Shadowing Practice: American Shocked By 1st Experience In China 🇨🇳 - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Good morning and welcome back to the channel.

Today we are in China and we are in front of Chongqing East train station, the newest train station here in China.

This is my first time ever in China and today we have an adventure.

So today we are going to be taking a business class train on the high -speed rail of China.

This train goes up to 350 miles per hour

and we're going to be riding this for about two and a half hours from the city of Chongqing,

which is China's futuristic cyberpunk city, to the Avatar Mountains.

It's a special national park here in China that basically inspired the Avatar movies.

We are now going to head into Chongqing East train station and see how this works.

I have no idea.

So like I said, we have a business class ticket and

And apparently we have a business class lounge that we can go to before getting to the train.

I don't have an actual ticket because it said that I just give my passport and I can get in.

So we're going to try to do that.

Okay, guys.

Well, we just went through security.

Here in China, to go onto any trains or even the metro, you have to go through a security check, which honestly I really like.

I'm not going to show it to you but it's behind me because I don't want to film security.

So in front of me is the board.

However, I don't see our...

I don't know.

I'm a bit confused to be honest.

There is a business class lounge up here that I think..

but online it said that all I have to do is give my passport

and when I give my passport they let me onto the train.

We don't have so much time to get to this train

so I'm not exactly so sure

but as you can see the train station is pristine over there they have some drinking water

that you can just fill up your bottles it is spotless

it's super clean this train station actually opened like uh one month ago technically where's the prison

I have wow I'm so lost really i'm so so lost look at how absolutely massive this train station is

and there's not

so many people either like it's pretty empty to be honest i do have friends here

that are supposed to be meeting us for this train ah man

this might be tough oh okay i found it on I found another book.

22A and 20...

I see it okay.

My buddies are in the business class lounge which says is right here.

It looks closed.

How'd it get in there?

Yeah this is like closed.

Wow this is so confusing.

Okay you're getting the real...

China's a very confusing place to be as a foreigner

so it wasn't 22a it's actually 22b

and i have some friends who are in the lounge at the moment

and they said that we will get escorted into the train from the lounge wow it is

i mean china kind of like once you understand what's going on in china it gets easy however

if anything kind of goes wrong it gets a little bit confusing to be honest

so let's head over here

i'll show you we only have about less than 10 minutes until the train leaves

this is the business class lounge here in china hello yeah

so like i said they didn't give me a ticket

or anything online so basically i just handed my passport and

that should be good enough

i think what's up guys wow look at this it is spotless in here you have all these little snacks

and drinks are we the only people here are we the only business class tickets for the train

oh it's okay no it's okay it's good okay oh okay thank you wow guys okay

so they checked the passport i have no ticket i have no physical ticket you don't need a physical ticket here

We have our own private security check again back there.

And yeah, guys, how are we doing?

You guys got here early or?

No, like 10 minutes ago.

10 minutes ago?

Yeah.

Dude, I'm so happy you answered the call because I was so lost.

And not even a minute later, lounge gone because the train is leaving.

And you can see that the Chinese rail staff are actually escorting us privately to the train.

I asked them if there was anyone else on the train they didn't know what

that was saying so I have no idea

Okay we're on separate what is mine?

Okay we're this way

Hello thank you

Wow This one?

Oh wow okay thank you

Guys check this out

Is it just me him no one else yeah yeah okay cool bye

I Don't know how they yeah wow guys so check this out

It's just us in the cabin these are business class seats.

I have one F.

Which one do you have?

1a so we have like the extra legroom seat and and I have no idea if we...

Oh look, okay, we have our own private little beverage cart right here.

It looks like we have some juices, some soda, some water, some instant coffee.

Wow, this is kind of crazy, huh?

To be honest, it feels like I'm kind of in a spaceship.

This is the seat.

We have like seat controls here that don't seem to be working.

Oh, this one's working.

Do I have to hold it?

The seat actually goes into a fully live flat.

I'm 100 % honest with you.

It took me about two minutes of pressing that button to get the bed down.

However, look at how much space you have.

And if we do a little test, you can see that.

Wow.

I'm actually really surprised because Chinese people are not the biggest people, and we are usually a bit larger than them

and I have full full room to completely stretch out here in my little business class cubby.

Alright, let's get the train moving and then I'll talk to you in a bit.

100

What is this one?

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This is so no can I have water?

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Okay thank you.

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Do you have coffee?

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Could I have a coffee please okay thank you

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so much um is there food on the train yes we have beef and noodles and

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chicken is it included with our ticket we have to pay no no no

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it's free no oh okay um what is best

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Just a chicken, beef, noodle?

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Beef.

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Beef?

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Okay, I take beef.

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Okay, okay.

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Okay, and just a coffee, please.

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Okay.

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Thank you so much.

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So we were given this little kind of mystery basket.

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I don't know what it is exactly.

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I'm going to open it.

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We also ordered some food.

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We didn't know.

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I mean, we assumed that food would come with the ticket.

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However, what is in our little Chinese goodie box?

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Wow, guys, it's like a million snacks in here.

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Oh my gosh, look at this.

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There's like a million little Chinese snacks.

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Wow, look at this.

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So we have a cream egg cookie.

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We have mystery nuts.

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We have mystery spicy meat.

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We have, I think that's peach gum.

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We also have, oh, this is a mystery squishy thing.

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I don't know what that is.

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And then some mystery nuts, I think.

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I decided to come and check out the Chinese business class high -speed train toilet,

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only to find out that it is the same toilet that it is shared with everyone on the train.

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The car right behind us all is the same toilet.

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It doesn't really matter.

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But from a cleanliness standpoint, it seems pretty good.

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Nothing fancy about it at all, but yeah, it works.

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Alright guys, so food has arrived.

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One thing that I did notice is that we basically have our own cabin attendant here.

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She left us the cart of snacks and basically was like, whatever snacks you want, just take.

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No problem.

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So since this is a business class train in China, of course we have to try the food that comes with it.

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This is a layer and eggs soup.

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Let's give it a shot.

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Salty?

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Eggy?

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success here is our meal with the beef the rice the veggies which

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if i'm being honest with you for a business class train

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i would expect it did have a layer of like plastic on it i would expect

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a little bit more than just a microwave meal however i'm not complaining

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because i think it's gonna taste good well

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that's not too bad spicy everything in china is spicy then we have some of the beans.

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Spicy.

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That one I really like.

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It's like mushrooms and soy sauce type of deal.

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But overall, it's actually a really decent sized food that's pretty large.

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Not too bad.

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7 out of 10 for the food.

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Really nice experience so far on China business class.

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Guys, the food is so hot.

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It's so hot that I'm literally crying like can you see it?

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I love spicy food.

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This is a next level spicy food on a Chinese trend.

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Look I literally have tears coming down my face.

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Be scared of the beef.

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So guys we actually just pulled off to little station.

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I have no idea how much time we have here, but this is what a little rural station looks like in China.

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Which is very cool.

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Oh, sorry.

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This is like.. there's even a police officer who just got on the train. And uh...

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Guys, we're in the middle of nowhere

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China and the train station is gigantic.

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So now we are pulling up to a station in the middle of nowhere.

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We're about halfway through our journey

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but this is probably i don't know this is probably a small city in china

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and i guarantee you millions and millions of people live here

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so these are a bunch of people who are going to be getting on the train with us

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so before our train journey ends here in china i thought

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that i would show you what the other seats look like

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and if we go into here this is what the other seats look like.

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This is an economy seat here in China and if we come here the space is really good to be honest.

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You have a window, it's really really soft, really comfortable by the way.

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The business class price was $100 for just about three hour journey while an economy seat over here was just $20.

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So that's basically five times the price than just the normal seat.

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Now of course you get the private cabin, you get the business class seat, you get the cart full of snacks,

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and you get the food of course however

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that is I think a big stretch for the price difference however I will say

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that both seats are super nice these are I mean the privacy I think is worth it especially

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if you're really tired however the economy seats are really good

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so for me that's tough all right guys we are We're arriving to the station now.

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This is the station of the Avatar Mountains here in China.

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And let's see how easy and seamless it is to get off.

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Let's inspect the seat, not leaving anything behind.

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That is something that I do all the time, is leave things behind.

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And let's get out of here.

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Thank you.

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Wow, guys, look.

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It kind of looks like one high -speed train connected to another high -speed train, which is kind of crazy.

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And yeah, well, that was the train experience here in China.

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I don't know if I told you the price.

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It was $100 for a three -hour journey on the business high -speed train.

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Do I think it's worth it?

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Look, there are good things and not really any bad things.

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The seat was really nice the privacy of just us being in there, the food, the unlimited snack cart was really good.

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However, like I said earlier, comparing it to the value of the normal seat, which is really good, the seat's great,

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I would probably only recommend doing this on the longer routes.

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Maybe if you're going six, seven hours, I think it would probably be worth it.

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But if you want to find this exact journey

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or other train tickets in China we used trip .com not a sponsor

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but just letting you know it had the best prices

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so I'll see you in another video soon from China or somewhere else

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This speaking lesson is built on the video “American Shocked By 1st Experience In China 🇨🇳”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: train, china, seat, station, ticket. This video has 213 sentences and 2127 words to shadow. The speech runs for 13:54. The speaker talks at a natural 153 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 87% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow.

Key vocabulary in this video

15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
beef noun	/bif/	The meat from cattle or other bovines; especially, that from adults.
lounge noun	/ˈlaʊ̯nd͡ʒ/	The act of someone who lounges; idle reclining.
snack noun	/snæk/	A light meal.
spicy adjective	/ˈspaɪsi/	Of, pertaining to, or containing spice.
mystery noun	/ˈmɪs.t(ə.)ɹi/	Something secret or unexplainable; an unknown.
passport noun	/ˈpæspɔɹt/	An official document normally used for international journeys, which proves the identity and nationality of the person for whom it was issued.
cart noun	/kɑɹt/	A small, open, wheeled vehicle, drawn or pushed by a person or animal, often with two wheels on one axle, more often used for transporting goods than…
toilet verb	/ˈtɔɪ.lət/	To assist another (a child, etc.) in using a toilet.
cabin noun	/ˈkæbɪn/	A small dwelling characteristic of the frontier, especially when built from logs with simple tools and not constructed by professional builders, but by those…
confuse verb	/kənˈfjuːz/	to puzzle, perplex, baffle, bewilder (somebody); to afflict by being complicated, contradictory, or otherwise difficult to understand
meal noun	/ˈmiːl/	Food that is prepared and eaten, usually at a specific time, and usually in a comparatively large quantity.
rail noun	/ɹeɪ(ə)l/	A horizontal bar extending between supports and used for support or as a barrier; a railing.
layer noun	/ˈleɪ̯ɚ/	A single thickness of some material covering a surface.
nowhere adverb	/ˈnoʊ.(h)wɛɹ/	In no place.
arrive verb	/əˈɹaɪv/	To reach; to get to a certain place.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Meaning
go through verb	To travel from one end of something to the other.
check out verb	To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.).
come down verb	To descend, fall down, collapse.
fill up verb	To make (something) completely full.
find out verb	To discover, as by asking or investigating.
get off verb	To move from being on top of (something) to not being on top of it.
get out of verb	To leave, exit or escape from; to become free of.

Sentences worth repeating

Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:

You guys got here early or?
Which one do you have?
Do I have to hold it?
This is so no can I have water?
Do I think it's worth it?

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	friends who are · people who are · train, which is
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	were given · is shared
Superlatives the -est / the most … — the top or bottom of a group	the newest · the biggest · the best
Present continuous am/is/are + -ing — something happening right now or around now	you're getting · are we doing · is leaving

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 45 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, don't, we're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “sh” and “zh” sounds: gosh /ɡɑːʃ/, mushroom /ˈmʌʃˌɹuːm/, squishy /ˈskwɪʃi/
Long words — get the stress right: technically /ˈtɛk.nɪˌkəl.i/, unlimited /ʌnˈlɪm.ɪ.tɪd/, futuristic /ˌfjut͡ʃəˈɹɪstɪk/

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 beef, lounge, snack.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: American Shocked By 1st Experience In China 🇨🇳 - Learn English Speaking with Video

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