Shadowing Practice: Does Age Matter In Relationships? | Tell My Story - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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Oh, thank you.
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I'm looking for someone who I can relax with, someone who can be a best friend with me.
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We can go on adventures together, traveling.
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Someone who's funny.
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And who are we kidding?
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Someone who's good looking, please.
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If someone says like, no, no, no, personalities first, that's a lie, because we're attracted to looks first.
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And then if they have a good personality, it's a perfect bonus.
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First of all, just, you know, somebody that can keep up with me.
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I'm on the move a lot.
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Beyond that, you know, I'm very open.
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I've dated, you know, a lot of different races, a lot of different body types, like a lot of different personalities.
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To me, every human is like an interesting and unique person.
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As long as you can keep a conversation, then, you know, I think we'll get along and I think that I'll like you.
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Your name is Sogand and this is your story.
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You are 24 years old.
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For work you are a lawyer or paralegal.
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You grew up in New York and cultural or ethnic background is Persian.
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My name is Panta.
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I'm 28.
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I work as a production coordinator.
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I grew up in Iran, Singapore and Canada.
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My cultural background is Persian.
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Yes.
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Your name is John and this is your story.
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You are 29 years old.
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For work you are an IT.
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You grew up in Seattle.
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Your cultural or ethnic background is Italian Scottish?
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My name is Grant.
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The beard confuses people.
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I'm actually 21.
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For work, I am actually kind of IT.
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I do computer programming and app development and stuff like that.
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I grew up in Los Angeles and my cultural background is Jewish.
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I guess ethnicity would be like Caucasian, European, Russian, stuff like that.
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John, average white guy name.
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That's the safest one I could call him.
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If you had to guess my last name, would it be Smith?
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Duh.
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When did you come here?
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I just signed a lease in March.
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Oh really?
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Congrats for moving to LA.
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Thank you.
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Thank you.
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I'm in your turf now.
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Yeah, no, this has been my home for the past 21 years.
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People just often assume that from the Jewish thing that I'm cheap
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and then from the rich thing that I'm stuck up
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or pretentious because I went to private school
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because I was in school with the Kardashians and Kendall and Kylie and yada yada yada.
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As embarrassing as it is, I did ask Kendall out a number of times.
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But on like the third or fourth time, she said no. And then the next day, Kylie came up to me and kicked me in the balls and said,
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don't ask my sister out again.
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The only thing that will really make me angry is if someone touches my sister.
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We were going to summer school, sports camp.
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She comes crying to me that a boy slapped her.
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And the next morning I went on his bus and got everybody that was my friends, pretty much everyone in the bus to cover me up and I went up to him and I said, did you hit my sister?
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He's like, yeah, I sure did.
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And so he slapped me in the face and my glasses fell off.
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I had glasses at that time.
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So I don't know what took over me.
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I had both of his hands in one hand, put my glasses on and he was bloody in the face a little bit.
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So his mom comes the next day saying who beat my son up
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and and somebody said he hit a girl and then his mom started hitting him.
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I'm going to say that you have wanted to be in a band.
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And paired with that, I think your guilty music pleasure is like singing in your car.
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But like really like belting it to the songs and like you just let loose when you're alone in the car.
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And I would say that your ultimate pump up song is Intro by the XX.
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No idea what that is.
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Yes, I have wanted to be in a band.
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I actually was in a band for a year and a half in Japan.
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In a Japanese band.
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Oh, that's really cool.
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Guilty Musical Pleasure.
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It's terrible.
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Justin Bieber.
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Oh.
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His new CD.
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His new CD.
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It's an ultimate pump -up song.
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Currently it's Ed Sheeran Shape of You.
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Okay.
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What you think of me?
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I thought you have wanted to be in a band.
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Your guilty musical pleasure is gangster rap.
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And your ultimate pop song is Bohemian Rhapsody.
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Yeah, I have wanted to be in a band.
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I have some best friends that are singers and stuff.
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I'm just not musically gifted like that.
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You're a computer guy.
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You can do the mixing and the matching.
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That's so much different than what I do.
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But it's something that I'm super interested in.
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Yeah.
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But I just, ugh, I don't have the time or patience for that.
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My guilty pleasure, I took it as not like, who do I like to listen to, but like, what I like to do.
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My guilty pleasure is like, you know, singing in traffic, singing in the car.
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What do you sing?
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I'll rap to the Kendrick.
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I pick up the songs quickly and I'll just start rapping along with them.
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Would you rap something for me?
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Oh, God.
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Only if you lay down a beat.
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Oh, okay.
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See, you're gonna put me on the spot, I'll put you on the spot with me.
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Oh, man.
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Okay, let's do this.
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Ay.
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Just sitting here in two different chairs, just sitting here without a care.
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Got the black foil here, got the white wall there, and she's got some pretty nice hair.
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Oh, thank you.
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That was, that was, that was dope.
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That was dope.
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And then my ultimate pump -up song is and always will be Eye of the Tiger.
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I was thinking of some sort of epic rock song, so I was pretty close.
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I was like, Bohemian Rhapsody is pretty.
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No, Bohemian Rhapsody is great.
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I will always sing the crap out of that.
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But Eye of the Tiger is like that pump -up.
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It's like Rocky and Rocky III running across the beach.
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You said you were in a band in Japan.
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What was your role?
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I was the vocalist.
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I studied instruments when I was little but I can't play a percent of my life depended on it.
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I can't.
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I'll just sing.
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Alright, well can you, you know, I rapped for you.
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Can you sing me one of your old songs? In Japanese.
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Okay, one of the Japanese songs.
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I don't think I'm going to be able to do it.
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No, that was fantastic.
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I've dated nerds, geeks, musicians.
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I've dated many races like black, white, Asian, Persian.
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People are people.
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I don't care what your religion is.
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I don't care what political party you're supporting.
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I don't care what your color is.
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If you're a good person and if I feel attracted to who you are as a person, then I like that.
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In terms of religious beliefs, I dated a Christian girl for two and a half years.
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You know, her grandma tried to give me a cross every time I stepped through her door.
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It doesn't bother me.
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Religion doesn't affect me.
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I don't, you know, particularly care what religion you are as long as you're just a nice person.
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This is where we get deep and interesting.
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Oh my God, this is hard.
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In your family growing up, you practiced, I'm gonna go with something interesting.
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I'm gonna say Baha 'i faith
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And your current relationship with God or a creator is Strong but independent You do believe in the afterlife?
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In my family I grew up practicing Islam.
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I am spiritual
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I respect every religion and I know every religion has good good lessons And so I take the good that I can.
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So in Japan, I would pray in a temple.
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In Iran, I would pray in a mosque.
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Here, I've prayed in churches.
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I'm open to going everywhere and taking in the energy that they have, the faith, the spirituality.
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I don't like that there's different things.
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I wish everybody would just get together, because it's a cause of a lot of wars, and I hate that.
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My current relationship with God, the creator, is on and off, because I believe in a higher power.
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When the emergency situation happens, I find myself praying.
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Mm -hmm, but like I think of the world as the like the energy the universe
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or higher power I don't know where we come from something happened.
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I don't know it could be aliens.
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I don't know.
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I have no idea actually Afterlife, I don't know the answer I do believe in possible like reincarnation people coming back as people
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or as like do you believe in like anything?
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I so you'll come back is like a chicken a dog or Oh my god.
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Well, in your family you grew up practicing the Jewish religion, because you told me that earlier. And your current...
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Don't hate me.
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Your current relationship with God or Creator is on hold.
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It's on hold, man.
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You know, you're being spiritual right now.
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It's on hold.
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I wrote that you do believe in the afterlife.
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Yes, in my family I did grow up practicing Judaism.
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My relationship, I want to, you know what, I'm going to steal those words.
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I like that.
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My relationship with God is on hold.
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You know?
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It's not gone.
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It's just on hold, guys.
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Yeah.
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Interestingly enough, the Jewish faith and something that I derived from it is that we do not believe in an afterlife.
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Yeah, we'll have a funeral, bury the person in the coffin in the ground, and then we'll go home and party.
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Because we more celebrate life than more death, you know.
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It's just we die and that's it, but that kind of shouldn't be a scary thing to us.
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You take your life and you live it the way you should live it, which is as free and as open and enjoyable in every single moment.
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When I first came and sat down and saw you, I said that I would go on a second date
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or date with you after all this i would keep my answer the same you're an attractive person
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and you look like everything in your outfit was thought out decisively
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and that you had some semblance of organization
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and control of your life thank you when i saw you first i thought that i I would go out with you.
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And after talking to you, I haven't changed my mind.
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I just wanted to scribble to scare you to think.
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So you think I'd change the answer, but I didn't.
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I wrote same.
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I just wrote scribbles.
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And the reason being is, well, I don't know you, but just from the looks, you seem smart, you seem kind,
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you seem well -cultured and easygoing.
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Just the vibe that I got. But yeah.
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Well, I guess we should say goodbye.
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Yeah.
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Can I give you a hug?
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Of course you can.
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I was going to ask you the same thing.
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You too.
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Yes, let's walk off together.
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Alright.
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Not awkwardly at all.
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Soul Pancake.
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Soul Pancake.
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Soul Pancake.
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Soul Pancake.
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Soul Pancake is so good.
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Dude, I love the show, please watch it everyday.
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Soul pancake!
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 217 sentences and 1933 words to shadow. The speech runs for 12:32. The speaker talks at a natural 154 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 82% 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 |
|---|---|---|
| bind verb | /ˈbaɪ̯nd/ | To tie; to confine by any ligature. |
| pray verb | /pɹeɪ/ | To direct words, thoughts, or one's attention to a deity or any higher being, for the sake of adoration, thanks, petition for help, etc. |
| pump noun | /pʌmp/ | A device for moving or compressing a liquid or gas. |
| creator noun | /kɹiːˈeɪ̯təː/ | Something or someone which creates or makes something. |
| spiritual adjective | /ˈspɪɹɪt͡ʃuəl/ | Of or pertaining to the spirit or the soul. |
| ethnic adjective | /ˈɛθ.nɪk/ | Of or relating to a group of people having common racial, ancestral, national, religious or cultural origins. |
| attract verb | /əˈtɹækt/ | To pull toward without touching. |
| rap verb | /ɹæp/ | To strike something sharply with one's knuckles; knock. |
| slap noun | /slæp/ | A blow, especially one given with the open hand, or with something broad and flat. |
| dope noun | [doʊp] | Any viscous liquid or paste, such as a lubricant, used in preparing a surface. |
| everyday adjective | /ˈɛvɹiˌdeɪ/ | Appropriate for ordinary use, rather than for special occasions. |
| lesson noun | /ˈlɛs.ən/ | A section of learning or teaching into which a wider learning content is divided. |
| adventure noun | /ədˈvɛn.t͡ʃə/ | A feeling of desire for new and exciting things. |
| belief noun | /bɪˈliːf/ | Mental acceptance of a claim as true. |
| bonus noun | /ˈbəʊ.nəs/ | Something extra that is good; an added benefit. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| grow up verb | To mature and become an adult. |
| come back verb | To return to a place. |
| come up to verb | To approach. |
| fall off verb | To become detached or to drop from. |
| get along verb | To interact or coexist well, without argument or trouble. |
| get together verb | To meet, to gather together, to congregate. |
| keep up with verb | To manage to remain beside or just behind someone or something that is moving away from one. |
| lie down verb | To assume a horizontal position. |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 64 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, don't, you're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: ethnic /ˈɛθ.nɪk/, bother /ˈbɑðɚ/, ethnicity /ɛθˈnɪsɪti/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: congratulations /kənˌɡɹæt͡ʃəˈleɪʃ(ə)nz/, patience /ˈpeɪ̯.ʃəns/, musician /mjuˈzɪʃən/, pretentious /pɹɪˈtɛn.ʃəs/, reincarnation /ˌɹiːɪŋkɑː(ɹ)ˈneɪʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: congratulations /kənˌɡɹæt͡ʃəˈleɪʃ(ə)nz/, ethnicity /ɛθˈnɪsɪti/, spirituality /ˌspɪɹ.ə.t͡ʃuˈæl.ə.tɪ/, decisively /dɪˈsaɪsɪvli/, musically /ˈmjuːzɪkəli/
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 bind, pray, pump.
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.