Shadowing Practice: ENGLISH SLANG FOR DAILY CONVERSATIONS - Learn English Speaking with Video

All right, let's be honest.

You want to speak English, but you also want to be able to sound like a native English speaker.

You want to use the slang that we use, or at least understand when the slang is used in movies or television programs, or even when native English speakers are having conversations around you, you don't want to be confused anymore.

Well, my friend, I got your back.

I am going to help you in today's lesson.

I am going to give you five English slang terms that you can use starting right now during English conversations.

Are you ready?

Well, then I'm teacher Tiffany.

Let's jump right in.

All right.

Here is the first slang that I want to teach you.

Ghost.

That's right.

Again, ghost.

Now you probably already know this word ghost, right?

But when we say ghost or ghosting as a slang term, it literally means to disappear or stop communicating suddenly.

This is a very popular term.

You can start using it right now.

I want you to imagine this, right?

Just an example.

So I'm dating this guy, right?

And we text back and forth every day.

Oh, how was your day?

And he's asking me, oh, Tiffany, what did you eat for lunch today?

And we text quite often, but all of a sudden he starts getting on my nerves.

I really don't want to talk to him anymore.

I kind of want to break up with him, but instead of me calling him and saying, Hey, I'm sorry, him and saying, Hey, I'm sorry, Brian.

I think we're going to have to end our relationship.

I just stop responding to his text messages.

When my phone dings, shoot, it's Brian.

I act like I didn't see the message when he calls me.

Ooh, swipe ending the call.

I am ghosting him.

Makes sense.

Now don't worry your teacher.

I I'm not like that, but I wanted to make sure you understood this term of ghosting.

Maybe you have ghosted someone before, or maybe someone has ghosted you.

Makes sense.

Right?

All right.

Here are some examples sentences using this slang term.

Here's the first one.

He ghosted me after our first date.

I don't know what happened.

You got it.

He ghosted me after our first date.

I don't know what happened next sentence.

Number two, example two.

I asked him for his number, but he just ghosted me.

I asked him for his number, but when I text him, he doesn't respond.

He just ghosts me.

You got it.

Excellent.

All right.

Third, she's been ghosting us all week.

I hope everything is okay.

Notice it's not just in a relationship as far as boyfriend and girlfriend, your friends can ghost you.

Maybe they are mad at you or, or maybe something happened and they're just not wanting to talk about it.

Ghost someone you got it.

Yes.

Excellent.

All right.

So the first slang term is ghost.

Now this next one, before I teach you this next one, as you're learning these terms, it's going to be very important for you to practice what you're learning.

So I want to make sure you remember after this lesson, as soon as this lesson ends, I want you to go to your phone and open the English with Tiffany app.

If you haven't downloaded it yet.

Why all you have to do is go to your phone and download English with Tiffany.

If you're watching this now, the link is right underneath the video, but open the English with Tiffany app and you'll see the courses weekly English fluency lessons with teacher Tiffany, and you'll find today's lesson and you'll be able to practice seeing if you remember the definitions, seeing if you can create example sentences and so much more.

So get the app.

Download it.

If you haven't already downloaded it and start practicing right after this lesson.

Again, the link for the exact lesson is right below this video.

So let's go to the second one.

Here we go.

The second slang term is squad.

Oh yeah.

Again, squad.

Good.

Now squad.

This just refers to a group of friends or associates.

It's very simple.

So your homies, your friends, your squad, the people that you hang with the people that you were always around my squad.

Notice if you're watching my body language kind of change, right?

Oh, this is my squad.

These are my people.

These are my homies.

This is my squad.

You got it.

Right?

So maybe you have your squad.

Maybe when you were back in grade school, high school, college, or even grad school, You had a group of friends that you always hung around.

They were your squad.

You got it.

Excellent.

Now check out this example sentence.

Here we go.

The first one, my squad and I are planning a weekend trip next month.

You see how simple that was my squad and I, my homies and I, my friends and I, my friend group, my squad and I are planning a weekend trip next month.

What about this example sentence?

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She always hangs out with her squad at the mall on weekends.

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Yeah.

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She enjoys going to the mall on the weekends with her squad, with her friends.

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You got it.

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All right.

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Check out this example sentence.

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I can always count on my squad to have my back.

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Now this is very true.

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My squad, my friends, I can count on them.

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Can you count on your squad?

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I'm sure you can.

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So again, we have squad.

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I can always count on my squad to have my back.

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You got it.

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All right.

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Again, I want you to try to use these terms starting today.

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This is how you actually put things into practice.

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Start using them as soon as you learn them.

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Now the third slang term is salty.

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This is another good one.

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I'm saying I'm teaching you these slang terms because literally right now they are being used on a regular basis by native English speakers.

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Including your teacher salty.

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That's the third one.

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It just means feeling upset or bitter about something feeling upset or bitter about something.

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For example, I remember one situation.

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There was a squad, right?

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I was friends with them, but they were a squad and two of the friends were going on a trip, but they had not told the other friend.

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So when the other friend found out that the two other friends were going by themselves, she got a little bit salty.

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Oh, so now you guys travel without me.

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Okay.

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All right.

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So we're not all a squad now.

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You guys just go alone without me.

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No, I'm totally fine.

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Yeah.

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Nope.

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Go ahead.

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I don't need you guys either.

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You could tell by the look on her face that she was salty, a little upset, a little bitter, like I thought we were friends.

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Salty.

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You got it.

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All right.

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Don't worry.

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They're friends.

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Now everything's fine.

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Here's the example sentence.

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The first one he's so salty that he didn't get the promotion instead of me.

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I got the promotion he wanted.

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So now he's salty.

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He's a little upset.

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He doesn't want to talk to me.

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He walks past me very quickly in the office.

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Now he's a little salty.

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All right.

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Next we have, she got salty.

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When I beat her at the game, we were playing basketball and I shot the last shot and I made it and she got salty when I beat her at the game.

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And finally this one.

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I was a little salty when they canceled our concert tickets.

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I I'm not going to lie.

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I was a little salty.

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I was a little upset when they canceled our concert tickets.

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You got it.

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Excellent.

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Again, salty.

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It just means a little upset.

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Let me give you another practical example.

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If you're married, right?

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I'll give this for the guys.

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Maybe you can say, ah, my wife was a little salty when I forgot to bring home the flowers for the women.

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You could say my husband was a little bit salty when I told him I was going out with the girls instead of staying home.

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Salty.

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You got it.

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Excellent.

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All right.

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Let's go to the fourth one, the fourth slang term that you can use starting today.

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TBT.

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Yes.

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TBT.

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Now this is one that we use mainly when we are texting or online, like for social media, I'll explain TBT stands for throw back Thursday, sharing old photos or memories on social media.

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So let's say for example, we have TBT like previous boyfriends, right.

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Or.

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Old hairstyles, right.

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Or old clothing.

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My friend posted a picture of things we used to wear back in the nineties when we were in high school.

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Wow.

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The styles have changed, but we thought we were cute.

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And of course we were, but TBT throwback Thursday.

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So now when you go online, social media, like Instagram or even a Tik TOK or Facebook, and you see someone put TBT and then an old picture.

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Now you'll know what they're referring to.

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Oh, this is a throwback Thursday moment.

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They're reminiscing or thinking about something from the past.

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You got it.

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Excellent.

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All right.

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Here's the first example sentence.

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Can't believe how young we look in this TBT photo in this throwback Thursday photo, you got it.

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Someone would text you girl.

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Did you see the TBT photo?

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We looked so young.

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Did you see the throwback Thursday photo?

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You got it.

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All right.

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Check out this example sentence.

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I'm posting a TBT of our family vacation from years ago.

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Throwback.

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Now throwback.

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You can say that out loud.

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Throwback just means something from the past.

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All right.

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And what about this example sentence right here?

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You know, she posted a TBT of her graduation day and got so many likes.

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When she posted that picture on Facebook, that TBT photo of when she graduated from high school.

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So many people liked it.

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TBT throwback Thursday.

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You got it.

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Excellent.

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All right.

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So what about the fifth slang term that you can start using right now?

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T yes.

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T E A again, T.

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Now I'm chuckling because this actually happened in my English class this past week.

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So it just means gossip or juicy information.

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Actually, I'll tell you the story for story time.

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Don't go anywhere at the very end.

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I'll tell you the story.

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So T just refers to some gossip, right?

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Like, Ooh, spill the tea.

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Ooh, what's the gossip?

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Ooh, tell me what happened.

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Tell me the gossip spill the tea.

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Now, the easiest way for you to remember this is think about a group of women sitting together, just a situation and example, and they're drinking some tea, right?

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Just talking.

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And they say, girl, how have you been?

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What's been going on as they're drinking their tea.

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That's kind of where the term comes from.

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Spill the tea.

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Tell me what's happening.

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Tell me the gossip.

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You got it.

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All right, check out this first example sentence.

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Have you heard the tea about what really happened at the party?

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Have you, have you heard what happened?

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Tell me the tea.

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You got it.

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All right.

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Check out this other example sentence.

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She always knows the latest tea on all our friends.

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She always knows the latest gossip, the latest information.

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The T and finally this one right here.

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Tell me the T about what's going on with her and with him again, tell me the T about what's going on with her and him spill the information.

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What's the gossip.

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You got it.

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Yes.

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In English we say T.

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All right.

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Excellent.

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Now, again, these five slang terms, you can start using them right now.

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We use them in real life on a regular basis as Americans.

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So you can start using them as well.

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Don't forget to go to the app right now, English with Tiffany, so that you can practice what you just learned, matching the definitions with the correct term, making the sentences and so much more.

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All right.

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I hope you enjoyed today's lesson and I will talk to you in the next one.

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You still there?

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You know what time it is.

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It's story time.

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Hey, I said it's story time.

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It's actually time for me to spill the tea.

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So this happened actually a few days ago.

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Very honestly, it did.

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So at the time of this recording a few days ago, so I teach a class, um, once a month for some of my students in one of my advanced English programs.

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And I normally pop into the different rooms, right?

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We do it via zoom and I do go to the different groups and I listened to them as they're having their conversations.

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So I popped into one room and they were having a great time, which every teacher loves to see.

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But I noticed that they were laughing and chuckling about something.

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And as I listened closely, this was a group of men.

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I listened closely.

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They were spilling the tea.

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They said, listen, did you know that dot, dot, dot, and dot, dot, dot.

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And I watched them.

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I said, these men are spilling the tea, gossiping, sharing information.

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Now it was cute to see, because again, these individuals had become very close friends and they weren't saying anything bad, but it was so cute to see the guys spilling the tea.

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Like, Hey man, did you hear this?

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And what about this?

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And they were doing it all in English.

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Now this made me happy for many reasons.

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First, they were so comfortable speaking in English that they weren't worried about anything.

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Second, these two men had become friends after joining the academy, after becoming a member of our family.

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And now they are super close.

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And third, they were using the terms that they had learned properly.

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This was a great experience and a memory that I will never forget.

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Maybe you like to spill the tea, be careful, nothing private.

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All right.

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I hope you enjoy the lesson and I'll talk to you next time.

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 Practice: ENGLISH SLANG FOR DAILY CONVERSATIONS - Learn English Speaking with Video

Context & Background

Top 5 Phrases for Daily Communication

Step-by-step Shadowing Guide

What is the Shadowing Technique?