Shadowing Practice: How much REAL English can you understand? (native speed) - Learn English Speaking with Video

If you can understand everything I'm going to tell you in this video, then you are ready to come to the UK.

And that's because I'm going to be speaking at a very natural pace, which in the UK does tend to be quite fast.

So this is going to be a very realistic test of your English listening abilities.

I'm also going to be rambling a bit.

I haven't really scripted this.

And I'm going to be speaking about some rather abstract topics.

So this is going to be a very good test, as I say.

So basically, I have prepared some quotes that I want to speak to you about.

So not only will you be training your English listening skills, but you'll also be training your wisdom.

Yeah.

So the first quote is this.

It's an absolute classic.

The mind is its own place and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.

And this basically means that your mindset is everything.

So no matter what you look for in a situation, you are likely to find.

So if you look for the good in something, you'll find it.

And if you look for the bad in something, you'll find it.

And this is kind of something that we need reminding of because as humans, we are kind of trained.

We are almost brought up to be pessimistic.

From an evolutionary standpoint, that is how we survive.

So if we were just chilling on a rock hundreds of years ago in the caveman days

and we hear a rustle in the bushes, we have to be pessimistic and assume that is a tiger instead of a friendly cat.

Because if we weren't pessimistic, then we would go and check it out and try and look for this cat and we'd get eaten by the tiger.

So we were trained to be pessimistic in order to survive.

And we wouldn't be here otherwise.

The optimists, they all left.

You know, they're gone now, sadly.

But, you know, times have changed.

So we don't need to have this same pessimistic mindset.

This is something, as I say, that we all need reminding of constantly.

But it's just, I think it's a nice quote to remember.

All right, the next one.

We have two lives and the second begins when we realize we only have one.

So obviously this sounds really nice.

But what does it actually mean?

Well, it refers to the brevity of life how brief

or short it is right so for for me i don't know about you

but certainly for me i have lived a large portion of

my life on autopilot just kind of going day to day without really being

that present and i remember i was in a sauna um a few years ago

and you know in the sauna they have those timer things where the sand falls down from the hourglass

and there's no way of getting the the bottom sand to

go back up unless you turn it around again well i was looking at

that i was just in there turning it over

and I remember I saw this meme

or this post on Instagram like five years ago saying this

is your life okay once the time is gone you will

never get it back now at the time I thought oh

yeah that's cool it doesn't okay yeah something to bear in mind okay then I just forgot about it

and it was only in that moment in the sauna fairly recently

that was like oh my goodness when you see like the visual example

that really puts it into perspective yeah so basically the idea is

that once you realize how short your life actually is that's

when your second life begins that's when you start living it properly okay

and um yeah if you're wondering why my hands are

so dirty i've been in the nature today i'll show you in a minute

but the nature here is incredible i'm in kyrgyzstan at the

moment anyway quotes number three unspoken expectations are premeditated resentment

and this is so good and this is all about relationships

so it could be any form of relationship it could be

a friendship could be a business partnership it could be a romantic relationship

and it basically means that if you have something

that you expect the other person to do then you need to tell them

because if you don't if you have unspoken expectations

if you don't tell the other person you are expecting these

things then they're not going to do these things right

so therefore when they don't do them you're going to be annoyed

and therefore you're going to resent this other person however it's

kind of your fault as well for not telling the other person that you expected them to do these things.

So these resentments are premeditated.

You kind of brought them into existence the moment you decided you had these expectations for the other person, but you weren't going to tell them what you expected.

You're setting the other person up to disappoint you.

That's a good one, right?

Okay, two more quotes to go.

We'll go for a quick nature break.

Enjoy.

So obviously the camera never really does justice, but look at this.

We are truly in the middle of nowhere.

So this is Karakol in Kyrgyzstan.

We have the cows there, we have the hills, the mountains there.

A proper mountain up there with all the trees and stuff like that.

I think these are pine trees.

Another mountain up there.

I was doing some walking earlier with some more woods.

It's just remarkable.

Quote number four.

We suffer more in imagination than we do in reality.

And this is Seneca with a classic stoic banger.

And I'm sure we can all relate to this.

So how many times have have you been in a situation where you are sure, you were sure that this bad thing was going to happen and you played it out in your head,

this imaginary scenario where this bad thing did happen

and you felt all of these negative repercussions

and all of these negative emotions that came with this bad thing as

if it did actually happen just for it to never actually happen

so it may as well have happened with the amount of negative feelings

that you felt from it just from this scenario

that you made up in your head okay there's another quote

related to this it's like I've lived many I've had many problems in my life most of

which didn't actually happen I think it was Oscar Wilde I

100

don't know I'll put the real one on the screen now but

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is this probably is another thing to do with our evolutionary journey right we are trained to worry about things

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that may or may not happen like threats

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but we don't have these same threats anymore in the modern world okay

104

so it's just this is so use it's

105

so easy to get carried away when something bad happens

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and just assume that all of these negative things are going to come from it

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but realistically most of the time like 99% of the time these things they never actually happen

108

and the most annoying thing is

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when you play these situations out in your head in

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that very moment you're like ah I'd give anything for this thing not to happen I'll be

111

so grateful and so happy for this thing not to happen

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and when this thing doesn't happen you don't really take the time to think oh my goodness I'm

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so glad and I appreciate it so much I'm so grateful

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that didn't happen no you just kind of go back to

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normal life maybe you appreciate it for one second then you

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just move on that's another thing we take we take things for granted I was thinking this the other day

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and this isn't me like preaching I do this

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so much as well we all do it's just a human

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thing isn't it where I had the most unbearable tooth pain a few months ago

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and I remember thinking in

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that moment oh this is horrible I cannot wait I'm going to be

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so happy and so grateful once I just return back to normal

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and this tooth pain isn't here then I had this surgery

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and after a couple of days it was back to normal

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and I was probably grateful for about two minutes and then I just went back to my normal life.

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So it's just insane how quickly we forget.

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Anyway, that was quote number four.

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Quote number five.

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This is a good one.

130

This is what hard feels like.

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So this sounds very pithy, but what does it actually mean?

132

I love this one because it's so actionable.

133

Basically, it's talking about how when you want to achieve something hard, you need to just have this mindset.

134

So let's say you want to do something hard, like learn English, for example.

135

Before you start learning English, you're going to say to yourself, is this going to be easy?

136

No, I know this is going to be hard.

137

It's a hard language to learn.

138

There are all of these grammar rules, all these things I need to know.

139

I'm going to have to put in hours of sacrifice and work and all these things.

140

It's going to be hard, I know that okay then you go about your

141

journey right and then fast forward a few months

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and you're kind of on the way to learning english

143

so it's nine o'clock you're sitting at your desk you've just had a hard day at work

144

and you know you need to spend an hour looking at

145

the past participles the different forms of all of these verbs

146

and stuff like that and you're bored and you're tired and you're hungry and and you want to quit, you're thinking, why is this so awkward?

147

Maybe I shouldn't do this.

148

Maybe this isn't for me.

149

In that very moment, you need to remind yourself of the original quote, this is what hard feels like.

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At the start of the journey, you knew it was going to be hard.

151

You accepted that this thing was going to be hard.

152

And now you're in the midst of the journey.

153

You need to remind yourself this very moment where everything feels awkward and weird and difficult and hard.

154

This is what hard feels like.

155

I knew this was going to be hard.

156

I signed up for this.

157

Just keep going.

158

and it's that simple yeah

159

and this can apply to any hard thing at all learning a language starting a business getting a promotion anything

160

that is challenging

161

and therefore probably worth doing this is what hard feels like you're going to have these moments

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and i like this one a lot because it just instantly like

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that can reframe your whole mindset and i'm a big fan of

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that so that's it guys if you were able to understand

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that congratulations because i was speaking very fast i was rambling a lot as well

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and yeah that's a very good test of your listening abilities now of course

167

that is going to help with your listening skills

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but there are going to be some other problems

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when it comes to learning English in particular with speaking so

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if you are one of the people who are able to understand

171

that but don't feel that confident

172

when it comes to real life conversations I'd recommend joining my private community there's a seven day free trial

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so you can try it for free you get eight live

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calls a week accent calls pronunciation calls speaking calls vocabulary calls all these things mainly with me

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but we do also have an incredible modern rp british accent specialist you get daily posts messages

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and tips it's basically the only place you need to be

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in order to actually improve your english with real people with real learners no ai stuff

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and it's enjoyable so it actually it keeps you motivated even

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when things get hard as we know from the last quote they will

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so yeah the link to

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that is in the top comment it really is the best english learning community there is right thank you

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so much for watching

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if you did enjoy this one I'd recommend checking out this video here it's in a similar style

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and I'll see you again very soon for another video but quickly

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let's do one more nature check look at this absolutely beautiful thank you for watching guys

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This video has 185 sentences and 2139 words to shadow. The speech runs for 9:51. The speaker talks fast, about 217 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
remind verb	/ɹəˈmaɪnd/	To cause one to experience a memory (of someone or something); to bring to the notice or consideration (of a person).
grateful adjective	/ˈɡɹeɪtf(ə)l/	Of a person or their actions, feelings, etc.: expressing gratitude or appreciation; appreciative, thankful.
mindset noun	/ˈmaɪn(d)ˌsɛt/	A way of thinking; an attitude or opinion, especially a habitual one.
expectation noun	/ˌɛk.spɛkˈteɪ.ʃən/	The act or state of expecting or looking forward to an event as about to happen.
sand noun	/sænd/	Rock that is ground more finely than gravel, but is not as fine as silt (more formally, see grain sizes chart), forming beaches and deserts and also used in…
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.
tiger noun	/ˈtaɪɡə/	Panthera tigris, a large predatory mammal of the cat family, indigenous to Asia.
awkward adjective	/ˈɔk.wɚd/	Lacking dexterity in the use of the hands, or of instruments.
scenario noun	/sɪˈnɛəɹioʊ/	An outline or model of an expected or supposed sequence of events.
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…
goodness noun	/ˈɡʊdnəs/	The state or characteristic of being good.
tooth noun	/tuθ/	A hard, calcareous structure present in the mouth of many vertebrate animals, generally used for biting and chewing food.
evolutionary adjective	/ˌiː.vəˈluː.ʃən.ɛɹ.i/	Of or relating to the biological theory of evolution.
resentment noun	/ɹɪˈzɛnt.mənt/	Anger or displeasure stemming from belief that one or one's group has been wronged or betrayed by others; indignation.
topic noun	/ˈtɑpɪk/	A subject; a theme; a category or general area of interest.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Meaning
go back to verb	To stem from; to originate in.
bring up to verb	To raise (something) so that it reaches a particular standard or minimum requirement.
carried away adjective	Made excessively emotional or excited, so that one goes too far.
check out verb	To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.).

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 65 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, I'm, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: tooth /tuθ/, pithy /ˈpɪθi/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: expectation /ˌɛk.spɛkˈteɪ.ʃən/, evolutionary /ˌiː.vəˈluː.ʃən.ɛɹ.i/, partnership /ˈpɑɹtnɚʃɪp/, promotion /pɹəˈmoʊʃn̩/, congratulations /kənˌɡɹæt͡ʃəˈleɪʃ(ə)nz/
Long words — get the stress right: expectation /ˌɛk.spɛkˈteɪ.ʃən/, evolutionary /ˌiː.vəˈluː.ʃən.ɛɹ.i/, congratulations /kənˌɡɹæt͡ʃəˈleɪʃ(ə)nz/, imagination /ɪˌmæd͡ʒəˈneɪʃən/, vocabulary /vəˈkæb.jə.lə.ɹi/

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 remind, grateful, mindset.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result	if we weren't pessimistic, then we would go · if you did enjoy this one I'd recommend
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	haven't really scripted · have prepared · have changed
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	were trained · are premeditated · be annoyed

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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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

Key vocabulary in this video

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

Grammar in this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?