Shadowing Practice: How to learn everyday English | Canguro English - Learn English Speaking with Video
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So you want to learn everyday English.
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The natural, authentic language that people are using every day to communicate.
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The only problem is that there's too much English.
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It's too much to learn.
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Where do you begin?
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And I totally understand this problem.
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In fact, that's the reason that I love language.
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Because it's so big and so complicated and there's always so much to learn but also because language is so deeply human.
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Now I've spent the past 10 years in the classroom motivating students to do this one very simple thing
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which is the trick to learning everyday English
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and that's what I'm going to be teaching you today
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so let's get started so in general we understand language really well especially English
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which is one of the most widely studied languages in the whole history of the world
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but although we understand English very well it is still mysterious
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and it still conforms to some mysterious laws of the universe and one of those laws is Zipf's law.
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Zipf's law tells us about word frequency in English.
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It tells us
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that the most common word in English is twice as common as the second most common word in English
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and three times as common as the third most common word in English etc etc etc.
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which means that
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if you put English word frequency on a graph you get
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this beautiful straight red line now the mysterious thing is
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that this is not just true for English
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but for all languages in the world even extinct languages
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or invented languages like Esperanto and even for languages
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that have never been translated so this means
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that the most frequent 100 words in English make up about 50 % of everyday English
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and the most frequent 800 words in English make up about 75 % of everyday English.
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This is fantastic news.
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So now we have a shortcut to learning English vocabulary.
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Except it's not that simple.
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You see, when we actually start to take a close look at word frequency in English,
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when we look at taboo words or we look at words
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that are related to a specific culture we start to see that
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Zip's law isn't really a law it's more of a guide you see
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Zip's law exists not because of some mysterious thing in the universe it exists
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because of meaning and people and that is something
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that we're going to talk about at the end of this video
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but first we need to talk about fluency
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so let's try to create a definition of fluency
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so it's not about having a huge vocabulary
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because there are plenty of native speakers who are fluent who don't have a big vocabulary at all
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and it's not about fast speech or continuous speech
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because again there are plenty of native speakers who take long pauses
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or speak really slowly and it's not about having perfect grammar
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because there are plenty of native speakers who bend or break the rules of grammar.
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In fact, I think that the whole concept of grammatical versus ungrammatical...
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doesn't even make any sense.
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What we should be talking about is acceptable versus unacceptable language and this varies over time and space.
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People in New York talk differently to people in London
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and people in London in the 1920s talk differently to people in London now.
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So how can we define fluency?
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Well for most people
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when they talk about fluency they are talking about being able to combine the right type of grammar
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and the right type of vocabulary spontaneously.
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So maybe that's the trick to learning everyday English.
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It's about memorizing that high -frequency vocabulary and memorizing those grammatical structures and then fluency.
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Well, unfortunately it's not that simple.
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Let's take a look at one of the most basic sentences subject verb object I eat pizza
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and now if we want to be fluent we can just take our vocabulary
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and plug that vocabulary into that structure the problem is that
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that also gives us the sentence I shout cats
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but unfortunately it gets worse because we can have a sentence with the correct grammar and correct vocabulary but it's not acceptable.
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For example you can say I got dressed.
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You could also say I put on my body my clothes of mine.
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Perfect grammar perfect vocabulary not acceptable
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but then you can have something in between the two like I put on my garments
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now this is not as unacceptable as my second example
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but also it's not as acceptable as my first example and And this is where the problem of learning everyday English begins.
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Because language is infinite.
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There are infinite possibilities.
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So being fluent and using everyday English is not about using all of the possibilities
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because a majority of those will be unacceptable.
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It's actually about limiting the possibilities.
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Learning everyday English is actually about a process of elimination.
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And that's why obsessing about studying grammatical structures or memorizing word lists won't help you.
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Because it doesn't give you those everyday combinations.
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In fact, this is a really big problem in general with people learning languages.
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People treating language like it's mathematics.
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Like if they can memorize the formula, then they can use this formula to create natural English.
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But that's not how it works at all.
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You see, most of the language that we use every day is actually memorised, prefabricated constructions.
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So, we know that in English there is more than one way of saying the same thing.
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Hello!
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Good day to you, sir!
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Top of the morning to you!
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But some of these combinations or these prefabrications will be more favoured than others.
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More natural.
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More fluent.
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And in 2000, Britt Ehrman and Beatrice Warren proved that more than 50 % of the language
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that we use every day is made up of these prefabricated, memorized constructions.
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Everyday English is about conventions, cultural conventions.
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Everyday English is about people.
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It's about the language that we have all decided together is acceptable.
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And so that finally brings us to that one trick to learning everyday English.
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And it's not a trick that you're going to find in a workbook
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or an app or a course or a system
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because the trick is to use your English for authentic communication with real people because language is about people.
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It's impossible to learn a language without other people.
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Using your English does not mean more hours studying.
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It means listening, reading, conversation.
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And those are things that nobody can give you and you can't buy.
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Practice is what gives you fluency
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so be smart about where you invest your time
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and your money and always remember that language is about people
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and you can't buy everyday English
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and you can't buy fluency I'm Christian this is Kangaroo English I'll see you in class
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “How to learn everyday English”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: english, language, everyday, word, vocabulary. This video has 4 sentences and 1146 words to shadow. The speech runs for 11:52. The speaker talks slowly, about 97 words per minute, so there is time to copy every sound. 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
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| everyday adjective | /ˈɛvɹiˌdeɪ/ | Appropriate for ordinary use, rather than for special occasions. |
| vocabulary noun | /vəˈkæb.jə.lə.ɹi/ | A usually alphabetized and explained collection of words e.g. of a particular field, or prepared for a specific purpose, often for learning. |
| trick noun | /ˈtɹɪk/ | Something designed to fool, dupe, outsmart, mislead or swindle. |
| acceptable adjective | /əkˈsɛp.tə.bəl/ | Worthy, decent, sure of being accepted or received with at least moderate pleasure. |
| grammar noun | /ˈɡɹæm.ə(ɹ)/ | A system of rules and principles for the structure of a language, or of languages in general. |
| frequency noun | /ˈfɹiːkwənsi/ | The rate of occurrence of anything; the relationship between incidence and time period. |
| mysterious adjective | /mɪˈstɪɹi.əs/ | Of unknown origin. |
| fluent adjective | /ˈfluənt/ | That flows; flowing, liquid. |
| unacceptable adjective | /ˌʌn.ækˈsɛp.tə.bl̩/ | Unsatisfactory; not acceptable. |
| formula noun | /ˈfɔː.mjʊ.lə/ | Any mathematical rule expressed symbolically. |
| versus | /ˈvɝsəs/ | Against; in opposition to. |
| frequent adjective | /ˈfɹiː.kwənt/ | Done or occurring often; common. |
| differently adverb | /ˈdɪf.ə.ɹənt.li/ | In a different way. |
| infinite adjective | /ˈɪnfɪnɪt/ | Indefinably large, countlessly great; immense. |
| authentic adjective | /ɔˈθɛn.tɪk/ | Of the same origin as claimed; genuine. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | been translated · is actually memorised · is made |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | I've spent · have never been translated |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 14 contractions and reduced forms, such as can't, doesn't, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: authentic /ɔˈθɛn.tɪk/, mathematics /mæθ(.ə)ˈmæt.ɪks/, cloth /klɒθ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: combinations /kɑmbɪˈneɪʃənz/, shout /ʃaʊt/, elimination /ɪlɪmɪˈneɪʃ(ə)n/, shortcut /ˈʃɔːtkʌt/
- Long words — get the stress right: vocabulary /vəˈkæb.jə.lə.ɹi/, acceptable /əkˈsɛp.tə.bəl/, mysterious /mɪˈstɪɹi.əs/, unacceptable /ˌʌn.ækˈsɛp.tə.bl̩/, differently /ˈdɪf.ə.ɹənt.li/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like everyday, vocabulary, trick.
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.