Shadowing Practice: for the love of the game - Learn English Speaking with Video

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230 sentences

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Thank you

I'm starting to get some really nice comments.

Well, I've always been getting really nice comments, but they were coming in very rarely.

Yesterday, I got so many comments, and especially the last video that I posted, I read the third book in the Sherlock Holmes series,

and a lot of people said that they forgot that book even existed, or that the format of the book and the fact

that it's an old copy made them remember what it was like to read books like

that i just enjoy it

so much anyway today i want to go to pick up

some books i have three books to pick up i'm gonna show them to you

when we get back and

if i feel like it i'm gonna stop by a coffee shop

and read but first i have to choose the book

that i'm gonna be reading last night i finished november by

gustave lobert i loved it i mean at first i loved it

and then i didn't love it

and then i loved it again it was my first book

by him it won't be the last i don't know

so i just talked to my friend we might go out

tonight in a few hours i might go to the place

he works at to just read i want to talk a

little bit about what happened to me two days ago i

haven't written anything in my dream journal for a month literally

the last time i wrote in it was august 4th

and then i wrote on the 8th of september yesterday i

had a two -parter dream the first one was a good

one the second one was a nightmare i wrote them both down

and the moment that i put the pen back on the desk it felt to me as

if that nightmare escaped my body and mind it was as

if i stopped carrying a burden with me it was as

if i felt much grounded and lighter

so i was reminded again of the reason why i write

down my dreams of course this is not the only reason why i also like looking back through them

and analyzing them

but i think the biggest impact

that this activity has on me in the moment is just the fact

that it grounds me and it helps me realize

that I can be an observer of my own subconscious in a way I also love this cover

so much I made this and also did this on the inside

and then on the back I did this other than

that I need to choose the next book

but first I need to make some coffee

and then after this coffee i'm going to get the books i made english breakfast today

which it was really good but i don't really like eating

that much in the morning and

if you would ask me to choose between a savory breakfast

and a sweet breakfast i would almost always choose the sweet breakfast

like that's not enough I just told my friend

that we're just gonna see each other tonight he just works

so far away I mean don't get me wrong I would really like to go but

if I would have went in the morning it would have

been simpler I'm a very comfortable person I should change

that actually I don't even think it would be the greatest idea to go

because I still want to get some things done at home yeah anyway let's find the book

that we're gonna read I know

that I want to read a physical book the last two books

that I finished I read on my kindle

and i just miss writing on my books right now maybe

i should pick up a vonnegut you know what i think

cat's cradle pine grove mentioned this book in one of their

songs i think i'm gonna like it i don't know about the war though i don't know

if i want to read about the cold war

but maybe i do i think i do also two days ago i decided

that i was going to do a challenge waking up at

5 a .m every morning for a week to read

which is something that i love doing

so this would have been really fun for me to do

but i realized i don't have a place in this apartment to actually read in in the morning

because i filmed a little bit

and i filmed everything in the kitchen i don't have a sofa

and i couldn't really film and read in bed

because my boyfriend was sleeping so i think i'm gonna film

that particular video when we're gonna move until then i am still going to wake up early

when i get the chance to read and start my day perfectly

but not for a whole week because my back was really hurting

because i was hunching to read in the kitchen it's kind of sad yeah that's about

that but i really can't wait to make

that video barely did it this morning but we did it we got up yeah you are so cute

Thank you.

I love this.

It's not that much.

so so if i go on goodreads

and check with my reading journal what's the last book

that i wrote about fascism and democracy by george orwell

that was in july it's september why isn't it loading damn

since then i read one two three four five six seven eight nine books three of them i don't own

but the rest i have right here babe these are all the books

100

that i have to write about i don't know why i

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really want to write about all of them today plus the other three ones

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that i don't physically own

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so nine books i am going to write about books as i'm reading them but for

104

that to happen i need to finish writing about these books first it's probably gonna take me hours

105

and hours whatever we're just gonna have to do it

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and i am gonna finish my reading journal i have a few pages left of it

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and i'm gonna start a new reading journal

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which is this one i don't know did i show it

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to you i think i did really love it did some

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collages on it i can't wait to start it i didn't show you the books

111

that i bought yesterday not yesterday it was a few days

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ago actually i thought i bought three books right i thought i ordered the nora roberts book

113

which apparently i did not i was paying for the books

114

and i was like where's my third book you clearly made a mistake you just didn't process the order

115

but apparently i didn't order it

116

because i looked in my email i didn't have a confirmation email

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so that was stupid of me anyway the first one

118

that i bought is by a romanian author that i've never read before

119

but i've heard so many things about her

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and my friend just read one of her books

121

and she thought it was amazing so i had to buy something from her

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so this is by henriette yvonne stall it's called fratele meu

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omul in english i think it would be called something like

124

my my brother man it's a very old copy i think this one is 1973

125

look at this portrait of her she looks evil why does she look like that actually i'm curious Yes, let's find a photo of her.

126

Oh, she didn't look that bad.

127

Actually, she was really beautiful, but.

128

yeah in old age she she looked kind of evil i don't know we're gonna see i'm

129

so excited to read her i haven't read a female romanian author in

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so long and i know

131

that i love them i absolutely love them next is i

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have to take this sticker off actually the case book of sherlock holmes of course by our one

133

and only true love sir arthur conan doyle this is the

134

last book in the sherlock home series you know i bought it

135

because of the collection i want all of these books

136

and i forgot to mention in the mini book haul

137

that my boyfriend got everyday dada which is

138

so interesting it has some really great photos in here let's find a good one salami on the bathroom walls

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Amen.

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Thank you.

141

all right i have two more books to write about in order to get up to date

142

so i'm gonna do

143

that now i'm gonna finish it i can't believe it i wrote about seven books

144

so far my arm is hurting and i didn't even write

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that much i think i need to exercise more i'm starting to get sweaty as well starting to get tired

146

but that's fine you know what it's fine as long as i get this done i don't care one thing

147

that i have to mention is that for the books

148

that i read on my kindle i have to compile some quotes

149

that i want to write down in my reading journal

150

because i don't trust any digital device to save my favorite quotes i'm not gonna am i gonna do

151

that now oh shit no i'm gonna

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gonna do it tomorrow got the writing the writing impeccable I love Kurt

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more than a good

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It's 10 .36 a .m.

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and I woke up this morning, had my coffee and read and it was a blast i'm on page 54 it's

156

so good and i think vonnegut is amazing at character building

157

and character integration especially because he uses his episodic characters to to his advantage

158

and you can clearly see it if you have problems for example

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if you're writing a novel i truly recommend analyzing his characters i also started writing in my new reading journal

160

which i told you that want to do and i did it

161

and it feels so good to be caught up with everything almost everything actually

162

because we still have to write down the quotes from november

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and in the margins and i already prepared this

164

so i already glued this envelope here when i started this reading journal

165

and i prepared two pages in

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which to write our quotes i think this is going to be for in the margins

167

and this is going to be for november for the rest of the day

168

we're gonna read cat's cradle

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and actually finish it this will be probably the third book of the month

170

or fourth let's see yeah it's gonna be the fourth book of the month

171

which is exciting so we're probably gonna get to eight books this month

172

because it's september 15th which means that i still have two more weeks in

173

which to read four more books

174

if you haven't already read bonobot please please do he's great

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he's not for everyone i will say he's not for everyone

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but if he is for you you'll love him so that's about

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that right now i just uh need to write down those quotes

178

because i don't have a printer

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and i also forgot to mention i started this reading journal

180

that i just finished i started it in november of 2025 with northern lights by philip bowman

181

which was an amazing read for me

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because i was missing some fantasy in my life at

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that point there was only one book in here

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that i started writing about and i didn't finish and

185

that is an anthropologist on mars by oliver sacks as you

186

can see started writing a little bit about the book i read a few pages

187

and i also tried to document myself a little bit on

188

the guy i apparently have read gratitude by him in march of 2022

189

while i was working at a bookstore i remember borrowing it

190

and then giving it back to the bookstore i think i did

191

that with only two books in my life taking them home

192

and actually getting them back to the bookstore i did

193

that with of mice and men and with gratitude

194

but i have read multiple books while on a shift

195

and in those cases i wouldn't take the book home i would just read it

196

while i was at work but anyway an anthropologist on mars is the only book

197

that i have not finished that i wrote about in my reading journal

198

and it's definitely a book

199

that i have to read the entirety of go back from the beginning

200

and read the whole thing because i don't want any blank pages i'm a completionist

201

Thank you.

202

is i don't even know the hour right now what time

203

is it probably 7 p .m 7 30 p .m i

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have 60 pages left of cat's cradle i gotta continue i also have to make dinner

205

so 60 pages left of that which is probably going to take me an hour

206

and a half probably two hours actually because i'm also taking notes

207

and then i want to make dinner which i'm actually going to make

208

while reading well you know i'm taking breaks to read

209

or taking breaks to cook i'm not sure how i want to look at that oh

210

and i have to write down my november quotes for in the margins i wrote two no four pages

211

which really took a toll on my right arm not gonna

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lie to you it's fine we do it for the love of the game we do it

213

because we don't have a printer

214

if i had a printer i wouldn't have done it

215

or i would have done it

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but not with all the quotes actually just with the ones

217

that i really love probably would have written them in my

218

reading journal oh man i'm tired i'm i'm drinking some coffee right now i came in the bedroom so

219

that i don't know you would see something else other than

220

the kitchen i feel like you always see the kitchen i'm gonna read some more and drink some coffee

221

now i have to add tabs because i forgot to add tabs but i finally finished it it's done Cut.

222

No, no, no, cut.

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It's 1 .30 a .m.

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I don't have it in me.

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I don't have it in me to do anything else other than transferring this video that I'm filming right now, this clip, to my laptop.

226

And that's it.

227

That's it.

228

It's just so late.

229

And I realize this is kind of a mix, for me at least, between breakfast of champions and sirens of titan

230

which i enjoyed them both a lot i just loved it okay i'm gonna go now i'm not even gonna shower

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This video has 230 sentences and 2541 words to shadow. The speech runs for 19:47. The speaker talks at a steady 128 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. 83% 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
margin noun	/ˈmɑɹ.d͡ʒɪn/	The edge of the paper, typically left blank when printing but sometimes used for annotations etc.
printer noun	/ˈpɹɪntɚ/	One who makes prints.
cradle noun	/ˈkɹeɪdəl/	A bed or cot for a baby, oscillating on rockers or swinging on pivots.
mar verb	/mɑɹ/	To spoil; to ruin; to scathe; to damage.
nightmare noun	/ˈnaɪt.mɛɚ/	A very unpleasant or frightening dream.
tab noun	/tæb/	A small flap or strip of material attached to or inserted into something, for holding, manipulation, identification, opening etc.
gratitude noun	/ˈɡɹæ.tɪ.tud/	The state of being grateful.
analyze verb	/ˈæn.əˌlaɪz/	To subject to analysis.
kindle verb	/ˈkɪn.dəl/	To start (a fire) or light (a torch, a match, coals, etc.).
everyday adjective	/ˈɛvɹiˌdeɪ/	Appropriate for ordinary use, rather than for special occasions.
format noun	/ˈfɔːɹ.mæt/	The layout of a publication or document.
bedroom noun	/ˈbɛdˌɹum/	A room in a house, apartment, hotel, or other dwelling where a bed is kept for sleeping.
curious adjective	/ˈkjʊɹ.i.əs/	Tending to ask questions, or to want to explore or investigate; inquisitive; (with a negative connotation) nosy, prying.
mini adjective	/ˈmɪn.i/	Miniature, tiny, small.
desk noun	/dɛsk/	A table, frame, or case, in past centuries usually with a sloping top but now usually with a flat top, for the use of writers and readers. It often has a…

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
pick up verb		To lift; to grasp and raise.
write down verb		To produce or set (something) down in writing; to record something.
wake up verb	/ˌweɪk ˈʌp/	To stop sleeping; to awake.
get back verb		Return to where one came from.
get up verb		To move in an upward direction; to ascend or climb.
get up to verb		To do something, especially something that is forbidden or improper.
go out verb		To leave, especially a building.
look back verb		To think of (past events) in retrospect (in hindsight).

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 110 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, gonna, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “sh” and “zh” sounds: integration /ˌɪn.tɪˈɡɹeɪ.ʃən/, confirmation /ˌkɑn.fəɹˈmeɪ.ʃən/, collage /kəˈlɑʒ/, subconscious /sʌbˈkɑn.ʃəs/
Long words — get the stress right: integration /ˌɪn.tɪˈɡɹeɪ.ʃən/, confirmation /ˌkɑn.fəɹˈmeɪ.ʃən/, entirety /ɪnˈtaɪ.əɹ(ə)ti/, anthropologist /ˌæn.θɹoʊˈpɑl.ə.d͡ʒɪst/, episodic /ˌɛp.ɪˈsɒd.ɪk/

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 margin, printer, cradle.

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	haven't written · i've never read · i've heard
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	was reminded · would be called · be caught
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	dada which is · that which is

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: for the love of the game - 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

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

Grammar in this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?