Shadowing Practice: 3 Things You Need to NEVER Forget Vocabulary Again - Learn English Speaking with YouTube
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There are too many words in English.
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There are too many words in English.
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I forget them all.
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I just go blank when I want to speak.
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It's true, there are a lot of words in English,
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but you don't need to learn them all.
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Number one, prioritize.
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Just learn the words you need at your level.
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and number two, learn them properly.
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Don't learn thousands of words badly and then you just go blank because you can't speak and use them.
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Learn the words you need deeply.
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And there are just three things you need to learn words deeply.
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Let me tell you.
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Hello, it's Keith from the Keith Speaking Academy.
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Oh, and the YouTube channel English Speaking Success,
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here to help you become a more confident speaker of English.
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Now, the three things you need to learn vocabulary deeply are,
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first, understand the word.
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Secondly, know how to use it.
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Thirdly, be able to use it.
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And with those three things,
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you'll be able to learn vocabulary deeply.
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In this video, I'm going to show you how to do that with some very clear and fun examples.
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But first of all, let's rewind.
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Let's just stand back a moment, thinking about learning vocabulary.
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There are two big opportunities to learn vocabulary.
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First of all, when you're reading.
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Great book, by the way.
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And secondly, when you're listening.
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So make sure you're doing plenty of both, right?
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And also, when you're doing these,
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make sure that you're noting down new words.
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Noting, writing down, jotting down new words as you're learning, right?
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It should be key vocabulary.
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What do I mean by key vocabulary?
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So words that are either interesting or useful.
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Don't try and learn all of the words, right?
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Remember what we said, learn fewer words more deeply.
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So pick out the interesting words and the useful words.
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Now, let's come back to the three things you need to learn vocabulary deeply.
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Understand a word, knowing how to use it,
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being able to use it.
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Let's take these step by step, okay?
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I'm going to show you with a story.
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Let me tell you a story.
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It's the beginning of a story about two people,
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Tom and Emily, and this is called Watchful Eyes.
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It's actually a mini novel from my gold course that we use to review language.
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I'm going to introduce you.
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Well, let me tell you the beginning of the story first,
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and then we'll use this for some examples. Are you sitting comfortably?
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Then I'll begin.
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Tom and Emily had been friends since they were children.
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Growing up in the small town of Glossop in the north of England,
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they had spent countless days exploring the nearby woods,
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riding bikes down the winding roads and imagining all the adventures they would one day have.
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At the age of 21 their friendship blossomed into something more and they started going out together.
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Tom was always there for Emily through the ups
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and downs of life and she she knew she could always count on him.
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Let me stop there the story goes on you can find out more in the gold course
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but let's have a look now first of all,
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at understanding a word, the first step.
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OK.
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So when it comes to understanding a word from a story or a podcast,
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I always say first, guess it, then check it.
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Guess it first.
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Try and guess the meaning from the context.
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and then check it if you're not sure or to make sure.
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Guess it, check it.
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Let's look at an example here.
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In the story, we had Tom and Emily growing up in Glossop.
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Glossop, right?
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Capital G.
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It's a place name.
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It's the name of the town.
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They had spent countless days exploring the nearby woods.
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countless.
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What does that mean?
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Well, if we look at countless,
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we can separate count and less.
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We can analyse the word to count.
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One, two, three, four, five.
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Less meaning, well, without or not.
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So without counting, what can that mean?
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I'm not sure.
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Let's check in a dictionary.
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So I'm using the Cambridge Dictionary online.
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Countless adjective says very many or too many to be counted.
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So it means a lot, right?
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A lot of days.
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They spent a lot of days exploring the woods.
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Great.
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When you're looking up a word,
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do be careful because sometimes words have many different meanings.
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So make sure you scroll down to check.
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For example, the word woods,
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exploring the nearby Why woods?
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It sounds like a place, right?
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Wood, I know wood as in the wood that you burn for a fire.
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But woods here, I'm not too sure.
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If we check in the dictionary, we find, okay, wood.
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So it's a hard substance that forms the branches of trees.
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Right, that's what I thought.
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Oh, going down, it can also be a type of golf club.
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Interesting.
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or, aha, an area of land covered with thick growth of trees.
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It's a place.
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I think this is the meaning I'm looking for.
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It also says in the plural woods.
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So it's a forest, I guess, right?
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That's the meaning I look.
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So be careful to scroll down and check different meanings.
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Now, moving on to step two,
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knowing how to use that word let's say countless or woods.
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We can see how to use it from the context,
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first of all, right?
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So countless days, a lot of days.
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We can see we can use it with days.
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I spent countless days doing something.
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I spent countless days sleeping.
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I spent countless days working.
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I can see how to use it.
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Woods, it says exploring the woods.
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So I can explore woods.
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Maybe there's other ways of using it.
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So we can also check in the dictionary,
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look at the examples that they give.
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And very often that will help you.
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For example, with wood, it says we went for a walk in the woods.
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So I can say explore the woods,
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go for a walk in the woods.
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I'm beginning to see how to use it, right?
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The next thing I suggest you do is to look and note the word form.
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Is it a noun, a verb,
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an adjective, an adverb, preposition?
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What is it exactly, right?
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Because if it's an adjective,
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remember in English, adjectives go before the noun.
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Nouns in English, if they're plural,
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They're followed by an S or ES.
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So here, countless is an adjective.
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And it goes before the noun.
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Days, countless days.
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Woods here is in the plural, is also a noun.
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If it's a noun, is it countable or uncountable?
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It's a key question to make sure you use it correctly.
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Woods here, it says, is countable.
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An oak wood.
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We went for a walk in the woods,
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a big wood, a small wood.
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So you can count woods.
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However, I noticed earlier when it talked about wood,
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like burning, it can be uncountable as well.
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So just be careful.
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It's a key question.
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If it's a verb, is it followed by a preposition?
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Right?
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In, on, at, away, over.
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Right.
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Look at.
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Listen to.
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Speak about.
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So what is the preposition?
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Again, make a note.
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If we look at the story, let's come back.
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It says at the age of 21,
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their friendship blossomed into something more.
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Blossom.
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Well, I know that's something to do with flowers,
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but I can see ed.
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So it's probably a verb in the past to blossom.
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I can check in the dictionary,
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but what I can see is also into, blossom into, right?
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So, and I look at the examples in the dictionary,
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their friendship blossomed into, or she blossomed into a lovely person.
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So it's to become like a flower,
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to become and grow into something attractive.
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So check with verbs, if they're followed by a preposition, and which one.
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The other thing to do is notice the words before and after.
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And these are the collocations.
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Collocations are critical when learning vocabulary.
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So don't just learn blossom to blossom.
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You want to look at the word before,
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the words that can go before.
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A friendship blossomed.
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A person blossomed into something.
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So when you're learning this,
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you're learning she blossomed into,
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he blossomed into a beautiful person.
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You're not just learning blossom, learn the collocation.
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Finally, look for idiomatic expressions.
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So often when you're looking at a chunk of language and you're not sure if it means what it says,
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it could be idiomatic.
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In our story, we had,
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at the age of 21,
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their friendship blossomed into something more,
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and they started going out together.
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Tom was always there for Emily through the ups and downs of life.
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Up and down of life.
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What it actually means is the difficult moments.
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So this is idiomatic.
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it's not an idiom as such like to be tickled pink
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right to be happy it's just an idiomatic phrase the ups
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and downs of life the idiomatic phrase is ups
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and downs you can check it in the dictionary we have the ups
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and downs of working life the ups and downs of marriage again the dictionary gives us those examples.
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Brilliant.
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So now we've understood the word and we can see how to use it.
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Next step is actually being able to use it.
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Right.
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The final step, of course,
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is being able to use the word.
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So here, what I suggest you do is you just repeat the examples in the text you're reading or listening to.
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So, for example, they had spent countless days exploring.
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Just say it out loud.
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If you're listening, stop and just repeat.
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Their friendship blossomed into something more,
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through the ups and downs of life.
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A great technique actually is if you're listening or not reading,
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but listening, is to shadow.
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So play it and you repeat it almost at the same time,
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just a second behind.
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I do this, I'm doing it more and more with French
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and it's really good for intonation and pronunciation as well as vocabulary.
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You can also repeat the examples from the dictionary, say them out loud.
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The next step is to start making your own examples.
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Just change one word or the tense.
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For example, they had spent countless days exploring.
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They spent countless days exploring.
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I spent countless days exploring.
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When we visited Barcelona, we spent countless days exploring the city.
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I spend countless days working at home.
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I spend countless days studying French.
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I spend countless hours studying French.
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And just change one word or two words until you're becoming more confident, right?
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And also, the next step is to try and use these in a conversation.
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So a quick tip, I would just write down two
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or three words on a piece of paper and then try and use them.
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You can even tell your speaking partner,
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I'm trying to practice these, can we practice together?
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Let them know.
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And it's a great way to do that.
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All of this takes time and you will make mistakes.
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Now, if you've got a teacher,
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they can give you feedback.
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If not, you also get feedback when you listen and read more.
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Because as you look and listen to more language,
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you'll just notice these words in different contexts.
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And your understanding, being able to use them grows over time.
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It's a marathon. Be patient.
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It does take time and you will make mistakes.
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But that is normal.
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It's learning.
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It's great.
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Now, a final piece of advice.
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As you're discovering the language,
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understanding the meaning, understanding how to use it,
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and you're practicing, I suggest you also do lots of reviewing.
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Okay, review the language as well.
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And this system of discovering,
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practicing and reviewing is a great way for learning vocabulary,
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but for just improving your general English overall, right?
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It's a system that is at the heart of my online courses,
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especially my gold course, where people discover language,
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they practice it, and they're reviewing it all the time.
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The story today, Watchful Eyes,
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is one of the stories that we use to review the language in the Gold Course.
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I won't tell you what happens to Tom and Emily.
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It's a long, long novel.
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It goes on and on.
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You can join the course and find out.
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You can find out more details.
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There's a link below or go to my website, keithspeakingacademy.com.
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That's it for today.
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Just remember what I said at the beginning of the video.
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learn fewer words, but learn them more deeply so you can use them,
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not forget them, not go blank,
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and you'll be a more confident speaker of English.
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Great.
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Listen, thank you so much for watching.
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I hope this has helped you,
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and I look forward to seeing you in the next video.
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Take care, my friend.
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Bye-bye.
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Why practice speaking with this video?
This video titled "3 Things You Need to NEVER Forget Vocabulary Again" offers essential insights for English learners seeking to enhance their speaking skills. By focusing on the foundational elements of vocabulary acquisition, viewers are given a clear pathway to improve their English pronunciation and expand their speaking fluency. Using the shadowing technique, you can repeat phrases and sentences after the speaker, which not only reinforces memory but also helps with the natural flow of speech. This method is particularly effective for those wanting to incorporate new words into their active vocabulary.
Grammar & Expressions in Context
In the video, several key structures and expressions are highlighted that can enhance your understanding and usage of English:
- “There are too many words in English.” - This simple sentence illustrates the basic structure of expressing opinions about a situation, making it accessible for learners at all levels.
- “Just learn the words you need.” - This command form invites learners to focus their efforts, showcasing how imperative sentences can be used to provide instruction.
- “Understand the word, know how to use it, be able to use it.” - This list highlights the importance of comprehension and application, using parallel structure which aids in memorization.
Common Pronunciation Traps
As you engage with the video, pay attention to specific words and phrases that may pose challenges in pronunciation:
- The word “vocabulary” can be tricky due to its multiple syllables. Break it down to ensure clarity: vo–cab–u–lary.
- Watch for the phrase “go blank.” Many learners find the short, linking sounds challenging; practice it through the shadowing technique.
- The term “deeply” often causes confusion with its ending sound. Focusing on its rhythmic pronunciation can help in mastering this word.
Using a shadowing app or a shadowing site can enhance your practice sessions. By repeating after the speaker, you build muscle memory for the sounds and rhythms of English, allowing you to improve English pronunciation significantly.
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.
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