Shadowing Practice: How to Force Yourself To Speak Coherently - Learn English Speaking with Video

There is such thing as a mind to mouth connection.

Being able to think and then say what you're thinking

and still in the process of that sound coherent is a skill set.

And just like any skill, your mind and mouth connection can be trained.

So if you are really good at thinking, but you're not really good at speaking your thoughts, then what tends to happen is, what I'm trying to describe is there's like a,

you know, it's kind of connected to your mouth And that's how I used to do it.

I wasn't able to speak my thoughts and have it come across concise, clear and coherent.

And if you ramble like this, especially in high-stake moments like a team meeting or a performance review or a job interview,

then you're not going to get the outcome that you desire.

I've spent over a decade teaching communication skills to thousands of professionals who struggle with this specific thing.

And in this video, I'm going to show you the one exercise that's had the biggest impact on myself

and many of my students.

To help them be able to strengthen their mind and mouth connection.

So they can speak their thoughts with ease.

It's called the, wait for it, the random word generator exercise.

I know, how creative of me.

Go to a random word generator online, generate a random word, and then speak on that topic.

Once you know how this works, and you do it just once, you immediately notice where you struggle, and you want to do it again and again and again and again.

This is all in the reps.

And the more reps you do, the better you'll be able to speak your mind with clarity.

So when your boss puts you on the spot and you have to speak about a certain topic, or someone maybe pulls you aside and asks you a random question,

you'll be able to speak your mind without lagging.

This is the random generator and you can go to randomgenerator.com, literally, and if you hit the blue button, it will generate a random word.

So can you see the word to the right there?

Right now it's cultural.

I'll click a random word and then I'm going to talk on it.

Here we go, random word, grave.

Now I have to speak on the word grave for at least a minute to three minutes.

I still remember there was a book that I read and the book said,

the richest place on earth is the graveyard.

And I was like, what?

What does that even mean?

That doesn't make sense.

And then the author further explained

that the reason why the graveyard is the richest place on earth is

because so many people live their lives in desperation

and they fear what other people think and as a result they don't bring their dreams to life.

So when they die, all of their dreams, their ideas, all die with them.

So when you go to the graveyard, it's the richest place on earth, it's the wealthiest place on earth because there are inventions

that were never invented because

that person was scared of what other people think there was impact

that never was realized because people didn't learn how to use their voice and bring their ideas to life

there are visions there are dreams there are gifts and talents

that are all buried with the person who unfortunately died and

that has always stuck with me because i i never thought about it

that way and it just goes to show the power of communication

because even though that communication was in the written form

that book and then the book i read it from was uh think and grow rich

it's it's inspired millions of people around the world and it just goes to show that

communication no matter verbal or written it has the power to change the world because it was that metaphor alone,

it was that analogy alone that made me rethink my life.

I didn't want to go to the grave with all of my ideas, all of my dreams, all of my impact.

I wanted to live full and die completely empty because I want my grave slot

to be the poorest place in the graveyard.

I want to live full and die completely empty.

All right, so that's an example of me just speaking my mind, right?

And you have to appreciate that while you're practicing this, it will never be crystal clear wisdom.

Now, this is you practicing speaking your mind.

There are more techniques to be able to speak your mind in a more structured way

and that's by you learning how to use communication frameworks.

I've recorded a free two-hour training on this

which you can access via the link in the description or the pinned comment below.

And when you practice the random word generator exercise combined with the knowledge of communication frameworks,

you're going to become a communication master.

So do check out the free training

when you finish this video i didn't know the word grave was going to come up i had no idea

that this is genuinely random

so then as a result i was able to still be

fairly eloquent i was able to still be fairly concise

and i was able to still be fairly coherent the first

time i did this no way was it like this i'll

give you a sense of what it was like the first

time i did this i'll go back to the screen let's

get another one i'll give you a sense of what it was like it was like eliminate um eliminating people,

you know, in sports that sometimes happens because, you know, like dodgeball, someone throws it at you and then you get eliminated,

you know, eliminate, you know, it's like game shows, people in game shows, you know, you get eliminated.

And that's how I used to do it.

And when you do it for the first time, it's going to be like that, It's got to be like that too and that's okay.

Most people are not willing to pay the price of being a little bit crap to then ultimately become great.

The reality is most people want to start out great.

And then as a result, they don't start at all because it's impossible to start great.

You must start poorly.

Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly.

Inside the stage community, we have an area called the practice lounge.

So many students upload videos every single day of them doing the mind and mouth connection.

Going, okay, the random word is monkey.

Oh crap, I gotta talk about monkey.

And then they're talking about monkey and you'll see their first video, you'll see their second video, you'll see their third video, fourth video, and you'll start to notice they get better and better and better.

Why?

Because they're starting to strengthen the mind and mouth connection.

And if you don't practice, well, you'll never have that strong connection.

And you will always forever be in a state where someone asks you a question, you know the answer, you know the answer in your mind, but then you go, well,

I think it's, and then you just fall apart.

Well, that's because the connection is not strong.

It's not because you're not capable.

It's not because you didn't know the answer, but rather because you haven't worked on a skill that has been holding you back.

So I need you to understand that as you're going on the journey of strengthening your mind and mouth connection, please, please, please, please don't beat yourself up when you do the first one and it's absolutely terrible.

Record a video of yourself on your computer and then you just do a selfie video and you go, all right, I'm about to hit the random word.

So I'm genuinely gonna do this.

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Click random word, show the word on the phone and then go, all right, I'm gonna talk about pigeons and then go.

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99% of people won't do this exercise.

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So if you do it, post it on social media and tag me at AskVin and hashtag the hashtag VinsRandomWordChallenge.

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I know, I'm just super creative.

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I'm amazing.

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And I'll check it out.

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I might even share it.

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And if, listen, you want to take this to the next level, then make sure you combine that exercise with communication frameworks.

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And if you want to access that free training, the link is just in the description below.

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And I'll remind you of the quote again.

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In order for you to become great, you first must be a little bit crap or as I like to say it, you must be a little bit shit.

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I know, potty mouth, so naughty, Vin, so naughty.

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It's who I am.

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It's who I am.

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 Practice: How to Force Yourself To Speak Coherently - Learn English Speaking with Video

Context & Background

Top 5 Phrases for Daily Communication

Step-by-step Shadowing Guide

What is the Shadowing Technique?