Shadowing Practice: City or Country Life? - Learn English Speaking with Video

Creating lesson...
1
I like being in the countryside but I’m always happy to come back to the city.
2
How about you?
3
I actually really love the countryside, I grew up on a farm.
4
I love being in London, I have loved my time in London, but as I’m getting older, I increasingly want to visit the countryside more and more.
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It’s nice, it’s quiet, you can forget about the city.
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I love it, I was brought up in the countryside.
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I love being in the countryside, love the quiet, love the fresh air, it’s great.
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I love being in the countryside, I come from Hertfordshire, so although it’s not where I live, actually, directly in the countryside, if you drive ten minutes you’re in it, and it’s beautiful.
9
I love the countryside, it’s a nice change to living in London, and I enjoy taking weekends out, I enjoy camping.
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I enjoy the countryside because I’ve lived there for about 37 years, and particularly I enjoy gardening, growing a lot of vegetables.
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The thing I enjoy most about being in the countryside is watching animals and birds.
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How about you? Do you like wildlife?
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Well I am an animal lover, I am a vegetarian as well.
14
I like wildlife and animals, since I was a little girl I’ve always really liked foxes for some reason and I know a lot of people don’t but foxes have always been my favourite animal.
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I love wildlife, I really sort of enjoy things that you don’t see every day.
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I enjoy sort of very exotic wildlife that I haven’t seen before.
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I like watching them on the telly.
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I think animals are living beings and should be treated as so, should be treated with respect.
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I like big cats they’re very graceful, they're very beautiful and something I’ve always had a fascination with from an early age, I also quite like large snakes, a friend of mine used to keep them.
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My nephew and niece have a guinea pig which I love.
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Are there any animals you are frightened of?
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Snakes and scorpions, just because I know that usually one bite could mean that's the end.
23
I don’t like spiders, it’s not really an animal, but I hate spiders.
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I am very scared of spiders, and even though in Australia we get some very small but very dangerous spiders, I’m afraid of very big spiders.
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I don’t particularly like horses because they’re big and they frighten our dog.
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I’m not really frightened of any animals, I love them all.
27
There’s nothing that scares me, I haven’t got any memories of animals scaring me as a child I’m quite scared of sharks, I don’t really like the sea, and so whales and animals such as that, I don’t really like.
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I suppose because it’s the unknown, I just find it quite scary.

About This Lesson

You're practicing English with "City or Country Life?" using the Shadowing technique — a method originally developed for professional interpreter training.

Focus on sounding like the speaker — not just repeating words. With 15–30 minutes of daily practice, you'll build real-world speaking confidence.

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 →