Shadowing Practice: ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’: A New Wave of Consumer Debt - Learn English Speaking with Video
Choose a practice mode
Each mode opens a full-screen practice room.
323 sentences
If sentences are too short or too long, click Edit to adjust them.
1
From The New York Times, I'm Natalie Kittrow-F.
2
This is The Daily.
3
As Americans struggle with rising costs just about everywhere,
4
they're increasingly turning to a new form of credit — buy now, pay later loans.
5
Those loans have exploded since the pandemic, In part because they're easier to get and often cheaper than credit cards.
6
And now, people are relying on them for everything from groceries to rent.
7
Today, my colleague Stacey Cowley explains the draw and the hidden risks of buy now, pay later loans.
8
And what their rise says about the state of the American consumer.
9
It's Tuesday, September 8th.
10
Stacey, welcome back to the show.
11
I love having you here.
12
Thanks for having me back to talk about debt again.
13
Yes, the debt that we are here to talk about are these buy now, pay later loans.
14
And I want to start by asking you to explain at a really high level what these loans are
15
and why they've become so popular.
16
So these are very short-term installment loans that you can use
17
when you're purchasing something at a retail checkout or online or just in your daily shopping needs.
18
And they are typically very quick and easy to get.
19
You can usually get approved for one within minutes.
20
And they let you buy something and space out your payment for it over time.
21
So let's say you're going to buy a new pair of shoes.
22
You can click a button and say, okay, I'm going to do a six-week loan, and I will every two weeks pay a third of this,
23
and I will have it paid off in six weeks rather than paying for all of it up front right now.
24
You can also download an app.
25
When I was reporting this story, I went and downloaded some.
26
I signed up with Affirm.
27
Five minutes later, I had a $6,000 credit line and a whole list of merchants I could go spend it at.
28
Right.
29
I have seen these in my online shopping being offered to me.
30
They seem really easy, straightforward word.
31
You just click a thing and there you are.
32
You have credit.
33
And that's by design.
34
They're intended to be really fast, really easy, to feel kind of transparent.
35
You can see the terms, you can click, boom, off you go.
36
So that is the intention to make these really easy to obtain.
37
And what's been happening over the last few years is starting to accelerate is they're moving into the physical world.
38
A lot of these vendors now offer payment cards where you could use it at a checkout, tap and pay and go.
39
They are starting to offer loans for other sorts of more recurring expenses in people's lives.
40
So they've sort of morphed from this really quick, easy online checkout thing to being a more generally available and broad-based form of credit for your everyday life.
41
And we know that roughly half of Americans have used a loan like this at some point in the last few years, and around 15 to 25 percent of Americans are using them really regularly.
42
And why does that matter that so many people are turning to these loans?
43
Certainly people have always used, you know, credit cards and things like that for consumer purchases.
44
So the idea that you're having to borrow to finance your daily needs, that's not new.
45
What's drawing attention here with this is both how easy and frictionless these are to obtain,
46
and also that the usage patterns tend to be most heavily used by people who are really on the financial margins.
47
These are often people who've maxed out their credit cards, who don't qualify for credit cards.
48
People are struggling to keep up with their bills and their debts.
49
So that's always a concern when you see people borrowing things that they may not be able to repay.
50
About half the people who use buy now, pay later loans say they couldn't make the purchase without them.
51
The other thing that's drawing attention is just how quickly these are growing.
52
They're growing by about double digit growth rates every year.
53
Last year, Americans spent about $160 billion through these loans, which is about twice what they'd spent two years earlier.
54
Okay, so really rapid growth in a form of credit
55
that is going to people who may not be qualifying for other types of loans
56
or may have maxed out their credit cards.
57
How did we get to this point where these loans have become so ubiquitous, where you can't really check out of any online store without being offered them?
58
So these loans really started about 15 or so years ago in Europe and Australia.
59
That's where they kind of started to take off.
60
We saw them move into the United States, you know, a decade or so ago.
61
But the pandemic was really the moment where they skyrocket.
62
Basically, what happened there is you had a lot of people sitting at home doing a lot of online shopping.
63
There was real consumer demands.
64
And these became a very easy way for merchants to put them at the checkout counter on their online websites and say, hey, you can quickly get credit and finance this purchase.
65
Can you just explain that?
66
I know the pandemic was an economically difficult period for a lot of people, but the U.S government was also working to keep people afloat with these pandemic checks.
67
And a lot of people did have cash on hand.
68
So why were they turning to these loans?
69
Right.
70
It was a moment when people were sort of unusually flushed compared to how they usually are in America.
71
What was appealing about these loans is they sort of facilitated impulse purchases, and sometimes they were used by people who just wanted to use them for convenience.
72
If you're going to go buy a couch for your house in the pandemic
73
and you have the option of stretching the payment out for a few weeks or months, sure, why not?
74
Especially when they started, those retail merchant loans, they often came with no fee.
75
The merchant was paying the costs.
76
It can also kind of entice you to buy something that might be a little more of a splurge.
77
You're scrolling, you see a cool outfit, you see a cool pair of shoes this makes it really easy to sort of impulse go, yes, I'm gonna buy this.
78
And that's why the merchants offered them.
79
For them, it's a way to make a sale you might not otherwise make.
80
So at this point in the history, it sounds like the massive growth in the loans is being driven by a particular consumer culture
81
that took over
82
when we were all staring at our phones nonstop trying to keep up with the Joneses on Instagram and TikTok and such.
83
Totally.
84
And that moment also coincided with the sort of takeoff, really, of influencer culture.
85
Hi, guys.
86
So I wanted to film a Everything I Bought This Week video.
87
People are looking on Instagram and TikTok.
88
So I did a thing, spend £190 on Shane.
89
You would have people sort of bragging about, hey, I use Klarna and I went on a shopping spree and here's what I got.
90
I did a little Sephora order.
91
I paid for everything through Klarna because that way you...
92
It became in the zeitgeist and kind of normalized
93
that this was a way of paying for things you might want to go purchase.
94
Girl math is when you use afterpay for literally everything.
95
If you have no money but want some clothes, you just smack it on the Klarna.
96
Life is too short to not experiencing because you don't have the money right now,
97
baby, put it on the payment plan. And then since then,
98
that's when they started their sort of morph out into a much broader pool of retail options
99
and showing up at your grocery store checkout and things like that.
100
I used Klarna to buy my groceries from Aldi and this is everything that I got.
101
Pay your rent, pay your car, no. I have gotten my car fixed on a firm in Klarna.
102
Groceries are expensive, but I got all of this today because I used Klarna.
103
And that's been the thing that's been changing, especially this year.
104
Not only are people really starting to use these loans for more everyday essentials, the vendors are leaning into it.
105
So a lot of them have started specifically targeting and offering products in that space.
106
For one example, Flex is an app that people have used for years to pay for rent.
107
That is their specific market.
108
They do about $2 billion a month in rent loans.
109
Wow.
110
This year, they started deliberately expanding into sort of a broader set of recurring monthly expenses, like utilities and auto loans.
111
We've seen other lenders sort of following that same path.
112
So Affirm is one that people might have used online.
113
It's a pretty popular retail checkout app.
114
They, this year, started offering rent loans.
115
They said they were responding to what they saw as user demand for that more everyday essential.
116
So it's expanded far beyond influencer culture.
117
People are using it on basic necessities.
118
Yeah.
119
One person I talked to, one analyst, was referring to this is the new working capital for the working class.
120
Like this is really something that for people who are really struggling to make ends meet, these are increasingly becoming a tool they go to.
121
And other people who might have some more discretionary income and discretionary credit options, they too are starting to experiment with these more
122
and make them sort of a more regular part of an everyday consumer's digital wallet.
123
And you started to do this, but just walk me through how the companies that offer these loans make money off them?
124
When they started to really take off, it was usually the merchants paying the fees.
125
Right.
126
But there's only two places for these companies to make their money.
127
It's the merchants or the consumers.
128
And as people are starting to use them for more everyday things, more often than not, it's the consumer paying the fees now.
129
What does that look like exactly?
130
So typically, if you're going to use one of these, you're going to pay a small fee to borrow, might be five, 10 bucks to take out the loan, some processing fees on top of it, things like that.
131
Some of them have subscription fees.
132
But generally speaking, if you're going to borrow $1,000 for rent and stretch it out for a couple weeks, you might pay $25 in fees to do that.
133
That sounds like a kind of low fee overall.
134
I guess I'm just wondering, how is this form of a loan different from a credit card, for example?
135
That's part of the selling point.
136
Since these are typically small-dollar loans, the fees are typically also small-dollar, and they're very concrete.
137
It's very clear in dollars and cents what you're going to be paying.
138
With credit cards, that's often pretty opaque.
139
You're paying an interest rate.
140
It changes.
141
It fluctuates.
142
You might pay an unspecified late fee, and then your rate might go up.
143
So for consumers, that can feel a lot more unpredictable than these loans can.
144
The other selling point is that it's short term.
145
These are typically loans that last a few weeks or a few months.
146
So part of the pitch is, hey, you can't get yourself into a really long-term debt trap here.
147
Okay, given that, this actually seems like a pretty good option if you need help with something like paying your rent.
148
Is there a catch?
149
Is there something I'm missing?
150
Yep, there's a couple.
151
One thing about these is that to get one, you typically have to give them your bank account information or a debit card.
152
So when it's time to pay, they're just going to reach straight into your bank account and take the money out.
153
Meaning basically, you're not choosing when to repay these loans like I am with my credit card how much, when.
154
These companies just reach directly into your bank account and take that money on their schedule.
155
Yep.
156
On the day the loan is due, it's coming straight out.
157
Look, if you only have one loan, you can probably keep track of when it's due.
158
But you can get multiples of these loans.
159
And it's not uncommon to see people with a dozen or so loans out there.
160
And then suddenly you're seeing, oh my God, every couple days money is zapping out of my account.
161
I can't keep track of that.
162
And suddenly you're getting hit with overdraft fees and things like that.
163
Right.
164
So another catch is that these companies also typically do what's called a soft credit check.
165
They're not doing a hard credit pull.
166
So the underwriting for these loans is really light.
167
And unlike with more traditional credit, where some credit bureau is keeping track of everything you owe, that's not happening here.
168
So every lender is kind of making their own decisions
169
and lending you money and doesn't necessarily know what you've got extended with other lenders.
170
It can be easy to have them stack up
171
and it can start to become a real cycle people get into where they start
172
and then find that they can't get by without these loans
173
and they're constantly having to re-borrow and pay down and re-borrow again and again and again.
174
Similar to what would happen with payday loans.
175
I've talked to a lot of people who find that that's the case.
176
For them it can become this real financial trap where it's impossible to get out.
177
We'll be right back.
178
Stacey, you said you've been talking to borrowers who've been taking out these loans.
179
Talk to me about what exactly they've been telling you about their experience.
180
I am working on an article about the rising use of Buy Now Pay Later.
181
So I spoke to a woman in Baltimore named Ashley Reed.
182
She's an instructional aide in Baltimore City Schools, and she's also a radiology assistant at a hospital.
183
She's working a job and a half to make ends meet.
184
I have been using Buy Now Pay Later products for quite some time.
185
Her story really stuck out to me as she kind of walked me through how she uses these in her monthly budget.
186
At first, I would just use them for like small purchases if I wanted an outfit or something like that.
187
She was using buy now, pay later loans at first just for little online splurges.
188
And then my mom had a brain aneurysm.
189
That changed a couple of years ago when her mom had a medical emergency.
190
And a whole bunch of expenses came with that.
191
And I wound up like maxing out my credit card to pay for hotel rooms
192
and ambulance services to get her transferred back.
193
She had to travel to be with her mom in the hospital.
194
There were lots of things that weren't being paid for.
195
So she maxed out all of her credit cards trying to make this work.
196
That's when I really started to depend on the Buy Now Pay Later stuff.
197
And suddenly these apps started to come away to make her everyday bills.
198
And pretty quickly, in a matter of months, it starts to swallow her.
199
And like a lot of Americans these days, her income fluctuates.
200
Her teaching job pays her for 10 months of the year.
201
So in the summer, she's really stretched.
202
and she has to juggle her bills and prioritize.
203
The buy now, pay later is helpful, but at times it's also stressful because I have to make this payment.
204
I can't be late because, you know, I'm going to need to use it again.
205
So she talked to me about choosing to sometimes go late on her rent
206
because her landlord's nice and she knows they'll be okay with it
207
and prioritize paying off her pay later loans
208
because she needs them to be able to reborrow again the next month to buy her groceries and her basics.
209
And she has to stay in good standing with those companies to keep taking out those loans.
210
Right.
211
Because if you are late on a loan, they will respond by freezing your credit line.
212
You won't be able to borrow again until you're paid up.
213
So, yeah, I feel like I'm constantly in, like, the survival mode.
214
And how does she think about the decisions she's had to make, how she's gotten to this point?
215
She said she would really caution people about starting to use these apps.
216
Don't get dependent on it like I have.
217
Got myself depending on it.
218
It's hard to see another option for her.
219
I mean, even with all of the work she's doing, she's making a fairly modest five-figure income.
220
Right now, like a lot of people, she's really stretched.
221
The cost of living has gone up so much.
222
It's hard to make ends meet, and this really did become her only way.
223
But she's also very aware that she's now in this cycle that's really hard to get out of.
224
And do we know how common this kind of experience is?
225
I mean, you said I think 15 to 25 percent of Americans say they're using these loans regularly.
226
How many of them are in situations like this?
227
That's one of the challenges here.
228
There isn't a lot of good data.
229
Anecdotally, there's lots of reports out there about people falling into these kinds of situations.
230
But because these lenders are typically not reporting to credit bureaus, it's really hard to know exactly what's going on in here.
231
These are often loans that are backed by private credit money, not banks.
232
So there isn't the same level of regulatory oversight and monitoring that we have with other credit products.
233
But right now, this whole area is fairly small compared to, for example, credit cards.
234
Americans spend about $3 trillion a year on credit cards.
235
Right now, Buy Now Pay Later is about $160 billion.
236
So it's much smaller in comparison, but because of how fast it's growing and because it's really hard to know exactly what's going on with these loans,
237
there's concern among economists about when does this become a bigger risk.
238
And is there any discussion in Washington about pushing for regulation around these?
239
In fits and starts.
240
There was starting to be a move towards that, towards the end of the Biden administration.
241
That pretty much stopped with the Trump administration.
242
There's not a lot of interest there in more federal financial regulation.
243
So we've seen some movement in some states to try to write their own rules around this.
244
In some ways, this is parallel to what happened with the credit card industry.
245
I mean, in the early days of that, this was starting to explode.
246
People started to use them more.
247
And the regulation caught up later.
248
You know, Stacey, one of the questions I have about this is that from everything you've said,
249
it seems like part of the risk of these loans is not actually something that would necessarily be subject to regulation,
250
which is the way that they're marketed to consumers
251
and the way they interact with our psychology as we go to buy things.
252
Maybe people have less anxiety about them than they do about credit card debt.
253
And I'd imagine the concern about that is
254
that they potentially create a kind of permission structure for people to plunge themselves into more
255
and more debt without actually being super conscious of how big a problem it could be.
256
Yeah, that was what struck me in talking to consumers about this, is that it was one thing when these were loans for people who are affluent enough to pay them off,
257
being used for online splurges and purchases and things like that.
258
But now as they become the thing that so many people are having to rely on for everyday essentials, this can sometimes become the only way to keep your monthly budget going.
259
I have talked to consumer advocates who say, look, given the options out there, these can be some of the better choices for people who don't have a lot of other borrowing options.
260
But one of the big questions that's going on around the rapid growth here is, to what extent does this reflect consumer preference?
261
Are people choosing these loans because they prefer them to other forms of borrowing?
262
And to what extent is it desperation?
263
I mean, one of the big stories of this year has been affordability how much people are struggling.
264
And that's where the growth of these loans is kind of raising concerns.
265
It's one thing if people are voluntarily opting for them.
266
It's different if people are so desperate that these are the only ways they can make ends meet.
267
You know, it strikes me that as there's been all this discussion about the affordability crisis, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has been asked about,
268
you know, these consumer surveys showing that people are growing pessimistic about what they can afford.
269
And his response has been to say, well, look, their spending tells a different story.
270
Consumer spending is still really strong.
271
And that's true.
272
But the growth of these loans, especially for necessities, as you've described it, that seems to complicate that narrative.
273
Right.
274
There's kind of two ways to look at that.
275
One is that if consumer spending is growing because people are feeling confident, they feel like they can go on vacation and they feel comfortable that they'll be able to pay it off.
276
That's one thing.
277
But if borrowing is going up because people are having to do it to pay for their daily needs, that's different.
278
And the companies themselves are acknowledging it.
279
When I talked to an executive at Flex, I'm going to read you what he said to me.
280
He said, we can't solve income or the price of rent and affordability.
281
What we can help people solve is a timing issue.
282
It's harm reduction.
283
That phrase, harm reduction, it sounds like a recognition
284
that the use of these things is just not a good sign about where we're at with the affordability crisis.
285
That's how I took it.
286
They can be more appealing and safer than other options out there.
287
But the fact that usage is rising so much is pretty much a sign that people are really struggling.
288
Well, Stacey, thanks for coming on the show.
289
Thanks for having me.
290
We'll be right back.
291
Here's what else you need to know today.
292
On Sunday, an Amazon cargo jet ran off the runway at Miami International Airport and struck two vehicles,
293
killing five people on the ground and injuring five more.
294
Only two people were aboard the cargo plane, a pilot and a co-pilot, and they both survived.
295
The plane crashed into a van carrying workers for a cleaning company contracted to the airlines
296
and an SUV that had been on a public road.
297
Federal investigators still don't know the cause of the crash and plan to review the aircraft's various systems and flight controls.
298
Thousands of passengers traveling during the Labor Day weekend had their flights delayed or canceled because of the crash.
299
And a far-right party in Germany known as the AFD won a decisive victory in a crucial state election on Sunday,
300
sending shockwaves through the country's political system.
301
The AFD tapped into voter frustration on a wide range of economic
302
and social issues to win about 44% of the vote in the eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt.
303
But the party fell short of the absolute majority needed to govern alone
304
and form the first far-right state government in Germany since the Nazi era.
305
Germany's domestic intelligence agency has designated the AFD as a suspected extremist group,
306
and some of the party's leaders have downplayed the Holocaust and adopted Nazi slogans.
307
The party could still assume power in the state, depending on negotiations among rival parties in the coming weeks.
308
Finally, after Lindsay Clancy's triple murder case ended in a mistrial on Friday,
309
the prosecutor in the case would not say whether he would retry Clancy for strangling her three young children.
310
Clancy had admitted to the killings, but pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity, with her defense arguing that she was suffering from postpartum psychosis.
311
The mistrial came after a grueling seven days
312
and nearly 40 hours of deliberations by the jurors
313
and multiple failed attempts by the judge to get them to a unanimous decision.
314
In the end, 11 of the 12 jurors appeared to agree that Clancy shouldn't be held guilty of first-degree murder charges.
315
But one juror held out, leading to a deadlock that ultimately couldn't be broken.
316
Today's episode was produced by Diana Nguyen and Jack Disidoro, with help from Olivia Natt.
317
It was edited by M.J.
318
Davis-Lynn and Lisa Chow.
319
contains music by Marion Lozano, Dan Powell, and Diane Wong, and was engineered by Alyssa Moxley.
320
Our theme music is by Wonderly.
321
That's it for The Daily.
322
I'm Natalie Kittrowak.
323
See you tomorrow.
Download App
Everything you need to speak fluently
AI PronunciationScore every sentence
IPA PracticeMaster every sound
VocabularyBuild your word bank
Vocab GameLearn while playing
Same Channel
B21
Canada Is Done With Trump
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B21
Tell Us About Your Household Debates
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B21
She Fell in Love With ChatGPT. Like, Actual Love. With Sex.
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
C1When A.I. Comes for Your Purpose in Life
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B2Vegetables Don't Have to Be Boring
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
B2Why Gas Prices Just Keep Going Up
Business EnglishWorking Adults
FOR YOU
Recommend Video
B23
159 sentences
The 'Buy Now Pay Later' Trap, Explained
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B228 sentences
Introducing Best of Luck with Kyla Scanlon
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B22
169 sentences
리스닝 실력 쑥쑥 UP 영어 뉴스 쉐도잉 I 식료품점의 변화
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B21
19 sentences
Surge in small business owners in need of financial support | 9 News Australia
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B29
46 sentences
What does Visa do? The answer might surprise you
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B22
128 sentences
Why Earning More Still Doesn't Feel Like Enough
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B21
256 sentences
Why Americans are injecting themselves with unregulated ‘miracle’ drugs | On the Ground
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B13
315 sentences
Quick Learning English with Podcast Conversation | Intermediate | Episode 01
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B25
263 sentences
"Coffee" is just Dessert Now
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B21
158 sentences
Bonds Were Supposed to Crash the Market. Why Haven’t They?
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
B22
134 sentences
The Holiday Budget Starts Now
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
A21
10 sentences
Borrow or Lend？
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 323 sentences and 4236 words to shadow. The speech runs for 23:56. The speaker talks at a natural 177 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 86% 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 |
|---|---|---|
| everyday adjective | /ˈɛvɹiˌdeɪ/ | Appropriate for ordinary use, rather than for special occasions. |
| merchant noun | /ˈmɝt͡ʃənt/ | A person who traffics in commodities for profit. |
| borrow verb | /ˈbɑɹ.oʊ/ | To receive (something) from somebody temporarily, expecting to return it. |
| checkout noun | /ˈt͡ʃɛkˌaʊt/ | The process of checking out of a hotel, or the latest time to vacate a room in one. |
| regulation noun | /ˌɹɛɡjʊˈleɪʃən/ | The act of regulating or the condition of being regulated. |
| stretch verb | /stɹɛt͡ʃ/ | To lengthen by pulling. |
| borrowing noun | /ˈbɔrəwɪŋ/ | An instance of something being borrowed. |
| groceries noun | /ˈɡɹoʊ.s(ə.)ɹiz/ | Retail foodstuffs and other household supplies; the commodities sold by a grocer or in a grocery store. |
| lender noun | /ˈlɛn.dɚ/ | One who lends, especially money; specifically, a bank or other entity that specializes in granting loans. |
| expense noun | /ɪkˈspɛns/ | A spending or consuming, often a disbursement of funds. |
| necessarily adverb | /ˌnɛs.əˈsɛɹ.ə.li/ | Inevitably; of necessity. |
| extent noun | /ɪkˈstɛnt/ | A range of values or locations. |
| harm noun | /hɑːm/ | Physical injury; hurt; damage. |
| solve verb | /sɒlv/ | To find an answer or solution to a problem or question; to work out. |
| obtain verb | /əbˈteɪn/ | To get hold of; to gain possession of, to procure; to acquire, in any way. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| go up verb | To move upwards. |
| take out verb | To remove. |
| keep up with verb | To manage to remain beside or just behind someone or something that is moving away from one. |
| take off verb | To remove. |
| caught up verb | Involuntarily involved in a situation. |
| get out verb | To leave or escape. |
| get out of verb | To leave, exit or escape from; to become free of. |
| hold out verb | To hold (something) out; to extend (something) forward. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | what's been happening · that's been changing · you've been talking |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have exploded · they've become · have seen |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | being offered · were used · being driven |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | people who are · people who use · loans, which is |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 73 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, they're, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: regulation /ˌɹɛɡjʊˈleɪʃən/, reduction /ɹɪˈdʌk.ʃən/, recognition /ˌɹɛkəɡˈnɪʃ(ə)n/, vacation /veɪˈkeɪ.ʃən/, potentially /pəˈtɛnʃ(ə)li/
- Long words — get the stress right: regulation /ˌɹɛɡjʊˈleɪʃən/, necessarily /ˌnɛs.əˈsɛɹ.ə.li/, necessity /nɪˈsɛsəti/, recognition /ˌɹɛkəɡˈnɪʃ(ə)n/, anxiety /æŋˈzaɪ.əti/
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 everyday, merchant, borrow.
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.