Shadowing Practice: English Listening Podcast - Thanksgiving - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Welcome to the Listening Time Podcast.

Hey everybody, this is Connor and you're listening to episode 129 of the Listening Time Podcast.

Thank you all for listening.

I hope you're all doing well.

I hope that your English learning is going great.

And at the time that this episode is released, it will be the week of Thanksgiving here in the U.S.

And so that's what I want to talk about today.

I'm going to talk about Thanksgiving.

I'll talk about this holiday, the origins of the holiday,

some of the food that people like to eat here on Thanksgiving,

and I'll talk about some of the things that I'm thankful for from this year, from 2023.

So hopefully you'll enjoy this episode

and a lot of people are curious about Thanksgiving because it's not something that you have all around the world.

It's more of a regional thing in the U.S., I think in Canada, I'm not sure where else.

But you don't have Thanksgiving all over the world,

so a lot of people are curious about this topic if they've never celebrated Thanksgiving in the U.S before.

So we'll talk about that today.

And remember that if you feel ready to practice with real conversations in

which I speak to a native speaker and we talk normally and naturally, then make sure to sign up for my US Conversations podcast.

I release one new episode every month and it's a long conversation between me

and someone else from a different part of the US.

And of course, you have the transcript for each episode

and you also have the definitions of key words and phrases that we use during the conversation.

So if you're interested in that, make sure to click on the link in the episode description below this episode.

That's patreon.com slash US conversations.

And if you want my training for your pronunciation and you're listening, then make sure to join my membership

so you can get my specialized training to help you pronounce English better and also listen and understand more effectively.

So the link is also in the description below this episode.

And if you like this podcast, please share it with anyone else you know who's learning English and give it a five-star rating and write a review.

All right, let's get started.

Are your ears ready?

You know what time it is.

It's listening time.

Okay, let's talk about Thanksgiving.

First, let me talk a little bit about the origins of Thanksgiving, where it came from.

So, it's generally believed that Thanksgiving originated originated in the year 1621.

So what was happening at that time?

Well, there were English settlers who we would call pilgrims that came over on the Mayflower ship.

This was maybe the most famous ship that went back and forth between Europe and what is now the U.S.,

right, that went back and forth between Europe and America, right?

And so these pilgrims are the people who came starting in 1620,

I believe, and then all throughout the 1620s, they came taking this Mayflower ship,

and they established Plymouth Colony, and that's in Massachusetts.

So this is one of the most famous colonies that the English settlers established in the U.S.

It was the second permanent colony in America.

So it was one of the most significant ones.

And so these pilgrims who established the Plymouth colony,

they were in contact with some of the native people.

So specifically for this Thanksgiving story, we're talking about the Wampanoag people.

So these are Native Americans who were here prior to the English settlers coming.

When we say prior to something, we're saying before something.

So prior to the Mayflower bringing the pilgrims over, these Wampanoag people were already there.

And of course, there was a lot of contact between the settlers and these natives.

And in 1621, there was an autumn harvest feast.

So autumn referring to the season, of course, and the harvest referring to the crops

that you grow on your land and then you harvest them

and then you can eat them and use them in different ways.

That's the harvest part.

And then a feast.

A feast just refers to a big meal that you have with multiple people, right?

So they had an autumn harvest feast with the pilgrims and the Wampanoag people.

And so that is what most people believe to be the first Thanksgiving meal,

was that meal, that feast that they shared.

I don't know if this is accurate, and I think that no one can say 100% for sure if this is accurate,

but I think that that's what is generally considered to be true.

So that's a little bit about the first Thanksgiving.

So now what is Thanksgiving about? because at

that time it was an autumn feast

and it was between two different groups of people right

and there was some significance to that

that the natives were eating with the settlers

and sharing this meal together nowadays that's not the thing that most people think about when they think about Thanksgiving.

Now, Thanksgiving is generally thought of to be a day where you get together with your family,

you eat an amazing meal, and you show gratitude for the things that you have.

when we say that you show gratitude, we're saying that you express the fact that you're thankful for things.

So that's more or less what people think about today when they think about Thanksgiving.

And I want to mention that Thanksgiving is not the most important holiday in the U.S., in my opinion.

So I get this question all the time, or I hear people say this all the time, from other countries that I talked to.

They say, Thanksgiving seems like the most important holiday in the U.S.

They'll have this assumption.

And I would definitely disagree with this.

I would say that Christmas is by far the most important holiday.

Thanksgiving might be number two for a lot of people, but it's not number one for most people.

So for example, I went many years without celebrating Thanksgiving

because I didn't live near my family and I didn't come back home for Thanksgiving.

And it was sad, but it wasn't a huge deal.

I wasn't completely depressed that I wasn't celebrating Thanksgiving.

However, when I was not home for Christmas, I had to celebrate Christmas with someone,

with some people, because I can't imagine not celebrating Christmas one year.

However, I can imagine not celebrating Thanksgiving because I didn't celebrate it for almost a decade.

So it's not as important as Christmas in my opinion, but it's an important holiday.

Okay, now let me talk a little bit about some of the food that we eat on Thanksgiving.

So the meal that we have on this holiday is similar to the meal that we have on Christmas.

So the dishes are very similar and a lot of them are the same.

The biggest difference is that Thanksgiving is famous for turkey.

And this is kind of the protagonist of the meal for many families, right?

This is the main character, let's say.

For Christmas, some people eat turkey.

That's true.

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However, I think that it's more common to eat ham on Christmas.

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And this is one of my favorite things during the Christmas meal is eating ham.

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So I associate ham with Christmas and turkey with Thanksgiving.

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However, the signed dishes are very similar and a lot of them are the same.

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So I just refer to all of this as holiday food in the U.S.

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And this is one of the best things about celebrating these holidays in the U.S.

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compared to maybe celebrating Christmas in other countries because the U.S has a lot of food that is meant for these holidays.

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So there is a lot of food that's specifically linked to these holidays.

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And I know you have this in other countries as well.

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However, in my experience, talking to students from different countries and living in Mexico for many years,

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there usually isn't as much specific holiday food that you only eat during this season,

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during the Thanksgiving or Christmas season.

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Whereas in the US, there are a lot of dishes where if you just say the name of the dish,

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immediately people think of Christmas or they think of Thanksgiving.

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So that was one of my complaints

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when I celebrated Christmas in Mexico is I felt

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that there was some holiday food but not nearly as much as in the US

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because a lot of the holiday food that we ate in Mexico is food

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that you might also eat during other parts of the year.

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There are some things that are definitely associated with Christmas.

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However, in my experience, not as much as the holiday food in the US.

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So for example, if you think of the Christmas ham,

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if you see the sight of that ham that's sliced in thin slices, you automatically think of Christmas.

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Or if you see a turkey coming out of the oven, then you automatically think of Thanksgiving.

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And there are other dishes like this as well.

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For example, stuffing.

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So this is kind of a wet bread pudding, I guess you could call it,

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that traditionally was stuffed inside the turkey to cook with the turkey.

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However, you don't need to do that.

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And I've read that it can actually be dangerous if you don't do it correctly,

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but that's where the name comes from, stuffing, right?

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It was stuffed in the meat of the turkey.

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So if someone says the word stuffing, you immediately think of Thanksgiving usually.

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Another one is cranberry sauce.

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There's this special sauce that it's really delicious and it kind of enhances the other dishes.

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The word enhance refers to making something better and so

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when I say that the cranberry sauce enhances other dishes I'm saying

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that you can eat the cranberry sauce with these other side dishes or with the turkey and it

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It creates a really delicious combination.

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I like eating turkey with this cranberry sauce.

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So that's a really tasty combo in my opinion.

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And then with the turkey, there is white meat and dark meat.

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So I prefer dark meat because it has more flavor.

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But some people like white meat.

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So the turkey has both.

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It has white meat and dark meat.

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And people will normally ask you, do you want white or dark?

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right?

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In my opinion, if you eat white meat, then you should pair it with this cranberry sauce.

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When I say that you pair something with something else, this means that you put the two things together.

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So I think that the white meat can be a little bit dry and without a lot of flavor,

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so I like to pair it with the cranberry sauce, and this enhances the experience,

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the flavor of the turkey.

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So cranberry sauce is another one that people will immediately associate with Thanksgiving, usually.

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And another one could be sweet potato casserole.

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This is one of my favorite dishes because it's not a dessert, however, it's sweet.

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So it's kind of an interesting side dish where you have these sweet potatoes, which are in general sweet, right?

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And then you can also put things like brown sugar or marshmallows or things like that that can make it even sweeter.

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If you don't know what a marshmallow is,

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this is that white soft food that you usually roast over a fire when you're camping.

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This is a marshmallow.

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So some people add marshmallows to this sweet potato casserole and it's really delicious.

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I've never had a bad sweet potato casserole.

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It's kind of hard to go wrong with this dish.

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So that's another one where if you say that, people immediately think of Thanksgiving or Christmas.

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And one other one that I like is green bean casserole.

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So this is another casserole that you bake in the oven, and it's with green beans and other things.

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Usually this is associated with holidays, with Thanksgiving and Christmas.

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So that's another one.

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And then there are other dishes that we can have at other times during the year,

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but they're also very related to these two holidays.

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So, for example, mashed potatoes and gravy.

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You can eat that anytime throughout the year.

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However, it's hard for me to imagine a Thanksgiving meal without mashed potatoes and without gravy.

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So that's one that's not just particular to Thanksgiving.

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However, I can't imagine Thanksgiving without it.

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And there are other things like dinner rolls.

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A roll in this context refers to a piece of bread.

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It's usually really fluffy on the inside.

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It's soft and delicious.

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You add butter to it.

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It's really good.

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my mouth is watering just thinking about it.

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By the way, when we say that your mouth is watering, we're saying that you are salivating.

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Your mouth is producing saliva because you're imagining eating something.

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We say your mouth is watering.

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And one of the most popular desserts that we eat during Thanksgiving is pie.

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Things like pumpkin pie, pecan pie, apple pie.

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We have tons of different pies.

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That's one of my favorite desserts that we eat during Thanksgiving.

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And there are many other dishes that are associated with Thanksgiving or with Christmas.

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Those are just a handful of them and some of my favorites.

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And now I want to talk a little bit about what I'm thankful for this year because on Thanksgiving,

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it's good to express gratitude.

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It's good to say what you're thankful for and to reflect on these blessings that you have in your life.

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So there are many things that I thank God for this year that I just really appreciate.

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One of the things that comes to mind is the end of my wife's immigration process.

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So at the very end of last year, we finished the immigration process for my wife.

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And this year is the year that we have established ourselves in the U.S.,

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me being a citizen and she being a resident.

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So we had been waiting for that process to end for so long.

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We constantly thought about the immigration process and it was often stressful

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to have to wait and go through the next step in the process and then wait and then have to

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travel for an interview and do all of these different things.

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And we hated that feeling of not being sure where we were going to live in the future

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and just being in this process.

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And so when she finally finished the process and we moved up here,

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this was a huge relief for us.

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The word relief refers to that feeling that you get when you were feeling bad.

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And then now that's gone away.

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You feel relief.

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So this year is our first year living in the U.S legally, and we can start to establish ourselves here.

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And I'm extremely thankful that we got through that process and that we're now living here.

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This year has been a really great year being able to be up in the U.S.,

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have my wife here, have my son here.

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And that leads me to my next thing

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that I'm really thankful for this year is

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that I've been able to spend a lot of time with my parents and with my sister and her family.

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So they all live in the U.S.

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And so when I lived in Mexico all those years, it was hard for me to see them on a regular basis.

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And so now this year has been the first time when all of us can get together and watch our kids

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grow up together and do all of that, it's a big blessing for me.

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I was really looking forward to being able to do this at some point.

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And now this year we can do it.

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So I'm very happy about that.

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I'm very happy to be with my parents.

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As I've mentioned before, my mom has very severe health issues.

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And so it's been really great to be with her here and to help out a little bit.

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And that's been awesome.

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And of course, spending time with my dad and seeing my nephew and now my new niece,

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because my sister just gave birth to another kid.

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So I get to be part of my nephew and my niece's life.

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And that's really cool.

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So I'm very thankful for that.

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And I'm very thankful for my own family, for my wife, for my son.

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It's been great to watch him grow up more this year.

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It's been great to watch him develop and start to talk and do all of those cool things.

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that's been a huge blessing.

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It's been great to be able to do fun things with my wife and my son up here in the U.S.

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So I'm thankful for my own family.

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I'm thankful for my church.

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I have a church up here that I really like

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and the members are awesome and that's a big part of my life and it's something that I'm very thankful for.

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It's something that I can't go without.

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When you go without something, we're saying that you don't have it.

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You don't use or have something and just continue without that.

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So I can't go without that.

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I'm really thankful for my church as well.

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I'm really thankful for my job.

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So I've been able to reach a lot of people with this content and I received many,

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many messages from people thanking me for helping them and providing this content that's been useful for their listening practice.

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And of course, my membership,

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which has helped a lot of people start to understand the sounds of English and understand

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native speakers better and pronounce things better.

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So I'm very thankful that I've been able to develop this,

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my career, and be able to help a lot of people with this free content

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and also the paid content and it's really cool to have a job like that where you're helping multiple people.

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It's great to help one person but it's even cooler in my opinion to help more than one person.

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So, I've been really thankful for that, that I still have this job,

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this activity that I can live on and And that's been a big blessing.

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And one other thing that I'm really thankful for this year is my audience, all of you.

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As I already mentioned, I receive a lot of messages from you.

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I can't respond to all of them, unfortunately, because they come at me from different angles,

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some from different social media platforms and I'm not the best person at viewing all my messages.

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And you've probably seen that by now that I'm not the most connected person on social media or whatever.

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However, I wanna thank all of you, those of you that send me messages and just all of you for listening,

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for helping me do what I do.

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the fact

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that I have listeners from all over the world is really cool it motivates me to continue doing this

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and of course for those of you

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that are members of my membership I really appreciate your support

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and for those of you that have signed up for my new podcast I really appreciate you as well.

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So I'm thankful for all of you.

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I'm thankful for my audience.

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I wanted to say that here because it's important for me to express that, especially during this episode about Thanksgiving.

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So thank you all again.

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And I'm thankful for many more things as well, but those were just a few that I wanted to mention.

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All right, well, that's it for today.

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I hope that this episode was interesting for you.

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I hope that if you're in the US or Canada or wherever and you're celebrating Thanksgiving this week,

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that you have a great Thanksgiving with your family or your friends.

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And I hope that you can reflect on some of the things that you're thankful for as well.

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And remember that if you need more help, if you need my specialized training to understand native speakers better,

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or to pronounce more correctly, then make sure to join my membership and you'll get my specialized training.

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And if you're ready for real conversations, if you want to practice with real English between native speakers,

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then make sure to sign up for my U.S.

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Conversations podcast and you'll get a new conversation every month with the transcript and with the definitions of keywords.

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So the link to that is down below.

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That's patreon.com slash usconversations.

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And if you like this podcast, I'd really appreciate it if you could share it with different people you know who are learning English.

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And please give it a five-star rating and write a review if you can.

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All right, thank you so much for listening to this episode, and I'll talk to you on the next episode of Listening Time.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This B1 speaking lesson is built on the video “English Listening Podcast - Thanksgiving”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: Thanksgiving, thankful, Christmas, holiday. This video has 291 sentences and 3542 words to shadow. The speech runs for 28:04. The speaker talks at a steady 126 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. 85% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.

Key vocabulary in this video

The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
thankful adjective	/ˈθæŋkfəl/	Showing appreciation or gratitude.
dish noun	/dɪʃ/	A vessel such as a plate for holding or serving food, often flat with a depressed region in the middle.
cranberry noun	/ˈkɹæn.bɛr.i/	A shrub belonging to the section Vaccinium sect. Oxycoccus of the genus Vaccinium.
podcast noun	/ˈpɑdˌkæst/	A program, especially an audio program, produced on a regular basis, delivered over the Internet in a compressed digital format and designed for playback on…
feast noun	/ˈfiːst/	A holiday, festival, especially a religious one
potato noun	/pəˈteɪ.təʊ/	The edible starchy tuber of the plant species Solanum tuberosum.
casserole noun	/ˈkæs.əˌɹoʊl/	A dish of glass or earthenware, with a lid, in which food is baked and sometimes served.
pilgrim noun	/ˈpɪlɡɹɪm/	Any traveler.
settler noun	/ˈsɛt.lɚ/	Someone who settles in a new location; especially one who takes up residence in a previously uninhabited place.
harvest noun	/ˈhɑɹ.vəst/	The process of gathering the ripened crop; harvesting.
marshmallow noun	/ˈmɑɹʃˌmɛl.oʊ/	Marsh mallow, a species of mallow, Althaea officinalis, that grows in marshy terrain.
enhance verb	/ɪnˈhæns/	To augment or make something greater.
blessing noun	/ˈblɛs.ɪŋ/	Some kind of divine or supernatural aid, or reward.
colony noun	/ˈkɔl.ə.ni/	A geographical area under the remote control of a country; especially to extract resources or exploit labor from that area.
autumn noun	/ˈɔtəm/	Traditionally the third of the four seasons, when deciduous trees lose their leaves, and temperatures and daylight hours decrease; typically regarded as…

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
go back verb		To return to a place or state after having been there at a previous time.
grow up verb		To mature and become an adult.
come back verb		To return to a place.
get through verb	/ɡɛt ˈθɹu/	To overcome; to endure.
get together verb		To meet, to gather together, to congregate.
go away verb		To depart or leave a place.
go through verb		To travel from one end of something to the other.
help out verb		To provide assistance.

Sentences worth repeating

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

I hope you're all doing well.
All right, let's get started.
Are your ears ready?
This is the main character, let's say.
However, you don't need to do that.

Grammar in this video

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

Structure	In the video
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	they've never celebrated · I've read · I've never had
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	is released · is meant · are definitely associated
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	people who came · potatoes, which are
Superlatives the -est / the most … — the top or bottom of a group	the most famous · the most significant · the most important

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 81 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, you're, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “sh” and “zh” sounds: dish /dɪʃ/, marshmallow /ˈmɑɹʃˌmɛl.oʊ/, specialize /ˈspɛʃəˌlaɪz/, mash /mæʃ/, pronunciation /pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/
Long words — get the stress right: originate /əˈɹɪd͡ʒɪneɪt/, pronunciation /pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/, protagonist /pɹəˈtæɡ.ə.nɪst/, traditionally /tɹəˈdɪʃ.ə.nə.li/, significance /sɪɡˈnɪfɪkəns/

How to practise with this video

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

What is the Shadowing Technique?

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

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

Shadowing Practice: English Listening Podcast - Thanksgiving - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

Key vocabulary in this video

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Sentences worth repeating

Grammar in this video

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?