Shadowing Practice: How to Journal Like the Top 1% in 2026 - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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The truth is most people don't change their lives because they don't know how to change their thinking.
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And you can't change your thinking without first examining it.
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And that's where journaling comes in.
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I've been journaling for about 10 years now.
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And over that time, it has completely changed my life.
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It's sometimes easy to feel like journaling is really overwhelming as a habit
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or hard to stick with and takes a lot of time.
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But what if I told you that all you need is a couple of minutes a day to start transforming your life?
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In this video, I'll be breaking down exactly why journaling is so powerful.
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And then I'll share with you eight proven, tried and tested journaling techniques, which are simple and easy to start doing in just a couple of minutes a day.
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If you're new here, my name's Izzy.
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I'm a mom, tech co-founder and Cambridge trained doctor.
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And in this video, I'll be sharing literally everything that I wish that I knew about journaling.
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So firstly, why journal?
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Well, journaling is the ultimate high level tool for metacognition, which can be defined as thinking about your thinking or making your cognition actually observable.
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Firstly, journaling converts your liquid thoughts into solid information.
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Our thoughts and feelings are kind of like liquid.
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They shift, they flow, they change shape.
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But when you write them down, you are actually capturing them into a solid state.
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And you make this shift from being in your emotions to actually being able to observe your emotions and your thoughts.
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Secondly, journaling offloads cognitive load.
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Our brain's working memory is limited and actually trying to remember, okay, what's on the calendar today?
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What do I need to do?
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What did I need to do next week?
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Oh, this other thing, I'm kind of interested in trying out this new hobby, so I should try that out over there.
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And oh, there's this other thing at work and I need to reply to that email.
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All of these things add up, and it's almost like having loads of open tabs in your mind.
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And for a computer, what that does is that will start to overload its memory.
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And in our brains, that also creates mental friction.
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So journaling actually acts a bit like an external hard drive.
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And so when you write something down, your brain almost receives a signal that the information is stored safely,
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which means your nervous system can finally relax and let go of all those extra thoughts and close some of those tabs.
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And the benefit of this is reducing your cortisol levels, reducing your stress levels and making space for you to actually focus without all these extra thoughts pinging into your head.
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Thirdly, journaling bridges the gap to your subconscious.
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There are things that we don't even know about ourselves that are in our subconscious.
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And there are specific journaling techniques that can help to extract this and make the subconscious conscious again.
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And once you do that, you can actually see the ways in which those subconscious thoughts
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and feelings and ways of responding to the world are actually running your life without you really knowing.
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And so for me, then I've actually stopped being
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so surprised by my own self-sabotage because I've actually started to understand where that's coming from.
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Fourthly, journaling provides a proof of growth.
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When I look back at some of my journals from five to even 10 years ago, I am blown away by how much I've changed.
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There's a psychological illusion called the end of history illusion, which is where we tend to think
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that how we feel now is how we've always felt and is how we will always feel.
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But actually that's really not the case.
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Who we were 10 years ago is radically different
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and who we will be in 10 years is also probably radically different to who we are right now.
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And so a journal acts as a bit of a time machine.
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And so reading an entry from a year or two years or 10 years ago reveals how much you've overcome, which builds this deep evidence-based sense of self-efficacy,
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which can also be defined as the belief in your ability to actually handle life.
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Also, if you're looking for more journaling inspiration, I've created a completely free 30-day journaling challenge with one key
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prompt a day to help you get closer to your dream life.
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I've popped the link in the description, so feel free to check it out if you like.
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And finally, and this is my favorite one, journaling can actually change the outcomes in your life.
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And this is how.
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So the outcomes in our life are generally determined by the actions that we take.
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In turn, our actions are usually downstream of us taking some kind of decision.
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And our decisions are the result of our thoughts and feelings, which themselves were a result of our beliefs and stories that we tell ourselves.
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And so this is what the belief outcome axis is, how our beliefs flow into our thoughts and feelings, which then cause us to take certain decisions intentions
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which lead to actions that we take in our lives and then subsequent outcomes.
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This belief outcome axis is literally applying to every single part of your life right now whether you like it
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or not but the most interesting thing about this axis is
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that it's actually a closed loop system where the outcomes in our life they are actually our life events
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and our life events actually inform and change our beliefs and stories that we tell about ourselves.
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For example now
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that I have started this YouTube channel I'm like okay I've
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started this YouTube channel I've continued to take actions repeatedly
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that have led to the outcome of having videos up
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and then oh they're starting to get views oh there's people who actually care about what i have to say and
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that changes the life events where it's like okay now i
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have quite a lot of subscribers this is actually amazing
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and then that updates the beliefs and stories
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that i have about myself where i now feel even more conviction
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that you know what i can actually try new things
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and the fledgling belief of you know what the people who really matter will stay
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and there'll be new people who come into my life was true
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and so this has updated those beliefs and stories
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and given me more fuel there and
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that has become this sort of virtuous cycle and now this is where journaling comes in.
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For this loop we can actually input on lots of these areas such as here, we can input here, we can input here,
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we can input here, we can actually affect a lot of the parts of this cycle with journaling.
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For example one way
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that journaling helped me to start a YouTube channel was where
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I was thinking more broadly about okay what could be interesting to do with my life
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and I was like oh okay well something as interesting as maybe starting a YouTube channel
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and then I noticed oh my gosh I have all these beliefs and stories about this of like, oh, there's no point, and I'm gonna get judged, and I'm probably gonna fail anyway.
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I'm like, wait, but where are these coming from?
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And then I examined those more deeply, and I realized that actually I could choose to believe something else, and tell myself a different story about my life.
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And that ultimately leading me to be able to unblock and level up this virtuous cycle.
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So that's why I'm so passionate about journaling.
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And so now let's get into the eight evidence-based journaling techniques.
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The first one is journaling as a mirror for emotional exploration.
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Most people think that emotional release journaling is only for deeply emotional people.
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But if you feel kind of fine most of the time, then this is actually probably the habit that you need the most.
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Here's what this looks like.
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Try journaling about an event.
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So focus first on the objective details, the who, what, when, where, why, all of these external details.
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Once you've written about that, then shift your focus to how you felt internally about it, going underneath the surface and diving into your emotions and also your narratives around it.
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And so the core of this mirror is mirroring your journal with the external objective things going on
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and then the internal more subjective things going on.
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And with the internal exploration, you can try exploring different kinds of emotions.
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So for example, joy, love, gratitude, anger, sorrow, discomfort, fear.
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And this is powerful in two ways.
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On the positive emotion side, studies have shown that journaling about positive emotions helps make you feel less stressed,
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makes you feel like you have better wellbeing and can even help with improving your mood.
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And on the flip side, when you put your negative feelings into words, journaling has a calming effect on your brain.
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And this has everything to do with a psychological phenomenon called affect labeling.
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In 2007, Dr. Matthew Lieberman from UCLA showed people faces with different emotions and then scanned their brains.
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He found that when people named the emotion that they were seeing, so for example, by saying, this is anger when they were shown an angry face,
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the emotional center of their brain actually calmed right down just by putting a label to the negative emotion.
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This is something that also applies in parenting.
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So having become a mom recently, I've been reading lots of parenting books, and one concept that a lot of psychologists share is how when a child is experiencing an emotion really strongly,
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helping them to understand it by putting a label to it and being like, okay, like, you're feeling sad.
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Yeah, it's okay to feel sad.
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I know you're feeling sad because you couldn't get the toy that you wanted.
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And actually acknowledging that sadness
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and helping them to understand what it is actually helps them to manage and regulate that emotion and regulate their nervous system.
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And I find the same in my own life.
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If let's say I'm feeling a little bit frustrated by something, if I just name, okay, I'm feeling kind of frustrated about this, I immediately feel more relaxed.
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The next journaling technique is asking your higher self for advice.
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We all have this idea of who our higher self is.
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The version of us that is the most wise, the most compassionate, the most self-actualized, the most secure and content and joyful.
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And so one thing that I love to do when faced with some kind of dilemma
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or struggling with some kind of situation where I feel like I'm getting stuck in a loop or feeling really strong emotions, it's saying, okay, well, what would my higher self do?
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What would she advise me to do?
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An example here is, let's say that there's tension in one of our relationships, whether that's with family, friends, or a partner, in that kind of conflict situation,
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it's easy to get into a slightly ego-attached frame of mind where you're like, well, I'm right, they're wrong, they shouldn't have done this, and I was right because I did this,
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and all these narratives that protect our ego and put us in opposition to this other person.
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But I found that whenever I'm in this situation and then I ask my higher self for advice, I'm like, okay, what would she do?
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How would she respond to this?
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I always, always come to the realization that, okay, what if it's actually not about you versus me, but rather it's like, okay, us.
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It's what can we do for the relationship?
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How can we help to move towards a place where we're not trying to figure out, okay, who's right, who's wrong, but actually we're trying to figure out what's best for us and our relationship.
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Another example from the YouTube side of things is, sometimes if I'm feeling unsure about posting a video or filming a video, I'm like, oh, like, I don't know
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if this video is really gonna be valuable enough or I'm not sure if it's good enough to post.
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And then I asked my higher self, maybe she would say, well, if this video helps at least one person out there, isn't that all worth it?
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And so I always find
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that asking my higher self for advice gives me more of a sense of expansion
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and helps me to lean into making decisions that ask me to grow and expand rather than shrink and avoid.
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And for me, a large part of sticking with journaling is making it feel enjoyable by adjusting the environment
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and the tools with which I journal.
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Paperlike are very kindly sponsoring this video, and I'm very excited about this one
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because I've literally been using their screen protectors for years and years since way before they wanted to sponsor me.
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It's one of those small upgrades that completely changes how often I actually use my iPad to write.
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If you've ever tried writing on an iPad with an Apple Pencil and thought, oh, why is this just so slippery?
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Why is my pen sliding all over the place?
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I totally get you because writing on the like plain glass surface just doesn't feel as satisfying
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or good as writing on paper.
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The game changer for me was starting to use the Paperlite screen protectors.
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The Paperlite 3 screen protector is their newest version
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and it has specialised nano dots all over the surface to create just the right amount of friction.
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So it genuinely feels joyful and tactile to write on your iPad.
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And if you've ever tried to install a screen protector, you might have had the nightmare experience of having bubbles literally everywhere.
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Paperlite have a butterfly application system, which makes it far less stressful to line everything up properly.
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They've got a little multi-purpose helper tool and an on-screen guide to help you every single step of the way.
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So if you want to try the Paperlike 3 for yourself, I've left a link down below.
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The third journaling technique is shadow integration.
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Have you ever met somebody who is very judgmental of others, but maybe quite blind to those same flaws in themselves, or maybe even you have a trigger,
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so a person or a trait that makes your blood boil for no particular logical reason that you can pin down.
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That reaction is actually a signal from what psychologists call the shadow self, because whether we realize it or not, we are carrying around a hidden version of ourselves,
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which is a version made up of all those parts that we've repressed, denied, or have decided are bad.
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But until you actually learn to embrace your shadow, it will actually run a lot of your decisions and your life, and you'll just end up calling it fate.
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And so shadow integration is the process of actually reclaiming that power.
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The concept of the shadow came from Carl Jung, a Swiss psychiatrist.
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He theorized that as we grow up, we develop a persona, which is a mask that we wear to fit into society and gain love from our parents.
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This means that if we are not allowed to display anger or sadness or selfishness, or even our too big ambitions or emotions,
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we learn to shove these away into something of a psychological basement.
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The problem is that these traits don't actually just stay in the basement
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because they actually leak out because fundamentally they are a part of our whole selves.
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So instead of showing up directly or consciously in our actions, they show up maybe as self-sabotage,
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anxiety, or projection, which is when we see our own hidden flaws and rejected self in everyone else around us.
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And so shadow work isn't actually about becoming a dark person or leaning into Machiavellian traits.
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It's actually just about becoming a whole person where you see all of these parts of yourself.
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You see the version of you that is loving and kind, and you also see the version of yourself that is angry and ready to defend your boundaries,
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and you love and accept all of these parts of yourself wholly.
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And that allows you to take the energy
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that you spent fighting with yourself and hiding yourself and then using that to fuel your own growth instead.
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One thing to say here though is that shadow work can be emotionally draining.
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And so a reminder is that it's about being a compassionate, loving observer of yourself, not about judging yourself or finding things to hate about yourself.
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It's about finding those parts of you that need to be brought home
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and loved and accepted because they are part of you and you are so worth loving.
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So here's how to actually put shadow integration work into practice.
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You start by looking at your triggers.
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Your shadow is actually the most visible in the things that irritate you and other people.
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Jung famously said, everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves.
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For example, if as a child someone is told, oh don't be a crybaby, it's so embarrassing to cry, they may repress their sadness and their grief.
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But that sadness doesn't actually just disappear from their lives completely, it actually goes into the shadow and often reappears later as coldness
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or judgmental behavior towards other people who are crying
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and they might find themselves triggered or annoyed by other people who are expressing sadness.
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So one prompt to work with this is to think of a person
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that you find absolutely cringe or insufferable or annoying
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and list the specific traits that they have which specifically annoy you and then ask yourself with a lot of compassion, in what small way do I have these same traits
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or in what way do I strictly forbid myself from ever acting in that way?
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The second prompt is around figuring out what social mask you're actually wearing.
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What does this persona mask that you put on actually look like?
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And so you can ask yourself, what is the one thing that I am most afraid of people finding out about me?
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If they did find out, what is the unbearable thing that I think would happen next?
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And the third shadow prompt that I really enjoy is around the golden shadow, which is the disowned talent.
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Because actually in each trait that we reject about ourselves, there is actually a grain of something beautiful and amazing in it.
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And this is called the golden shadow.
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And so once you've identified some of the traits or characteristics that you reject in yourself, ask yourself the question of in what ways is this actually a beautiful strength?
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And so for example, one shadow which I've been working with is my anger.
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And for a long time, I rejected my anger.
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And my narrative was that, okay, if I'm angry, and if I express or have anger, then people will abandon me, I will be a nasty person.
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And it's also very masculine.
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And so I won't be wanted by anybody.
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Essentially, if I'm angry, then I won't be loved.
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But in a way, the golden shadow inside of that is that my anger is actually trying to protect me.
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My anger is, in a way, my own self saying, I love you, Izzy.
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I'm gonna protect you.
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Your boundaries were violated in these areas and I wanna defend you.
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And I'm letting you know that this was important to you.
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You really cared about this.
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You really needed this and you didn't get it in the way that you wanted to.
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And so there's that beauty in that grain of anger, which I was completely missing before when I was wholesale rejecting my anger.
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And so I've been on a bit of a journey to reclaim at least understanding
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and not rejecting that anger and understanding that it's actually a beautiful part of me as well.
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The next technique is the five good things.
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And if you're the type of person who thinks gratitude journaling is all just fluff, the science actually tells us a completely different story.
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In one study, researchers from UC Davis and the University of Miami split a bunch of participants into three groups.
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They asked the first group to journal every week about things that they were grateful for.
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The second group just journaled about normal events and the final group wrote about things that bothered them.
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10 weeks later, the gratitude group felt significantly better about their lives, they were much more optimistic, they had far few physical health issues,
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and they also exercised for more hours in a week.
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So journaling not only makes you feel mentally better, it actually makes you feel physically better too, and also take care of your body more.
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I used to do a daily gratitude practice in my journal
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where I'd write down a couple of things I was grateful for in like a really short sentence, but now I actually prefer to do once a week more in-depth gratitude journaling, writing down five things that I'm grateful for,
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why they happened, why I'm really grateful for them.
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And so it's totally up to you whether you'd like to go for a daily micro gratitude or a weekly, slightly more extended session.
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The next technique is sentence completion.
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Most of us spend their lives being lied to by our own brains.
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We have a gatekeeper, which is a part of our conscious mind
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that filters our thoughts to make sure that we stay safe and polite and normal.
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It's essentially gating our shadow self and keeping that in.
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But that filter also keeps us stuck because it's the conscious mind's way to censor thoughts that feel threatening or wrong.
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So if you've ever felt like you're circling the same problems without actually ever finding the route, it might be because your gatekeeper is blocking the exit.
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Nathaniel Brandon, a pioneer in the psychology of self-esteem, developed sentence completion specifically to deal with this.
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It goes beyond journaling.
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It's actually a psychological hack to make the subconscious conscious before you have the chance to censor it.
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And so I'll tell you a little bit more about the psychology behind this and then how to actually apply this technique.
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The gatekeeper is driven by cognitive dissonance.
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When you have a thought that conflicts with your existing self-belief, such as the thought of I'm a good person or I'm a hard worker, the brain feels a physical sense of discomfort
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because it's trying to figure out how these two things can actually exist in the same world.
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And to avoid this discomfort, the gatekeeper literally edits your thoughts before they become conscious by rationalizing, diverting, making excuses, or even making your mind go completely blank.
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And so Nathaniel Brandon found that while we might freeze when we're asked a direct question like why are you unhappy, our brains are actually naturally wired to complete patterns.
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And this leads to using things called sentence stems which are open-ended phrases.
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Getting ourselves to answer these sentence stems at high speed actually overwhelms the gatekeeper with a combination of volume and velocity.
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So here's how to apply it.
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The first thing is to pick a stem
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and I'll give you a bunch of examples on screen now so you can pause and screenshot.
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For example, if I bring 5% more awareness to my life today, dot, dot, dot.
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And then your task is to write six to 10 different endings for that one sentence as fast as you possibly can.
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The key here is to not think, just write.
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Do not lift your pen.
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Do not worry if it makes sense or not.
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Do not try to think, is this logical?
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Is this true?
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Do not worry if you repeat yourself because the only goal here is velocity and volume.
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Velocity and volume mean that by writing as fast as you can, you don't give the gatekeeper any time to evaluate if the thought is safe or correct and it just comes out.
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And you'll notice that a lot of these stems have this rule of 5%.
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So for example, if I were 5% more X, Y, Z.
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And this is actually a psychological hack because our ego is quite scared and intimidated by 100% change.
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But 5% change feels quite safe and accessible, which lowers the bar and allows our subconscious to speak without triggering a defensive response.
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And so try some of these out and make sure
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that you write out at least 6 to 10 different completions of the sentence and see what comes up for you.
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The next journaling technique is the Pennebaker Protocol, also known as expressive writing.
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This one journaling habit is so powerful
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that it's actually been shown to improve health outcomes across both mental and physical in just four days of applying it.
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A top psychology researcher called Dr. James Pennebaker told a group of students to write about deeply stressful events
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that they'd gone through for just 15 minutes a day for four days in a row.
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He would ask them to write continuously, not lifting the pen from the paper, and this landmark paper found
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that these students actually ended up visiting the health center for
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health issues much less often in the following six months compared to the ones who just wrote about trivial things, like what shoes they were wearing or like what they ate for breakfast.
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And the effects of this technique actually went right down to the immune system level
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because scientists even studied that this kind of journaling boosts your antibodies and your T cell levels, which is pretty incredible to think that simply journaling and working through
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and facing any kind of traumatic events with journaling and in this space of expressive writing can actually modulate your immune system.
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The way that I like to apply this is literally just setting a timer for 15 minutes a day, actually using my meditation timer,
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and just continuously writing for four days in a row about your deepest thoughts and feelings.
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Don't worry about grammar, don't worry about if it makes sense, try not to edit any of the sentences, just keep the flow going and just keep writing.
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I like to do this in my main journal, but some people prefer to do it on a separate piece of paper
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that they can actually either rip up or throw away afterwards.
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So whatever feels like it will help you to not censor yourself, because the key here is you must not censor
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or try to actually engage your brain and prevent yourself from writing the things on the paper.
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So if you're worried that somebody's going to read it or see it, then maybe actually do it somewhere where you can destroy it later.
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The next journaling technique is one of the simplest, which I love and I go back to literally every week, which is the brain dump.
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And this is where I literally just write about everything that's on my mind.
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And this helps to always close those mental tabs that are open, which I mentioned at the start of the video.
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And so whether that's to-dos or feelings or thoughts, just sitting down for five minutes and dumping out everything that's currently going on in my brain.
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This is different to the expressive writing technique
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because I'm not actually trying to dig into like a deep trauma or stressful event, I'm just trying to capture, okay, what is actually the mental chatter that's going on right now?
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And how can I close some of those tabs right now?
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And the next journaling technique is the write it down effect.
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One of the biggest mistakes people make when trying to reach their goals is not journaling about them.
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According to a study by Dr. Gail Matthews, you're 42% more likely to achieve your goals if you write them down compared to if you just think about them.
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So as soon as you come up with a goal, write down what your goal is and try to be specific
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and come back to looking at what they are every single week.
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What I like to do is set aside just five to 10 minutes to jot down the progress
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that I've been making and how I feel about it and the next steps moving forwards.
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I usually do this in my weekly review.
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And if you want to boost your chances of success by up to 78%, try sending those weekly progress updates to a friend.
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So those were the eight journaling habits that majorly leveled up my journaling practice and actually changed my life.
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And I hope that it might help you to change yours too.
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And the most important thing after watching this video is to actually take action.
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And so I'd like you to choose at least one action point that you're going to take away from today, whether that's starting the completely free 30 day journaling challenge that I'll leave a link down to below,
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or picking one of these techniques that you're going to try maybe just right now, right here, right now.
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Make sure that you write that down somewhere, whether that's in your journal or in an email
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or in the comments or even in a message to a friend
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because we have seen how that helps as we've discussed in this video.
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And before you know it, just by spending one to two minutes a day on your journaling practice, journaling will become an integrated part of your life
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and hopefully give you the power to transform and create your dream life in the process.
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If you want more journaling prompts for me, then I actually share journaling prompts every single week in my free newsletter, Letters to My Younger Self.
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So I'll leave a link to that down below if you wanna check it out.
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And if you liked this video and want to try your hand at bullet journaling, which is actually the structure that I do all of the rest of my journaling in, you might wanna check out this video over here where I
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walk you through exactly how to set up a minimalist bullet journal.
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As always, thank you for watching, take care of yourself, and remember that the journey is the destination.
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I'll see you in the next video, bye.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “How to Journal Like the Top 1% in 2026”. This video has 316 sentences and 5146 words to shadow. The speech runs for 22:31. The speaker talks fast, about 228 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 83% 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
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 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. |
| trait noun | /tɹeɪt/ | An identifying characteristic, habit or trend. |
| gatekeeper noun | /ˈɡeɪtˌki.pɚ/ | A person who guards or monitors passage through a gate. |
| subconscious adjective | /sʌbˈkɑn.ʃəs/ | Occuring in the part of our mind that we are not normally aware of. |
| prompt verb | /pɹɑmpt/ | To lead (someone) toward what they should say or do. |
| gratitude noun | /ˈɡɹæ.tɪ.tud/ | The state of being grateful. |
| sadness noun | /ˈsædnəs/ | The state or emotion of being sad. |
| conscious adjective | /ˈkɑn.ʃəs/ | Alert, awake; with one's mental faculties active. |
| censor noun | /ˈsɛnsɚ/ | An official responsible for the removal or suppression of objectionable material (for example, if obscene or likely to incite violence) or sensitive content in… |
| protector noun | /pɹəˈtɛktɚ/ | Someone who protects or guards, by assignment or on their own initiative. |
| tab noun | /tæb/ | A small flap or strip of material attached to or inserted into something, for holding, manipulation, identification, opening etc. |
| expressive adjective | /ɪkˈspɹɛsɪv/ | Effectively conveying thought or feeling. |
| discomfort noun | /dɪsˈkʌmfɚt/ | Mental or bodily distress. |
| stressful adjective | /ˈstɹɛsfəl/ | Irritating; causing stress. |
| velocity noun | /vəˈlɑsəti/ | A vector quantity that denotes the rate of change of position with respect to time, combining speed with a directional component. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| figure out verb | To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce. |
| write down verb | To produce or set (something) down in writing; to record something. |
| end up verb | To bring to a conclusion. |
| show up verb | To appear, arrive, or attend, especially suddenly or erratically. |
| add up verb | To take the sum of; to total. |
| blow away verb | To cause to go away by blowing, or by wind. |
| break down verb | To stop functioning. |
| check out verb | To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.). |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- What do I need to do?
- What did I need to do next week?
- I'm like, wait, but where are these coming from?
- What would she advise me to do?
- It's what can we do for the relationship?
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 | I've been journaling · I've been reading · I've been working |
| Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result | if I'm angry, then I won't be |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | I've actually stopped · I've actually started · I've changed |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | can be defined · is limited · is stored |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 109 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, I've, you're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: threaten /ˈθɹɛt.n̩/, underneath /ˌʌndɚˈniθ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: emotion /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/, subconscious /sʌbˈkɑn.ʃəs/, conscious /ˈkɑn.ʃəs/, compassionate /kəmˈpæʃənət/, sabotage /ˈsæb.əˌtɑʒ/
- Long words — get the stress right: velocity /vəˈlɑsəti/, compassionate /kəmˈpæʃənət/, psychologist /ˌsaɪˈkɑl.ə.d͡ʒɪst/, continuously /kənˈtɪnjuəsli/, exploration /ˌɛkspləˈɹeɪʃən/
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 emotion, trait, gatekeeper.
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.