Shadowing Practice: How I Actually Retain What I Study (The System That Replaced All My Notes) - Learn English Speaking with Video

I've spent hours studying, then gone to use it two weeks later and drawn a complete blank.

For a long time, I thought that was just how my brain worked.

Like, maybe I'm just not the kind of person who retains things well.

Turns out it wasn't me.

It was the method I was using to study.

I'm a senior applied scientist at Amazon.

I came from a non-tech background and taught myself most of the skills that got me where I am today.

And I've mentored almost 200 people into AI and machine learning roles.

So I've watched this play out hundreds of times.

They're putting in the hours, doing the courses, and when it actually matters.

In an interview, on the job, or when someone asks them to explain a concept they studied last month, it's gone.

The problem isn't effort.

It's that most of us were never taught how learning actually works.

So I'm going to show you the system I use to retain what I study.

It's backed by cognitive science, and most of it goes against what feels productive, which is exactly why it works.

The first thing I changed was how I reviewed material.

I used to reread.

That was my whole strategy.

Go through the notes again, go through the documentation again, maybe highlight some stuff.

And it felt productive.

After a couple of passes, the material starts to feel familiar.

But here's the thing.

There's a well-documented phenomenon in cognitive science called the fluency illusion.

Your brain recognizes familiar material and mistakes that recognition for actual knowledge.

You're not learning.

You're pattern matching.

You see something you've seen before and your brain goes, oh yeah, I've got this.

But recognition and retrieval are completely different cognitive processes.

and the one that matters on the job, for an exam, in an interview, when you actually try to apply something.

That's retrieval.

So here's the fix.

After you study something, close everything.

Close the docs, tutorial, your notes, and try to remember what you just learned from scratch.

Write it down, say it out loud, whatever works.

The point is that you're pulling it from memory, not looking at it again.

This is called active recall, and it's one of the most impactful changes you can make.

This isn't just my opinion.

Research shows that students who test themselves retain roughly 80% of the material after a week, compared to about 34% for those who just reread.

The reason it works is that retrieving information strengthens the neural pathways associated with it.

Rereading strengthens recognition.

Retrieval strengthens recall.

And those are not the same thing.

I know it feels harder.

And that's actually the point.

The difficulty is what makes it work.

Now here's the part that really surprised me when I dug into the research.

You don't even have to know anything yet for this to help.

There's a technique called pre-testing, basically quizzing yourself on material before you've even learned it.

Of course, you'll get the answers wrong.

That's fine, that's kind of the point.

A 2025 study in memory and cognition confirmed what earlier research suggested.

Attempting to answer a question before you know the answer primes your brain to encode the correct answer more deeply

when you encounter it later.

Think about what that means for how you approach a new course or a new topic.

Before you watch the lecture on, say, gradient descent, try to explain to yourself what you think it is.

You'll probably be wrong, but when the actual explanation hits, your brain is already primed to absorb it because you've created a gap it wants to fill.

So the system isn't as simple as just test yourself after.

It's test yourself before and after.

Bookend every learning session with retrieval even when you don't know anything yet.

But there's another step that's really important to make this work.

Let's say you start doing active recall.

You can actually pull the material from memory without looking at your notes.

You feel good.

But two weeks later, it's gone.

And this is where a lot of people get frustrated because they did the work.

They studied correctly, they tested themselves, and they still forgot most of it.

Ebbinghaus mapped this out in the 1800s.

It's called the forgetting curve.

And what it shows is very sad.

Without review, you lose roughly 80% of new information within 48 hours.

It doesn't matter how well you learned it in the moment.

One strong study session is not enough.

This is why people finish a course and three months later it's like they never took it.

One exposure, even a really good one, doesn't create durable memory.

The solution here is spaced repetition, or reviewing at expanding intervals.

You review the material one day after learning it, then three days after learning it, then a week, two weeks, and so on.

Each time you retrieve, you push the forgetting curve further out.

The intervals get longer because the memory gets stronger.

A meta-analysis found that combining spaced repetition with active recall improves outcomes by about 25% more than using either strategy alone.

So these first two methods aren't just additive, they compound.

The key thing is that spaced repetition doesn't actually require more time, just different timing.

Instead of one four hour study block, try doing four shorter sessions spread out over two weeks for example.

Now spacing out these review sessions means you're studying a lot, and if you're like me, you're not always doing it at home.

I do a lot of my deep work at coffee shops, on flights, or killing time before appointments.

And every one of those places has the same problem.

You're on public Wi-Fi.

Here's the thing many people don't think about.

When you're connected to a cafe's network or an airport hotspot, your traffic is exposed.

Anyone on that same network can potentially see what you're doing.

The sites you're visiting, the credentials you're entering, and the data you're sending.

And if you're logging into course platforms, your email, GitHub, whatever, that's information that you don't want intercepted.

Surfshark is the VPN I use.

It encrypts everything between your device and the internet, so even on a completely open network, your data stays private.

I just connect before I open anything and forget about it.

They also just released a web content blocker that strips out ads and trackers while you browse, which I love for study sessions.

Fewer distractions, cleaner pages, and one less thing pulling my focus when I'm trying to stay in a review session.

Go to surfshark.com forward slash Marina VPN or use the code Marina VPN at checkout to get four extra months.

There's a 30 day money back guarantee, so no risk to try it.

The link's in the description.

100

All right, back to the system.

101

Before I get to the third method, which is the one that makes the biggest difference for me personally, there's one more trap I want to flag because it's related to everything we just talked about.

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Most people study topics in blocks, like a week or two on a given topic before they move on to a completely new topic.

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But the research says this is another fluency illusion.

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When researchers compared block study against interleaved study, where you shuffle topics instead of doing them in neat little blocks,

105

the interleaved group scored 63% on a delayed test versus 20% for the blocked group.

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But weirdly, during practice, the blocked study group felt like they were learning better.

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Your subjective sense of, I'm getting this, is lying to you.

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Again, interleaving works because it forces your brain to constantly identify which concept applies and how it differs from the last one.

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That's the kind of thinking you actually need in an interview or on the job.

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Not, I studied neural networks for three hours straight, but given this problem, which approach is the right one?

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I'm not saying you need to overhaul your whole study plan around this, but when you're doing those spaced review sessions, mix the topics up.

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And while you're at it, there's one more tip I have to make everything stick.

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This is the one that feels the strangest, but it's the one that consistently produces the best retention for me.

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I walk around and talk to myself out loud about the topic.

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Like actually out loud, like I'm explaining it to someone who isn't there.

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I know that sounds ridiculous, but hear me out because this is the part of my system that I think most people have never tried, and it changes everything.

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Most studying is passive and single channel.

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You're sitting, reading, maybe typing.

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There's only one input mode.

120

But the brain encodes information more deeply when multiple systems are engaged simultaneously.

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This is called dual coding and it's backed by a solid body of research on embodied cognition.

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Here's why the walk and talk works.

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When you're walking, your motor cortex is active.

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Movement creates a different physiological state than sitting, and that state affects how information is encoded.

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When you're speaking, you're forcing yourself to organize information into language.

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And this is where it gets fun and slightly painful because you can't explain something out loud without actually understanding it.

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When you try, the gaps become obvious immediately.

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You'll be going along fine and then suddenly stumble on a part you thought you understood but can't actually articulate.

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That's the Feynman technique in action.

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If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it yet.

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And when you hear yourself, you get an auditory feedback loop too.

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That's another input channel for the same information.

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So you've got movement, speech production, and auditory processing all happening at the same time and all encoding the same material.

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Three channels instead of one.

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I do this most mornings.

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Some concepts I've talked through 10 or more times.

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Those are the ones I don't hesitate on in a technical discussion.

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They're not stored as something I read once.

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They're stored as something I've explained, heard myself explain, and physically like moved through.

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That's a completely different kind of memory.

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Now, if you're thinking, this all makes sense, but I know myself, I'll do it for a week and then fall off.

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That's exactly why I built the AI ML Career Launchpad.

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It's a learning community for aspiring AI and ML professionals where you've got structure, accountability, and other people going through the same thing.

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Because the system only works if you actually use it consistently.

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I'll drop the link in the description.

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So here's what this comes down to.

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Everything most people do to study, rereading, highlighting, cramming, it feels productive.

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And that feeling is the trap.

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The system that works is uncomfortable by design.

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That discomfort is the learning.

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But even if your approach is perfect, it doesn't matter if you don't do it consistently.

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I made a video on how I get myself to study every day without using much willpower at all.

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Check that out next.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This C1 speaking lesson is built on the video “How I Actually Retain What I Study”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: study, learning, material, topic, session. This video has 153 sentences and 1850 words to shadow. The speech runs for 8:58. The speaker talks fast, about 207 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 82% 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
encode verb	/ɪnˈkoʊd/	To convert (plain text) into code.
reread verb	/ɹiːˈɹiːd/	To read again.
retrieval noun	/ɹɪˈtɹiːvəl/	The act of retrieving or something retrieved.
interleave verb		To insert (pages, which are normally blank) between the pages of a book.
repetition noun	/ˌɹɛp.əˈtɪʃ.ən/	The act or an instance of repeating or being repeated.
strengthen verb	/ˈstɹɛŋ(k)θən/	To make strong or stronger; to add strength to; to increase the strength of; to fortify.
auditory adjective	/ˈɔː.dɪˌtɔɹ.i/	Of, or relating to hearing, or to the sense or organs of hearing.
cognition noun	/kɑɡˈnɪʃ.ən/	The process of knowing, of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought and through the senses.
fluency noun	/ˈfluːənsi/	The quality of smoothness of flow.
retrieve verb	/ɹɪˈtɹiːv/	To regain or get back something.
neural adjective	/ˈnʊɹəl/	Of, or relating to the nerves, neurons or the nervous system.
interval noun	/ˈɪntɚvəl/	A distance in space.
illusion noun	/ɪˈl(j)uːʒ(ə)n/	A distortion of sensory perception where real stimuli lead to a false or misleading impression of reality.
additive noun	/ˈæd.ɪ.tɪv/	A substance added to another substance or product to produce specific properties in the combined substance.
aspire verb	/əˈspaɪɚ/	To have a strong desire or ambition to achieve something.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Meaning
go through verb	To travel from one end of something to the other.
come down to verb	To reach by moving down or reducing.
fall off verb	To become detached or to drop from.
go along verb	To participate, cooperate, or conform.
play out verb	To play (a game etc.) to its conclusion.
talk through verb	To tell (someone) step by step how to do something.
turn out verb	To end up; to result.
walk around verb	To walk with no planned destination; to meander.

Sentences worth repeating

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

Turns out it wasn't me.
This isn't just my opinion.
Of course, you'll get the answers wrong.
Let's say you start doing active recall.
You're sitting, reading, maybe typing.

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	I've spent · I've mentored · I've watched
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	were never taught · is called · is already primed
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	person who retains · productive, which is · students who test

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 66 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, don't, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: strengthen /ˈstɹɛŋ(k)θən/, pathway /ˈpæθˌweɪ/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: repetition /ˌɹɛp.əˈtɪʃ.ən/, cognition /kɑɡˈnɪʃ.ən/, illusion /ɪˈl(j)uːʒ(ə)n/, credential /kɹɪˈdɛnʃəl/, shuffle /ˈʃʌfəl/
Long words — get the stress right: repetition /ˌɹɛp.əˈtɪʃ.ən/, auditory /ˈɔː.dɪˌtɔɹ.i/, physiological /ˌfɪz.i.əˈlɑ.d͡ʒɪ.kəl/, articulate /ɑːɹˈtɪk.jə.leɪt/, accountability /əˌkaʊn.təˈbɪl.ə.ti/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like encode, reread, retrieval.

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 →

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