're able to take terms,
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not just use them literally.
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We know the literal definitions most of you do of all of these words
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but how can we use
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that in a more figurative way right exactly how are they
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being used as slang how are they being used idiomatically this is the more fun meaning
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so practice using these yeah this is where we get into great connection
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because we're describing the moments of our life whether they're good
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or bad in a more interesting way right exactly don't be
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afraid to connect about things going badly as well not everything's going to be sunshine
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and roses and that's a great way to bond is
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when things go poorly oh yes for sure
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and then bring your stories right there you go all right good stuff
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i'll bring you have a good weekend a good week
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and i'll talk to you soon you too see you next time bye all right bye
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “2709 - When Ugly Doesn’t Mean What You Think it Means”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: ugly, painful, brutal, interesting. This video has 34 sentences and 3038 words to shadow. The speech runs for 15:13. The speaker talks fast, about 200 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 84% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start. 45 of its 34 sentences are questions, so it is good practice for question intonation and short answers.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| ugly adjective | /ˈʌɡli/ | Displeasing to the eye; aesthetically unpleasing. |
| painful adjective | /ˈpeɪn.fl̩/ | Causing pain or distress, either physical or mental. |
| brutal adjective | /ˈbɹuːtəl/ | Savagely violent, vicious, ruthless, or cruel, often in an unintelligent manner. |
| hike noun | /haɪk/ | A long walk, usually for pleasure or exercise. |
| disappoint verb | /ˌdɪsəˈpɔɪnt/ | To sadden or displease (someone) by underperforming, or by not delivering something promised or hoped for. |
| unpleasant adjective | /ʌnˈplɛzn̩t/ | Not pleasant. |
| connect verb | /kəˈnɛkt/ | To join (to another object): to attach, or to be intended to attach or capable of attaching, to another object. |
| podcast noun | /ˈpɑdˌkæst/ | A program, especially an audio program, produced on a regular basis, delivered over the Internet in a compressed digital format and designed for playback on… |
| salad noun | /ˈsæl.əd/ | A food consisting principally of raw vegetables (especially greens, e.g. lettuce), other savoury ingredients (typically cooked), fruit, or confectionary; often… |
| literal adjective | /ˈlɪt(ə)ɹəl/ | Exactly as stated; read or understood without interpretation; according to the letter; not figurative or metaphorical; following the letter or exact words; not… |
| awful adjective | /ˈɔːfʊl/ | Very bad. |
| server noun | /ˈsɝvɚ/ | A program that provides services to other programs or devices, either in the same computer or over a computer network. |
| shock noun | /ʃɔk/ | A sudden, heavy impact. |
| tape noun | /teɪ̯p/ | Flexible material in a roll with a sticky surface on one or both sides; adhesive tape. |
| vacation noun | /veɪˈkeɪ.ʃən/ | An extended trip or journey away from home for rest or pleasure. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| go ahead verb | /ˌɡoʊ əˈhɛd/ | To proceed with; to begin. |
| come out verb | /ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/ | To be discovered; to be revealed. |
| come up verb | To emerge or become known, especially unexpectedly. | |
| do over verb | /ˈduˌoʊvɚ/ | To cover with; to smear or spread on to. |
| end up verb | To bring to a conclusion. | |
| get through verb | /ɡɛt ˈθɹu/ | To overcome; to endure. |
| go back verb | To return to a place or state after having been there at a previous time. | |
| go up against verb | To challenge someone. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- I mean, what about you?
- You might say that or I don't know.
- We're just wanting to share that something was unpleasant.
- What was I doing?
- How was your trip to the mountains?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | we've been having · you've been having |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | was inspired · are definitely collocated · being collocated |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | Have you ever gotten · you've said · have thought |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 59 contractions and reduced forms, such as we're, you're, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: shock /ʃɔk/, vacation /veɪˈkeɪ.ʃən/, gosh /ɡɑːʃ/, substantial /səbˈstænʃəl/, sunshine /ˈsʌnʃaɪn/
- Long words — get the stress right: cooperate /kəʊˈɒp.ə.ɹeɪt/, naturally /ˈnæt͡ʃ.(ə.)ɹə.li/, intentionally /ɪnˈtɛn(t)ʃənəli/, refrigerator /ɹɪˈfɹɪd͡ʒ.əˌɹeɪ.tɚ/, exaggerate /ɛɡˈzæd͡ʒ.ə.ɹeɪt/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like ugly, painful, brutal.
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.