Shadowing Practice: How I Started Thinking in English 24/7 (Without Translating) - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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This was me searching for words translating in my head in real time.
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Hello, so this is just a brief introduction for me to tell us.
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That was not a bad day.
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That was just every day.
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Today, I think in English 24 hours a day without translating a single word.
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And I have never lived in an English-speaking country.
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I actually live in a country where nobody speaks English.
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So, what changed?
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It wasn't grammar.
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It wasn't memorizing thousands of words.
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I built a simple system.
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I call it immersion thinking.
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Three steps and once you understand them, you will know exactly how to train your brain to start thinking in English naturally.
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Here's what most people get wrong.
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They think they cannot think in English because they don't know enough words.
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That was my problem.
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I knew the words, I just couldn't use them fast enough to actually think.
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And it took me way too long to figure out why.
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Here's what was actually happening.
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Your brain thinks in whatever language you use the most to understand, react, plan and talk to yourself.
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Back then, almost all of that was happening in my native language.
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I could study English for an hour, close the book, and five minutes later, my brain was completely back to my native language.
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But there was a deeper problem.
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Even when I was surrounded by English, my native language was still working in the background.
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Every time I heard an English word, my brain didn't go straight to the meaning.
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It searched for the matching word in Portuguese first, then connect that to the meaning.
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English, Portuguese, meaning.
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It happened so fast I didn't even notice.
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It felt like I was understanding English directly, but I wasn't.
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So I started training myself to skip that middle part.
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If I felt something, I didn't want to think in my native language first.
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I wanted to connect English straight to that feeling.
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I did this with everything, my emotions, my opinions, the things I wanted to say.
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English stopped feeling like a subject and started feeling like something I could experience directly.
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I thought that was the whole answer.
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I was wrong.
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There was a night I remember clearly.
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I got some bad news and in that moment, the moment I actually needed English the most, my brain didn't think in English.
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It went straight back to my native language.
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Like none of the practice had happened at all.
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And it wasn't just that night.
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When I stubbed my toe, it was my native language.
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When I was dreaming, it was my native language.
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That was kind of frustrating.
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I had been doing this every single day and it felt like it meant nothing.
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But it actually showed me the real problem.
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I could control the thoughts I chose to think about, but I had zero control over the thoughts I didn't choose.
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Honestly, that was the point where I almost gave up.
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And if you are learning English right now and you are at the same point where you feel like nothing's working,
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that's exactly why I built English Achievers, a community for people doing this together.
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It's a place to actually stay consistent instead of doing this alone.
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It's free to join, by the way.
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First link in the description.
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Your brain is not just processing words all day.
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It's planning, remembering, replaying conversations, talking to yourself.
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And almost all of that was still happening in my native language.
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So instead of creating random English thoughts just to practice, I took the thoughts I was already having and let them happen in English instead.
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Wait, if it's that easy to just let your thoughts happen in English, why can you just do that right now?
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Let me show you what I mean.
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Let's say you're about to think about something.
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Most English learners would think of a sentence in their own language first, then maybe translate it into English after.
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That's not what I did.
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That is still translating.
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What I did was stop myself the second I noticed the thought starting.
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Instead of finishing it in my own language, I just started over in English.
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Same thought, same moment.
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But now it happened in English from the start, instead of happening in my language and getting translated.
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At first this feels slow, of course, I had to catch myself a lot, but every time I did it, it got a little faster.
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Until one day, I didn't have to catch myself anymore.
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The thought just started in English on its own own.
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So if I was planning my day, I planned it in English.
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If I was replaying something awkward that happened yesterday, what I should have said or what they actually met, I did it in English.
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That is a completely different feeling than practicing.
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English is not an activity anymore.
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Your life is the activity.
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English is just a language you are using.
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But there was still a gap.
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I could force myself to think in English.
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But when I was just living my life, my brain would choose my native language.
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So I picked the moments where you don't get to choose.
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For example, when you say something on the spot without even thinking about it.
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There's no time to plan a sentence.
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Something just comes out.
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That reaction always came out in my native language.
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Every time.
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Because when you don't have time to think, your brain doesn't think in the language you are learning.
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It thinks in the language it trusts the most.
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So that became the real goal.
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Not the thoughts I could plan, but the thoughts I couldn't and slowly without forcing it the reaction started changing it too.
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I would get surprised and the sound that came out before I even thought about it was English.
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That is how I knew something had actually changed.
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Not that I could speak English on purpose but I couldn't stop it from happening on its own.
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At this point I could force myself to think in English even my reactions were in English.
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I thought I was done but there was one important point
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that if you don't know what it the first two will not work.
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Here's a problem nobody talks about.
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Say you spend one hour a day practicing English on purpose, studying, watching a lesson, whatever.
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That leaves 15 hours where you are awake and doing everything else in your native language.
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Your notes, your messages, what you read for fun, what you watch before bed.
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One hour of English cannot compete with 15 hours of your native language.
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It doesn't matter how good that one hour is.
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The 15 hours always wins because your brain follows the language you use the most.
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So I changed this not by adding more study time but by moving things I was already doing into English.
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My to-do lists, my random notes myself, the shows I watched, the stuff I read for fun.
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Not only things designed to learn English but things I was interested in.
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I stopped asking how do I practice English today, I started asking, how do I do more of today in English?
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And that's the difference.
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It's not about adding a second hour of study.
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It's about removing what you do in your native language as much as possible.
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And once those 15 hours started changing, I didn't need the one hour anymore.
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English wasn't a task on my schedule.
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It was just where I lived.
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So that's it.
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Three steps.
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Remove the middle language.
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Create an English inner world.
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Make English your life.
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That's immersion thinking.
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None of these are hard.
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You don't need to move to another country right now.
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You don't need to memorize thousands of words.
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You just need to give your brain more reasons to actually use English, not just study it.
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And I know this sounds simple, but it took me 1000 days to actually figure out how to make it work.
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I filmed the whole thing.
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The days I struggled, the days I was with, the exact moment things started changing.
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That is a completely different video.
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The full system day by day.
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This video gives you the three steps.
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That one gives you the system to actually do it.
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Go watch next and I see you there.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 130 sentences and 1399 words to shadow. The speech runs for 7:13. The speaker talks fast, about 194 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 88% 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 |
|---|---|---|
| translate verb | /tɹænzˈleɪt/ | To change spoken words or written text (of a book, document, movie, etc.) from one language to another. |
| connect verb | /kəˈnɛkt/ | To join (to another object): to attach, or to be intended to attach or capable of attaching, to another object. |
| replay noun | /ˈɹiːpleɪ/ | An act or instance of replaying (of playing something, such as a game, again); a replaying of (something). |
| consistent adjective | /kənˈsɪs.tənt/ | Of a regularly occurring, dependable nature. |
| naturally adverb | /ˈnæt͡ʃ.(ə.)ɹə.li/ | In a natural manner. |
| lesson noun | /ˈlɛs.ən/ | A section of learning or teaching into which a wider learning content is divided. |
| compete verb | /kəmˈpiːt/ | To be in battle or in a rivalry with another for the same thing, position, or reward; to contend. |
| awkward adjective | /ˈɔk.wɚd/ | Lacking dexterity in the use of the hands, or of instruments. |
| leaf noun | /lif/ | The usually green and flat organ that represents the most prominent feature of most vegetative plants. |
| skip verb | /skɪp/ | To move by hopping on alternate feet. |
| emotion noun | /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/ | A person's internal state of being and involuntary physiological response to an object or a situation, based on or tied to physical state and sensory data. |
| grammar noun | /ˈɡɹæm.ə(ɹ)/ | A system of rules and principles for the structure of a language, or of languages in general. |
| react verb | /ɹiːˈækt/ | To act in response. |
| awake verb | /əˈweɪk/ | To become conscious after having slept. |
| surround verb | /səˈɹaʊnd/ | To encircle something or simultaneously extend in all directions. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| come out verb | /ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/ | To be discovered; to be revealed. |
| figure out verb | To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce. | |
| come out in verb | to be afflicted by (a visible disruption of the body) | |
| give up verb | To surrender (someone or something); to inform on (someone). |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 24 contractions and reduced forms, such as didn't, don't, wasn't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: emotion /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/, immersion /ɪˈmɝʒən/
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 translate, connect, replay.
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.