Shadowing Practice: How I Improved My American Pronunciation - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Hello and welcome back to another video where I tell you how I learned English

and today we're going to talk about my American pronunciation and what I did to improve it over the years.

So first and foremost, I want to talk about the fact

that people do not start learning English and start looking into pronunciation right away.

I think this comes from our school system, our traditional school system where we learn a lot in written form

and we read a lot and we only hear our teachers

but we don't get a lot of chances to speak

and typically in a in a large classroom a teacher doesn't really have the time

or the resources to try and check

if every single student has a good pronunciation or

if they understood how to pronounce a word and work through

that and i have met a lot of people

and i've had a lot of students who had a really good english

but they were so insecure about their accent

and they had a pretty thick accent

and they had been studying english for years and years

and the reason why i'm saying that it's

so good to start with pronunciation right off the bat like the day you start learning your first word

that day you have to make sure that you're saying

that word correctly the reason why i'm saying that is

because it's very hard to unlearn something

that you've hammered into your brain for years

and then you meet someone you go to a teacher

and they're like well you're saying all these words wrong and

that could be pretty discouraging and pretty disheartening to know

that oh my god I thought

that I had been saying all these words decently correctly

but then now I have to change everything and the thing is

that the more advanced you are in English and you're not working on your accent or pronunciation,

the harder it is going to be to catch what exactly is wrong.

And another reason why I recommend everybody to look into pronunciation right away is

that you get that little boost of confidence every time you say something in English.

One word, a group of words, a construction, a phrase, a sentence.

You like what you hear because you say that and you're like,

oh wait, this sounds like the word that I heard on TV the other day, or this sounds really good,

this sounds like something that I would hear this native speaker say.

And if you don't build that little bit of confidence from the beginning,

then it is very hard later in life to be confident in your accent and to be excited to speak.

So in this video, I'm going to give you my exact steps that I did, the exact sounds that I looked into,

the exact techniques and methods that I applied that really helped me polish my pronunciation and accent.

So first, I had to work on some sounds that were very different in my native language, Romanian, from English.

So I had to work on my R's because in Romanian is R, Rodica, not Rodica.

I had to work on my this and this because we don't have this sound in Romanian at all.

I had to work on nasal sounds, because that is very specific of the American accent.

I had to work on my flap T's, like in water, better, butter, because in Romanian we do have a specific R,

but it doesn't really match the exact same tongue position, so I had to work on that too.

And then the letter D, or the sound D, because in Romanian would be D.

It's a very flat d in english it's a d it's a little bit sharper

so these are the the sounds that i thought okay i noticed them being

so different right in my native language i have to work on them

so what i did was very simple repetition

so i would take a word with one of those sounds

and i would say that word 20 30 40 times

and the thing is i noticed even with my students

that people are very afraid of repetition they think it's kind of stupid it's kind of silly

so if i would tell someone okay say this word 10 times they wouldn't really say

that word at 100 they would just for example

i i would ask them to uh say the word i don't know couch 10 times

and they would say couch couch couch couch but that's like quiet

that you're whispering you're not really using the muscles

that you're supposed to use in your mouth for this word right

so you need to say that word 10 times or 20 times

or 30 times but proper each time

because you're not repeating it just to remember what it means

or something you're repeating it

so you could teach your mouth how to move couch couch couch couch couch couch like

that english pronunciation is a skill like you are developing a skill if you wanted to start driving, you wanted to become

a car driver you would want to go

and practice driving right you can't just read the rules

and expect you to be able to drive working on your english pronunciation means

that you are working with your muscles with your jaw with your cheeks with your tongue with your lips

it's like going to the gym and having to do 20 reps

or 10 reps or whatever it is of a certain exercise in order for

that exercise to bring results you can't just do five sit -ups

and expect strong muscles or a round bum you can't just lift a tiny weight

and expect your biceps to grow

so english is the same thing english pronunciation is the same thing you have these muscles

and they need to work differently than they usually are in your native language okay

so that brings me to my next point how does my mouth feel

so when you're learning a new word you want to be aware of how your mouth feels

if you are saying that word that you're having troubles with

and you don't feel like your mouth is uncomfortable

and it kind of hurts then you're doing it wrong

so for example a lot of people have issues with the word girlfriend right

it's a pretty tough one girlfriend girlfriend girlfriend right

so there's a lot of things going on with the tongue you know with your mouth all of

that so if you do not adjust your muscles to this word

and to these sounds then you're just gonna keep your native language mouth

and you're just gonna say girlfriend or something something

that would match the sounds from your native language

if you take a very simple word like door or window right

when you say window there's a lot more muscles involved than you think

when you say the word table when you say the word computer

when you say the word lamp cat right there's all of these sounds

that are moving and shifting your muscles in your mouth on your face differently than you're used to

so if you go to the gym

and you leave with a little bit of a sore kind of feeling throughout the body it means

that you did you made some effort it means

that you are going to get some results but

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if you go to the gym you spend an hour there

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and you leave without being sweaty

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and without feeling a little sore then what did you do in there

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so for example if we took some words like this for example, this, right?

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If I don't adjust my Romanian mouth to the English sounds, I will just look at the word and say zis,

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zis, or tis, tis, right?

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Because that's how I interpret those letters through my Romanian brain.

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If I want to say three, I will look at those letters and say three or three, not three.

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Morning, not morning.

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This is my family.

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This is my family.

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Do you see how different that is?

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And that is simply because I do not read those letters as if they were written in Romanian.

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I have to read them as they were written in a completely different language, which is English.

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Another example is how in Romanian we don't have certain sounds

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that position our mouths in a certain way for example w right my mouth becomes

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or my my lips are forming a tube what so

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when i say why where window if i said these words multiple times

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which is how i improved my pronunciation i was repeating these words like millions of times

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so if you have some issues with w for example you take all these words

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and you take them one by one so let's say window

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if you say window correctly each time for 20 times window

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window window window window window window window window window window i don't know how many times

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that was but i can already feel my top lip tingling.

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Because this is the feeling you should get when you position your lips in a different way than you're used to.

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If you say window 20 times and your top lip doesn't start to feel weird or even hurt, then you're doing it wrong.

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And you can't just say window, window, window, window, window, window.

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That's not the point.

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The point is to train your brain

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and to tell it what does your mouth look like what does your mouth feel like

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when you're saying this particular word in romanian the sound l is actually is a lot lighter

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so if i say i like it I like it.

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I like it.

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It's not I like, like, I like it.

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I like it.

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I like it.

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I like it.

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I like it.

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And there's a lot of other sounds,

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a lot of other little tiny sounds that you have to work on and change when you switch to English.

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So, imagine you don't have a native language.

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You're just a kid learning how to speak.

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That's pretty much how you should be learning English pronunciation and not look at it,

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not look at the words through your native language brain so

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if your mouth doesn't hurt after speaking english for about 15 minutes

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then you're doing it wrong okay the next thing

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that i was doing

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and again this is not part of the curriculums

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this is not part of the usual traditional school system is connected speech

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so when we learn words in isolation like glass book house suitcase right we only look at the words

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that are isolated that are individual, independent, not connected to anything else, not put in a sentence,

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not put in a structure of some sort.

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They're basically naked.

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They're naked words.

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They're just there for you to know that this word means that, for example.

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If you learn the verb to see or see, right?

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I see you, you see me.

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This is how you should learn it.

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You should learn it in at least tiny little constructions.

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I see you.

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I don't see you.

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Can you see me?

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I don't see anything wrong with that.

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Okay?

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So even if you're at the beginning and you are only learning a few words at a time, you don't know what the other words mean,

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that's okay because you're learning pronunciation.

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You're not learning vocabulary.

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We don't want to talk like robots, right?

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We don't want to stop after every single word.

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So the thing is, when you know that these words get connected in a certain way with articles,

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prepositions, other words around them, right?

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It'll also be easier for you to catch these.

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So your listening skills are going to be better because you're going to know how real people talk.

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I have had probably every single one of my students say

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that when a native speaker talks to me it sounds like one long word

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and it is one long word it is all these words connected

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it's there's no word word word word word no

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there's word word word word word word like this everything is intertwined okay

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if you do that from the beginning if you do

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that at the beginning of your english learning journey you're gonna know what to expect

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when you listen or when you hear English and you will also be able to produce the same construction, the same connection between words.

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And you will be surprised how different the word sounds when you hear it in speech,

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in connected speech, compared to when you put it in Google and you click on that audio to see what's the pronunciation.

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Because if you write down the word good, you read good, good.

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Okay, good means this good but if you hear it in real speech it's gonna be good morning

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good morning good morning good good oh I met a good friend of mine

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I met a good friend of mine good good very short good it's not good it's good

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so you're always gonna have the impression

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that you know a lot of these words

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but your listening skills are going to be so weak

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because you're always going to say all I can hear is one big long word because it is one big long word.

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Another thing that helps with this,

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even if you obviously can't do that in school or you don't have a teacher who really does that a lot, you can do shadowing yourself.

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So you can take a show, a TV show, a cartoon, a speech, anything in English spoken by a native speaker

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and you can just repeat in small little chunks after

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that speaker even

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if you don't really know exactly what the words are just try to practice the melody the tone whatever

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they pronounce later on you will know what they pronounced

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but for now just try to get that connection going

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so for example you learn the word job try to say things like i need a job

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and not i need a job try to say it quicker i need a job.

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I need a job.

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I need a job.

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I am looking for a job.

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I love my job.

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My job is stressful.

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Connected speech is such an important part of the pronunciation department.

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You can't even imagine.

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A lot of people are shocked this thing even exists because all they've done their entire life is learn words in isolation.

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So when you speak, you sound a lot more robotic

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and it's a lot harder for you to get those words out

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because you're taking them out of your brain one by one.

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Okay, another fun thing I recommend doing is tongue twisters.

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You've seen it on my channel.

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You've seen it on my TikToks everywhere.

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I love tongue twisters because they're such a good challenge.

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However, at the beginning, when you learn English for the first time, it is going to be very difficult to do these tongue twisters, right?

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The ones that are pretty complicated and complex and like big funny poems or something.

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What you need to do is create your own personal tongue twisters

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and what I mean by that is you can create a one -word tongue twister

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and sure maybe it's not necessarily a tongue twister officially

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but that's what I like to call them a personal tongue twister

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if you have a word

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that you're having troubles with you're not really sure how to position your mouth

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it sounds kind of weird you need to take that word

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and say it 20 -30 times fast which makes it your own personal tongue twister.

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So let's say you're having some issues with the word temporarily.

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A lot of people have issues with the word temporarily.

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Temporarily, temporarily, temporarily, right?

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In order for you to practice this word,

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like fully practice it, you need to say it at least 20 times in a row as fast as you can.

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At the beginning, you can take it a little bit slower

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and then you can increase the speed making

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it a tongue twister temporarily temporarily temporarily temporarily temporarily temporarily temporarily temporarily

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it's going to be a little bit harder you're going to be like right

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but with practice you will improve and

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if you don't try to to do it and to say it

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so many times your brain doesn't really know exactly what you want it to do

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so you can't just say oh i can't say this word i can't say this word doesn't exist

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because you can you just have to practice it so

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that was one word tongue twisters then you can do two word tongue twisters

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so what i used to do is if i heard something on tv

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or somebody said something and i liked it i wanted to repeat

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that so then it becomes part of my vocabulary and that i can and i know that I can pronounce it well.

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Okay, two word tongue twisters.

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For example, you are learning the word decision, right?

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You can do it as a one word tongue twister and say it multiple times, decision, decision, decision, decision.

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Or you can use some adjectives or some other words that are used with this word.

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For example, bad decision.

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And you can say that many times, bad decision, bad decision, bad decision, bad decision, bad decision, bad decision, bad decision, bad decision.

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It does sound like one word now right

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and do you see how bad ends in d

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and decision starts with d so you don't need to stop there

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and say bad decision bad decision you can use one d for both these words

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and you say bad decision bad decision you don't stop bad decision

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there's no pause there's no break bad decision bad decision bad decision

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and that applies with a lot of words that end in a consonant

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and start with the same consonant you only need one consonant in the middle

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you don't break those two apart had a great time great

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time one t for both great time great time great time

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i had a great time great time great time great time great time great time right

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but to your learning brain great time sounds like gray time

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or something right because you're expecting a separate word there

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and then you move into three word tongue twisters for example let's say you want to say make a decision

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or an important decision make a decision make a decision make a decision make a decision right

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it's not make a decision it's make a decision you say

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that in one breath make a decision

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that is your construction that's why it sounds like one long word native speakers

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when they take one construction put it next to another construction next to another construction

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that inside have connected words like that it does become one big long word

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so start early and you're going to be prepared for

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that you're not going to have any surprises

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and you have to be okay to look

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and feel weird in this area your face is going to be making weird movements

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and your mouth and your lips and your jaw is going to move differently it's going to be uncomfortable, it's going to feel strange.

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But you just have to make that decision for yourself.

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If you want to improve your pronunciation, just know that this is what you need to do.

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If you want to stay where you are, then that's okay too, but just don't expect to improve magically somehow overnight.

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And the thing is, this might actually even look silly, or sometimes people don't want to change this much just for a language,

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and that's okay too.

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This is just for people who want to actually take it to the next level.

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I have been learning

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and speaking English all my life even to this day I can still feel pressure here

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because I didn't grow up learning English I didn't grow up

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or not not learning English I didn't grow up speaking English

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that wasn't the language that I picked up in the first seven eight years of my life

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so yeah it does feel uncomfortable to this day

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but it pays off and you know I learned English

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and pronunciation 20 years ago

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I didn't have access to a phone to a laptop to internet you know nowadays there's

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so many tools there's so many apps there's

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so many ways to learn pronunciation and to not only learn

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but actually check it and get corrected you know

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and you don't even need a teacher you can find free apps for

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that so it's definitely a whole different world

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and it should be a lot easier to learn english especially

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that english is everywhere and you can watch all these american movies

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and shows if we're talking about the american accent

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but you have a lot more access to a lot more useful

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and practical resources so

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that is a lot better right than 20 years ago however it is your brain

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that has to do the work it is your mouth

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that has to make the movements so please believe me

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if you want to improve make sure you get comfortable with being uncomfortable

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it will only get better with time i hope you enjoyed watching this video

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and i hope you learned something new make sure to check my website for some live lessons

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that i have going on right now some upcoming speaking clubs

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and stay in the loop for

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when i'm launching some learning products please let me know if you have any questions and I will see you next time.

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Bye.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This speaking lesson is built on the video “How I Improved My American Pronunciation”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: word, decision, english, sound, window. This video has 309 sentences and 3666 words to shadow. The speech runs for 22:23. The speaker talks at a natural 164 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 87% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow.

Key vocabulary in this video

15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
pronunciation noun	/pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/	The formal or informal way in which a word is made to sound when spoken.
temporarily adverb	/ˌtɛmpəˈɹɛɹəli/	For a limited period of time; not permanently.
couch noun	/ˈkaʊ̯t͡ʃ/	An item of furniture, often upholstered, for the comfortable seating of more than one person; a sofa.
muscle noun	/ˈmʌs.əl/	A contractile form of tissue which animals use to effect movement.
connect verb	/kəˈnɛkt/	To join (to another object): to attach, or to be intended to attach or capable of attaching, to another object.
accent noun	/ækˈsɛnt/	A higher-pitched or stronger (louder or longer) articulation of a particular syllable of a word or phrase in order to distinguish it from the others or to…
skill noun	/skɪl/	A capacity to do something well; a technique, an ability, usually acquired or learned, as opposed to abilities that are regarded as innate.
uncomfortable adjective	/ʌnˈkʌm.fɚ.tə.bl̩/	Not comfortable; causing discomfort.
lip noun	/lɪp/	Either of the two fleshy protrusions around the opening of the mouth.
pronounce verb	/pɹəˈnaʊns/	To declare formally, officially or ceremoniously.
differently adverb	/ˈdɪf.ə.ɹənt.li/	In a different way.
correctly adverb	/kəˈɹɛk(t).li/	In a correct manner.
naked adjective	/ˈneɪkɪd/	Bare, not covered by clothing.
resource noun	/ɹɪˈzɔːs/	Something that one uses to achieve an objective, e.g. raw materials or personnel.
silly adjective	/ˈsɪl.i/	Laughable or amusing through foolishness or a foolish appearance.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Meaning
grow up verb	To mature and become an adult.
pay off verb	To bribe, especially to deter oversight.
work through verb	To get past a difficult or stressful situation by thinking or talking about it.
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:

Do you see how different that is?
It's not I like, like, I like it.
You're just a kid learning how to speak.
Can you see me?
I don't see anything wrong with that.

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	have met · i've had · you've hammered
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	were written · is connected · are isolated
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	students who had · language, which is · teacher who really
Verb + -ing enjoy, keep, stop… + -ing — verbs that are followed by the -ing form	start learning · start driving · practice driving

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 101 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, don't, can't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “sh” and “zh” sounds: pronunciation /pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/, isolation /ˌaɪsəˈleɪʃən/, sharp /ʃɑɹp/, shock /ʃɔk/, shadow /ˈʃædəʊ̯/
Long words — get the stress right: pronunciation /pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/, temporarily /ˌtɛmpəˈɹɛɹəli/, uncomfortable /ʌnˈkʌm.fɚ.tə.bl̩/, differently /ˈdɪf.ə.ɹənt.li/, isolation /ˌaɪsəˈleɪʃən/

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 pronunciation, temporarily, couch.

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: How I Improved My American Pronunciation - 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?