Shadowing Practice: English in a Minute: Pound the Pavement - Learn English Speaking with Video

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15 sentences
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1
Welcome to English in a Minute.
2
Pavement is any hard surface, like a street or sidewalk.
3
To pound something means to beat it.
4
But what could pound the pavement mean?
5
I heard you're helping Enrico find a job.
6
Yes.
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Yes, I am.
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And how's that going?
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Well, I had him pound the pavement all day yesterday.
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And now he has many job leads.
11
I saw him on TV yesterday.
12
He was at the baseball game, and it was a very long game.
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Enrico!
14
When you pound the pavement, you walk on a lot of city streets to get something done.
15
You can do this for all sorts of reasons, but the most common way we use this phrase is when talking about looking for employment.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This video has 15 sentences and 125 words to shadow. The speech runs for 0:54. The speaker talks at a steady 139 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing.

Key vocabulary in this video

10 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:

WordPronunciationMeaning
pound noun/ˈpaʊ̯nd/A unit of weight in various measurement systems.
pavement noun/ˈpeɪvm(ə)nt/A paved surface; a hard covering on the ground.
phrase noun/ˈfɹeɪ̯z/A short written or spoken expression.
sidewalk noun/ˈsaɪdwɔk/A paved footpath located at the side of a road, for the use of pedestrians.
employment noun/ɪmˈplɔɪmənt/The occupation or work for which one is used, and often paid.
baseball noun/ˈbeɪs.bɔl/A sport common in North America, the Caribbean, and East Asia, in which the objective is to strike a ball so that one of a nine-person team can run…
yesterday noun/ˈjɛstɹdeɪ/The day immediately before today; one day ago.
sort noun/soɹt/A general type.
welcome/ˈwɛl.kəm/Greeting given upon someone's arrival.
surface noun/ˈsɜː.fɪs/The external boundary of an object or body.

How to practise with this video

  1. Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
  2. Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
  3. Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like pound, pavement, phrase.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →