Shadowing Practice: Hobbies - Podcast British English - Learning English - Learn English Speaking with Video
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65 sentences
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Most teenagers spend their time at home, watching TV or using their phones.
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But I have some unusual hobbies.
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My friends always ask me why I don't play video games with them or why I don't follow them on social media.
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and I always tell them that I am interested in other things.
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I think that spending hours on your phone is so boring,
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so I prefer to spend my time doing things that I really enjoy.
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One of my hobbies is gardening.
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You don't usually think of a teenager gardening.
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You always think of older people doing this activity.
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But I love it.
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My house has a big garden with grass and lots of trees and flowers.
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My dad loves gardening, so that is how I started this hobby.
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At the weekends I plant new flowers,
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water the plants and cut the dead flowers.
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Roses and daisies are my favourite flowers so we have a lot of them in my garden.
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I also like sunflowers but we don't usually grow them because they are too tall.
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Sometimes they can be 2 meters tall and they die very quickly.
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I usually spend 3 or 4 hours doing gardening at the weekends because I have more time then.
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During the week I have to do a lot of homework so I haven't got any time to spend outside.
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I also like to do it at the weekend because my dad doesn't work on Saturdays or Sundays.
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It's an activity that I love doing with him.
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He can teach me about the different flowers and trees.
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And we even buy magazines about gardening and we read them together.
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The best thing about this hobby is that it doesn't cost much money.
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I can spend time with my dad while I do it and it makes our house look very pretty.
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We usually choose flowers that are different colours like orange,
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yellow, red, pink and purple.
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And the garden in the summer and the spring looks really beautiful.
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We sometimes have dinner parties in the garden when the weather is nice and everyone always says that our garden is lovely.
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My other hobby is cooking.
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My mum is a really good cook so she taught me to cook when I was a young child.
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When I was about 6 or 7 years old,
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I baked cakes and cookies with my mum at the weekend,
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or for birthday parties.
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My favourite recipes to cook are from South America.
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The meals from those countries taste so different to the ones that we have here in the UK.
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So all of my friends and family love them.
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Some people never eat different types of food and haven't travelled to these countries so
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It is a surprise for some of them
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and they always ask me for the recipe so that they can cook it at home.
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Cooking is more expensive than gardening because I use a lot of special ingredients which are very expensive.
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Of course, foods like rice or pasta are very cheap,
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but there are some ingredients which are not typical in the UK,
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so I have to buy them in a special shop or online.
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In my city, there are a lot of international food shops.
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They sell food from all over the world and it is my favourite type of shop to go to.
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I think that it's exciting to try new foods and flavours.
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I love this hobby because I can learn new recipes and practice them every day.
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I think that it's boring when you have to eat the same food every day.
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It's nice to eat special and different meals.
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Also, because I am so good at cooking, I never go to restaurants.
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I think that restaurants are expensive and I prefer to spend
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that money on some special ingredients that I can use for many recipes.
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The other hobby that I have is reading.
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I don't like reading books.
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I prefer to read magazines.
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My favourite magazines are cooking and gardening ones.
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When I read a magazine, it gives me ideas.
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Sometimes I learn about new flowers, especially flowers from other countries,
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and other times I learn about fruits and vegetables that people grow in other countries.
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This helps me to learn about new recipes as well.
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I usually read magazines when I am on the school bus
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or at the weekends when it is rainy and I can't go outside to do gardening.
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If you have enjoyed this video please give it a thumbs up and subscribe.
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Thank you and I'll see you in my next video.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B1 speaking lesson is built on the video “Hobbies - Podcast British English - Learning English”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: gardening, flowers, spend, hobby, recipe. This video has 65 sentences and 765 words to shadow. The speech runs for 8:08. The speaker talks slowly, about 94 words per minute, so there is time to copy every sound. 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
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| hobby noun | /ˈhɑ.bi/ | An activity that one enjoys doing in one's spare time. |
| recipe noun | /ˈɹɛs.ɪ.pi/ | Any set of instructions for preparing a mixture of ingredients. |
| ingredient noun | /ɪnˈɡɹiːdi.ənt/ | One of the substances present in a mixture, especially food. |
| bore verb | /boɹ/ | To inspire boredom in somebody. |
| teenager noun | /ˈtiːnˌeɪ̯d͡ʒə/ | A person between thirteen and nineteen years old (inclusive). |
| excite verb | /ɪkˈsaɪt/ | To stir the emotions of; to cause to feel excitement. |
| sunflower noun | /ˈsʌn.flaʊ.əɹ/ | Any plant of the genus Helianthus, so called probably from the form and color of its floral head, having the form of a large disk surrounded by yellow ray… |
| flavour noun | British standard spelling of flavor. | |
| rainy adjective | /ˈɹeɪni/ | Pouring with rain; wet; showery |
| daisy noun | /ˈdeɪ.zi/ | A wild flowering plant of species Bellis perennis of the family Asteraceae, with a yellow head and white petals |
| bake verb | /beɪk/ | To cook (something) in an oven (for someone). |
| pasta noun | /ˈpɑ.stə/ | Dough made from wheat and water and sometimes mixed with egg and formed into various shapes; often sold in dried form and typically boiled for eating. |
| vegetable noun | /ˈvɛd͡ʒ.tə.bəl/ | A plant raised for some edible part of it, such as the leaves, roots, fruit or flowers, but excluding any plant considered to be a fruit, grain, herb, or spice… |
| thumb noun | /ˈθʌm/ | The shortest and thickest digit of the hand that for humans has the most mobility and can be made to oppose (moved to touch) all of the other fingers. |
| subscribe verb | /səbˈskɹaɪb/ | To write (one’s name) at the bottom of a document; to sign (one's name). |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- You don't usually think of a teenager gardening.
- It's an activity that I love doing with him.
- I don't like reading books.
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 travelled · have enjoyed |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | ingredients which are |
| Present continuous am/is/are + -ing — something happening right now or around now | is gardening · is cooking · is reading |
| Obligation: must / have to / need to saying that something is necessary | have to do · have to buy · have to eat |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 11 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, doesn't, haven't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
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 hobby, recipe, ingredient.
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.