Shadowing Practice: Eat Dinner with Us: Advanced English Conversation - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
1
Hey guys, welcome to dinner.
2
Thanks for having dinner with us.
3
We had this idea to do a video about American English conversation with our family at dinner.
4
And then we thought, that's a terrible idea because we have a baby and a toddler.
5
So I said, why don't we just sit down to dinner?
6
And then I started seeing about this thing called a mukbang.
7
And so we're kind of doing that.
8
Kind of not.
9
Mostly we're just eating dinner with you, and we're going to turn it into an English conversation lesson.
10
So whenever we're talking and some
11
phrasal verb or idiom or vocabulary word comes up that I think you might not know or that I want to explain, you'll see it on screen in red.
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red and white text.
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And then at the end of the video, I'm going to sit down, we're going to go over all of these terms.
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Let's start.
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Cheers, David.
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Cheers.
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Cheers everybody.
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Thank you for joining me at dinner.
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Okay.
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Now David's being a really good sport.
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by joining me here.
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As you can see, we only have one plate of food and it's huge.
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So I was reading an article about eating on YouTube.
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and it was talking about this thing that they called a mukbang.
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which is I'm doing an English pronunciation of it.
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It's, it's an, the origin is two Korean words put together.
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But basically people were making videos of themselves eating and then
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posting that and people were eating with them so they wouldn't feel like they were eating alone.
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And then it kind of turned into this thing where people were binging on mass amounts of food.
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And that's kind of what we're doing.
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Seems like a great idea to me.
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Yeah, when I told David I wanted to do this He got really excited
33
because he loves binging on mass amounts of food.
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Now obviously we're not going to finish this, right?
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We'll see.
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Okay.
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But the thing about it is I've watched a few mukbang videos.
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It involves one huge plate of food, multiple people eating off of it.
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Um, mouth noises are encouraged, sloppy eating is encouraged.
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Wow.
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So feel free.
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And let's just dig in.
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and see see what happens.
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You say what you're eating?
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Yeah, I guess we do.
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Okay, so we got carry out.
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from a local Indian restaurant.
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We have samosas We have naan.
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a big pile of rice underneath, and then some saag paneer and some chicken tikka masala.
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And I'm vegetarian.
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Mostly.
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I eat almost no meat, except I do eat this chicken tikka masala because it's that good.
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That's how good it is.
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Alright, so I'm actually, I feel embarrassed to start.
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I don't.
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Okay, I'm going to let you start them.
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I'm just going to have another sip of wine.
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I'm hungry. While I...
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think about Getting ready to eat.
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in front of the camera. So good.
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I know, we know this food is so good, that's why we decided to get this.
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It's unbelievable.
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We were like, if there's anything that we can eat a ton of, it's this.
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Yeah.
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So, anyway, David, you've been watching a few of these mukbang videos, right?
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Yeah.
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What do you think?
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What do I think of the idea?
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You know, I have my elbow on the table.
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That's actually like considered bad manners.
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Especially when I'm trying to get at a huge plate of food.
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Let me take it off.
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So what did you, well first of all the thing I love about YouTube is, - Niches can flourish.
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- Yeah.
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- Right?
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I mean, Most people would not have thought a video of someone eating a meal would be that big of a deal.
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Because it's ridiculous.
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But people love it.
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And like, these videos have millions of views.
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Okay, I'm gonna take my first bite.
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Oh. That reminds me.
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I've been having problems with my jaw lately.
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I can't open it that much, and I got the first part of a root canal yesterday.
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Finally, after like months of pain and different dentist appointments, I'm gonna have it finished next week, so.
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That makes it extra awkward to try to eat on camera when you can barely open your mouth.
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Like, I open my mouth not enough and food falls off my fork
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because I was not able to open my jaw enough.
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So I'm going to take a little bites.
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- Messy eating.
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- A little messy.
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Anyway, what I was saying was, That's what's so great about YouTube is that There's so much content there.
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that even something that seems Like...
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Almost no one would watch it.
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There are still millions of people to watch it.
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Yeah And it was interesting some people were talking about the They had like loss of appetite.
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Due to various
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problems in their lives and
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that watching these videos of people really loving food kind of help them get their appetite back and .
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I can see you going the other way too, but I'm glad it worked for him.
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I can see it going the other way as well.
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Also, I noticed there seems to be a disproportionate amount of mukbangs on seafood.
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Oh yeah, I noticed that too.
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Oh thanks.
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I think it's partly because...
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Maybe how it started.
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That food, like, there's a lot of slurping with crab legs and muscles and stuff.
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Part of it is like, The sound, people like the sound. Is this one mint?
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Mm -hmm.
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Alright.
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Thank you.
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What would you say?
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I don't know.
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Herb.
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General Herb.
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I was just doing a video on silent letters Herb.
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Okay.
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I think they say the H in British English.
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But we don't in American English.
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Isn't that funny?
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Somosa got cold.
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Shame.
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Shame that.
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David went to go get more water.
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More wine too.
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That's gotta be a nice sound.
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I guess I'll have a little more.
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Okay.
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For the past three weeks, I've been so doped up on painkillers.
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that I've not been having any wine or anything to drink ever.
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And today's the first day.
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Wait, did I take some this morning?
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I did.
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Not wine.
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I did.
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Today's the first day I haven't had painkillers.
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Cheers.
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Cheers. To that. And...
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Yeah, I did take it this morning, but I mean I've been taking it every four hours and still hurting all the time.
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When he was digging in, Oh man.
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I know, he said it was worse than, worse than average.
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Way worse than average.
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What?
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Meal conversation.
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It's fine.
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It's a root canal.
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It's not gross.
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I love it.
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Not really.
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The naan is so good.
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I thought you didn't usually care for the naan.
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No, it's not that I don't care for it.
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I usually don't have room for it.
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Oh, that's fair.
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Thank you.
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Also, we only get one.
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Stoney loves it.
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Right, he eats most of that.
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You love it.
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So I'm like, okay, I'll back off.
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I'll let these people eat their naan.
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All right.
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Whereas If you were going to try to eat my samosa, I'd be like, no. Oh yeah, I know that face.
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You may not.
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Thank you.
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Okay, here's a story.
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David and I had not been dating for very long.
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And we took a trip.
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We went to Montreal. with some friends.
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And we went out to a kind of nice dinner.
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And they brought all these small plates.
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It was a small plates kind of place.
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And one of them was kimchi.
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And I had it sitting there on my plate for a long time because
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I wasn't sure yet what I wanted to eat it with.
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I was saving it.
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And David really casually takes his fork
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and is just like about to stab it to take it for himself because he's like this woman doesn't want this.
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- Yeah.
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- Kimchi, 'cause it's just sitting on our plate.
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Luckily I had my hand here and it went.
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It was just like cat -like reflexes.
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I saw his fork going in and I went .
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And I said, I'm saving that.
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Thank you.
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So he knows certain foods don't take Rachel's portion.
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Got a little work to do here.
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- The President and the President of the United States.
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leftovers.
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Tomorrow night's dinner.
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Yeah.
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All right.
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Well, I can stop.
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Alright, we'll wrap it up.
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And I'm going to have a lot of fun going through
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and watching this and picking all those words that we're going to use.
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So guys don't go anywhere because right now, We're going to have the lesson that goes with this conversation, 5, four, three, Two.
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One.
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Okay, the first word was mukbang.
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We talked about this a little.
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It's a genre of online video where people record themselves eating a meal.
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The word is derived from the Korean words for eating and broadcast.
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What did you think of this format?
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Was it gross watching us eat?
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Was it fun?
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Did you feel like you were sitting at our dinner table?
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Cheers, David.
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Cheers.
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The next word was 'Cheers'.
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There's a good chance you know this is the word we toast with in American English.
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I have a longer video lesson on that topic, which I'll link to at the end of this video.
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You can also see the link in the video description.
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It's used to express good wishes.
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In the UK, you can also use it not just in a toast, but when you're parting ways with someone.
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See you, cheers.
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That's not at all common in the US.
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A cheer is also a showing of support from a crowd, like at a sporting event.
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Then of course we have a cheerleader.
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whose job it is to get the crowd excited.
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Now David's being a really good sport.
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By joining me here, a good sport is someone who can remain positive when something goes wrong, or agree to do something that he or she might not really want to do.
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I thought David was being a good sport by joining me in my idea to eat dinner on camera.
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But really, he enjoyed it.
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But basically people were making videos of themselves eating and then
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posting that and people were eating with them so they wouldn't feel like they were eating alone.
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And then it kind of turned into this thing where people were binging on mass amounts of food.
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And that's kind of what we're doing.
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Seems like a great idea to me.
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Binging on mass amounts of food.
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So the word to binge means to do something in excess for a short period of time.
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We use it with the preposition on.
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You can binge on food or alcohol.
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As I said in the video, in mukbangs, some people binge on a mass amount of food.
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Mass, a large number, a large amount.
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You can say, she has a mass following.
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She has a massive amount of followers.
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With binge, aside from food or drink, we also use it with TV.
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Binge watching.
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With streaming programs, you can now watch all of the episodes for a season of a show, or the whole series.
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You used to have to wait every week for a half hour show to come out, but now with these services like Netflix, you can binge watch Friends.
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You can log on and watch episode after episode all weekend.
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What did you do last weekend?
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I binge watched Friends.
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Or you might hear someone describe a show as: Binge -worthy.
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That means it's worth it to spend all weekend watching that show.
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Let's just dig in.
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and see see what happens.
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When he was digging in, Oh man.
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I know.
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He said it was worse than.. worse than average.
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Dig in.
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Now in the course of this conversation, we use this phrase two really different ways.
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Let's just dig in.
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and see See what happens.
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We used it to describe eating.
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To dig in means to start eating.
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Go ahead, dig in.
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When he was digging in, Oh man.
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I know.
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He said it was worse than.. worse than average.
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But we also use it to talk about something sharp, penetrating something.
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We use it with fingernails.
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You're digging into my arm.
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or The back of my shoe is digging into my heel.
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I used it to talk about the dentist digging into my gum.
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When he was digging in, Oh man.
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I know, he said it was worse than, worse than average.
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There's a third way to use it, and that means to mentally prepare to work through a hard situation or do some hard work.
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For example, if there's something at work that you really don't want to work on, you could say: This project is going to be so much work,
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but I need to just dig in and do it.
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Dig in.
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Okay, so we got Carrie out.
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Carryout, this is different from delivery.
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For carryout, you call the restaurant to order, or you order it online, and then you go pick it up.
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I don't feel like cooking.
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Let's get Carrie out.
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And I'm vegetarian.
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Mostly.
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A vegetarian is someone who doesn't eat meat.
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I call myself vegetarian, but if I eat chicken every once in a while, Come on, Rachel, you're not a vegetarian.
280
This is a five -syllable word with stress on the middle syllable.
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veg Tear.
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Ian.
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vegetarian.
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In the word vegetable, We drop the second E.
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Vegetable.
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But in vegetarian, we do say it: ve -ge -tarian.
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It's the schwa.
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vegetarian If there's anything that we can eat a ton of, it's this.
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A ton.
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A very common phrase to mean a lot.
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It's interchangeable with tons.
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It's a huge company.
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They have tons of employees.
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Or, it's a huge company.
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They have a ton of employees.
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a ton of Tons of.
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You know, I have my elbow on the table.
298
That's actually like considered bad manners.
299
Especially when I'm trying to get out a huge plate of food.
300
Let me take it off.
301
manners.
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This is your way of being.
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We usually use the adjectives "good" or "bad" with it.
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As the parent of a young child, I'm definitely in the middle of trying to teach good manners.
305
Good manners at the table, like: Don't talk with your mouth full.
306
Or good manners when meeting someone, like Make eye contact.
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Manners.
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Well first of all, the thing I love about YouTube is Niches can flourish.
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Yeah.
310
Niches can flourish.
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There are two different pronunciations that you'll hear for niche.
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It can be niche or niche Both are in the dictionary, both are okay.
313
A niche is a specialized segment, so not general, something that applies to a lot of people, but niche, something more narrow and focused.
314
For example, I don't teach English as a second language, I focus on the niche of pronunciation.
315
Well, first of all, the thing I love about YouTube is Niches can flourish.
316
Yeah.
317
I also use the word flourish there.
318
Flourish means to grow, develop, thrive, be healthy.
319
Children flourish in a healthy and positive environment.
320
Her business is flourishing.
321
And I got the first part of a root canal yesterday.
322
root canal.
323
Have you had one?
324
I've learned a lot about them recently.
325
This is a procedure to remove inflamed tissue around the root of a tooth.
326
not comfortable.
327
That makes it extra awkward to try to eat on camera.
328
Awkward.
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I like the spelling of this word.
330
The first W goes with the letter A to make the AW vowel.
331
all Awkward.
332
The second W is a W sound.
333
A -k -w -w -w -w.
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Awkward.
335
Here, meaning embarrassing.
336
Awkward.
337
They had like loss of appetite.
338
due to various problems in their lives.
339
Appetite is hunger, your desire for food.
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Some medications can cause a loss of appetite.
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I remember once when one of my boyfriends broke up with me.
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I was so sad I had no appetite for weeks.
343
appetite.
344
I noticed there seems to be a disproportionate amount of mukbangs on seafood.
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Disproportionate, a long word, five syllables, with middle syllable stress.
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It means a number that is too large or too small in context.
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I said there's a disproportionate number of mukbang videos on seafood.
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It seems like there are a lot of videos on seafood compared to how much a person actually eats.
349
Seafood.
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That food, like, there's a lot of slurping with crab legs and muscles and stuff.
351
Slurping.
352
Speaking of manners, it's considered bad manners in the US to make a lot of noise while eating, like slurping.
353
In some countries, it's no problem, but in the US, it's a no -no. Herb.
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General Herb.
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Herb.
356
Herbal.
357
Silent H.
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R vowel.
359
Err, herb.
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In British English, they do say the H, and they pronounce the vowel differently without the R sound.
361
Herb.
362
Herb.
363
Herb.
364
Herb.
365
Herb in American English.
366
Somoza got called shame.
367
Shame or it's a shame is something you say to show disappointment.
368
Our local coffee shop shut down.
369
It's a shame.
370
I loved going there.
371
But it's also used in the phrase shame on you which is different.
372
If someone thinks you should feel shame, feel bad about something you've done or said, or you could say, I'm ashamed.
373
That means you feel bad, terrible about something you did.
374
You needed help and I didn't help you and I'm ashamed about that.
375
For the past three weeks, I've been so doped up on painkillers.
376
Doped up means to have a lot of drugs, sometimes to the point where it interferes with you acting normally.
377
I was taking the maximum amount of painkillers every four hours.
378
painkillers: Tylenol, Advil, Motrin, or the ingredients acetaminophen, or ibuprofen.
379
I thought you didn't usually care for the non.
380
No, it's not that I don't care for it.
381
I usually don't have room for it.
382
'Care for'.
383
This is another way to say 'like' or 'enjoy'.
384
I don't care for sweets.
385
is another way to say I don't like sweets.
386
So I'm like, okay, I'll back off.
387
I'll let these people eat their naan.
388
Back off.
389
Stop doing what you're doing or move away.
390
Do not touch something.
391
Since Stoney and David like non better than I do, I just back off and let them have it.
392
Okay, here's a story.
393
David and I had not been dating for very long.
394
Dating.
395
This is what we call it when you're becoming romantically involved with someone.
396
Are they in a serious relationship?
397
No, they're just dating.
398
Or, she was dating three people at once.
399
They brought all these small plates, it was a small plates kind of place.
400
Small plates.
401
This refers to the style of dining where, rather than everybody getting their own meal, there are small portions, you order a lot, and everyone shares.
402
Everyone at the table has just a bite or two of each thing.
403
One of them was kimchi.
404
Kimchi pickled fermented vegetables, a Korean dish that David and I both really love.
405
It was just like cat -like reflexes.
406
I saw his foot going in and I went, shh.
407
Have you heard this phrase before?
408
If someone has cat -like reflexes, it means they react very quickly.
409
Maybe you catch something that someone else has dropped before it hits the floor.
410
They might say, "Wow, you have cat -like reflexes." We got a little work to do here.
411
Thank you.
412
leftovers.
413
Leftovers.
414
I don't mind eating leftovers for days, but David hates eating the same thing over and over.
415
What do you think?
416
Are you a leftover person?
417
Well, I can stop.
418
All right, we'll wrap it up.
419
To wrap it up means to conclude something.
420
If Stoney's playing at the playground, I might say, Stoney, we need to wrap it up and head out.
421
Stop doing this and leave.
422
Wrap it up.
423
Guys, thanks for having dinner with us.
424
If you want to see a video where we're having a meal with our kids, it's a little more chaotic,
425
check out the My Morning Routine video where we had breakfast with the baby and the toddler.
426
That video is right here, and please subscribe, we make new videos every Tuesday.
427
I love teaching you English.
428
Thank you for spending your time with me.
429
That's it, and thanks so much for using Rachel's English.
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Context & Background
This engaging dinner conversation features a family sharing an intimate moment over a meal, while exploring the nuances of American English. The creators decided to combine their dinner time with an educational twist, reflecting on cultural aspects such as mukbang—a social eating trend originating from Korea. Throughout their relaxed conversation, various vocabulary and idiomatic expressions are introduced, providing listeners with real-world language examples. This format not only allows for entertaining content but also serves as a practical guide for those looking to improve their English speaking skills.
Top 5 Phrases for Daily Communication
- Cheers! - A common expression for toasting, often used to celebrate before drinking.
- Dig in! - An inviting phrase encouraging others to start eating.
- Binge on - Meaning to indulge heavily in food or activity for enjoyment.
- Being a good sport - This phrase describes someone who is cheerful and accommodating, even in challenging situations.
- Carried out - Referring to food that is ordered and brought from a restaurant, typically for consumption elsewhere.
Step-by-step Shadowing Guide
If you're eager to enhance your English speaking practice through this video, consider using the shadowing technique. Here’s how you can effectively engage with this content:
- Watch the video first: Familiarize yourself with the overall dialogue and context without attempting to speak along.
- Listen carefully: Pay attention to pronunciation, intonation, and the rhythm of conversation, particularly phrases like "dig in!" and "binge on."
- Practice shadowing: Replay sections of the video and speak along with the speakers. Focus on mimicking their tone and pace as closely as possible. Use your understanding of shadow speech to improve your pronunciation.
- Break it down: If certain phrases are challenging, pause the video and repeat each phrase slowly until you feel comfortable.
- Use vocabulary lists: Create a list of new words and phrases that stand out to you. Regularly review and practice these to reinforce your learning.
By utilizing this learn English with YouTube method, you'll cultivate a richer vocabulary and improved conversational fluency through engaging content and effective practice techniques.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | you've been watching · I've been having · I've not been having |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | I've watched · I've been · I've learned |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | someone who can · someone who doesn · you which is |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | are encouraged · is derived |
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.