Shadowing Practice: Can chocolate make you better at English? - Learn English Speaking with Video
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196 sentences
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Could eating chocolate help you learn English better?
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Could it actually make you smarter?
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Today I'm at Maison Maroon, one of the most popular chocolate shops in Vietnam, and we will be sampling,
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testing, and tasting all of the wonderful chocolate inside,
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all while learning English in the real world.
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Let's get some sugar.
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Who strolls down the boulevard but you
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Oh, it's very rainy outside.
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So, we're inside.
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Let's sample some chocolates.
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Before we do that, the first word.
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I'm standing on the drowned floor.
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Not the first floor, the ground floor.
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Ha ha.
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So this is the name of the shop.
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Maison Maru maison in French means house.
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Did you know I can speak French?
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Step one is to get a basket.
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These are lovely wicker baskets.
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Wicker is this crosshatch material.
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So we have just sampled the 76 % dark chocolate.
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It's a little bit bitter but I like it.
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So I'm going to take a bar of chocolate.
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This is a bar of chocolate.
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Here we have lots of chocolate on display and the chocolate bars are on little shelves.
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This is a little shelf attached or fixed to the wall.
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The wall, the shelf, the bar of chocolate.
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Dirt chocolate, caramelized and spiced cashews.
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That one is dangerously good.
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I just come and try other free samples.
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Great, I'm gonna buy a lot for these are the samples
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when you try it you are sampling the chocolate
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I am trying a sample I can also use the verb I'm sampling it I'm trying it
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to get better at speaking focus on building a small daily habits
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I want to I'll show you how you can use Sprout to cultivate and build a speaking habit.
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We just added a super cool feature where you can turn any YouTube video into an English lesson.
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Sprout gives you key vocab from that video and you can speak about it with J .I.
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He will ask you questions about the video topic and help you use the new words you learned.
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After you finish speaking, you get feedback to find out what you're doing well and where you can improve.
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It's such a simple but powerful way to become fluent in English.
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Listening with attention and speaking every day.
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If you want to check out Spout, I'll leave a link in the description box.
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You can try it for seven days free and turn any YouTube video into an English.
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All right guys, well the shop was empty and now the shop is very full.
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We just had a lot of tourists come inside the shop to try the chocolate like us.
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Milk chocolate is chocolate that has more sugar, more milk, more cream inside it.
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Dark chocolate is stronger, more bitter and it has less sugar generally.
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So dark chocolate is the one that is better for our boy, I guess.
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More on that later.
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These are little wooden tweezers that you use to pick up the piece of chocolate.
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This is a piece of chocolate.
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You can also use tweezers to look your eyebrows.
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Metal tweezers, not these tweezers.
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I'm not going to do that.
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That's weird.
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These are boxes of chocolates and on the box we have a purple ribbon.
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This is a ribbon.
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I'm going to get this box of Halloween chocolates.
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Deliciously dark. In the basket.
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On these shelves we have the cacao nibs.
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And these cacao nibs are the crunchy bits of the cacao bean that are crushed up from the cacao pods.
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So all chocolate comes from a cacao tree.
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On the cacao tree, the fruit is a cacao pod.
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And inside the cacao pod is the cacao beans.
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Cacao nibs are crushed up cacao beans.
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And they are quite bitter.
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They don't have any sugar added to them.
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I love these little things they're very good for our brains
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and they give you that satisfaction of chocolate without all the sugar.
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Maison Maru source their chocolate from six different regions across Vietnam.
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And each colour of each bar represents the region from where the cacao came from.
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To get the best chocolate, we have to get in the car and head out to the countryside to source the best beans.
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So I've got three things in my basket.
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A tin of cacao nibs, a box of dark chocolate, Halloween special, and a bar of dark chocolate.
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And it's very busy in the shop now, so we're going to buy these, maybe a drink, and then head upstairs.
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I'm buying the items now and I want to teach you guys a word.
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She is scanning the items.
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She scans the items, it makes a sound.
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Can I also take the Maru signature pot for here please with a boba, chocolate boba.
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Tapping the card.
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This is the receipt.
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Receipt is your confirmation of order.
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Perfect, thank you.
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All right, numero uno, number one.
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Okay, now let's go up the stairs to the upstairs sitting.
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This is a hand rail,
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a hand rail used to support you if you struggle to get up the stairs.
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And this is the staircase, the staircase.
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Chang is walking up the stairs, this whole thing is called the staircase.
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The place where the stairs are is the staircase.
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And we are sitting at the table by the window.
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A nice bright open window and the lovely waitress has just brought us some drinks.
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So this is the hot chocolate and they have drawn an M on the foam with cocoa powder.
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The top of the hot chocolate is called foam.
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If you've been watching the channel for a while, then thank you.
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And you'll notice that I often repeat words so that they can help stick in your brain it is better.
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Repetition is the key to learning anything.
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So with that let's repeat some of the words I've already taught.
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This is a hot chocolate in a mug.
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What's the material of the mug?
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The material is porcelain.
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This is a porcelain mug.
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Normally I just say mug.
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Where am I holding it?
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I'm holding the handle.
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This is the handle of the mug which you hold like this.
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I could also say I'm gripping the handle.
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Now, I talked previously, on top of the hot chocolate we have the foam, which is like that, the bubbles on top.
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You have foam on top of a hot chocolate, a beer, or when you shampoo your hair.
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Where does the mug sit?
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The mug sits on the saucer.
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And this is a teaspoon to stir the hot chocolate or put my boba balls.
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into the hot chocolate.
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Would you say perfect savor or anything perfect?
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Yeah.
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I've never been having a cup of tea.
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I just sipped the hot chocolate and I would say that it's very rich.
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It's very rich means that the taste is strong.
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Oh yeah.
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It is satisfying.
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Oh god.
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It's nice.
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That's good.
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Oh, it's a bit of a bucket bubble.
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Just finished my hot chocolate and now, as always, let's go learn some English in the real world.
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But before we do that, look what we have here.
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It's only Jack.
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Say hello.
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She's the.. my lovely partner who always helps me film these videos.
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She's the magic behind the camera.
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So this is the area where the staff make the desserts and the chocolates.
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So in here she's spreading the melted chocolate in the mould.
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Over here we have a seating area with cushions on the chair.
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And this is called the arm of the chair.
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And it's made of wood, just like the wooden floor.
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Up here we have the wall.
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This is the wall and on this wall it's a funky, colourful pattern.
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The word funky means stylish and I love the word funky.
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In the corner there is a plant.
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On the right of the plant there is a picture in the frame.
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The picture shows all the different regions on the map where they grow the chocolates.
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On this wall there are pictures hanging up.
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The pictures are hanging on the wall.
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On this picture there is a wooden frame.
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The frame is the edge of the picture or the poster and this is a cacao pod.
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This picture is of an old Vietnamese lady who is clearly a cacao farmer.
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She looks very happy.
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There are cacao beans in front of her.
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So I described that wall as funky.
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I love the word funky.
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Let me show you something else that we can describe as funky.
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No, it's not me.
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It is this cushion.
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This cushion has a funky pattern.
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It's wavy.
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You can use the word funky in many different contexts.
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For example, funky music or a funky pattern on the wall.
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And on the wall, there are lots of tools.
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Let's take a closer look.
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Here is a picture of a hand holding some cacao beans.
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This is the rake for spreading and turning the beans as they dry in the soil.
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In this picture there is a hand holding a red cacao pod and a green cacao pod.
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They may have snipped these cacao pods from the tree with this pair of scissors.
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This is a pair of scissors or we could say these are scissors.
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Up here is a sieve.
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This sieve is used for sifting the cocoa powder so it's fine and smooth.
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This is a spatula which they use for scooping out the chocolate into these plastic molds.
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These are the plastic molds where they pour the melted chocolate inside.
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Speaking of melted chocolate, this is melted chocolate inside the bowl.
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It's in a metal bowl and she is spreading the melted chocolate into the blue plastic mold.
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When something melts it turns from a solid, solid to a liquid.
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So when I eat this piece of chocolate it will melt in my mouth.
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chocolate is starting to melt in my mouth and generally
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when food melts in your mouth it's considered pleasant note by the way
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that i said a piece of chocolate that's a collocation we can have a piece of chocolate
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if you break off a piece it might be called a chunk of chocolate
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or as i said earlier you can have a bar of chocolate
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so can eating chocolates actually help you become better at english can it make
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you smarter well the science says yes if you eat chocolate
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that is above 80 or more it has less sugar in it
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and it's more pure just like these cacao nibs which are 100 % chocolate.
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When you eat the stronger chocolates then you have the plant chemical called flavonols which are good for your memory,
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they improve your mood, literally make you happier and improve your focus because chocolate has caffeine in too.
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So including a little bit of chocolates in your daily routine will actually help you learn English better
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and it'll make you happier.
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But it has to be dark chocolate.
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I have to admit I have a bit of a sweet tooth and that's the final phrase of the day,
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to have a sweet tooth which means to enjoy sweet food.
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So I only buy dark chocolate in the house around 80 %
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so that when I want to indulge in the chocolate I eat a bit more than I should
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but it's good for me.
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Now do you have a sweet tooth?
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Do you love chocolate?
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Are you gonna convert or change to dark chocolates after learning this information?
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It might help you with your English.
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Thank you, keep learning, and I'll see you next time
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “Can chocolate make you better at English?”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: chocolate, cacao, funky, wall, dark. This video has 196 sentences and 1940 words to shadow. The speech runs for 17:40. The speaker talks at a steady 110 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. Only 81% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| melt verb | /mɛlt/ | To change (or to be changed) from a solid state to a liquid state, usually by a gradual heat. |
| bean noun | /ˈbi(ː)n/ | Any plant of several genera of the taxonomic family Fabaceae that produces large edible seeds or edible seedpods. |
| stairs noun | /ˈstɛɹz/ | A contiguous set of steps connecting two floors. |
| basket noun | /ˈbæskɪt/ | A lightweight woven container, generally round, open at the top, and tapering toward the bottom. |
| shelf noun | /ʃɛlf/ | A flat, rigid structure, fixed at right angles to a wall or forming a part of a cabinet, desk, etc., and used to display, store, or support objects. |
| foam noun | /ˈfɔʊ̯m/ | A substance composed of a large collection of bubbles or their solidified remains, especially |
| staircase noun | /ˈstɛɹˌkeɪs/ | A flight of stairs; a stairway. |
| wooden adjective | /ˈwʊdn̩/ | Made of wood. |
| bitter adjective | /ˈbɪ.tɚ/ | Having an acrid taste (usually from a basic substance). |
| tooth noun | /tuθ/ | A hard, calcareous structure present in the mouth of many vertebrate animals, generally used for biting and chewing food. |
| mold noun | /moʊld/ | A natural substance in the form of a furry or woolly growth of tiny fungi that appears when organic material lies for a long time exposed to (usually warm and… |
| cushion noun | /ˈkʊʃən/ | A soft mass of material stuffed into a cloth bag, used for comfort or support. |
| scissors noun | /ˈsɪzəz/ | A tool used for cutting thin material, consisting of two crossing blades attached at a pivot point in such a way that the blades slide across each other when… |
| rail noun | /ɹeɪ(ə)l/ | A horizontal bar extending between supports and used for support or as a barrier; a railing. |
| powder noun | /ˈpaʊ.dɚ/ | The fine particles which are the result of reducing a dry substance by pounding, grinding, or triturating, or the result of decay; dust. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| break off verb | To remove a piece from a whole by breaking or snapping. |
| check out verb | To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.). |
| find out verb | To discover, as by asking or investigating. |
| get up verb | To move in an upward direction; to ascend or climb. |
| go up verb | To move upwards. |
| hang up verb | To put up to hang. |
| pick up verb | To lift; to grasp and raise. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- Could it actually make you smarter?
- I'm standing on the drowned floor.
- It's a little bit bitter but I like it.
- Where am I holding it?
- Would you say perfect savor or anything perfect?
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 | you've been watching · I've never been having |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | are crushed · is called · is melted |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have just sampled · has just brought · have drawn |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | foam, which is · nibs which are · flavonols which are |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 27 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, I'll, I've. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: tooth /tuθ/, smooth /smuːð/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: shelf /ʃɛlf/, cushion /ˈkʊʃən/, crush /kɹʌʃ/, satisfaction /sætɪsˈfækʃən/, confirmation /ˌkɑn.fəɹˈmeɪ.ʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: satisfaction /sætɪsˈfækʃən/, confirmation /ˌkɑn.fəɹˈmeɪ.ʃən/, caramelize /ˈkaɹ(ə)məlʌɪz/, collocation /ˌkɑ.ləˈkeɪ.ʃən/, deliciously /dəˈlɪ.ʃəs.li/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like melt, bean, stairs.
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.