Shadowing Practice: Civil 3D course for beginners - Part 2 of 3 - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Welcome to part 2 of 3 part

Civil 3D Beginners video series.

If you missed part 1, then click here to check it.

And if you want to learn

Civil 3D right from scratch with full length project based courses, then click the link in the description of the video or pinned comment.

With that, let's get started.

Okay, so now that we have a little bit of an understanding about the interface and the settings and how

Civil 3D works with styles.

Let's kind of get our road done.

Let's first talk about project management.

Alright, so the first thing we're going to talk about is this existing ground surface that we have.

So this surface came from our surveyors.

If you want to kind of take a look at it real quickly, this is the existing conditions.

You can see here there's a road.

We're gonna put our road over here because we're doing a bypass.

The cool thing about this project is this.

This is actually completed.

If I were to turn on my geolocation

and we'll set the aerials on here you will see

that this project is already done this was pleated in construction about two three years ago

and this is a project that I had worked on and

if we zoom in here let's just turn this off real quickly we'll just isolate it

and hide it you'll see that this project is actually done this is pretty cool right

so this is the existing conditions and we're gonna actually do this road

and basically you know so you can see kind of how fast this gets done in Civil 3D.

Let's go ahead and just bring our service back here.

All right.

Okay

so what we need to now do is I need to

set my working folder to the location of where my project is located.

So my projects are located in here.

We'll just click select folder.

Now what it does by default is it finds the first folder within that folder that has an underscore shortcuts folder.

Okay, but what I want to do is I want to put this in my project folder.

So I'm going to right click here and click on new data shortcuts project folder.

Now all I have to do is type the name of the main part of my folder, which is called three part tutorial.

So I'll type that in here right now.

So three dash part.

All right, I'm not going to use a project template, but you could.

Now I'm going to click OK here and watch what happens.

Immediately this updates with the location of where my project is going to be.

So I'm going to open file location here.

Let's open up my Windows Explorer and as you can see what it did was it created a folder called

underscore shortcuts and inside that folder is simply subfolders that allow me to contain the data shortcuts, which are simple XML files,

they're literally just text files, that point to the location of where the data reference is.

So the drawing that we're going to be working in is in drawings, okay, and then my references,

which this is existing ground, is located inside here.

So now what I need to do is associate this file to the current project.

I'll click OK here.

You'll shows that it's part of that project.

And now I'm going to make a data shortcut for the existing ground surface

so that I can bring it into my other project files.

So if I expand surfaces and look at EG, there it is.

And again, all that this does is it creates a simple little text file that points to the location of that surface.

That is it.

Now let's go ahead and begin our project.

Now we're going to do everything else in this file.

Normally I would create a separate alignment file then make a data shortcut

and then maybe make separate model files and then data reference in all the other objects I would need.

But just to get this tutorial done, let's just bring in the EG and let me back up here.

Let me just show you what we're starting with.

We are starting with nothing and that's what I really want to show you here.

I'm going to do a control A and

if you look here the properties

I've got five circles just to help me kind of get the alignments in there real quickly.

Okay, but that's basically it here.

So first off, let's associate this project to the current drawing, which is this part two drawing that we're in.

Again, now you see it up here.

And now I want my EG because I'm going to need that to see it for my profile.

I don't need it to display.

I don't really care.

I'm going to set that to no display.

Now let's go ahead and go to AutoCAD reference

and let's bring in my DWG

which is my topo file okay this is the existing condition again a surveyor located all the data for us

so that we can see what needs to be done

so the background of this project is there were way too

many trucks coming into this gas station in this area right here

and it was clogging up this intersection horribly this is a DOT road this is basically a state road, okay?

And they were...

telling the county you have to take care of this and

so they hired an engineering firm to create a bypass road just for the trucks to enter

and then come into this way and that way they wouldn't clog up this entrance.

They exited a different way as well so they would come out this way

and then just the exit's fine but they cannot turn into this here.

And that's the main purpose of this project.

So as you can see I've already drawn some circles to kind of guide me into creating my alignments

and profiles and all that good stuff.

All right.

So basically, let's create the mainline alignment first, and then we'll create the side road alignment here as well.

Okay.

So let's go ahead and go to the Home tab, Create Design Panel, Alignment, Alignment Creation Tools.

We'll call this one US 129 because that's the name of the road.

Always start your stationing at 10 or 100 plus 00.

So I'll just start at 100 plus 00.

I've got my styles ready to go, label sets ready to go, Click OK, and I'm off and running.

I need one tangent, as this is a straight road in this location.

So I'm just going to do tangents.

I'm going to go ahead and go to the center of this circle here.

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And I'm going to go to the center of this circle here.

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Again, this just guides me.

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But as you can see, I'm pretty much just going between the midpoint of the road to the midpoint of the road.

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That's it.

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All right, so that alignment is actually done now.

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So let's go ahead and go to alignment, alignment creation tools.

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and this road will be called Love's Bypass as this is a Love's gas station.

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So Love's Bypass and we'll start this one at 200 plus a pair.

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This way you never repeat your stationing.

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Again notice how it's getting its own layer because the settings are ready to go.

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It's got the default styles ready to go.

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Click OK.

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Now for this one I'm going to create two tangents and then I'm going to fill it in between them.

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So I'll start at the center of this circle here.

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So I'll start at the center of this circle here, and we'll just go from here, and we'll go to the center of this circle here.

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Again, based upon the design criteria and the avoiding of all these utility poles, as you can see, it's a pretty major line here.

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That's how we initially designed this road.

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And then I'm going to go ahead and continue this.

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I'm going to go from here, and I'm going to go perpendicular to my new alignment.

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Press escape.

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And now I've got my first tangent labeled, but this is not labeled yet because this is not connected.

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So let's go ahead and do a free curve fillet between two entities radius.

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We'll go ahead and select our first tangent, pick our second tangent, and then it's less than 180, press enter.

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And the radius I want is 250, press enter.

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And now I'm ready to go.

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And it's that simple.

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That's how you create alignments.

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Again, there are multiple ways to do things as you can see by the alignment layout tool.

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There's a ton of these fixed floating free methodologies.

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You can even do spirals if you need to and so on.

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So now what we need to do is we need to create a profile for our alignment.

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So we'll create a service profile first.

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We're gonna do this for both.

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So I want to add in the EG and I'll click draw in profile view and

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I'm gonna go ahead and pick the profile view

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that I want here which is this one here

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and we'll click next next next just go with the defaults

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I don't want anything to be labeled

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we're good we'll just create the profile view this is for US 129

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now I want to do the same thing for the loves bypass

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so we'll click on here pick my alignment we'll add in the EG

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and then we'll go ahead and click on draw a profile view and we'll click the style that I want.

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Click next.

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Next we'll just create profile view and then we'll just put this one over here.

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So let's first design this one.

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So what I need to do first is I need to trace the roadway

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because we have to start from there and then I'm going to have other locations where I have to trace as well.

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This is a pretty simple road

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and basically what I need to do is to make sure it does not go above the maximum stage for this pond.

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So this pond is already here and the maximum stage is 154.

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So Civil 3D provides these really great tools called transparent commands where I can actually draw stuff in Civil Engineering.

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I just started the line command here and I want to start at 200, 0, 0.

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Press enter and I want an elevation of 154 press enter

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and I'm gonna press escape once because now I can use polar tracking to simply draw this line going straight across.

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This lets me know do not get your profile below this elevation because the road will get wet.

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So let's go ahead and select my profile view and we'll go ahead and click on profile creation tools.

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I always give my proposed profiles an underscore so underscore loves

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and we'll click on okay here

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and for this here i'll simply start just drawing tangents

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because i can change these afterwards i want to start here

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and then basically i want to eventually i have to tie into this road here

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but i also need a grade of 0 .3

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so i'll go ahead and go to the transparent commands i'll click on grade length

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and then i'll select my profile view and the grade i want is negative 0 .3.

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That's my minimum grade that I want.

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Now for a length, I don't know what that's going to be.

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I can simply click and space.

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As you can see, it's letting me just draw that grade in there.

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And I'll just go ahead and click it and then press escape once.

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And then I will go ahead and snap to the end point of this location here, which is my center line.

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You'll see why in a second, why I'm not going to care about the rest of this in the middle here.

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All right.

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Now for this US 129, because I want to do intersection design, I actually have to trace it.

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It does not work with a surface profile, and that's okay.

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So let's go ahead and select this.

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We'll click on profile creation tools, and we'll call this one underscore US 129.

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Press enter.

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Notice how the profile layout tools update.

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I will simply draw tangents, and I'm going to trace the surface profile here.

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So I'll trace this here.

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Let me turn off polar tracking.

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And we'll just trace this.

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Okay, so of course I didn't want to trouble you guys with showing all that.

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So as you can see here, I have a completed profile.

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Okay, and now what I'm going to do, let's go ahead and turn off my topo, because now we know exactly where everything needs to be

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and what I want to do is create an intersection at this location right here.

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So let's go to the Home tab, Intersection, Create Intersection.

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Let's go ahead and zoom in.

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Okay, so of course I went through and just created all these.

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I don't want to bore you guys, you know, placing PIs all over the place.

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So that's all done.

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And now what I need to do is create an intersection at this location here where this alignment intersects that one.

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Okay.

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So home tab, intersections, create intersection.

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All you have to do is zoom into the location and where this exists.

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We'll click here.

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It picks it up automatically.

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And notice how I have a setting that already gives it the right names that I want to.

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We'll click next here.

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There's my main line and my side road, which is important for priorities.

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If you go to offset parameters, you can change the width of the roads here, but we're good to go.

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And we'll go ahead and click on curb return parameters.

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And my radii that I want is 35.

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We're going to have some truck traffic in here.

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So we want to make these as large as we need to.

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And we'll click OK here.

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All right.

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And now we'll click next.

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And I want to create a corridor.

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So we'll create a new corridor model.

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We're going to use these defaults, but just so you know, you can change these to whatever custom assemblies you have for your project.

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Let's click create intersection.

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We'll press escape.

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Notice how it is basically done.

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That's how simple this is.

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Now, if I zoom in to the different spots where the assemblies are,

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you'll notice that some of these assemblies don't actually have the curb and gutter, which I may need them to have.

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So I've got this curb and gutter there, and I've got none over here.

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What you can do is very simply open up your tool palettes.

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So these are being used by the corridor model and I can simply grab the sub -assembly that I want, go to the properties palette,

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I'll verify that it's set to left.

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As I always say when you don't know what to do, look to the command line window.

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It says insert, replace, or detached.

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So I want to insert and I want to zoom in here

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and I'll go ahead and click over here and notice how it inserts the curb into that location there.

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I could then press escape once and then zoom in here and continue the process and press escape.

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Now as you can see though, the daylighting is not going to the right location.

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That's okay.

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Select your sub -assembly and simply click the move in the contextual ribbon, click up here, and now it's over there.

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I'll do the same thing below here.

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select my sub -assembly, click move, zoom in, click here, and now we're ready to go.

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Now of course I'm not done because I need this to be larger, right?

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I need this to go all the way down to the location of where I might do an intersection at this location.

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Just for time constraints, we're going to skip that.

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But as you can see here, the second I pick that grip, all I have to do is rebuild my corridor model.

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It automatically finds the targeted surface and everything.

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I can do the same exact thing with this one here.

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I'll go ahead and click here and I'll pull this all the way.

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Again, you would probably pick a station of where this needs to go.

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And I would do the same thing over here and pull this up over here.

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Now, let's say though, I want to widen this side of the road.

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So I'm going to go ahead and select this offset alignment that was generated from the intersection tool.

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So I'll go ahead and select it, and I'm going to pull this offset alignment all the way down to the beginning or somewhere past it.

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I'll do the same thing on this side here, and we'll go ahead and select that and pull this down here.

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Now, let's say just for this part of the intersection, I want to create a widening.

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I can simply select my offset alignment.

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I can click the plus sign here and notice how I now have a widening.

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I'll drag this widening to the station I want to go to.

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So let's say this has to go to 10500.

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I'll press enter.

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It automatically puts it at that location.

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I can then click these two buttons right here and click this button and then define where that taper needs to end.

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So I'll type in 10600, press enter, 100 feet later.

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And we'll do the same thing on this end here if I wanted to.

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Let's say end that widening.

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I would simply click here and then I'll drag this one 12 feet.

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That's the width of my lane.

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and then we'll pick this location here and this should be at let's say 111 plus a pair.

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We'll click here to expand those grips and I'll pick here and I want that to be 110.

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And now for this one here I want this offset to be 24 feet.

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So I'll click on there type 24 press center.

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Now here's the cool thing.

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Because the corridor model was done with the intersection tool, it already was targeting that offset alignment.

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You are done.

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Now what I like to do in these instances is to select my corridor model and create a corridor surface.

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This way I can see it in 3D a little bit better to make sure everything's working good.

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We'll call this one road.

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This is my top links.

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I'll click the top one, click the plus sign, add as break line, go to boundaries, right click, corridor extents is boundary, and click OK.

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And now if I press escape here and select my proposed surface and take this into the object viewer.

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As you can see, this is a completed road within 20 minutes.

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Now, would it need some tweaking and possible ditches or maybe something like that?

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Yes, of course it might.

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But you could go in and modify those very easily.

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Within a few minutes, you have your corridor model.

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This concludes tutorial two.

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I'll see you in the third one.

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113 sentences

Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This speaking lesson is built on the video “Civil 3D course for beginners - Part 2 of 3”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: click, ahead, road, create, alignment. This video has 276 sentences and 3216 words to shadow. The speech runs for 18:06. The speaker talks at a natural 178 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 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
alignment noun	/əˈlaɪn.mənt/	An arrangement of items in a line.
select verb	/sɪˈlɛkt/	To choose one or more elements of a set, especially a set of options.
intersection noun	/ˈɪntəɹˌsɛkʃən/	The junction of two (or more) paths, streets, highways, or other thoroughfares.
folder noun	/ˈfoʊldɚ/	An organizer that papers are kept in, usually with an index tab, to be stored as a single unit in a filing cabinet.
corridor noun	/ˈkɒɹɪdɔː/	A narrow hall or passage with rooms leading off it, as in a building or in a railway carriage.
zoom verb	/zuːm/	To move fast with a humming noise.
trace noun	/tɹeɪs/	An act of tracing.
offset noun	/ˈɔf.sɛt/	Anything that acts as counterbalance; a compensating equivalent.
bypass noun	/ˈbaɪpæs/	A road that passes around something, such as a residential area or business district.
label noun	/ˈleɪ.bəl/	A small ticket or sign giving information about something to which it is attached or intended to be attached.
default noun	/dɪˈfɔlt/	The condition of failing to meet an obligation.
locate verb	/ˈloʊˌkeɪt/	To place; to set in a particular spot or position.
curb noun	/kɝb/	A concrete margin along the edge of a road; a kerb (UK, Australia, New Zealand).
insert verb	/ɪnˈsɝt/	To put in between or into.
radius noun	/ˈɹeɪ.di.əs/	The long bone in the forearm, on the side of the thumb.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
go ahead verb	/ˌɡoʊ əˈhɛd/	To proceed with; to begin.
open up verb		To open.
turn off verb		To power down, to switch off, to put out of operation, to deactivate (an appliance, light, mechanism, functionality etc.).
back up verb		To move backwards, especially for a vehicle to do so.
come out verb	/ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/	To be discovered; to be revealed.
go through verb		To travel from one end of something to the other.

Sentences worth repeating

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

With that, let's get started.
Let's kind of get our road done.
Let's first talk about project management.
You can see here there's a road.
We'll just click select folder.

Grammar in this video

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

Structure	In the video
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	is actually completed · is located · are located
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	folder, which is · shortcuts, which are · drawing, which is

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 130 contractions and reduced forms, such as we'll, I'm, I'll. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: width /ˈwɪtθ/, methodology /ˌmɛθ.əˈdɑ.lə.d͡ʒi/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: intersection /ˈɪntəɹˌsɛkʃən/, associate /əˈsoʊʃi.ət/, elevation /ˌɛlɪˈveɪʃn̩/, dash /ˈdæʃ/, shortcut /ˈʃɔːtkʌt/
Long words — get the stress right: intersection /ˈɪntəɹˌsɛkʃən/, associate /əˈsoʊʃi.ət/, parameter /pəˈɹæm.ə.tɚ/, priority /pɹaɪˈɒɹɪti/, utility /juːˈtɪlɪti/

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 alignment, select, intersection.

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: Civil 3D course for beginners - Part 2 of 3 - 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?