Shadowing Practice: English Listening Practice - Old Age - Learn English Speaking with Video

Welcome to the Listening Time Podcast.

Hey everybody, this is Connor and you're listening to episode 112 of the Listening Time Podcast.

I hope everybody's doing great.

I've been traveling a lot recently and I'm gonna travel again today.

To be honest, I think it's been a little too much this trip that I have,

but I'm also excited that after this trip,

I'm probably not going to travel for a while and I'll just have a normal routine and have a normal life.

I'm kind of looking forward to having that for a little while,

but I hope that some of you have some interesting trips planned depending on where you live,

which hemisphere you're in.

Hopefully you get the chance to do some fun stuff or travel to some interesting places this year.

And of course, I hope your English learning is going well.

And if you're having trouble understanding native speakers, and you need more help,

understanding fast speech, especially when native speakers reduce sounds and say things in a way that's very unclear or fast or shortened,

then I encourage you to sign up for my membership so

that you can get my specialized training where I help you identify these different

that will help you become a little more comfortable with fast speech.

So click on the link in the episode description below this episode to join my membership

and you'll get my listening practice seminars.

You'll get that specialized training.

And of course, if you're a Spanish or a Portuguese speaker, you can get my ebook,

my collection of three short stories, mystery stories.

that I wrote in English and translated into Spanish and into Portuguese.

So if you want to practice reading fiction in English, the links to those are also in the episode description.

for older people, and things like that.

So hopefully this will be an interesting topic for you.

And remember that if you need the transcript, that's also in the description.

You can go down there and click on that if you need it.

And if you like this podcast, please share it with your friends and your family members who could find it useful, people who are learning English.

Alright, let's get started.

Are your ears ready?

You know what time it is, it's listening time.

Okay, let's talk about old age.

So first of all, let's talk about how old age is viewed in the U .S.

I think there are a lot of mixed opinions when it comes to this.

The phrase mixed opinions refers to opinions that might be contradictory. are mixed opinions.

So, There are some positive feelings when it comes to old age,

and I think one of the main positive things is that we tend to associate old age with retirement,

with being retired and not working anymore.

And in the U .S., retirement is seen positively.

It's interesting because I want was talking with my wife about this recently

and we were comparing the attitudes regarding retirement in the US and in Mexico.

And it's interesting because in Mexico and probably in most countries around the world,

isn't necessarily seen as some amazing thing, right?

People don't have this idea that they're going to have a fantastic life once they're retired,

and they're going to do tons of fun activities and travel around the world and all that kind of stuff.

However, oftentimes Americans retirement.

We romanticize it a little bit.

We tend to think that this will be a great time in our lives,

and people often prepare very hard for many years for retirement,

and once they're their life to the max.

So many retired people like to travel to many places and take up new hobbies and find fun things to do.

By the way, in English, we can use the phrasal verb "take up" when referring to starting a hobby.

took up tennis That just means that I started this hobby.

So, older people, when they're retired,

they often take up new hobbies and try to do a lot of fun activities.

So, in that sense, this part of old age can definitely be seen positively in the U .S.

However, there are also some negative feelings when it comes to old age.

In the US, just like everywhere else in the world, older people tend to have more health problems.

So there are often aches and pains that people have to deal with.

In English, the word ache refers to a pain that you have.

For example, if I say I have a headache, I'm saying that I have pain in my head.

When you get older, you tend to have more aches and pains,

your body doesn't feel the same as it felt when you were younger,

and you might have some more serious health conditions.

You might have health conditions that don't allow you to have this really active lifestyle.

like when we're older, and so that can cause maybe some fear when it comes to getting older.

So, as you can see, there are some mixed opinions, mixed feelings, because on the one hand,

When you get older and you retire, in the US you can often have a lot of fun.

But on the other hand, your body might not be in the best shape to have all of this fun.

So it's not completely positive or completely negative.

positives and negatives of course

and I think my advice to myself would be to try to do well now in order to reap the benefits later.

In English when we say that you reap benefits we're saying

that you receive benefits the benefits of something that you do now.

And you reap those benefits, you receive them at a later time, usually.

This can be applied to your body.

If you take care of your body when you're younger, then hopefully you'll have a better body in the future.

And if you take care of your mind when you're younger, hopefully you'll be in good mental health in the future.

And if you focus on your relationships, when you're younger.

Hopefully, you'll have good relationships in the future when you're older,

and you'll have a good circle of people around you

that are willing to help you in case you need help and who you can connect with at that age.

So hopefully, I'm able to do those things.

older people in the US.

In the US, older people tend to try to be as independent as possible for as long as possible.

This is just part of our culture.

We are more independent than other cultures,

and people really value being able to take care of themselves.

Most people don't really want other people to take care of them, right?

People here want to take care of themselves, feel independent, feel in control of their own life.

That's one of the cultural elements here.

So that also tends to apply to a lot of older people.

They want to hold on to their independence as long as possible.

So it's quite common for people here to continue living on their own,

even when they're a little bit older, right?

If people are 80 years old.

but they're in great health and they don't need any help with their daily lives,

it's possible that they might live alone, even if they're 80 years old.

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Of course, the older you get, the more likely it is that you'll need some help, right?

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and might be able to do everything for themselves.

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So, if they can, they tend to do that.

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However, sometimes they decide to go to a retirement community.

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These are communities or residential buildings that are designed for seniors.

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By the way, we can use the word "senior" to talk about an older person.

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So these communities are intended for seniors who can still take care of themselves,

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mostly, but they might have very easy access to help or care if they need it in these communities.

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So, they live among other older people there

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and they probably have a lot of activities and social events

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and things like that and they have easy access to help if they need it,

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but they can live independently for the most part.

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So we have those retirement communities and a lot of people

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like those types of communities when they're older because it really provides a lot of socializing and things like that.

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And if people need a little bit more assistance,

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if they need their daily life,

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maybe their health, then they might live in an assisted living facility.

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This is a place where people who aren't completely independent might live and they receive some help.

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They receive more help than in a retirement community, for example.

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So they'll probably have with their tasks, health issues, things like that,

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but they can still be somewhat independent and try to do a lot of things on their own in this place.

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But if the person really can't take care of themselves

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and they really need someone else to take care of them and help them out,

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then they often go to live in a nursing home.

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you all the help that you need, someone is always there to provide you with whatever assistance is necessary.

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That is kind of a long -term care facility.

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we might call it.

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So you receive everything that you need in order to

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live your daily life and you have all the help that you might want.

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So that's for people that really can't take care of themselves anymore.

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So those are some different living situations that people might have once they reach an older age.

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So how about living with your kids or your grandkids when you're older?

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Well, this isn't that common in the U .S.

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It happens.

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Some people do this.

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But it's definitely not as common as it is in many other countries around the world.

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For example, in Mexico, this is really common.

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especially if one of the grandparents has passed away.

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For example, if the grandfather is no longer alive,

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it's very common for the grandmother to live with her children and her grandchildren.

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I had some friends who had this living situation, their grandparents lived with them,

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but practically all of these friends that had this were children of immigrants.

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So their parents and their grandparents were from other countries, and in their countries this was normal.

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So I can't really remember having friends who weren't the children of immigrants who had this type of living situation.

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So that should show you that it's not that common here.

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Again, People do this?

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and some people, they like this, but I would say that it's not the norm here.

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By the way, in English, we can say that something is the norm when we want to say

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that it's normal or it's the normal thing to do.

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So that's not the norm here.

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However, me personally, I tend to like the idea of having

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live with you when they get too old to take care of themselves.

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That's something that I have always offered to my parents.

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If they need to live with us, then I think that they should.

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I think that if it's possible,

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that would be a nice thing to be able to do for my parents since they took care of my childhood.

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So I like that idea, but I would say that many other people might not like that idea.

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And so that really just depends on your own personality, your own preferences.

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Not everyone would agree with that, but that's kind of my opinion.

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And lastly, let's talk about some activities So in the U .S.,

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older people are encouraged to take care of their health,

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and older people tend to be conscious that they need to exercise and keep their body in shape.

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And so it's really common to see older people walking early in the morning or at different times during the day.

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I tend to walk pretty early in the morning.

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I like walking and I see almost exclusively older people.

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I don't really see a lot of younger people walking around the neighborhood at this time.

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And that's because younger people tend to have to work or go to school or whatever.

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But you get my point.

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I see a lot of older people walking around the neighborhood pretty early in the morning,

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and they do this in groups sometimes, or they might do it with their spouse,

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but that's very common, and it's common for them to try to engage in light exercise.

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programs.

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It just depends on their preference.

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And there are some sports that older people really like in the U .S.

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I would say the most popular sport for seniors in the U .S is golf.

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I love golf.

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I haven't played in years, but I still love this sport.

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And I hope to take it up again in the future.

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you notice that there are a lot of older people playing on the course.

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So this sport is not very hard on your body,

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so I think that's why it's a great type of sport for older people.

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And I sometimes see older people playing tennis, too.

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Tennis is definitely harder on your body than golf.

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You definitely have to move more

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But I think that a lot of older people can also play tennis and enjoy this sport.

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And I'm sure there are plenty of other sports that would be good options for seniors as well.

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And some older people like to garden.

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They might try to take really good care of their garden or their front yard or their backyard.

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And that can be a good activity for people.

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And it can be something that is even a little bit therapeutic for people.

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So that can be a great activity for older people.

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And of course, if they can, older people tend to like to travel.

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As I mentioned, people, once they retire,

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sometimes want to travel as much as possible with all of their free time.

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So that's another great activity.

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And of course, one other very spending time with grandchildren.

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That's obviously something that a lot of grandparents really like to do.

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All right, why don't we stop there for today?

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I hope this episode was interesting for you.

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Remember that you have the transcript available if you need it, and if you want to practice with the difficult sounds of English

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and you need help understanding native speakers when they speak fast, make sure to become a Listening Time member so

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that you can access my listening practice seminars and start to understand those concepts,

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those patterns, a little bit better.

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So you can click on the link in the description to access those.

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That's patreon .com slash listening time.

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And of course, if you're a Spanish or a Portuguese speaker, reading fiction in English.

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

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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 Practice - Old Age - Learn English Speaking with Video

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