Shadowing Practice: Flashcards: Why I Forgot Five Hundred Words - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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Look at this! Five hundred flashcards!
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I made every single one by hand.
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Wow, I was so proud of myself.
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Every night, I went through the whole pile.
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Ugh, front, back, front, back, for hours!
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I really thought I was learning so much.
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Then, a month later, my friend tested me.
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She picked twenty cards and said, 'Ready?'
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And I remembered... four. Just four!
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Oh man. Where did all those words go?
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So, I did some reading about how memory works.
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And guess what? I was doing it all wrong!
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Our brains forget new words really quickly,
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unless we review them at the right moment.
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It's called spaced repetition.
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Here's the idea, and it's super simple!
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Difficult words, you review almost every day.
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Words you know well, you review less often.
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After three days, then a week, then a month.
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So you spend your time on the words you forget.
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Now I use a flashcard app on my phone.
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It decides when each card comes back.
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Oh, and I add a full sentence to every card,
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not just one word and its translation.
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Words are much easier to remember in context.
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And the result? Way better than before!
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Last week, my friend tested me again, and I got eighteen!
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So, my advice? Fewer cards, more often.
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Twenty minutes a day beats three hours on Sunday.
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Oh, and please, don't make five hundred cards at once!
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 30 sentences and 235 words to shadow. The speech runs for 1:35. The speaker talks at a steady 148 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. 86% 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
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| translation noun | /tɹænzˈleɪʃən/ | The conversion of text from one language to another. |
| pile noun | /paɪl/ | A mass of things heaped together; a heap. |
| flashcard noun | /ˈflæʃˌkɑɹd/ | A card used to aid rote memorization. One side of the card contains data of one kind, or a question, and the other side contains the associated response which… |
| repetition noun | /ˌɹɛp.əˈtɪʃ.ən/ | The act or an instance of repeating or being repeated. |
| twenty noun | /ˈtwɛnti/ [-ɛɾ̃i] | The numbers twenty (20) to twenty-nine (29). |
| context noun | /ˈkɑn.tɛkst/ | The surroundings, circumstances, environment, background or settings that determine, specify, or clarify the meaning of an event or other occurrence. |
| sentence noun | /ˈsɛn.təns/ | The judicial order for a punishment to be imposed on a person convicted of a crime. |
| hundred noun | /ˈhʌn.dɹəd/ | A hundred-dollar bill, or any other note denominated 100 (e.g. a hundred euros). |
| quickly adverb | /ˈkwɪk.li/ | Rapidly; with speed; fast; with expedition. |
| unless | /ɪnˈlɛs/ | Except on a specified condition; if not. |
| spend verb | /spɪnd/ | To pay out (money). |
| brain noun | /ˈbɹeɪ̯n/ | The control center of the central nervous system of an animal located in the skull, consisting of the cerebrum, cerebellum, and brainstem, which is responsible… |
| advice noun | /ədˈvaɪs/ | An opinion offered to guide behavior in an effort to be helpful. |
| memory noun | /ˈmɛm.ə.ɹi/ | The ability of the brain to record information or impressions with the facility of recalling them later, usually at will. |
| decide verb | /dɪˈsaɪd/ | To resolve (a contest, problem, dispute, etc.); to choose, determine, or settle. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| come back verb | To return to a place. |
| go through verb | To travel from one end of something to the other. |
Pronunciation to watch
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: translation /tɹænzˈleɪʃən/, flashcard /ˈflæʃˌkɑɹd/, repetition /ˌɹɛp.əˈtɪʃ.ən/
- Long words — get the stress right: repetition /ˌɹɛp.əˈtɪʃ.ən/, twenty /ˈtwɛnti/ [-ɛɾ̃i]
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 translation, pile, flashcard.
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.