Shadowing Practice: A1 English Listening Practice - My Childhood Hobbies - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

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Hey English learners!
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Welcome to this A1 English listening practice video.
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I'm cold right now.
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I hope you're warmer than I am, but I'm outside and it's cold.
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That's why I have a sweatshirt on, but I'm happy to talk to you today in this A1 listening practice video.
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Today, I'm gonna talk about some of my childhood hobbies,
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the activities that I liked to do when I was a kid or a teenager.
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So I'm sure you'll enjoy this practice video.
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Remember that if you want my help to actually understand people when they speak fast, then make sure to sign up for my training.
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You can get my listening practice seminars by signing up for my membership.
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That link is down below.
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So let's talk about some of my childhood hobbies.
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I liked to do many different activities as a kid.
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I loved trying new things.
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I still do.
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I love trying different things and I often changed hobbies.
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I started one hobby, and then I got bored with it and then I started a different hobby.
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So I tried many different activities as a kid and even as a young adult I still liked to do this.
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Try one thing then try another thing.
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So I always like trying new things.
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Even today I like trying new things.
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So let me talk about some of the different things I liked to do when I was a kid.
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I really liked collecting things.
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I think many of you did this when you were a child.
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I liked collecting different cards like, of course, Pokemon cards.
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Many of you probably collected or maybe you still collect Pokemon cards.
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I liked these when I was a kid.
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I also collected Yu-Gi-Oh!
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cards.
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And I not only collected Yu-Gi-Oh!
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cards, I also played the game, the card game.
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So I really liked Yu-Gi-Oh!
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cards.
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I also had some magic cards, Magic the Gathering, it's called, but I wasn't super interested in Magic the Gathering.
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And I also had some Digimon cards.
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Some of you might remember Digimon.
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It wasn't as popular as Pokemon or Yu-Gi-Oh, but I also had some of those cards.
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And I also collected other things besides cards.
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I actually collected bugs.
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I know that sounds a little strange to many of you, but I liked bugs when I was a little kid.
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I loved finding different bugs and putting them in a container, like something that I could put them in and close,
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and I would put different bugs in the same container, and I would watch them interact,
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like what they would do with each other, and I would study them, and I would feed them.
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I fed them fruit or different things like that.
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Like I remember having caterpillars and feeding them, I think, cantaloupe and other fruit.
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So I liked bugs when I was a kid.
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I also liked collecting animal bones.
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This sounds weird, I know,
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but where I grew up there were a lot of hills
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around the house where I lived and there were different animals like snakes and rabbits and squirrels and birds and different animals.
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And sometimes I would play in the hills and I would find animal bones on the ground.
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And I was a little boy
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and I thought this was cool so I collected these animal
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bones and I had a snake skeleton and the head
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of like a mouse or a squirrel maybe I can't remember but
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I had different animal bones so now I find that kind of gross
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but when I was a young kid it was fun I
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was a curious boy okay I also liked making paper airplanes where
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you fold the paper and create an airplane and you can throw these paper airplanes and they fly.
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I actually just made a paper airplane for my son yesterday, so I still like this.
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But when I was a kid I loved making paper airplanes
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and trying to throw them high in the sky and
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holding they would fly for a long time before hitting the ground.
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So that was really fun.
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I loved inventing new paper airplanes.
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I tried to find the best way to make the airplane, to make it stay in the sky for longer.
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So that was really fun when I was a kid and it's still fun now.
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I also played airsoft where you shoot these little BBs, we call them.
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They hurt when they hit you,
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but you can shoot these at each other and I
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would play with my friends outside with these airsoft guns and we would hide behind trees and it was fun.
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Of course a lot of young boys or teenagers like shooting these
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fake guns these airsoft guns it's a fun activity I also liked
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video games like most boys most boys like video games I think I had
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Super Nintendo, that was my first video game console, and N64.
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I also had an Xbox, a PlayStation, and I also played some computer games too.
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I wasn't a super fan of video games.
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I just liked them like most kids, but I didn't play for many, many hours.
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I know other people who loved video games more than me, and they played for many hours.
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Some of them still play for many hours.
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I wasn't like that.
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I liked video games, but I liked doing other things too.
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I didn't just spend all day playing video games.
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And another thing that I really liked, and I still really like is reading.
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I loved reading when I was a kid.
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In fact,
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my mother would take me to the library all the time to check out books, meaning you rent the book
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and then you have to give it back to the library when you're done.
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So my mom would take me to check out library books and I had so much fun choosing the different books that I wanted to read.
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I really liked reading as a kid and that's probably why I still really like reading.
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The people who I know now who don't like to read, they didn't like to read when they were kids either.
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So I think that when you have this hobby, this activity,
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you like reading when you're a kid, usually you like reading when you're an adult.
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So I hope that my kids like to read.
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I buy them books.
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They have a lot of books.
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So So hopefully they will enjoy reading like I did when
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I was a kid and then they'll probably like reading when they're adults too.
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So reading was another hobby of mine and I also played many sports.
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Many sports.
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I played basketball, tennis, football, baseball, soccer, many sports.
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I played them at different times in my childhood.
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I played soccer when I was really young, but then I stopped playing.
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I played tennis when I was really young too, but I also stopped playing tennis.
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I played basketball for for longer, for more time.
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So I played basketball even when I was a teenager.
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And so some sports I played for longer, some sports I played for only a couple years, like baseball.
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I think I only played baseball for a couple of years.
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But I also really liked the interesting sports that aren't the normal sports that we watch on TV.
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Like for example,
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I really liked bowling and you can watch bowling on TV but it's not as popular as as the bigger sports like basketball,
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soccer, tennis, etc.
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I loved bowling.
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I loved ping-pong like table tennis.
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I loved ping-pong and I really really liked pool or billiards where you use the stick to hit the balls into the pockets.
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I really liked playing pool and I played all of those sports pretty often during some
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periods of my life like when I was in high school or I think middle school.
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When I was in middle school I really liked bowling and I went bowling all the time.
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I also really liked fishing when I was in middle school and during one summer I I went fishing like every week or twice a week.
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I really liked fishing.
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So I loved all of those different types of sports.
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The major sports like basketball, football, baseball, etc.
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And also the other sports like ping-pong and pool and bowling, like those sports as well.
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Alright, hopefully you enjoyed this video.
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I know it was good practice for your listening.
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Remember that if you want my help to understand native English speakers when they speak fast,
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then join my membership so you can get my training which will help you do that.
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So the link is down below.
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Alright, thank you all for watching this video and I'll talk to you in the next one.
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About This Lesson

In this lesson, learners will engage in A1 English listening practice by exploring the topic of childhood hobbies. The speaker shares personal experiences of various activities they enjoyed as a child, including collecting cards, studying bugs, and more. This session will help learners enhance their listening comprehension and vocabulary, while also providing context for discussing hobbies and pastimes in English.

Key Vocabulary & Phrases

  • Collecting - the act of gathering items of interest, such as cards or bugs.
  • Hobbies - activities that people enjoy doing in their free time.
  • Caterpillars - the larval stage of butterflies, often interesting to collect and observe.
  • Pokemon cards - popular trading cards that many children collect.
  • Yu-Gi-Oh! cards - collectible cards used in a strategic game.
  • Animals - living creatures, an important theme in the speaker's hobbies.
  • Interaction - how different items or creatures behave together, a topic discussed in the context of studying bugs.
  • Bug collecting - a unique hobby mentioned by the speaker, involving gathering various insects.

Practice Tips

To maximize your learning from this A1 English listening practice video, consider using the shadowing technique. This involves listening to the speaker and repeating what they say in real-time. Start by listening to a short segment and then pause the video. Repeat the sentences out loud, paying attention to the pronunciation and intonation. Because the speaker uses a friendly and conversational tone, try to mimic their emotional expressions and pace. As you grow more comfortable, increase the length of the sections you practice.

For better results, practice shadowspeak regularly to boost your speaking fluency. Utilize the vocabulary from this session to create sentences about your own hobbies and experiences. This is also an excellent method for preparing for tasks like IELTS speaking practice, where clear communication and a range of topics may be assessed. Engaging with the video repeatedly will help solidify your language skills while making learning enjoyable.

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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