Shadowing Practice: How To Become Fluent Faster! Interview with Polyglot Steve Kaufmann - Learn English Speaking with Video
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In this video, I interview polyglot Steve Kaufman.
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He has learned over 20 languages, and he's still learning new languages today.
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And in this interview, Steve Kaufman shares his best language learning tips, language learning advice and mistakes to avoid.
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So pay close attention because these tips will help you improve your English faster
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and have a lot more fun in the process.
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Let's start the interview with Steve Kaufman.
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So Steve, you're a polyglot who speaks 20 languages.
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What's your secret to learning languages?
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First of all, I have to caution you when I say 20.
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I have learned 20 at different times to varying degrees.
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I can't say that I'm totally fluent in 20 languages.
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I could easily switch into say a dozen of them
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and others I would have to refresh or I'm in the process of learning.
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And the secret is to enjoy the process, to simply not worry about how well I'm doing,
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what mistakes I make, just expose myself to the language.
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Every so often when I'm curious, I might look up something related to grammar, some explanation, but I don't focus on explanations.
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I focus on getting the language into me through a lot of listening and reading.
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Well, 12 languages is still extremely impressive.
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Now, do you think that anyone can become a polyglot
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or are some people just more naturally gifted when it comes to learning languages?
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I think that potentially anyone can become a polyglot.
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The more languages you learn, the easier it becomes to learn new languages.
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So the most difficult language is your first foreign language, uh, because you've never done it before.
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You're, you don't know how to go about it.
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You're not confident.
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And I think that as you learn more languages, those parts of your brain that deal with acquiring new languages,
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they become more, you know, adept at doing it.
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So, uh, I think anyone can do it.
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They have to be motivated.
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They have to put in the time and they get better and better at it.
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But for most people, I think learning one or two languages is enough.
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It just so happens that I, for a variety of reasons, got interested in learning many languages.
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And you mentioned motivation.
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If you had to boil down the qualities or personality traits of successful language learners, what would you say those are?
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Well, obviously, motivation is big.
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The motivation, I would say attitude is big.
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So motivation is one thing, uh, confidence, uh, you know, enjoying the language, enjoying the language learning process.
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All of those things are part of that positive attitude.
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And I also think it's very important not to be a perfectionist, very important to accept, you know,
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uh, fuzziness, insertitude, you know, you don't quite understand, uh, you You keep forgetting the same words.
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And all of that is fine because you're enjoying the process of discovering another language.
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And you mentioned confidence.
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I'm going to ask you a follow -up
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because many of my students tell me that they lack confidence when using their English.
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So can you speak a little bit more about the role that confidence has when learning and using a foreign language?
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Confidence is huge.
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And that's why I put a great amount of emphasis on listening and reading.
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And you sometimes hear people say, well, I can read, but I have trouble speaking.
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But most of those people don't realize just how much you need to read and listen.
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Like you have to read a book, 200, 300 pages, one book, several books.
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And the brain starts to get used to the language and reading is so easy to do.
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And when we read, it's almost as if we're speaking
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because we are sort of subconsciously vocalizing as we read and also listening.
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And so if you build up this degree of confidence with the language, the brain is used to the language.
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The brain has formed a model of the language.
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When you go to speak, of course, you're going to struggle at first, but you will gradually improve because you have all these words inside you.
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So I think part of it is being better prepared.
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Most people don't put the time and effort into reading and listening.
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They desperately try to remember some grammar rules and they try to think of grammar rules while they're speaking, which is hopeless.
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And then they have to accept that when they're speaking, they're actually practicing speaking and they will gradually get better.
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And while they're speaking, if they're speaking to people that matter to them, they're getting very valuable input,
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which is also all part of training the brain to be comfortable in the language.
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So it's all about input and understanding that all the different things
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that we're doing when we're learning a language contribute to that input.
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Well, exactly.
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Now, obviously if you have an opportunity for output, for speaking or for writing,
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you want to take advantage of it and you want to do it without worrying about mistakes, just trusting your impulses.
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But we don't necessarily, unless we live where the language is spoken, uh, we don't always have a lot of opportunity to speak with people.
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We should speak whenever we can, but we don't always have that opportunity, but it's very easy to organize listening, very easy to organize reading.
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and you know some people say well how can I read
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if there's so many words
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that I don't know well that's part of you know we have link as an example
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but if you are reading online you have online dictionaries it's
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so easy nowadays to work on getting your vocabulary up to where eventually you can read books on paper
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which is the ultimate sort of milestone
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when you read your first book from cover to cover
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and all of that is is part of getting you in a place where you're comfortable speaking.
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And coming back to that place of getting comfortable speaking when I'm working with students,
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and I'm sure all my students watching can relate to this question.
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When I'm working with students, the number one concern that they have is that they don't feel confident speaking.
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They feel like they're being judged by native speakers.
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They're worried about their grammar mistakes,
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they're worried that their accents are too thick and all of this prevents them from speaking confidently.
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So what advice would you give to these students?
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Okay, well, you mentioned several things there.
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First of all, thick accent.
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As long as you are comprehensible, your accent is fine.
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We have to accept that.
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Obviously, if we can get closer to sort of native pronunciation,
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We have to want to in a way we want to imitate the way the native speak, but we have to realize.
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And I realize that I will never be mistaken for a native speaker in the languages that I have learned.
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Uh, so accept the fact that you have an accent also accept the fact that you're going to forget.
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I mean, we know if, if we're, if I'm in a someplace and somebody shows up whom I know and,
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but what's his name or her name, the more pressure I put on my phone myself to try to remember that person's name,
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the more likely I am not to remember.
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And later on when there's no pressure on me, oh yeah, that was George or Sally.
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Uh, so obviously there is a certain amount of pressure, tension when we speak because it's, it's always more comfortable to speak in your own language.
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So you're speaking in another language, there's a little more tension.
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And so it's a little more difficult to remember things.
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We just have to accept that.
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All of that is normal.
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It's normal not to understand.
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It's normal to forget.
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And if we simply keep going, we will gradually improve.
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The more pressure we put on ourselves, or if we try to avoid speaking because we're afraid, then we aren't going to improve.
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So, I mean, it's easy to say, but I have experienced it in many languages where I struggle.
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And sometimes we think we did more poorly than we in fact did.
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And we just have to give ourselves credit.
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Trust the brain.
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The brain will gradually learn given enough experience and you just have to keep going.
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And of course, you're very active in the polyglot community.
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Now, I'm curious, what would a polyglot think about making a mistake?
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When a polyglot is learning or using one of their languages, what do they think when they make a mistake?
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I think the one common trait to the polyglots that I've met is that they aren't concerned.
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They are not, they accept uncertainty.
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They accept uncertainty.
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That's it, it, if you want to be totally safe and comfortable, you don't learn another foreign language.
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Once you are learning another foreign language, you are now into this territory where there are going to be mistakes
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and there's going to be things you don't understand and things that you don't pronounce properly.
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And people say, I beg your pardon, what did you say?
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And that's all part of the territory and polyglots accept this.
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Uh, yeah, I've been to a number of polyglot conferences and by the way, the overwhelming majority of polyglots grew up in unilingual families.
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So the idea that somehow polyglots are people who grew up with a Spanish speaking mother
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and a French speaking father or whatever, that's not true.
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The polyglots are people who got interested, who are confident that they can learn and who accept the fact
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that fuzziness and not understanding and forgetting is all part learning another language.
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And we've already talked about the mistakes that students make when they're learning a language,
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but what would you say are the biggest mistakes that language learners make?
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Well, ah, the biggest, so not specifically with reference to...
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English, but I think, um, this, this desire to be perfect, you know, I got to sound like a native.
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I've got to, you know, get, you know, just the right tense.
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It doesn't matter.
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Like tense is a big item for people learning English.
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And honestly, whether you say in many situations, it's optional.
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You can go, I go, or I am going, I went, uh, you know, I was going very often.
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It doesn't matter.
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It may matter on a grammar test, but in reality, there are a lot of tenses in English, probably more tenses than we need.
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And so if you just go with the simple, whatever, the simple present, the simple past, in many cases that's going to work.
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Don't try to be perfect.
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Don't, when speaking, try to think through your grammar rules.
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That's not going to work.
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You have to sort of have an attitude
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that you're going to develop certain habits in the language and you're going to trust those habits.
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And when you speak, it's going to come out.
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And you will pick up on what other people are saying.
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And if there are sort of rough edges, if you have an open mind, gradually those rough edges will become, you know, less frequent.
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So I think a big mistake is to expect that right now I'm as good as I'm ever going to be.
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No, right now you're in the process of improving.
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So keep going and you'll get better.
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Sounds like exactly what you said about attitude being one of the most important personality traits.
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Absolutely.
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There are two things in language learning, attitude and time.
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So the attitude portion of it is, you know, you like the language, you want to learn, you enjoy the learning process.
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That's difficult to do.
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You can't force yourself to like something.
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However, you can force yourself to get active.
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So if your attitude is not that keen on, say, English, if it's English,
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and I've looked around for TV programs or things that I might get interested in or cooking shows,
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the thing is, try to find something that interests you and vary it so you're on to something that relates to business,
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something that relates to history, that relates to cooking shows, gardening, whatever, a variety of content.
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Try to get interested and then put in the time.
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It takes time.
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It takes time.
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So I see immigrants to Canada, for example, who go home at night and, uh, they only watch television programs in their own language.
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Okay.
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That's relaxing maybe, but that's not going to help you.
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You have to be willing to put in a lot of time, not only let's say classroom time, but also if you're, uh,
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you know, in the evening, especially if you live in Canada or the United States, uh,
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watch local television, put the time in with a lot engage with the language
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so attitude and time and speaking about putting in the time
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when you're learning a language is there ever an end point
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when you say yep learn that language and you move on
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or do you feel like learning is more of a process
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and you'll always be learning a new language yeah i mean
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we're always more comfortable in our own language although there are people who let's say, say again, immigrants who spend, who genuinely learn the language,
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who work in English, who have friends with whom they speak uh,
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English, who always have a bit of an accent and they've kind of reached the point where it's, it's more than good enough.
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And in many cases, even say immigrants who speak with an accent may in fact
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use the language better than many native speakers.
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So they're at a stage where they're as good as it's going to get.
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But by and large, it's always an unfinished process.
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If I say that I speak 20 languages, even the languages that I speak very well, like French or Japanese, I can always get better.
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You know, I can always get better.
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So we're never, you know, it's never completed.
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It's an ongoing process.
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Now, previously you said that it's normal to forget your words.
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For example, in our native language, we might be having a conversation and we forget the name of a restaurant,
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even though we went to that restaurant last week, and that's just normal.
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But this is a concern that my students have because they tell me that every time they go to speak, they forget all their words,
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even simple words that they know really well, when they're speaking their mind goes blank and they forget their words.
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Do you have a strategy for overcoming this when you're learning languages?
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You have to remember, first of all, very often you hear people talk about, you know, I'm gonna master the basics.
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We forget even the most basic words.
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We forget the most basic structures.
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We forget things that we used to be able to do and now we can't do all of a sudden.
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We may be able to do it the next time.
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So the first thing is to accept that.
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That is absolutely normal.
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And it's part of the process of communicating, but gradually, even the process of forgetting and relearning is solidifying the,
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that capability in your brain that the, you know, research into the brain, we need to see something, notice something, forget it for a while,
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go back to it, forget it again, go back to it.
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And slowly that is how we accumulate words that we can comfortably use.
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So forgetting is part of the process and shouldn't make us feel uncomfortable.
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We say, good, I forgot, good, and now I relearn it.
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And maybe I forget it again, good, and then I relearn it.
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And gradually we improve.
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That's an amazing attitude to have.
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By forgetting, you are in fact learning.
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Not only is it normal to forget things, but it's beneficial.
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So changing your attitude around it.
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I hope all my students remember that lesson.
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What a powerful lesson.
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Now, Steve, you've shared so many lessons so far,
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but if my students were to only do one thing this week to help them improve their fluency in English,
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what should they do?
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Well, you know, it's not one thing.
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I would say put in the time, Uh, which in most cases is going to mean input activities because that's easy to organize.
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You know, I carry my iPhone with me.
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I use LingQ.
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I've got my lessons there.
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I can listen to them.
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I have a playlist.
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Uh, if I'm sitting in the doctor's office, I can look up words and read something.
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So I'm, I'm engaging with the language in that way.
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So wherever you have an opportunity, input.
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However, when you have an opportunity,
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the output to speak, absolutely take advantage of it and don't worry about how you do and trust your instincts.
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Come out with whatever you got.
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That's what you have.
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Let it come out.
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Interact with people.
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You'll get some feedback and you just keep going.
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So input activities wherever you have the opportunity and output activities wherever you have the opportunity.
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Amazing advice.
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Thank you so much for sharing that, Steve.
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I'm sure all my students have learned a lot already.
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And you share a lot of resources on your YouTube channel.
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You have an amazing app that you've developed called Link.
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So can you quickly tell my students how they can find you, how they can learn more about Link as well?
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Okay, so my YouTube channel is called Lingo Steve, all one word.
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And I put a video out once a week on different aspects of language learning.
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I even speak in different languages, Japanese, French, Chinese, you name it.
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And link, L -I -N -G -Q .com is a website that my son and I developed, which is where I learn languages.
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And it basically enables people to use the resources of the internet.
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You can import YouTube videos.
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You can import e -books.
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There's stuff in our library with a lot of repetition for people getting started.
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And there's a bunch of functionality there to help you learn words and phrases.
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So certainly that's what I like to use, but it doesn't matter.
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You know, people can do whatever they want to do as long as they put in the time
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and they have a positive attitude.
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Well, you heard it, everyone.
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Put in the time.
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Have a positive attitude.
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Thank you so much, Steve.
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It's truly been a pleasure.
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Thank you very much.
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I enjoyed it.
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What was your favorite part of this interview?
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Put that in the comments.
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And let's also say thanks, Steve.
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Thanks, Steve, in the comments to show our support and appreciation.
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Thanks, Steve in the comments.
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And I actually did another lesson where I reviewed a news article about Steve Kaufman.
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And in this lesson, you learn a lot of vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, so you can click here to watch that lesson now.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “How To Become Fluent Faster! Interview with Polyglot Steve Kaufmann”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: language, learning, speaking, speak, polyglot. This video has 229 sentences and 3186 words to shadow. The speech runs for 19:08. The speaker talks at a natural 167 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 |
|---|---|---|
| lesson noun | /ˈlɛs.ən/ | A section of learning or teaching into which a wider learning content is divided. |
| gradually adverb | /ˈɡɹæd͡ʒuəli/ | In a gradual manner; making slow progress; slowly. |
| grammar noun | /ˈɡɹæm.ə(ɹ)/ | A system of rules and principles for the structure of a language, or of languages in general. |
| input noun | /ˈɪnpʊt/ | The act or process of putting in; infusion. |
| 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… |
| relate verb | /ɹɪˈleɪt/ | To tell in a descriptive way. |
| motivation noun | /ˈmoʊ.tə.veɪ.ʃən/ | Willingness of action especially in behavior. |
| tense noun | /tɛns/ | The property of indicating the point in time at which an action or state of being occurs or exists. |
| output noun | /ˈaʊtpʊt/ | Production; quantity produced, created, or completed. |
| wherever | /(h)wɛɹˈɛvɚ/ | Regardless of the place in, at or to which. |
| immigrant noun | /ˈɪmɪɡɹənt/ | A non-native person who comes to a country from another country to permanently settle there. |
| organize verb | /ˈɔɹɡənaɪz/ | To arrange in working order. |
| trait noun | /tɹeɪt/ | An identifying characteristic, habit or trend. |
| thick adjective | /θɪk/ | Relatively great in extent from one surface to the opposite in its smallest solid dimension. |
| curious adjective | /ˈkjʊɹ.i.əs/ | Tending to ask questions, or to want to explore or investigate; inquisitive; (with a negative connotation) nosy, prying. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| come out verb | /ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/ | To be discovered; to be revealed. |
| go back to verb | To stem from; to originate in. | |
| look up verb | /ˌlʊk ˈʌp/ | To have better prospects. |
| boil down verb | To reduce in volume by boiling. | |
| build up verb | To erect; to construct. | |
| come out with verb | To say (something) unexpectedly. | |
| follow up verb | To take further actions remaining after an event; to continue, revisit, or persist; especially, to maintain communication or verify. | |
| pick up on verb | To notice, observe, learn, or understand, especially something otherwise overlooked. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- What's your secret to learning languages?
- You're you don't know how to go about it.
- You know you don't quite understand.
- Do you have a strategy for overcoming this when you're learning languages?
- What was your favorite part of this interview?
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 | has learned · have learned · you've never done |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | speaking, which is · people who grew · people who got |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | is spoken · being judged · be mistaken |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 92 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, I'm, you're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: motivation /ˈmoʊ.tə.veɪ.ʃən/, explanation /ˌɛkspləˈneɪʃən/, tension /ˈtɛnʃən/, pronunciation /pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/, potentially /pəˈtɛnʃ(ə)li/
- Long words — get the stress right: motivation /ˈmoʊ.tə.veɪ.ʃən/, explanation /ˌɛkspləˈneɪʃən/, uncertainty /ʌnˈsɜːtənti/, vocabulary /vəˈkæb.jə.lə.ɹi/, pronunciation /pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/
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 lesson, gradually, grammar.
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.