Shadowing Practice: how i stopped existing and started actually living - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
1
There is a distinct difference between existing and living.
2
And for the past few years, I have just been existing.
3
you - The story starts two Fridays ago, midnight in the Lower East Side with two of my friends.
4
It was the kind of night where you say one more drink four times
5
and you somehow end up at a rave in Brooklyn.
6
Someone's talking to a stranger about Nietzsche or their ex or both, and somehow we stayed out until 5 :00 AM and decided to see the sunrise on the East River.
7
So we walked and sat there on a bench, half drunk, fully running on whatever chemical your body releases when it's given up on sleep, and started talking about how bizarre it is
8
that you can live in the most overstimulating city on the planet and still feel like you're on autopilot.
9
What word do you want to define this summer?
10
One of them said "alive." So I'm stealing it.
11
Because honestly, that's exactly it.
12
See, here's the thing that no one warns you about adulthood.
13
Not the taxes, not the weird need -paying that shows up once every three months.
14
Those are pretty well documented.
15
What no one tells you is that time changes texture.
16
excitement, then there was the midterms, the midterm crisis, and then there was the finale.
17
Every few months the cast would rotate, the setting would shift, and you would get a soft reset.
18
And then you graduate.
19
And suddenly a Tuesday in March and a Tuesday in October are the same episode.
20
There are no more semesters, no more syllabi dictating the start of a new season.
21
You're just renewed for infinite seasons with no writer's room.
22
So what do you do?
23
You build a routine because that's what everyone does.
24
You wake up, coffee, work, eat, run, scroll, sleep.
25
And the routine is fine.
26
The routine is responsible.
27
The routine is what your parents describe as having your life together.
28
But feel like sadness.
29
It feels like Wednesday.
30
You're not unhappy.
31
That's the tricky part.
32
You're functioning.
33
You're going to the gym.
34
You have a skincare routine down and yet you're existing adjacent to your own life.
35
You're watching it through glass.
36
I've been thinking a lot about what alive actually means
37
because it's very easy to hear that word and picture something from a tourism ad, skydiving, spontaneous road trip with the windows down, running through an airport, a boy.
38
But I don't think that's it.
39
I think feeling alive is much less cinematic and much more It's the moment right before you say the honest thing,
40
when the real sentence is just sitting in your throat and you haven't decided if you should let it out.
41
That's alive.
42
It's walking home the long way because the air feels a certain way and you're just not ready to be inside yet, even though your feet hurt and you have a perfectly good metro card.
43
It's being in a conversation where you lose track of time, not because it's entertaining, but because someone is actually seeing you.
44
I think what alive really means is presence.
45
The moment where the distance between you and your experience just collapses.
46
just in it.
47
No internal commentary, no content ideas.
48
You're just there.
49
And the reason those moments feel so real is because most of the time there is a distance.
50
You are one step removed.
51
You're the protagonist and the audience simultaneously.
52
You're living your life and also watching you live it as well.
53
Here's a part that I wasn't really sure how to say, but I think sometimes we don't feel alive because we're quietly, privately afraid to.
54
Because sometimes being fully present means being fully exposed, and exposure is a terrible business model for someone who spent years building a very functional emotional firewall.
55
If you let yourself get swept up in a perfect night, you also have to feel a very specific type of loneliness of getting home at 3am and taking your makeup off alone.
56
If you let yourself fall for someone, you have to sit with the possibility that it might end.
57
they rebuild routines that are comfortable and predictable and require very little emotional risk, we get really really good at being fine.
58
And fine is the most dangerous word in the English language because no one checks on you when you're fine, including yourself.
59
I have this theory about summer, specifically summer in New York.
60
A pigeon is probably gonna shit on you at some point.
61
Your apartment shrinks.
62
You develop a relationship with your AC unit That's more intimate than most of your friendships.
63
Everything is sticky, stinky, loud, and because everything is too much people stop hiding.
64
They sit on stoops, they stay out too late on a Tuesday, they talk to the person next to them at the bar because it's too hot to maintain normal social boundaries.
65
People fall in love on fire escapes, the air is heavy and slow and golden.
66
The city smells like sweat and ambition, which for the record is a terrible combination, but somehow the most romantic thing in the world.
67
There's this shared urgency in summer.
68
Even though everyone's tired, even though everyone's overstimulated, there's this unspoken agreement that these months count.
69
This is proximity.
70
And proximity, it turns out, is where aliveness lives.
71
That's why the best nights of your life are ones that you never planned.
72
They're the ones that just happened because you said yes
73
when your friend called you at midnight and you were already in bed.
74
Because you stayed one more hour, because you went to the third location, because you walked 40 blocks instead of taking the train, and somewhere around block 22, the city did that thing where it feels like it's yours.
75
Thank you.
76
I want to be clear, I have not figured this out.
77
But what I will say is that I've started to notice the gap, the distance between me and my own life.
78
And noticing it isn't the same as fixing it, but I think it's a prerequisite.
79
I've been saying yes to things that scare me a little.
80
When I want to cancel, I try not to.
81
I try to just say yes more often.
82
But I think these small moments of choosing presence over comfort, they compound.
83
And sometimes in the middle of doing whatever, I get a small flash of that feeling.
84
The feeling of being alive.
85
That morning on the East River after my friend said "alive" we didn't really talk about it after that.
86
We just sat there and the sky was doing its whole performance.
87
Pink, then gold, then the shade of blue that makes you briefly religious.
88
The city was waking up behind us and none of us reached for our phones.
89
And I think that was the most alive I felt in months.
90
Not because it was something really different, but because I wasn't trying to be anywhere else.
91
I wasn't optimizing the moment.
92
I was just in it.
93
I don't know if you can chase that feeling.
94
I think the whole cruel joke is the moment you try to hold on to it, it becomes a thing you're performing and you're watching yourself feel alive, which is a completely different thing than actually feeling alive.
95
But I think you can build a life with more room
96
for it more gaps more yeses less insulation more why the fuck not a little less fine and a little more
97
Awake, I'm trying.
98
I don't know if it's a hundred percent working yet, but I think trying is the point or at least that's what I'm telling myself I And right now, that's enough.
📺 Same Channel
B21
the person i want to be is not the person i am
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B12
the mindset shift that is changing my life
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B291
The Mindset that Changed My Life
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
the dating advice that changed my life
Interview EnglishTeensDaily Conversation
B23
on letting go (the art of detachment)
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
B21
why you need to get a life, respectfully
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
B218
the best piece of advice I've ever received
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C128
the paradox of being ambitious but lazy
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B23
i'm too self-aware and it's ruining my life
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B22
why i stopped calling myself a "girls girl"
TeensDaily ConversationHigh School Students
B1HOW TO FIND YOUR STYLE (w/o spending money)
Business EnglishTeensDaily Conversation
✨ Recommend Video
B21
122 sentences
I don’t understand what we’re living for
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B2114 sentences
Everything changes when you stop playing it safe
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
B26
90 sentences
A Low Maintenance Life | The Art of Simple Living
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
105 sentences
Video
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
B21
86 sentences
What they don't tell you about your 20s
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B210
110 sentences
I deleted my social medias (as a content creator) my month offline
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
B2121 sentences
Leaving America Changed the Way I See Everything
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B24
154 sentences
How to stop GIVING UP on your routines and ACTUALLY stay consistent
American AccentBusiness EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
C16
19 sentences
The Secret to a Calm Life
British AccentDaily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B22
159 sentences
9 DAILY HEALTHY HABITS that Changed My Life
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
B24
165 sentences
I Quit my Corporate Career to Pursue A Slower Life as a Barista // Stepping into the Unknown
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
B210
51 sentences
Anything you want except what made it matter.
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 98 sentences and 1291 words to shadow. The speech runs for 6:53. The speaker talks fast, about 187 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 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
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| routine noun | /ɹuˈtin/ | A course of action to be followed regularly; a standard procedure. |
| midnight noun | /ˈmɪd(ˌ)naɪt/ | The middle of the night: the sixth temporal hour, equidistant between sunset and sunrise. |
| proximity noun | /pɹɒkˈsɪm.ɪ.ti/ | Closeness; the state of being near in space, time, or relationship. |
| gap noun | /ɡæp/ | An opening in anything, made by breaking or parting. |
| flash verb | /flæʃ/ | To cause to shine briefly or intermittently. |
| chase verb | /t͡ʃeɪs/ | To follow at speed. |
| exposure noun | /ɪkˈspəʊ.ʒə(ɹ)/ | The condition of being exposed, uncovered, or unprotected. |
| romantic adjective | /ɹoʊˈmæn(t)ɪk/ | Fantastic, unrealistic (of an idea etc.); fanciful, sentimental, impractical (of a person). |
| comfort noun | /ˈkʌm.fət/ | Contentment, ease. |
| steal verb | /stiːl/ | To take illegally, or without the owner's permission, something owned by someone else without intending to return it. |
| bench noun | /ˈbɛnt͡ʃ/ | A long seat with or without a back, found for example in parks and schools. |
| friendship noun | /ˈfɹɛn(d)ʃɪp/ | The condition of being friends. |
| define verb | /dɪˈfaɪn/ | To determine with precision; to mark out with distinctness; to ascertain or exhibit clearly. |
| throat noun | /ˈθɹoʊt/ | The front part of the neck. |
| distinct adjective | /dɪˈstɪŋkt/ | Capable of being perceived very clearly. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| stay out verb | To spend time out of one's house. | |
| wake up verb | /ˌweɪk ˈʌp/ | To stop sleeping; to awake. |
| run through verb | To summarise briefly. | |
| show up verb | To appear, arrive, or attend, especially suddenly or erratically. | |
| turn out verb | To end up; to result. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | have just been existing · I've been thinking · I've been saying |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | haven't decided · have not figured · I've started |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | someone who spent · alive, which is |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 33 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, don't, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: flash /flæʃ/, exposure /ɪkˈspəʊ.ʒə(ɹ)/, friendship /ˈfɹɛn(d)ʃɪp/, shade /ʃeɪd/, ambition /æmˈbɪʃ.ən/
- Long words — get the stress right: proximity /pɹɒkˈsɪm.ɪ.ti/, commentary /ˈkɑ.mənˌtɛ.ɹi/, simultaneously /ˌsaɪmlˈteɪnɪəsli/, predictable /pɹəˈdɪktəbləl/, spontaneous /spɑnˈteɪ.ni.əs/
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 routine, midnight, proximity.
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.