Shadowing Practice: Becoming Fluent in English - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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Hey English learners, how's it going?
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Today I want to talk about becoming fluent in English.
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In this video I'm going to talk at normal speed.
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You have the subtitles here below, so this will be good practice for your listening.
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There are two definitions of fluency that I want to go over.
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So people think of fluency in different ways.
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Some people think of fluency as just speaking in a fluid manner, meaning you're speaking without needing to stop all the time.
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You're speaking continuously.
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It's just flowing from your mouth.
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but you still have a good number of mistakes, right?
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That's what many people's definition of fluency is.
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However, there's another definition that some people, that they support, another definition of fluency, which is when you're at a very,
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very high level, you speak very accurately, you have just a really, really, really high level of a language.
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Some people think of that as fluency, right?
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So, there's probably no consensus.
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It's not like, "All right, we can all agree on one definition of fluency."
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But usually people take one of those two approaches when it comes to fluency, they think of it in one of those two ways.
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It's fluid speech that's coming out of your mouth.
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There are mistakes.
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maybe even a good number of mistakes, but it's flowing very naturally.
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or some people have a very strict standard, a very high standard.
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I think fluency that refers to just having an extremely high level in the language, right?
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Where you're speaking very, very accurately as well.
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So I'm going to talk about both of those today.
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I'm going to talk about my opinion on how someone reaches those levels, how someone reaches fluency.
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Again, this is my opinion.
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Other people will disagree with me.
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This is just what I think about this, right?
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And ultimately, this type of video is not just to give you advice or tips or things like that.
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It's for your listening practice.
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So whether or not you agree with me, it doesn't really matter.
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You're here.
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to practice your listening and just increase and improve your comprehension.
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So that's what we're going to talk about today.
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By the way, if you want more advanced content like this, where I speak at normal speed, make sure to sign up to become a Listening Time family member.
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The link is down below.
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You can sign up to become a Listening Time family member to receive my advanced podcast episodes in
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which I speak like this.
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I speak fast.
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Okay?
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So let's talk about fluency.
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Fluency refers to oral communication, obviously.
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So we're talking about speaking and understanding here.
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We're not talking about writing and reading.
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That, of course, those things are important.
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But here I'm just talking about your fluency.
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in the oral realm.
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Okay, so in order to be fluent, you need both speaking and understanding.
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Okay, a lot of people just focus on the speaking aspect, but if you can't understand well,
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I don't think that people would normally consider you very fluent
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if you just can't understand what people are saying to you, right?
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If you're having every, you know, 30 seconds or so, you have to say, hey, can you repeat that?
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Can you repeat that?
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People probably aren't going to get the feeling that you're fluent, quote unquote, right?
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So you need speaking and understanding.
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So let's talk about a couple different phases of becoming fluent, whether that's reaching the first definition of fluency or the second that we went over.
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So let's talk first about building a foundation.
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When you're starting out, when you're at a lower level, You got to build your foundation for the language, your foundation of your knowledge of that language.
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And in my opinion, that comes from your comprehension of the language, your understanding of the language.
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So in this phase, you're going to want to do tons and tons and tons of listening practice.
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This is going to be the main thing that you do.
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Of course, some people do like to speak really early.
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I'll talk about that in just a second.
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But let's focus on the main foundation of your knowledge of a language, which is what you can understand, your comprehension.
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Okay?
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So once you start to be able, once you're able to understand many things in the language, you're building up a passive vocabulary,
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a passive knowledge of the language, and you can turn those things into active knowledge later on, right?
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But you're first just building up this foundation of mostly passive knowledge but Also active knowledge, once you have heard the same thing many,
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many times, you can probably just actively say it without even thinking about it, right?
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So that's going to happen too.
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But in this phase, you really want to just focus on learning as many words as you possibly can.
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Again, first passively, later on they'll be more active, but just understanding vocabulary.
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That's a really, really big key point here.
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Using comprehensible input.
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This is a term we use to talk about input, like stuff that you listen to or read, but in this case we're talking about oral communication,
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so listening to things that you can understand but they're a little challenging for you.
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So it's not like you can understand 100 % of everything that's being said
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but you can understand the point of what's being said
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and your brain is trying to kind of put the puzzle together for the words
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that you can't quite understand but you get the context.
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So using content that isn't way too hard for you or too easy for you.
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If you understand every single thing, every single word, that's probably too easy for you, right?
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You need to use that's a little challenging for you, but that you can still understand generally, right?
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That's comprehensible input.
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That should be the majority of what you do
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when you're building your foundation to try to become fluent is you need to listen as much as possible to comprehensible input,
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listen to tons and tons of different types of audios, videos, different sources.
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Of course, doing reading is also important as well.
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It really helps you learn vocabulary.
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And then when you are like watching videos with subtitles or listening to something with the transcript, it's reading too, right?
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You're listening and you're reading.
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So you're doing listening and reading practice.
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Doing a lot of repetition, is really important when building a foundation, right?
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When you're really trying to just develop a lot better understanding of a language.
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And then even just working on, you know, speaking well, doing a lot of repetition is going to help with that.
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Because when you hear the same thing over and over again, that thing, first it becomes like your passive knowledge,
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and then you've heard it so much that you can just naturally say it as well.
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You know, it becomes an active vocabulary word or phrase
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that you know right
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so doing a lot of repetition both like direct repetition where you're just listening to the same thing again
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and again and then also like indirect repetition like maybe you're listening to like one YouTuber or something like that,
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you just listen to all their videos about one topic.
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So it's not literal repetition, where you're just listening to the same video over and over again, but you're hearing them talk over and over again about the same topic.
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And of course, we tend to use the same types of phrases and words, we have a certain style of speaking.
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So you're going to get repetition just listening to the same person talking about the same topic, right?
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So that type of repetition, and then explicit direct repetition where you're just listening to the same thing over and over again.
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Both of those are really, really powerful tools, powerful methods to help you build your foundation.
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And so after you do hundreds of hours of this, of just really intense listening, repetition, just learning vocabulary and all this,
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you're going to eventually reach a level where you can understand one person when they're speaking to you,
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or you can understand a person that you're you're gonna develop a very wide range of passive words,
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like words that you know passively.
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Meaning like when you hear them, you know them.
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You can understand what the person is saying, right?
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You will eventually know most of the words that you hear.
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If you do this for hundreds of hours, you'll reach the level where most of the things that someone says to you, you will be able to understand.
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And that's a great feeling.
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An optional part of this first phase of your learning is speaking.
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And I say it's optional because some people don't like to speak early and that's okay.
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I think in general I'm someone that doesn't really like to speak that early, but I know other people that really like speaking early.
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And it can work for them or maybe it can work for you to not speak early.
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I've talked to many people.
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who did not speak early and then finally they have a conversation with me
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and it's their first conversation that they've ever had with a native speaker
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and they're speaking great we're having a full -on conversation even
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though it's the first time they've ever spoken to someone
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so you can reach a pretty good level where you can
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start to speak to people even without doing a lot of speaking practice in this early phase okay
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so that's why i say that this is optional some people really The next phase though,
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after you've built this foundation where you can actually understand a person pretty well, like you can understand the majority of the things that they say to you,
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you can already interact in the language like that.
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Once you're at that intermediate level, then things change a little bit because, well, let's just first talk about where you're at at this level.
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Once you're, you know, I think all of you, if you just do this, you're all going to reach the level where you can understand someone, even when they're speaking at normal speed.
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You can understand them pretty well.
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You guys can all reach that level.
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input, reading, you know, you're gonna reach this level, okay?
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However, there still will be gaps in your comprehension at this level.
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It's not like you're gonna understand every single thing that someone says, and different speaking styles can be hard, and you might even have major difficulties when it comes to group settings,
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like when you're listening to more than one person speaking, right?
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That's something that I dealt with when I was learning Spanish.
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Like I was able to talk one -on -one to someone really well, but then if he threw me into a group setting, suddenly I was like, "Ugh." like there's so many things I couldn't understand, right?
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So even at an intermediate level, you might still have those gaps, it might still be hard for you in a group setting, right?
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At this level, There's a few things that you'll be able to do to increase your comprehension.
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You need to start spending more time listening to more than one person speaking, right?
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It's still good to listen to one person speaking.
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That's still great.
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But adding in content where you're listening to more than one person speaking is essential, right?
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By the way, that's why I make my US Conversations podcast.
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I talk to different English teachers from around the country and I transcribe our conversation.
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for that specific type of practice.
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If you want that the link is down below as well.
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But you have to start practicing with that.
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You know, because if you cannot function in a group setting, people are not going to consider you fluent, right?
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If you talk pretty well one on one, but you know, suddenly you're in the car with two or three people, and you can't follow the conversation,
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you know, people aren't going to consider you fluent, right?
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Even if you speak fairly well.
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Okay, so being able to understand people in different settings, different group settings, this is an essential.
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when it comes to fluency, right?
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So you need to be able to interact in group settings, be able to understand more than one person is speaking.
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You're also, when it comes to the actual like you speaking, it's going to be really important for you to actually integrate a lot of speaking practice into your routine.
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Now it's not so optional.
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If you actually want to reach a level of fluency, yeah, the first phase when you're just trying to build that foundation,
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it's optional, in my opinion.
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Once you're at this intermediate level, once you can understand people, you know, well, then speaking becomes a priority and becomes a big priority, okay?
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And I'm sure, you know, those of you watching right now, this is what you're most interested in probably.
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You want to be able to speak fluidly, speak naturally, right?
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Well, how do we do this?
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Well, when we speak naturally, when we speak fluidly, when we say things in a natural way, without needing to stop and think and you know,
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put the sentence together in our brain.
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It's because we're saying things that we already know are correct.
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Okay, because we've heard them millions of times.
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I'm exaggerating here, but we've heard them many many times.
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Okay?
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That's why listening and repetition is so powerful to help your speaking.
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Because once you've heard someone say a certain phrase like 200 times, you just know that it's correct and you just say it naturally.
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It can just come out of your mouth without you realizing it.
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That's happened to me many times in different languages, where I just randomly say something.
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It's like the first time I've said it, I'm like, "Whoa, I've never said that before." But it's just
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so natural to say it because I've heard it so many times, I know it's correct.
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It's just natural for me to say that.
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So that's kind of what we want to do in order to become fluent.
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you gotta continue doing tons and tons and tons and tons of listening practice.
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Okay, reading as well, but especially listening practice, because we're talking about oral communication here.
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Right, you know, for me, for like French, when I started speaking French regularly, I had already done hundreds,
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thousands maybe of hours of intense just listening, you know, where I wasn't just listening to like content made for French learners.
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Like I was listening to native content, right?
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You know, YouTube channels of online entrepreneurs talking about, you know, online entrepreneurship.
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And they're just talking to other French speakers.
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Like I was using that content before I even, you know, was having conversations in French.
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every day just doing this, just so much of this and doing repetition and all of this just gave me so many phrases,
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so many words and phrases that I could already just say naturally without even thinking about them.
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So when I had my first Like when I first started having regular conversations in French, I could already say so many things naturally just because of all that listening I had done.
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And of course I had to start filling in my gaps, but I already had just this great, great foundation.
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So listening is just, that's the pillar, that's the foundation of your knowledge in a language.
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What you can understand, your understanding in that language.
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So it can be discouraging when you're at the intermediate phase because You know a lot of words,
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whether it's passively or actively, even just passively, you know so many words, you know so many of the common words, you know like most of the common words.
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And so the things that you don't know at this phase are things that don't come up that often.
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right?
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So things that come up really often you've already learned those things in your foundation phase
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when you're just like building your foundation
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but then you know once you reach a higher level you're at an intermediate level the things
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that you don't know you don't hear them that often
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because they're not as common and
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so it can feel like you're not really learning a lot of new things
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because it takes so long for you to hear those same words again and again and get that
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try to actively fill in your own gaps just in an active way where you speak
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and you see what you can't actually say yet
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and then you you know write down those things you translate them
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and then you fill in those gaps you search for your
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own gaps instead of just waiting for your gaps to get
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filled through your own listening practice you know speak speak to someone or speak to yourself
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really increase your level of speaking in a faster way.
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Obviously just doing a bunch of listening is gonna help your speaking, but if you want to speed this up, if you want to get,
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you know, reach a higher level in a shorter amount of time, it's great to actively do this.
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And so, you know, what I did, I haven't done as much recently, but what I was doing a lot last year was I was speaking to myself in French, usually out loud.
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every day and when you do this almost every day you just keep on finding more and more gaps,
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you close those gaps, you learn the things that you're trying to say that you can't say, you know, you actively do this, you're going to you know really increase,
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improve your level of speaking right?
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So do this, do it frequently, speak to other people, you know use these different tools and websites where you can take classes with native speakers.
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Do that and also speak to yourself, right?
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You know, just speaking whether it's yourself or to another person.
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If you do this frequently, you're gonna train those speaking muscles, your ability to just say things that you know,
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and then you're also just gonna find your gaps and you want to actively do that, right?
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The way we get better is we find what we don't know and and then we learn it right?
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That's how we close our gaps, that's how we get better at speaking.
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And so, You know, it's pretty basic everything I'm saying right here in terms of like the philosophy behind it, right?
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You're doing tons of listening, you're doing a ton of repetition, but you're also at this phase, you're actively trying to increase your speaking,
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to improve your speaking by filling in your gaps.
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Right?
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And so those two things, if you do them, for many many hours, you're gonna reach a level where you're at that first level of fluency,
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that first definition of fluency that we talked about.
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Where you can speak pretty naturally with mistakes, because you're still filling in your gaps, it's still going to take a while,
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but you're speaking naturally, you can interact with people, you can even interact with people in a group setting.
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That's a really, really, really great level in a language.
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Once you've reached that level, it's like people just view you as like you're good in that language.
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And for many people, that's fluency right there.
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You might tell me, "Well, I want to reach that second definition of fluency where I'm just really, really good, and I'm not making a lot of mistakes.
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I'm just like speaking extremely well.
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Well, How do you reach that level?
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Well, you do this, but you do it more intensively or, and /or, you do it for many, many, many, many more hours.
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Okay?
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Add hundreds, if not thousands of more hours of what I just said right now, and you can eventually reach that second definition of fluency,
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depending on which definition you're going for.
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Right?
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But there's not like another secret key.
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to reach that other level.
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It's just that if you want to be more accurate in your fluid speech,
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you got to have more phrases that are just in your mind that you just know without even thinking about.
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You just know they're correct and you just say them.
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Right?
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That's how we as native speakers talk.
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So if you want to have that as well, Imagine how much listening you need to do, how much repetition you need to do, how much speaking you need to do where you're filling in your gaps
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And then not only that is something I forgot to mention, not only filling in your gaps, but actively learning vocabulary as well.
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Like, you know, it's one thing to just say, "Okay, I didn't know how to say this.
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Let me translate it." Alright, that's how you say it.
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Another thing, a better way than just doing that is to now try to actively learn that phrase, learn that word that you didn't know.
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Right?
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And that could be with flashcards or maybe you have some other way.
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I've done flashcards and it's worked for me.
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actively trying to learn words and phrases that you need.
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You don't need every word, you don't need every phrase, you just need the words and phrases that you use.
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okay and you know this is just a process that takes a lot a lot of time okay people you know
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constantly you know tell me
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that they have a problem they have this problem they have this problem
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because they're not speaking accurately it's not natural for them they're they they freeze up
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when they're speaking well that's not a problem that's what the process is you have to get through
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that by doing much more listening much more repetition much more speaking practice gaps and actively learning vocabulary.
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It really is simple when you think of that, you know, whole philosophy behind it.
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So these are just my opinions, of course, and some people might disagree with me, but I think it's pretty basic at the end of the day.
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The big thing is that it takes a ton of time and it takes active practice as well, right?
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If you're doing all this just very passively, you're not really invested in this, it's not going to be the same thing.
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If you're actively doing this, if you're actively engaged, if you really are just like there in it doing this, you know, doing it in a very active way,
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you know, eventually you're going to reach your goals.
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It's just that if you have that second definition of fluency, it's going to take a long time, okay?
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A really long time, spending many, many hours just every week doing this and most people don't have that time.
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So you could shorten it.
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It might not be that long in terms of like years, but you're gonna have to do tons and tons of practice.
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And I'm not trying to discourage you.
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I'm just trying to make it clearer why you're not at that level of fluency, whatever definition you have.
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It's, you know, it's a matter of time being engaged with it and it being active
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actively trying to fill in your gaps, actively trying to understand in group settings, you know, doing this practice actively.
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My thoughts were a little scattered today, but I think you guys got my point.
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You can let me know down in the comments what you think about this or if you have any other ideas.
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Remember to check out my U .S.
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Conversations podcast so you can try listening to more than one person talking.
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This is a skill that you need to develop, as we just talked about.
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So if you want that, that link is down below.
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So go down and click on that.
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And if you just want more advanced content like this where I'm speaking at normal speed, make sure to become a listening time family member and so you'll get my advanced podcast episodes.
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That link is also down below.
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All right.
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Thank you all for listening, for watching this video, and I'll talk to you in the next one.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Becoming Fluent in English”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: speaking, listening, fluency, speak, word. This video has 292 sentences and 4087 words to shadow. The speech runs for 23:09. The speaker talks at a natural 177 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 89% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow. 47 of its 292 sentences are questions, so it is good practice for question intonation and short answers.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| fluency noun | /ˈfluːənsi/ | The quality of smoothness of flow. |
| repetition noun | /ˌɹɛp.əˈtɪʃ.ən/ | The act or an instance of repeating or being repeated. |
| fluent adjective | /ˈfluənt/ | That flows; flowing, liquid. |
| vocabulary noun | /vəˈkæb.jə.lə.ɹi/ | A usually alphabetized and explained collection of words e.g. of a particular field, or prepared for a specific purpose, often for learning. |
| passively adverb | /ˈpæs.ɪv.li/ | In a passive manner; without conscious or self-directed action. |
| comprehension noun | /ˌkɑmpɹɪˈhɛnʃn̩/ | A thorough understanding. |
| optional adjective | /ˈɑp.ʃə.nəl/ | Not compulsory; left to personal choice; elective. |
| passive adjective | /ˈpæs.ɪv/ | Being subjected to an action without producing a reaction. |
| intermediate adjective | /ɪn.tə(ɹ)ˈmi.di.ət/ | Being between two extremes, or in the middle of a range. |
| interact verb | /ɪn.təˈɹækt/ | To engage in communication and other shared activities (with someone). |
| 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… |
| comprehensible adjective | /kɒmpɹəˈhɛnsɪbəl/ | Able to be comprehended. |
| accurately adverb | /ˈæk.jə.ɹɪt.li/ | In an accurate manner; exactly; precisely; without error or defect. |
| flashcard noun | /ˈflæʃˌkɑɹd/ | A card used to aid rote memorization. One side of the card contains data of one kind, or a question, and the other side contains the associated response which… |
| fluidly adverb | In a fluid manner; smoothly. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| build up verb | To erect; to construct. | |
| come up verb | To emerge or become known, especially unexpectedly. | |
| go over verb | To look at carefully; to scrutinize; to analyze. | |
| check out verb | To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.). | |
| get through verb | /ɡɛt ˈθɹu/ | To overcome; to endure. |
| go down verb | To descend; to move from a higher place to a lower one. | |
| start out verb | To emerge suddenly; to jump out. | |
| talk over verb | To discuss; to converse about a matter or issue. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- It's just flowing from your mouth.
- It's fluid speech that's coming out of your mouth.
- Where you're speaking very, very accurately as well.
- It's for your listening practice.
- We're not talking about writing and reading.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have heard · you've heard · I've talked |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | being said · being engaged |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | fluency, which is · language, which is |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 153 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, I'm, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: repetition /ˌɹɛp.əˈtɪʃ.ən/, comprehension /ˌkɑmpɹɪˈhɛnʃn̩/, optional /ˈɑp.ʃə.nəl/, flashcard /ˈflæʃˌkɑɹd/, shorten /ˈʃɔɹtn̩/
- Long words — get the stress right: repetition /ˌɹɛp.əˈtɪʃ.ən/, vocabulary /vəˈkæb.jə.lə.ɹi/, intermediate /ɪn.tə(ɹ)ˈmi.di.ət/, comprehensible /kɒmpɹəˈhɛnsɪbəl/, accurately /ˈæk.jə.ɹɪt.li/
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 fluency, repetition, fluent.
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.