Shadowing Practice: FREE English Listening Practice Seminar - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Hey everybody, welcome to this free listening practice seminar.

I hope you're doing well.

So I wanted to do a free seminar for all of you

so you can see how my seminars are and see if you like them or not.

And if you do, then maybe you'll consider becoming a listening time member

or a listening time super member so that you can have access to more of these types of seminars.

so that you can improve your listening skills in English.

Okay, so in case you don't know,

I have a membership program on our Patreon page, patreon.com slash listening time.

And if you become a member, it's only $2 per month and you have access to one new listening practice seminar every month

and also an extra episode of the Listening Time podcast and if you become a super member for $3 a month,

you have access to a new listening practice seminar,

an extra episode of the Listening Time podcast and one other seminar that I've already recorded,

either a listening practice seminar or a pronunciation practice seminar,

but you have one additional one every month if you're a super member.

So I hope you enjoy this seminar

and I hope you'll consider becoming a member or a super member

if you like it so that you'll have more of these seminars to practice with.

Okay, let's jump right in.

So every seminar, every listening practice seminar,

we always want to focus on the four essential elements of English listening comprehension.

Okay, so if you have trouble understanding people when they're speaking, even though you know the words that they're saying,

like you can understand their speech if you see it written down, but you can't understand it if you hear it.

This is because you're unable to understand these four elements in their speech.

These elements are stress, reduced speech, linking, and phoneme distinction.

So in every seminar, we practice with identifying different patterns regarding these four elements.

So let me show you an example of each one.

We're going to look at this phrase right here.

I can only wonder.

So first of all, let's talk about stress.

Stress refers to which syllables and which words are said longer and louder when we're talking.

When we stress a syllable, this means that we say it longer and we say it louder than other syllables.

If a syllable is unstressed, then it can become very short, very quiet, and its pronunciation might change, actually.

So let's take a look at that in this phrase.

So listen to it as I say it.

I can only wonder.

Notice that there are a couple stressed words here.

I'm going to say it one more time.

I can only wonder.

Notice that the word only is stressed and notice that the word wonder is stressed.

I can only wonder.

Okay, these are both stressed in the sentence.

However, this word can, this modal right here, is unstressed.

And so because it's unstressed, in this case it becomes reduced speech.

So unstressed syllables often become reduced speech.

This means that they become so short that their pronunciation actually changes a little bit.

Okay, so you as an English learner might say I can only wonder.

However, native speakers would not say can.

We would say can, can.

I can only.

Notice that it's not stressed, right?

I can only.

We don't say I can only.

So this word becomes reduced and it kind of sounds like this.

I can, I can, I can only wonder.

Okay, so if you're expecting to hear can, you're not gonna understand this phrase because that's not how native speakers say it.

This word is reduced.

Okay, so next let's look at linking.

Linking is what happens when a word ends with a consonant sound and the next word starts with a vowel sound.

Okay, so what happens, we're gonna see an example right here, we have a word that ends with a consonant sound,

an nn, an n sound, and the next word starts with the vowel sound only all right

so what we see here with this linking is that

that final consonant goes to the beginning of the next word

and at the front of the next vowel so instead of saying I can only we say I can only okay

We connect this N to the next vowel.

Instead of I can only, I can only.

So this happens in English almost every time that we have a final consonant and a beginning vowel.

So you might have trouble understanding two words if they're linked together like that.

Lastly, let's look at phoneme distinction.

Phoneme just means sound.

So sometimes you might misunderstand a native speaker

because you're expecting a different sound because you don't actually know which sound is in that word.

You are mistaken when it comes to the sound.

So this is a good example with this word right here.

Wonder.

Most of my students would say this as wan, wander.

right?

However, we have another word in English that sounds like that, wander.

This is a completely different word, okay?

So that causes a lot of confusion, of course.

But the other problem is that when you're listening, you might expect us to say wander.

And when we say wonder, this might be confusing because you're expecting a different phoneme.

You're expecting ah

but in this case it's a wonder right sometimes this letter O becomes an uh sound okay all right

so we just saw examples of these four essential elements

so now we're going to take a look at our target paragraph for today

and we're going to examine this paragraph

and look at these four elements to see why it might be difficult for you to understand the paragraph

and to actually help you train your listening

so you can start to identify these factors these elements so

that little by little you can start to improve your listening

because you can notice these patterns and you can expect to see these patterns.

So before I show you the target paragraph, I'm just gonna read it out loud.

I have it written down on my phone here

so I'm just gonna read it and I want you to listen

and I want you to see how much you can understand if I read it fast without you seeing it.

Okay, you ready?

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You couldn't have picked the worst time to take a trip.

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We wanted you to be here next week because it's your last chance to see her this year.

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Okay, how was that?

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Did you understand what I said?

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I'm sure it probably wasn't easy to understand all the words that I said there, but that's okay.

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That's why we're here.

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We're going to take a look at this paragraph together and we'll see why it's a little difficult for you.

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Okay, so let me scroll down here and we'll take a look.

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So this is what I said, all right?

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You couldn't pick the worst time to take a trip.

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We wanted you to be here next week because it's your last chance to see her this year.

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All right, we're going to take a look at this paragraph and see these four elements in the paragraph.

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So we'll do it word by word, phrase by phrase.

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So you couldn't have picked, you couldn't have picked.

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Notice where the stress is.

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You couldn't have picked, couldn't have picked.

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So we have stress on this word when we have a negative modal like couldn't, can't, wouldn't,

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etc. These are often stressed and then our main verb is almost always stressed

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or maybe it is always stressed right

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so couldn't have picked this word is stressed

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and this word is stressed all right

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but let's see what happens uh with these two stressed words

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and this word in the middle

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so the way it sounds like it's kind of like this couldn't picked okay so this have

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have, right here, couldn't have, couldn't have picked.

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This have, when it's an auxiliary verb like this,

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depending on the phrase, it can become reduced oftentimes to this, to a word that kind of,

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or a sound kind of like the word of.

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So for example, I should have, I would have, I could have gone, right?

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It sounds like we're saying should have, could have, would have.

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Actually, many native speakers think that this is the real phrase,

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but in reality it's should have, could have, would have.

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But even native speakers think, many native speakers think that the word is of because that's what it sounds like when we say it at normal speed.

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We don't say should have, would have, could have.

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We say should have, would have, could have, right?

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However, if this phrase is followed by another verb, right?

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If I have a word afterwards, if it's not just the end of a sentence, it can become even shorter.

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And instead of of, it can become a, couldna, shouldna, wouldna. So listen to this.

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You shouldn't have gone.

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Shouldn't have gone.

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Right?

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I'm saying you should not have gone, but I would shorten it to shouldn't have gone.

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If you've watched some of my other seminars,

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you might have already seen something similar to this because the word of often becomes reduced to a box of chocolates,

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a bag of raisins.

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Okay, so because that happens and I showed you that could have sounds like could have,

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then this of also becomes reduced to a.

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Okay, so really strange pattern here, but this is really, really common in English.

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You need to expect this.

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Couldn't have picked, shouldn't have gone, wouldn't have done, right?

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So you're going to hear these phrases spoken very, very fast.

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So you couldn't have picked.

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Notice that this word is not pronounced pick-ed or pick-it.

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This ed just becomes a t sound.

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Picked.

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So there's no extra syllable.

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There's no pick-ed.

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It's picked.

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The k, the ck sound, is not aspirated.

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It's not k.

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right it's not picked right we say picked picked okay

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that might be a little hard for your ears to hear

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but this is how these kind of words are same thing

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with this kicked kicked okay you shouldn't expect a sound right you should just expect kicked it it like

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that okay so here we have an ending consonant sound and then the next word is a vowel, right? So, uh.

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So we're gonna have linking here.

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So pick-ta, pick-ta, right?

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You couldn't pick-ta, okay?

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So this T goes to the next vowel sound.

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This word right here is always pronounced, uh.

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We never pronounce it as A, right?

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It's uh.

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So in this case, the linking makes it pick-ta, okay?

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So you couldn't pick the worst time to take a trip.

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So here, worst, notice that the pronunciation of O-R is just like this.

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We don't say worst or worst, we say worst.

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Like we're saying this word, worst.

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So you couldn't have picked the worst time.

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Notice that the next word right here has the same letter at the beginning

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as the last letter in the word before it.

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So here we have an ending T and then we have a beginning T.

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So when this happens in English, usually these T's kind of blend together, all right?

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So instead of saying worst time, we would say worst time.

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Worst time.

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It's like if I say it like this, right? worse without the T and then the T in the next one, right?

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Worse time.

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This is how we would say that, okay?

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We wouldn't go worst time, right?

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When we end with a consonant and the next word starts with a consonant, we don't go, we don't let this air out, right?

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We mute this letter.

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And in this case, because it's the same sound, it just blends together, right?

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Worse time, okay?

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Okay, so many students, they get confused between this word

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and this word because a lot of times they sound similar to students

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when they're listening because they don't understand

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that maybe the next word starts with a T and it's just blending in and they think we're saying this word.

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So that can cause some problems for sure.

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Okay, so you couldn't have picked the worst time to take a trip.

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If you've watched other seminars, you also know this by now, but the word to is always reduced.

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We never pronounce this as to, okay?

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We always pronounce it as ta, da, or uh, depending on the context, depending on the letter before it, okay?

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So in this case, time da, right, the last sound before it, mm, this is an M sound, and we have vibration with the sound.

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it's called a voiced sound.

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Because of that this T becomes reduced to D.

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Okay so another similar one

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if I say had to right this this has vibration this D sound so this is also reduced to D.

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I had D.

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I had to go.

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I had to start for example.

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So this word to is always reduced.

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We never say to.

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To is the number.

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Right?

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T-O is p-d-uh.

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This is reduced speech, okay?

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So if we look at this phrase, you couldn't have picked a worse time to take a trip.

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So time, take, trip.

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Those are all stressed words, but the words in between them are unstressed, okay?

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They're reduced.

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Okay, and then we just have a little bit of linking here because we have the word take, which ends with a K sound.

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And then the next word is a vowel.

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It's only one letter, it's just one vowel.

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So instead of take a, we would say, take a, right?

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We don't say take a trip, we say, take a trip, take a trip, right?

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When we say that fast, English learners might think that it's like one word or something, take a, right?

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They're not understanding that we're linking the consonants with the vowels, that's what's happening here.

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Alright, next sentence.

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We wanted you to be here next week.

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So let's look at this part here.

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So we wanted you to be here.

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So notice that the stress, we wanted you, we wanted you to be here.

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The stress is on the word wanted and be.

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Okay, verb, verb.

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Okay, these little pronouns here, we, you, me, her, etc. These are usually unstressed in our sentences.

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When I talk to my students, usually they stress every pronoun.

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They say you, I, we.

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This is unnatural.

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Native speakers don't stress pronouns.

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These are unstressed in our sentences.

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And so sometimes they can be reduced.

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And this is one of those cases.

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When we have a word that ends with D, and the next word is a pronoun starting with Y like you,

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your, yours, y'all, etc. Then we have an interesting pattern.

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So instead of saying wanted you, we say wanted, I'll put it like this, wanted you.

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We wanted you.

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Okay, that's how we say this.

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We wanted you to be here.

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Native speakers do not say wanted you.

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We say wanted you.

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This combination of the letter D with one of these Y pronouns,

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you, your, yours, etc. becomes this J sound.

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So for example, if I say, I did your work, the way I would actually say this is, I did your work.

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I did your.

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I don't say did your.

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I say did your.

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I wanted you.

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I did your.

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I had you.

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We don't say had you.

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We say I had you.

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All right.

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So notice that pattern when you're listening.

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You're going to hear it all the time because when people are talking to you, they often say you, yours, your, you'll, etc. So there will be many times

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when the word before it ends with a d and you'll hear this pattern.

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Okay.

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So you need to expect that.

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We wanted you to be here next week.

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So here we have another two.

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As we already saw, this word becomes reduced.

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This is reduced speech.

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In this case, wanted you to.

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Same thing.

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We have a da sound.

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We wanted you to be here.

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Listen to how fast that sounds.

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We wanted you to be here.

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Wanted you.

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Wanted you to be here.

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Wanted you to be here.

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So the you and this part, this word, and this word are pronounced very fast right?

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I wanted you to, wanted you to, we wanted you to be here, okay?

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So this next part, well, this word is stressed, pretty easy to understand, right?

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We wanted you to be here.

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This word is also stressed, no problems there.

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We wanted you to be here next week.

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So in this word, this phrase here, next week, Notice that we have an ending consonant and a beginning consonant.

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And this one is a T right here.

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So the T often becomes muted at the end of words.

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Okay, just like with this combination right here.

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Worst time, this T was kind of muted or we could say that it kind of blended together with the other T.

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In this case, it's kind of muted.

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So listen again.

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Next week.

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Next week.

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When we say it fast, it just sounds like this.

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Next week.

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Okay?

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It's a little bit too much for us to say Xt.

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There's too many consonant sounds.

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We don't want to say next.

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Right?

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So as native speakers, we reduce this and we say next week.

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Next time.

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We don't say next time.

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We say next time.

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Right?

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Next Monday.

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Again, we just mute the T.

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Next Monday next Monday.

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Alright, so this muted T at the end of words like that is really common, especially if the next word starts with a consonant.

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Okay, so we wanted you to be here next week because it's your last chance to see her this year.

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So the word because I read it as because because this is usually how we say the word if we're speaking fast.

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Alright, so when I'm speaking in my videos, in my podcast episodes, I speak a little slower than how I would normally speak.

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So I often say because, but this isn't how we would normally say the word.

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We would normally pronounce it as cuz.

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All right, we just take off the first syllable and this second syllable just sounds like cuz.

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We don't say cause, we just say cuz.

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All right, and sometimes it's even faster than that

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and it just sounds like cuz just like a CZ sound cuz

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so this can be hard for English learners to hear

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when they're listening they're expecting to hear this whole word because

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and what they hear is just like

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that cuz it's cuz it's cuz it's your only chance cuz it's your last chance right

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so you want to expect this this word right here to be reduced to cuz okay all right

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because it's your own sorry

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because it's your last chance here we have this final sound this voiced s sound like a z

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and then we have a beginning a vowel right here

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so we have some linking so we would say cuz all right like this cuz it's right cuz it's zits,

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zits, because it's your last chance.

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Okay, so that's a little bit of linking right there.

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Because it's your last chance to see her this year.

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Let's look at the stress.

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Because it's your last chance.

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Because it's your last chance.

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Alright, so in this case, because it's your last chance, we have the word last stressed, right?

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We have the word chance which is stressed, but remember that this pronoun, right, these pronouns that we have you,

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your, his, her, etc. These are unstressed in our sentences.

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Okay, so in this case it becomes reduced speech.

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Let's listen again because it's your last chance.

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It's your, it's your last chance.

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Notice that we don't say it's your.

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In this case we say something kind of like it's sure.

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I'm I'm gonna write it like this.

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It's sure, it's sure, okay?

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So if I say, it's your only hope, the way I would pronounce this is, it's your only hope.

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It's sure only, it's sure only, okay?

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So this is just another case of this Y kind of changing its pronunciation when it gets reduced.

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We saw that with this phrase, right? wanted Jew, right?

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The D with the Y in front of a pronoun is, it makes it become a J sound.

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A T with a Y makes it become a CH sound.

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For example, I know that you're mad.

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we would say, I know the churr mad.

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The T with the Y changes it to a CH.

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I know that you're mad, okay?

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So this Y and these pronouns, you, your, yours, y'all, et cetera, this Y can often change its pronunciation.

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This is another time, so itchur.

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Again, if we have like this word right here, thatchur only hope, Same thing that's your that's your only hope.

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All right, so a word like that's ending with T apostrophe S or It's ending with T apostrophe S

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This is gonna cause the Y to become an S H sound right

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so it sure that sure okay So I know this seems strange and you're probably wondering why That's just how English works.

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Okay?

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When we have reduced speech, letters oftentimes change their pronunciation.

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And I can't give you just an overall rule.

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There is no overall rule.

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There are little patterns that you have to recognize and that's what I'm showing you right here.

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So it's difficult, but that's what we're practicing with, right?

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You're gonna see these patterns and you're gonna to start to notice them when you're listening.

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Alright, let's look at the last part here.

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It's your last chance.

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So here, last chance, we have an ending T sound and it becomes muted.

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We don't say last chance, we say last chance.

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So it just sounds like this, last chance, with an S sound at the end, no T, right?

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It just becomes muted, last chance.

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So don't expect to hear this last, right?

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You're not gonna hear this t sound, right?

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It's just last chance, the last one, okay?

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This word practically always reduces to this word, okay?

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Even though it's stressed in the sentence, the t is reduced, okay?

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It's muted.

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So, it's your last chance to see her this year.

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And we have another two here, but in this case, the sound before it is a voiceless sound,

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a sss sound, there's no voice.

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So the to becomes reduced to to.

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Okay.

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So in this case, instead of saying chance to, it's chancesta.

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Okay.

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It's your last chance to see her.

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Okay.

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It's your last chance to see her.

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The stress, chance to see her.

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Right.

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Chance is stressed and see is stressed.

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The to is reduced.

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Okay.

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Last chance to see her this year.

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Okay.

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And then we have this phrase right here, see her.

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This H on pronouns like him,

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his, her, hers, etc. This becomes reduced and we usually skip over this H depending on the sound before it.

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Okay, so in this case, see, right?

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This is a vowel, but it ends with the Y sound.

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Okay, so notice see.

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Yeah, my mouth is in position for a Y.

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So it really ends with the Y, a consonant sound.

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Okay, so this is going to link to the next word.

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It's going to skip over the H sound.

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And we're going to hear we're going to say see-er, see-er, okay?

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The same thing, if I say see him, it would be see-in, see-in, okay?

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So the H on her, him, his, hers, is very weak, okay?

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It's usually skipped over, right?

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The consonant in the last word just skips the h

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and it links directly to the er or the im okay

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so in this case it's seer instead of see her seer this year

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so if you're not expecting that this can be very hard to identify

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when you're listening you're gonna think we're saying like this word for example seer seer right It sounds like what we're saying,

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but really we're saying see her.

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See her.

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So this is another pattern that you're just going to have to start to recognize.

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And you're going to hear it a lot if you really try to recognize it.

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You'll notice it again and again.

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Because every time someone says her, him, hers, his, any of these words,

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chances are they're going to skip over the H.

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if there's a consonant sound before it, okay?

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So I want you to listen for that and really try to notice that pattern.

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Okay, lastly, the phrase this year, okay?

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First of all, notice the stress.

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We don't say this year, we say this year.

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Last chance to sear this year.

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So year is stressed, this is unstressed, okay?

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We don't say this year.

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That's what many of my students would say, But this is not natural, right?

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We want to stress this noun right here, okay?

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So there's one last thing you probably noticed when I said this phrase here, is we don't say this year,

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we say the-sheer, this year, this year.

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Did you hear that?

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Your last chance to see her this year, this year.

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It's just like what we saw here, right?

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It-sheer.

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So as I said, this Y sound on pronouns is very weak and it gets changed when it's reduced.

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It can also happen with words other than pronouns.

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So in this case, it's just a completely different word, year.

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It's not you or yours or you'll or any of those, but it also happens here.

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So in this case, instead of this year, it's this year.

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Okay, so you want to look out for that.

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You want to notice that when people are speaking.

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Notice the Y sound changing, especially if it's a pronoun like you or your,

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and notice that with the H on pronouns, him, her, those words like that.

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Start to notice those patterns, okay?

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All right, well, we're done analyzing our target paragraph.

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Hopefully that was helpful for you.

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Hopefully this was a good practice.

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And we do this in each seminar.

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We look at a different target paragraph and we analyze it for those four essential elements.

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And so if this was useful for you, if you say, wow, no one's ever taught me this before.

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I've never even thought about this.

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Well, I would suggest that you become a listening time member

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or a listening time super member because every month you have access to these seminars.

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I record a new one each month

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and I also have a lot of old ones that I already recorded that I provide to super members.

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So hopefully this was helpful for you and hopefully you decide to become a member or a super member.

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If you have any questions, just send me an email, okay?

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And I'm happy to help you out.

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So go to patreon.com slash listening time and sign up to become a member or super member today.

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All right, I'll see you again next seminar.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This B1 speaking lesson is built on the video “FREE English Listening Practice Seminar”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: word, sound, chance, reduced, listening. This video has 463 sentences and 4604 words to shadow. The speech runs for 32:34. The speaker talks at a steady 141 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

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

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
seminar noun	/ˈsɛmɪnɑɹ/	A class held for advanced studies in which students meet regularly to discuss original research, under the guidance of a professor.
consonant noun	/ˈkɑn.sə.nənt/	A sound that results from the passage of air through restrictions of the oral cavity; any sound that is not the dominant sound of a syllable, the dominant…
phrase noun	/ˈfɹeɪ̯z/	A short written or spoken expression.
pronoun noun	/ˈpɹoʊ.naʊn/	A part of speech that refers anaphorically to a noun or noun phrase, which cannot ordinarily be preceded by a determiner and rarely takes an attributive…
distress noun	/dɪˈstɹɛs/	Physical or emotional discomfort, suffering, or alarm, particularly of a more acute nature.
vowel noun	/ˈvaʊ.əl/	A sound produced by the vocal cords with relatively little restriction of the oral cavity, forming the prominent sound of a syllable.
unstressed adjective	/ʌnˈstɹɛst/	Not stressed or accentuated.
mute adjective	/mjut/	Not having the power of speech; dumb.
paragraph noun	/ˈpæɹəɡɹæf/	A passage in text that starts on a new line, the first line sometimes being indented, and usually marks a change of topic.
syllable noun	/ˈsɪl.ə.bəl/	A unit of human speech which often forms words corresponding to one opening of the mouth; a vowel and its surrounding consonants.
pronounce verb	/pɹəˈnaʊns/	To declare formally, officially or ceremoniously.
pronunciation noun	/pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/	The formal or informal way in which a word is made to sound when spoken.
litter noun	/ˈlɪt.ɚ/	Straw, grass, and similar loose material used as bedding for people or animals.
verb noun	/vɝb/	A word that indicates an action, event, or state of being.
skip verb	/skɪp/	To move by hopping on alternate feet.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Meaning
take off verb	To remove.
write down verb	To produce or set (something) down in writing; to record something.

Sentences worth repeating

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

I hope you're doing well.
We're going to look at this phrase right here.
I'm going to say it one more time.
We don't say I can only.
Did you understand what I said?

Grammar in this video

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

Structure	In the video
Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result	if you do, then maybe you'll consider · if you like it so that you'll have · if I say see him, it would be
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	are said · is unstressed · is reduced
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	I've already recorded · you've watched · have reduced
Advice with “should” should + verb — saying what is a good idea	should have · shouldn't have · should not have

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 143 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, don't, we're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “sh” and “zh” sounds: pronunciation /pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/, vibration /vaɪˈbɹeɪʃən/, sheer /ʃɪɚ/, distinction /dɪˈstɪŋkʃən/, shorten /ˈʃɔɹtn̩/
Long words — get the stress right: pronunciation /pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/, apostrophe /əˈpɑs.tɹə.fi/, misunderstand /mɪs.ʌn.də(ɹ)ˈstænd/, auxiliary /ɔɡˈzɪl.(jə).ɹi/, practically /ˈpɹæk.tɪ.k(ə.)li/

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 seminar, consonant, phrase.

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: FREE English Listening Practice Seminar - 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?