Shadowing Practice: Don't Make Friends Just to Practice English - Learn English Speaking with Video
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If you are learning English, you have probably heard this advice.
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You need to make some English -speaking friends to practice English with.
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And I don't completely agree.
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I'm going to give you some advice that may sound strange coming from an English teacher.
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Don't make friends just because you want to learn English, just because you want to practice English.
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Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't have English -speaking friends.
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Of course not.
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What I'm saying is don't look at somebody and think, this person speaks perfect English.
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I want to become their friend.
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I should become their friend so that I can practice English, so that I can become fluent like them.
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You should expect more from friendship, not just practicing English.
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Because English is just a skill.
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But the people around you, your friends, affect your personality and way of thinking.
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They affect your identity.
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They affect how you behave, how you live your life, what you believe in, what you think.
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They affect all of these aspects of your life.
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So how can you just say, oh, this person speaks perfect English, so I want to be their friend.
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I see this comment all the time.
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I am looking for some English -speaking friends.
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Please, teacher, I need some friends to practice English with.
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No, friendship is much, much higher than just English.
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So I want to give you three reasons why you shouldn't choose your friends just because you want to improve your English.
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And the third reason is especially important for people who are immigrants in another country,
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in Canada, in the US, the UK, Australia, or any other country.
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Because sometimes you want to make friends to practice your English, but also because you are lonely.
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And that is a very dangerous reason.
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Reason number one, your friend should help you become a better person, not just a better English speaker.
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Let's say you meet somebody who speaks perfect English.
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They're confident.
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They're easy to talk to.
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They're easygoing.
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They're funny.
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They have a cool personality.
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You're like, oh, perfect.
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If I can be friends with this guy or this girl, then I can practice English.
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My English will improve fast.
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And then you get to know them.
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And then you realize that you don't really have much in common.
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Maybe they have habits and routines that you don't want.
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Maybe they constantly complain or make fun of other people who speak poor English.
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Maybe they're racist.
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Maybe they are arrogant.
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Maybe they drink alcohol.
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Maybe they want to go to places that you don't want to go, right?
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And maybe they encourage you to do things that you're not comfortable with, but you keep hanging out with them because you're like,
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well, I'm practicing my English, so who cares?
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Well, let me give you a personal example, actually.
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I used to play pickup soccer every Saturday morning.
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Pickup soccer means you just show up at a place where there's a scheduled game that some people arranged or organized,
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and you just show up and play.
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That's called pickup.
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It's not a league.
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It's not a tournament.
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So on Saturday mornings, I would meet up with a bunch of guys.
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We would play, compete, joke around, have fun, and go home.
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But the interesting part is I never really became friends with any of those guys.
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I don't even remember their names now.
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We knew each other.
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We played soccer together.
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But outside of soccer, we didn't really hang out.
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We didn't have much in common.
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And part of that was because we had different lifestyles and we had different values.
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Sometimes after a game, somebody would say something like, hey, who wants to go grab a couple of drinks?
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And I'm Muslim.
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I don't drink.
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So I'd say, I'm good.
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And I'll just go home.
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And that was completely fine.
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It didn't mean they were bad people.
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We just had different values.
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We were just there to play soccer.
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We would play for a couple of hours and then shake hands, good game, go home.
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Imagine if I became friends and hang out with them after the games.
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I would pick up their habits and their lifestyle that I didn't want.
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So this is why you shouldn't make friends just because you want to practice your English.
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And by the way, soccer and practicing English are completely different.
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For soccer, you don't really talk much, so it doesn't really matter what their lifestyle is like you're just there to play soccer
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and you don't really have to get to know these people but when you say making friends to practice my English,
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you are talking with this person.
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You are exchanging ideas with this person.
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You are expressing your feelings, talking about your life.
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They talk about their life.
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Maybe politics come up, religion comes up, culture comes up, lifestyle comes up.
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And if you have similar personalities or share similar values, yeah, that's perfect.
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But if you just think, oh, this person speaks perfect English and that's all I care about,
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that means you have a very low standard for friendship.
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And that brings me to reason number two.
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Your friends shape your identity.
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The people you spend a lot of time with rub off on you.
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Rub off on you.
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This phrasal verb means they influence your personality and your behavior.
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That's just what happens.
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If you're around people who exercise all the time, working out starts to feel normal.
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If you're around people who read books, they like to learn, they like to grow, they like to talk about business,
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talk about ideas, then these conversations become normal.
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But if you're around people who gossip all the time, they talk about other people, they complain, they think negatively about other people,
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they think negatively about themselves,
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then gossiping, complaining, these negative behaviors become normal, even for you, right?
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If everybody around you complains all the time, you might start complaining too.
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This is just what happens.
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You rub off on each other.
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If your friend wastes hours and hours doing nothing or scrolling on social media and you go hang out with them.
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If you're just around people who are always on their phone,
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scrolling, scrolling, do you think you're just going to be in a corner reading a book?
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No. You're going to be just another person who thinks this is normal behavior.
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And it's really sad because sometimes you sit at a gathering, whether it's a family gathering or just hanging out with friends,
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nobody talks to nobody.
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Everybody's on their phones
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That needs to stop
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And how can you stop that?
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By being around people
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Who care about themselves
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Who like to read
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Who like to grow
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Who like to talk about ideas
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For those who are Muslim Who like to talk about the
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Quran Who like to talk about Allah The Prophet peace be upon him
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Who like to read
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Islamic books Talk about Islamic history
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Golden Islamic history and all the influence that we made throughout history for centuries.
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But it's awkward if all the people around you are scrolling on the phones and you're like, hey, I have a business idea.
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Your friends will be like, business idea.
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Hey, watch this funny video, business idea.
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And that's why you have to be careful about choosing friends just because they speak English, right?
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Maybe you just want somebody to practice English with.
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But if you become close friends, you're going to spend a lot of time together.
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And over time, you naturally start picking up things from these people around you.
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Not just words and expressions, but habits, attitudes, routines, personalities, identities, right?
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And that brings me to reason number three.
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This one is good for people who live in a different country, or maybe they moved across the country to a different city for school,
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for work, and maybe you don't have friends in that town.
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And so what do you do?
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You lower your standards just because you're lonely.
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And that's what you should not do.
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You should not lower your standards just because you're lonely, just because you want to improve your English and have a good time.
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You move to a different country.
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Your English isn't very strong.
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Maybe your friends are back home.
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Maybe your family is back home.
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You go to work, you come home, and sometimes you feel lonely, right?
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And then somebody starts talking to you and you become friends.
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And then you're like, oh, finally, I have somebody to hang out with.
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And if they speak English, even better, you're like, oh, I can improve my English with this person.
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And the worst part, by the way, is when somebody wants to have a boyfriend or a girlfriend to practice English with.
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Or they say, oh, I want to get married to this person so I can learn English.
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Really?
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Is that what you think about marriage?
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Marriage is that low for you that you want to get married to this person just because of language?
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That's so low.
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That's such a low standard for yourself and for marriage.
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And by the way, when you marry someone and you think, oh, this person is going to help me practice my English.
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I know a lot of people who are married to a native speaker
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and their English still sucks because you're not marrying a tutor.
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You're trying to live your life together.
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You're trying to raise a family together.
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So your wife or your husband doesn't have time to teach you English.
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So don't think that marrying somebody is going to help you become fluent.
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It's not because life will get in the way.
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Children will get in the way and you'll still not be fluent.
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Give yourself a higher standard for friendship, for marriage, for connections.
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Like I said, the problem happens when you're lonely and sometimes you're like,
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oh, I can make a friend and practice my English at the same time.
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But maybe you don't really have much in common with these people.
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Maybe they invite you somewhere you don't want to go to.
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Maybe there are things about the friendship that make you feel uncomfortable, right?
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And you ignore those things because again, just like I mentioned earlier, you're like, who cares?
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I'm improving my English.
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Well, you're improving your English, but you're ruining other parts of your life, other parts of your identity and your personality.
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You can be friendly with somebody without becoming close friends.
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You can work together.
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You can practice together.
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You can play soccer together.
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You can maybe laugh together.
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But that doesn't mean that person needs to become one of your close friends.
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That doesn't mean you should invite that person into your home.
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That doesn't mean you should spend a lot of time together.
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I offered a free class a few weeks ago at a coffee shop.
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And one person was like, teacher, can we become friends?
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Maybe on Sundays you can come and teach me English.
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I'm like, no, sorry, I don't have time.
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First of all, second of all, maybe I don't like you as a friend.
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Maybe our values are not the same, right?
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And also, please don't use me.
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Let's become friends and you help me.
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What do you have to offer me?
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So don't always think about friendship that you can take something from them.
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What can you give, right?
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So maybe the better way for looking for friends, don't always think, oh, this person is better than me.
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So I want to use them to make me better.
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No, what do you have to give them, right?
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Maybe you find some people who have similar values and their English is not the best.
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Maybe you are similar level.
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You help each other because now you relate to each other and you can help each other reach the same goal, which is fluency, right?
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So don't always think, oh, what can I get out of this person, right?
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What can I get out of this friendship?
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No, think bigger.
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Think more generously.
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What can I give to this friendship?
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What do I have to offer to this friendship, to this relationship?
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That's more of a selfless way of looking at friendship, not just taking, taking, taking.
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Now you might be thinking, okay, but I need English speaking friends.
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How else am I supposed to practice my English.
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Well, you don't.
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There are plenty of ways to practice speaking.
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You listen to a story, you answer questions about the story, you practice shadowing, you record yourself, you shadow somebody, you shadow this video,
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for example, you repeat after me out loud, as I am talking, because this is one of the reasons
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that I make my lessons where I speak more slowly because it gives you the opportunity to shadow, to practice and speak after me, right?
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And so you can shadow someone.
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You can practice with a teacher.
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You can hire a teacher and help you improve your English for six months or a year.
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You have to invest in yourself, not just, oh, I want to make friends.
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You really need to invest time, energy, money in yourself because you're not going to get everything for free, right?
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You can use AI to practice your English.
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There's so many tools to help you practice your English.
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And one of the ways is listening to a story and answering questions about the story.
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And this is how I teach, right?
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If you live in an English speaking country like
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Canada, Australia, the United States, and if you care about your religion, get involved in your religious community.
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If you're a Muslim, get involved in the mosque, Go find a mosque and get involved.
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Volunteer.
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Help them out.
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See how you can volunteer and contribute to the organization or the community.
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And through that opportunity, you will make friends with like -minded people.
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You will make friends who are on a similar path.
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They care about their religion and they care about practicing English.
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And maybe some of those people are English teachers and they can help you, right?
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I am working on creating a community for like -minded people, for people who are on a similar path.
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They want to improve their English and make friends.
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Let me know in the comment section below if you're interested.
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So I think your standards should be much higher when it comes to making friends.
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And so let's make a quick recap.
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Why do I think you should not make friends just for practicing English?
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Reason number one, your friends should make you a better person, not just a better English teacher.
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Number two, your friends shape your identity.
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They shape your personality.
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So you should not make friends who have a different personality,
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who have different values because they will influence yours.
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And number three, you should not lower your standards for friendship just
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because you're lonely or you really need some friends or some connections.
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No, work on yourself, be confident in yourself, and the right people will be attracted to you.
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I hope you liked this video.
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And if you did, please let me know in the comment section below and share this video with a like -minded friend.
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Thanks for watching.
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I'll see you in the next one.
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Thank you.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “Don't Make Friends Just to Practice English”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: English, practice, friendship, somebody. This video has 245 sentences and 2582 words to shadow. The speech runs for 16:14. The speaker talks at a natural 159 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 89% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| friendship noun | /ˈfɹɛn(d)ʃɪp/ | The condition of being friends. |
| soccer noun | /ˈsɑk.ɚ/ | Association football. |
| lonely adjective | /ˈloʊnli/ | Unhappy due to feeling isolated from contact with other people. |
| shadow noun | /ˈʃædəʊ̯/ | A dark image projected onto a surface where light (or other radiation) is blocked by the shade of an object. |
| complain verb | /kəmˈpleɪn/ | To express feelings of pain, dissatisfaction, or resentment. |
| lifestyle noun | /ˈlaɪfˌstaɪl/ | A style of living that reflects the attitudes and values of a person or group. |
| scroll noun | /skɹoʊl/ | A roll of paper or parchment; a writing formed into a roll. |
| marry verb | /ˈmæɹi/ | To enter into the conjugal or connubial state; to take a husband or a wife. |
| habit noun | /ˈhæb.ɪt/ | An action performed on a regular basis. |
| fluent adjective | /ˈfluənt/ | That flows; flowing, liquid. |
| routine noun | /ɹuˈtin/ | A course of action to be followed regularly; a standard procedure. |
| invest verb | /ɪnˈvɛst/ | To spend money, time, or energy on something, especially for some benefit or purpose; used with in. |
| invite verb | /ɪnˈvaɪt/ | To ask for the presence or participation of someone or something. |
| volunteer noun | /ˌvɑlənˈtɪɹ/ | One who enters into, or offers themselves for, any service of their own free will, especially when done without pay. |
| gather verb | /ˈɡæðɚ/ | To collect normally separate things. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| come up verb | To emerge or become known, especially unexpectedly. | |
| get out of verb | To leave, exit or escape from; to become free of. | |
| pick up verb | To lift; to grasp and raise. | |
| show up verb | To appear, arrive, or attend, especially suddenly or erratically. | |
| work out verb | /ˌwɝk ˈaʊt/ | To calculate. |
| work together verb | To be coworkers with someone; to share a workspace with someone. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- I don't even remember their names now.
- Is that what you think about marriage?
- What do you have to offer me?
- What can I get out of this friendship?
- What can I give to this friendship?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | people who are · somebody who speaks · people who speak |
| Advice with “should” should + verb — saying what is a good idea | shouldn't have · should become · should expect |
| Verb + -ing enjoy, keep, stop… + -ing — verbs that are followed by the -ing form | keep hanging · start complaining · start picking |
| Possibility with “might / may” might/may + verb — something that is possible but not certain | may sound · might start · might be |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 79 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, don't, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: friendship /ˈfɹɛn(d)ʃɪp/, shadow /ˈʃædəʊ̯/, shake /ˈʃeɪk/
- Long words — get the stress right: naturally /ˈnæt͡ʃ.(ə.)ɹə.li/, uncomfortable /ʌnˈkʌm.fɚ.tə.bl̩/
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 friendship, soccer, lonely.
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.