Shadowing Practice: Blender Donut Tutorial Part 1 (2026) - Learn English Speaking with Video

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So this is Blender.

It can do 3D modeling, texturing, lighting, shading, and rendering.

And I'm going to show you how to do all of those things whilst you make your very own donut.

And I know this looks complex and challenging, but I promise you it is achievable for even a complete beginner that has never opened Blender,

such as yourself.

And I know this because millions of beginners have already made their donut, because this is the fifth version of this tutorial.

I remake it for every major Blender release, this one for Blender 5 .0.

And speaking of which, if you have already made a donut from a previous version, rather than make another one,

I've actually just released a course designed for post -donut beginners.

So if you're interested in that, you can click the link below.

For everybody else, you need to download Blender.

So if you haven't already, click the link below.

That'll take you to blender .org and then just hit the big download button.

Now, if you're on Windows, that'll download an executable, which you should install.

If you're on a Mac, it's an application.

You drag to your applications folder.

And also, if you're at school or you're on a work computer that won't let you install anything, you can still use Blender.

If you download the portable zip version of Blender, then just unzip it.

You can run Blender from the folder.

Pretty cool.

Anyway, however you got Blender, open it and you should see this.

Then just click anywhere off the splash screen to close it, and you're in Blender.

Hey, welcome.

So this big section, this big gray area here, this is your 3D viewport,

and it's where you'll spend probably 98 % of your time because it's the 3D world.

Whether you're making a character, you're building an environment, it all happens right here.

So the first thing you need to learn is how to move around in this space

and you can orbit by middle mouse pushing.

So your scroll wheel, if you just push it in until it clicks, that's your middle mouse button.

And then if you just drag that around, you can orbit.

If you don't have a middle mouse button, a lot of people don't, they're on like a laptop with a trackpad or something,

you guys will struggle.

It's definitely easier if you have a mouse.

But in a pinch, top right -hand corner, you just mouse over this little circle and then just click and drag on that.

That'll do the same thing or the third alternative way to do it, edit, preferences, and then underneath input, emulate three button mouse.

And then if you hold down alt and then left click drag, that will do the same thing.

I don't want that.

By the way, whilst I am here, a value that you will wanna change, if you're on a 4K monitor,

you will probably have noticed that like Blender looks like this, where like everything is really super tiny and you have to squint to see it.

So underneath interface, I changed my resolution scale to at least a 1 .5, usually like 1 .8.

But for tutorials, I go even higher so you can really see everything.

But it's obviously much easier to use when you can see things clearly.

Okay, so middle mouse drag, that's how you orbit around.

You can see we're focusing on our cube at the moment though.

So how do we move to somewhere else?

You do that by shift middle mouse drag and that will pan you somewhere else.

You can also over here on the side there, click that little hand, that will do the same thing.

But yeah, shift middle mouse drag or middle mouse drag to orbit.

And what about zoom?

You can probably guess, you might've already done it by mistake, but just zooming by scrolling in and out on your wheel.

Or again, you can go to the little magnifying glass there, just click on that and do that.

Or alternatively, control middle mouse, and then that will also move you in as well.

So I've thrown a lot of keyboard shortcuts at you already.

Middle mouse for this, shift middle mouse to pan.

scroll.

If you don't want to have to remember all the hotkeys, because I'm going to throw a lot more at you.

If you don't want to have to write them down yourself, I have done it for you.

So I put together a Google Doc with all of the most common hotkeys and shortcuts that you might need to use.

And it's free.

So just click the link below and you can print it out.

You can stick it on your wall.

A lot of people do that.

And it's a big time saver.

Okay.

Now it's really common to like get lost, like one way to like end up upside down like this.

And then you're like, which way is up?

How do I, you know, if you just over here, these little, um, these little, this gizmo thing, these, these colored circle things with lines,

those are your axes.

So if you just click on one of those, that'll reorient yourself.

So the Z that's the top axes.

And then you just, you're back, right?

You know, which way is up because it's, it's, it's that way, right?

Which way that one is pointing

Another way, like if you got like really off into the weeds, like you were over here and then you're like,

how do I get back to where I was?

If you've got an object selected and you just want to focus on, like just fly to it, and this is a really common hotkey,

you use it all the time.

It's numpad period.

And that'll just fly you to that.

If you don't have a numpad, like even a lot of keyboards today they don't sell them with numpads anymore i guess because

people aren't accountants they don't need to quickly type in numbers

but i love them because it's really useful for blender um

if you don't have one um you can also use the tilde key

which is that little key underneath your escape key so

if you hold that down and then just drag over where it says view selected

and then release that'll do the exact same thing so that is how you can quickly change focus to the selected object.

And yeah, as I said, you do this all the time.

But yeah, I'm going to be using numpad period from now on.

Okay.

So we're making a donut.

We do not need our cube here.

So let's delete it.

You can just hit delete on your keyboard.

Or what I like to do is hit X, which is the alternative way.

And it's just easy because my finger is like right there.

I know it's another hotkey to remember, but you delete stuff a lot as well.

And it's helpful to not have to find that key.

So X and then delete.

And now I want to add a new object.

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And I can do that by going to add at the top of the screen there, or alternatively, the hotkey, another one to throw at you,

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shift A, and that'll just put it wherever your cursor is.

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And it's the exact same list.

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But this list here is, I mean, it's extensive.

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There's stuff in here that I have never used in my 21 years of using Blender.

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Speaker, never, ever used it.

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Don't know what it's for.

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Most of the time what you're looking for is underneath mesh.

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So these are your primitive mesh objects.

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And generally when you're making something, you pick one of these that most resembles or is closest to what it is you're making.

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Like if you're making a mailbox, you might start with a cube.

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You're making a lamppost, you might start with a cylinder.

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We're starting, well, we're trying to make a donut.

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So we need to start with a torus, which is basically a donut.

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Look at that.

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So that's cool.

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It's a wimpy looking donut though, right?

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It's very, very flimsy.

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We wanna make it look more thicker, right?

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So in the bottom left -hand corner, there's a little box that says add Taurus and this has additional options for us.

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Now, if you accidentally clicked off after you added the Taurus, that box is gone.

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You can momentarily bring it back by hitting F9, but that's only if you haven't changed something.

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So essentially, yeah, it's called the last used function in Blender.

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So immediately after you do an action in Blender, sometimes you see in the bottom left -hand corner additional options,

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which you can tweak and change things if you need.

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So if you don't see it, it just means you've done something else and it's gone.

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But yeah, you can bring it back momentarily by hitting F9 sometimes.

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But I usually just like redo it.

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Anyways, so first thing I want to change is the size of this thing.

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So it is one meter, which is like three feet for the Americans.

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It's a big donut.

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Probably shouldn't be that big.

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It should be about 10 % of that.

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So 0 .1, which is 10 centimeters, roughly about that.

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And then if I zoom in by scrolling forward, I just need to change my minor radius until it looks somewhat like a donut.

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So I want to just orbit up, right, and around.

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So I'm just middle mouse moving so I can see the inside.

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Then I'll just scroll in like so.

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until, yeah, and I'm just going to change this value until it looks like a donut.

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Now, you can see as I move this, like it's going really quick and I can't get it on the right value.

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So when you're clicking and dragging on a value in Blender, if you hold down shift, that will use smaller increments.

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And that's another one you use all the time because it's, yeah, sometimes you need small values and it's helpful to get smaller increments like that.

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So that's pretty good.

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I might go with that.

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Yeah, about a 0 .057.

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Okay.

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And then the other thing you can change here is like the resolution of the donut.

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You know, you can go like really PlayStation 1 graphics, maybe.

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I'm going to keep it at 48, but I'm going to increase the other one to about, yeah, let's go 18 like that.

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16, 18.

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Yeah, we'll go 18.

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And that's just a little bit more resolution.

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And it's just going to help us a little bit later on when we start to shape the donut.

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Okay, but once I've got that, I can just click off.

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And now those options are gone.

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We've committed.

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That's it.

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That is the starting point of our donut.

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Now, the next thing you're probably wondering is, it still kind of looks like PlayStation 1 graphics, Andrew.

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and that's because it has flat shading.

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So basically there's two states for a mesh.

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There's smooth shading or there is flat shading and it defaults to flat.

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If you wanna change it to smooth, you just right click the object and then go shade smooth like that.

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And there we go, it's fixed.

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So basically shade smooth without getting too technical.

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Anytime there is like two faces, it just kind of smooths out that point.

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like fakery.

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So it's not actually adding any additional computation times, which is important, but it's appearing to the eye to be smooth.

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Okay.

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So in previous donut versions, we would start making the icing.

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And although that's fun to make like dribbling icing, it can be a little complicated.

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A lot of users ran into their first roadblocks at that time.

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So instead, we're going to do something a little bit easier to start with and more practical, and that's to make a coffee mug.

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So we need to add in a new object, which if you can remember from before, it's the add menu at the top there,

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or the hotkey, as I like to use, shift A.

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And then underneath mesh, you're looking for something that most resembles the object you're trying to create.

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No prizes for guessing, the cylinder.

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Okay, so it comes in very, very big.

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It's completely engulfing our donut.

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So again, in the bottom left -hand corner, click that little add cylinder.

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And then I'm going to change the radius first of all, just to bring this back.

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You can like do this after the fact, like resize something, but it just helps to, you know, at this point, see it all together.

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I think I'm going to make it around holding down shift and just kind of drag it back and forth.

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Yeah, about 0 .13 or exactly 0 .13.

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And then the depth, this is just the height of it.

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And again, you can change this later on, but just want to see it roughly the right size.

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The big one that's important is the vertices.

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And we're actually going to make this look more low res.

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Now, why would we make it look more low res?

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Because now it's obviously very jagged.

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The reason for this is that very soon, we're going to be adding in something called a subsurf modifier,

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which adds over the top of our existing mesh, it adds more geometry, like it doubles the geometry and it kind of smooths it out.

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So actually, if you start too high like this, then you're adding, like doubling that geometry and doubling it again.

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And then you can quickly end up with something that's too computationally heavy.

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So when you're working and you know you're gonna be doing something subdiv, sometimes it helps to start like chunkier, low res.

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Anyway, just trust me and set it to 14 like that.

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Okay, great.

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So we've got another object and they are completely overlapping.

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So how do we separate things?

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Some of you might already know this.

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You can guess, right?

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Left -hand side there, there's a tool that looks like it would be able to move something.

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It's the Move tool.

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So this is one way to move things.

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You activate that and you get this little gizmo.

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And look, I can move it and I can separate them.

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So this is moving things along the axes.

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You can also just drag on that, click and drag on that little white circle there.

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And then that's like freehand drag around.

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I will say most Blender users don't actually use

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and move things this way

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because it's a lot of effort every time you want to move something to like go to the sidebar,

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activate the tool, you know, click it, move it.

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It's like most people don't do that.

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Instead, they remember the hotkey and the hotkey to move in Blender.

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And you'll be using this a lot.

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So again, this is on my keyboard shortcut.

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It's all in there.

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But the hotkey is G, G for grab.

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Now, you will notice very quickly that when you tap G, the moment you tap it, you are already in the move state.

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So it's now attached to my cursor, even though I didn't click.

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Okay, so and here's the other thing.

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My cursor could be on the other side of the screen doesn't have to be anywhere near the object

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and then the moment you tap G, it's now anchored to that cursor.

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And even more, I think it's cool, when you go to the other side of the screen, it actually, your cursor appears on the other side.

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So it's just like an infinitely repeating thing there.

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But at first, this is like hard to wrap your head around because Blender does this for a lot of things,

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like not just moving something, but also rotating something.

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The moment I tap R, which is how to rotate something,

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or S, okay, that's, I thought I might as well just teach you all three at the same time.

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So G to move something, G for grab, R to rotate, or S to scale something.

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But you'll see in each of those states, the moment you hit the key, no matter where your cursor is, it's in that state.

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And that's actually a good thing because, as I said, the number of times you need to move things and rotate and scale things in 3D,

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if you had to every single time change the tool, then move your cursor to over to it, click it, activate it.

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That's a lot of extra steps.

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So it's actually really cool to have this like just one tap key and it's already activated.

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Anyways, okay, so, but whilst I'm in the move state by tapping G,

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I can also lock it to a specific axis just like with those arrows that you saw before.

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So just when it's in that move state, you tap the axis you wanna move it on.

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So that's the X axis the Y brings it back and forwards and the Z is up and down.

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Okay, and that's correct.

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Blender is Z up, Y backwards and forwards.

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Different 3D applications have different things.

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There's no like standard, but yeah, that's how Blenders is.

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And by the way, if you forget which letter is which axes, you can actually see them up there in that little circle there.

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So again, X, Y, and Z.

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Anyways, I want to move this actually just a little bit further back right there.

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So I want my donut to be the front and center, and I want this to be at the back there.

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But then how do I change my view so I'm no longer just pivoting on my donut.

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I want to shift my focus to that selected object.

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It's number pad period.

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Or again, holding down that tilde key under your escape button and then hitting view selected is the same thing.

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Okay.

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So let's make this look like a coffee mug.

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So we have to edit this object.

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And to edit an object, we have to change what mode we are in.

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So in the top left -hand corner of the screen, there's a little drop -down, which if you click, we can change it into edit mode.

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Okay, so when you're in edit mode, you can see the state has changed.

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The object that was selected now has a bunch of points and lines on it.

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And you'll also notice whilst you're in edit mode, you can't actually select any object.

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And it's worth pointing out this because this is a really common thing a lot of beginners, they say, I don't know what happened,

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but I couldn't select anything in Blender.

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And usually it's just, they're in the wrong state.

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They're in edit mode.

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They forgot.

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And then they tried to like come over here and then click something.

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And they're like, why is it not selecting?

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Okay.

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So you have to be in object mode if you want to select an object.

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And if you want to edit something, you have to be in edit mode.

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But going to this dropdown and doing this time and again would again be annoying.

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So Blender, of course, has a hotkey for it, and that is tab.

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So tab will just cycle you in and out of object and edit mode,

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just those two states, which is great because you need to use this all the time.

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So you usually come in, do some editing, go back into object mode, select something else, edit that one, go back to this.

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So that's a good one to remember, tab.

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All right.

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So in edit mode, when I'm in this state here, these little points here, these are called vertices.

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These are the points that make up the shape of the mesh, obviously.

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And then you've got edges.

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And you can actually select by changing the selection type from vertices, which is the default, to edges,

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clicking that little button, and then I can click on the edges or select faces.

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Okay, like this.

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And again, Blender has hotkeys for everything.

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So if you want to just know the hotkey, it's one to do vertices select, two to do edge select,

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and then three to do face select.

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Again, make sure you get my keyboard shortcut guide because it's a lot to remember.

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So I want to select the top of this cup here.

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It's got a lid on it that I don't want.

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So in face select mode, selecting that face, I'm going to hit X.

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Now it's going to ask me, what part do you want to delete?

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Which might sound redundant, but there is quite a lot of times in Blender you want to delete, even though you've selected a bunch of faces,

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you want to delete the entire vertices of those faces.

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So we have to confirm, we want to delete just the faces from this list.

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And there we go.

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So we've now got a cup with a hole in it.

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Great.

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But this cup will not do.

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It is too paper thin.

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We could cut our finger on that edge there.

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So we need to add some thickness to this cup.

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And while we could do this in edit mode, like you could select everything and extrude it in and whatnot, we don't need to

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because there is actually a function we can do to add thickness to anything without needing to go into edit mode.

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And that is underneath your modifier stack here.

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So if you click this little wrench, this will activate modifiers.

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Let's just drag this out.

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And if you click add modifier at the top there, you can see you've got a number of different options.

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And the one that we're looking for is solidify.

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So this is underneath the generate.

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And just in case this changes for a future version of Blender,

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you can also go to search at the top there and you could just type in solidify from the list.

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Okay.

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So now, now that we've got that,

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you can see we've got a bunch of options and you'll notice that our mesh now has some thickness to it.

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And I can change this thickness here.

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Now, watch what happens as I enter into edit mode.

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You will notice as I select these faces here, I can't select this thick, this inside part of the cup there.

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And that's an important point because modifiers are not actually adjusting the real mesh.

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So the real mesh still exists here.

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If I disable this from the viewport by clicking this little monitor button there, you'll see that my mesh has not changed.

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This is just applying this effect after the fact.

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So it's basically in object mode.

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It's taking whatever mesh that you give it, which is this, and then it's adding thickness to it every face, essentially.

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So the reason this is so useful is that this is a non -destructive workflow.

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So I could, at any point, I could be doing a bunch of changes to my mug here.

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I could, you know, we'll get to all that later on.

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We could change the size and things.

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And then later on, I can go, you know what, I think that's a little bit too thick.

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I'm going to change that.

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And I can come back to that and very quickly adjust it.

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So non -destructive, and it's obviously very helpful for a lot of things.

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Okay.

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So I've given it some thickness, but I also want to round this corner here.

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That's way too jagged.

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Just like before I said, we want to, we're going to add in an extra layer on top, which adds more geometry.

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And that is called your add, modify, generate subdivision surface.

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So yeah, all the way down there.

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You use it all the time, but it's like buried in there.

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Okay.

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So subdivision surface.

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So this appears to have like screwed up the mesh.

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It's like, well, what actually happened there?

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Let's just increase the levels viewport.

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So this is just increasing the number of times that it doubles the geometry.

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So you can see, this is what we start with, right?

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This is the start.

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This is one level.

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Then this is two levels.

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And then this is three levels.

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And every time you do it, it's doubling the geometry.

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but you can see it's giving us the effect we want.

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It's smoothing out that edge there but because of the way that it works like basically if you look at,

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let's go back to this we've got this hard corner here, right?

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That's just like a 90 degree corner.

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So let me get a little bit closer here so you can kind of see it.

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Yeah, it's like a 90 degree perfectly like that.

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So when you add in a subdivision surface it's basically saying, okay, so there's a point here there is a point all the way over here

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and there is a point that's going to go all the way.

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It's so far it's off the screen but it's all the way down there.

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What I need to do is I need to average out those points.

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Take the middle point of those three.

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Essentially from here to somewhere around here and I'm going to add in a point like here.

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Then if you do another level like level 2 it then places a point here

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and then another point here and then if you do another level, it places another point here, another point here, another point here.

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And because there's two sides to this mug, there's like another one happening on that side, right?

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So we've now just got this like really super like oval -shaped edge like this, okay?

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Which is why when I turn it on, we get this effect there.

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So what we first of all need to do in edit mode with our mug here.

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So I am in, actually it doesn't matter what mode I'm actually in here.

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But what I need to do is essentially tighten an edge where that smoothing is happening.

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So it's no longer happening from all the way here to smooth it all the way down to there.

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I want to happen to about there.

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So I need to add in more geometry onto this mesh here.

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So to do that, we need to add a loop cut.

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That is how you add in another level of another edge.

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So Control -R will add in this loop cut.

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I believe you can also find it from the mesh somewhere in here.

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Yeah, there you go.

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Edge, loop cut and slide if you wanted to look it in there.

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But it's, yeah, Control -R.

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That's another one you use all the time.

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So when I hit

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Control -R, it's saying, where do you want to place the cut in this mesh?

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And I could place it anywhere, anywhere between a face, essentially.

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So I'm going to place it along this middle.

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So you do a single click and then it's saying,

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where do you want to place that vertically on this row of faces essentially.

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So you can see as I bring it towards the top there, it's tightening that edge there.

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Okay.

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And that's exactly what I want.

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I want that edge to be much tighter than it was before.

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So that edge is now looking good.

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But now what about this one at the bottom there?

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This one's looking even worse.

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We've got a lot to fix here.

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But first, I need to do another loop cut.

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So, control R, and then again, single click to confirm I want it on that row of faces.

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And then I'm just sliding it along until it's, you know, roughly about there at the bottom of my mug okay

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and then you can see it's like this whole area here

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this this face here it's become like a like it's turned it into a star

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and not to get too complicated

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but basically a subsurf modifier it has to has to know what to do

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and generally if there's like faces

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that are made up of four vertices this is getting complicated

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i can tell it knows what to do it makes it like nice

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and smooth but the moment you have a face that is made up of more than four vertices, it's called an N -gon.

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And it doesn't really know what to do with it.

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I mean, it does, but...

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You don't know what it's going to do.

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And it just can make things look a little ugly.

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Ngon is kind of like a dirty word in 3D space.

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It's like, oh, you never want to have an Ngon.

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They are actually useful and they, you know, do have a purpose.

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But generally, generally speaking, they're good to avoid if you don't know what you're doing.

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So anyway, I should tell you what I'm doing.

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The way to fix this is I need to add another loop that kind of just goes around here, right there.

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So that way I've only got from there to there

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and then I can have my ugly star or whatever happening underneath my coffee mug.

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So I need to add a loop cut, but I can't add a loop cut on just a single face.

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Instead, what I need to do is, it's called inset, to take a single face

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and then just like add in a loop around that face and you do that by hitting I.

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So I and then just like, it's already active.

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Again, this is why I spent a while to explain it the moment you activate a tool, you're already in that selection state.

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So I hit I, and wherever my cursor is, it's now going like, where do you want to put this inset?

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Okay, so I'm just moving it back and forth until I get it.

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You know, how tight do I want this edge to look?

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Something like that, maybe?

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I mean, it's underneath the coffee mug.

428

It doesn't really matter that much, but yeah, Something like that.

429

And there we go.

430

So you can see this looks a lot nicer.

431

And again, because we are in a non -destructive workflow, I've still got my Solidify modifier at the top here, right?

432

I could change the thickness of this.

433

I can make this a really chunky looking coffee mug or a really thin one.

434

And that is the benefit of a non -destructive workflow.

435

And then I can also change how high res do I want my coffee mug to look?

436

And this is the way to work in 3D.

437

This is the best way to do it because, you know, if a client wants you to change something or whatnot,

438

keeping in a flexible workflow is definitely a good place to be.

439

Okay, so we have created the start of a coffee mug and we have also created a donut.

440

Good time to save.

441

Good time to save.

442

So file, save as, or shift control S and then save as.

443

So the way I like to save things, and you might want to copy this, is to, you come up with a name,

444

you know, underscore whatever, and then you put a number after it.

445

And then you can actually see I've already saved my file.

446

I don't want to override my existing save in case I need to go back to it for whatever reason.

447

So I just want to add a number to it.

448

And in other softwares, you know, you have to come here and you have to type in the number, right?

449

Not Blender.

450

Blender has a hotkey for everything.

451

If you hit plus or minus on your numpad or on the little field here.

452

Oh, you can't even see it.

453

I'm right over the top of it right there.

454

This little field, these little plus and minus, it'll automatically add a number to the end of your file.

455

So that's, yeah, really useful.

456

So I'm just going to add a two there and I'm going to hit save.

457

All right.

458

So if you're watching this in the split version of the tutorial, you can click here to watch part two,

459

or if you're watching the combined single long video at the end, you can just keep on watching.

460

Let's go.

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114 sentences

Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This speaking lesson is built on the video “Blender Donut Tutorial Part 1”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: blender, add, click. This video has 459 sentences and 5438 words to shadow. The speech runs for 28:29. The speaker talks fast, about 191 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 85% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.

Key vocabulary in this video

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

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
edit verb	/ˈɛdɪt/	To change a text, or a document.
select verb	/sɪˈlɛkt/	To choose one or more elements of a set, especially a set of options.
mesh noun	/mɛʃ/	A structure made of connected strands of metal, fiber, or other flexible/ductile material, with evenly spaced openings between them.
dragon noun	/ˈdɹæɡən/	In European mythologies, a gigantic beast, typically reptilian with leathery bat-like wings, lion-like claws, scaly skin and a lizard-like body, often a…
mouse noun	/maʊs/	Any mammal of the many rodent families (especially Muridae) that have a small body and a long tail.
smooth adjective	/smuːð/	Having a texture that lacks friction. Not rough.
underneath adverb	/ˌʌndɚˈniθ/	Below; in a place beneath.
loop noun	/luːp/	A length of thread, line or rope that is doubled over to make an opening.
delete verb	/dɪˈliːt/	To remove, get rid of or erase, especially written or printed material, or data on a computer or other device.
geometry noun	/d͡ʒiˈɑ.mə.tɹi/	The branch of mathematics dealing with spatial relationships.
thickness noun	/ˈθɪknəs/	The property of being thick (in dimension).
essentially adverb	/ɪˈsɛnʃəli/	In essence: by nature.
shade noun	/ʃeɪd/	Darkness where light, particularly sunlight, is blocked.
activate verb	/ˈæktɪˌveɪt/	To encourage development or induce increased activity; to stimulate.
keyboard noun	/ˈki.bɔɹd/	A set of keys laid out in a gridlike pattern, used for typing on a typewriter, computer, etc.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Meaning
hold down verb	To restrain; to check.
go back to verb	To stem from; to originate in.
come over verb	To affect in a sudden, unprecedented or surprising manner; to overwhelm a person's ordinarily contrary impulse.
come up with verb	To manage to produce, deliver, or present (something) by inventing, creating, thinking of, or obtaining it.
drop down verb	To sail, move, or row down a coast, or down a river to the sea.
end up verb	To bring to a conclusion.
get back to verb	Return to (an activity)
go around verb	To move or spread from person to person.

Sentences worth repeating

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

It's definitely easier if you have a mouse.
And then you're like, which way is up?
We're starting, well, we're trying to make a donut.
Then I'll just scroll in like so.
It's completely engulfing our donut.

Grammar in this video

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

Structure	In the video
Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result	if you're on Windows, that'll download · if you hold down shift, that will use
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	has never opened · have already made · I've actually just released
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	is hit · was selected · are called
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	torus, which is · meter, which is · times, which is

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 145 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, I'm, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: smooth /smuːð/, underneath /ˌʌndɚˈniθ/, thickness /ˈθɪknəs/, thick /θɪk/, thin /ˈθɪn/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: mesh /mɛʃ/, essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/, shade /ʃeɪd/, subdivision /ˈsʌbdɪvɪʒən/, splash /splæʃ/
Long words — get the stress right: geometry /d͡ʒiˈɑ.mə.tɹi/, essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/, complicated /ˈkɑm.plɪˌkeɪ.tɪd/, subdivision /ˈsʌbdɪvɪʒən/, alternatively /ɔlˈtɝ.nə.tɪv.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 edit, select, mesh.

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: Blender Donut Tutorial Part 1 (2026) - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

Key vocabulary in this video

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Sentences worth repeating

Grammar in this video

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?