Shadowing Practice: How To Make Authentic Spanish Paella - Learn English Speaking with Video
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98 sentences
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Paella is the most famous dish in Spain, and it's all cooked in just one pan.
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We'll begin by making our seafood stock.
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All the ingredients you see here are the foundation of a great paella.
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To begin, I'll prep my ingredients.
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Because we want maximum flavor, we're saving everything for this stock, even those onion skins.
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Let nothing go to waste.
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I'll make an exception for this part of the onion.
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Always has a little dirt in it.
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I'm not going to spend too long prepping my ingredients here because they're all going to melt down into our stock, but this is a very important part of the process.
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Here's my favorite component, the shrimp, and especially the shrimp heads.
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To this day, the best sauce I have ever made in my life was with a bunch of shrimp heads like this one here.
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I can't remember why I had so many, but I cooked them down in a pan with some garlic, some white wine, a little salt, lots of butter.
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It made a sauce that I've never forgotten.
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Our ingredients are prepped, so let's crank up the heat.
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Add some olive oil to a pot over medium-high, and then add those shrimp shells and heads and cook for two to three minutes.
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You see this red liquid that comes out of the shrimp heads when I push them down?
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That is an indescribable umami bomb of flavor that you cannot create in any other way.
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The smell from just sauteing these shrimp heads alone is this robust, nutty, shrimpy, ocean smell.
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Now we're going to add our fish parts and cook for another few minutes, and already we're building this amazing foundation of what's going to be an incredible paella.
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Next, we'll go in with our onions, a few carrots, and some garlic, and I'll stir these with the goal of getting every individual piece coated in that seafood-infused olive oil that we've created.
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Now, I'm gonna make some space and add my tomatoes cut side down, then let these cook until they get some color, which should take about two minutes.
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To finish our stock, I'll add a bay leaf, a few parsley stems, a couple peppercorns, any extra shells or trimmings, and then I'll cover everything with water and bring it up to a simmer.
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Look at that color of our stock already.
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It's beautiful.
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Once it comes to a simmer, we'll skim off any of that foam that might rise to the top.
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That'll just help give an overall cleaner seafood stock.
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And then we'll turn down the heat and let this simmer for 45 minutes.
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But don't worry, I'm not going to make you wait.
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You don't want seafood stock to go any longer than this because it can become very bitter.
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I'm going to carefully strain this off straight into another pot because it's important that we keep it warm.
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I'm going to taste this really fast because it smells so good.
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I could have that as a soup.
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To make the paella, which will be cooked in the biggest pan you've ever seen, we're going to start by blooming our saffron.
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To do this, I'll crush it between my fingers and then add a few tablespoons of our hot seafood stock, which will immediately start to bring out all of that beautiful flavor and color.
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Just to show you that color that I'm talking about since you can't see it as well through that seafood stock.
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Watch what happens when I pour clear water over this.
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Once in a while, as a special occasion, I put a few threads in some hot water and I drink it like tea.
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I wanted to show you this because this is part of what's going to give our paella that iconic, beautiful orange-red color.
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Saffron is amazing.
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It's almost like nature's expensive food color.
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To prep my green beans, I'm going to cut them all into thirds.
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And if you're looking at these and wondering where you'd get them, you can certainly substitute them for normal green beans.
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And then as for my red pepper, I'll cut it into strips.
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Fun fact while I cut this is that every color of bell pepper is the same.
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They're just different stages of ripeness.
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Green is the least ripe and least sweet, and red is the most ripe and most sweet.
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The more you know.
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To be honest, I only learned that recently myself.
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Now we're gonna grate our tomato.
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This basically turns it into a light and foamy tomato pulp.
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I think this is the first time I've ever grated a tomato.
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I've done cheese, sausage, potatoes, but never a tomato.
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Last, we've got these beans here, which are lima beans, but I've already cooked some, so we don't have to wait.
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I just wanted you to be able to see how much they actually expand.
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Paella is cooked in a large, wide pan like this one here, and you'll see why in just a few moments.
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Also, how cool is that spoon?
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To cook, we'll turn our heat to medium high, then we'll add in our beans and our red pepper, and let these cook for four to five minutes or until blistered.
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Listen carefully as they cook for those snap, crackle, pop sounds.
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That is the sound that means they're blistering and getting those spots of char that will have so much flavor.
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If you're wondering why the paella spoon is so long, it's so I can stand back and not get spit at by all that oil as I cook.
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When you put vegetables like this that hold so much water into hot oil, they're not going to be happy.
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Once everything has some nice color, we'll add our garlic.
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Then stir for just 30 seconds until fragrant, making sure to scrape around all the edges so none of it burns.
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And then in goes our grated tomato, which we'll stir for 10 minutes until it's thick, dark, and jammy.
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Once the oil has separated, you see all these bubbles here and that beautiful golden color on the edges, we have finished making what's called our sofrito.
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This is the umami-packed tomatoey sauce that's going to coat our rice.
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Now we're going to add in our bamba rice and stir it fully to coat every individual grain of rice, the same way we'd do it if we were making risotto.
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You may have noticed that we didn't rinse our rice, and that's on purpose.
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Keeping all those starches on the surface helps us create the creamy consistency that we want in our paella.
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This is also a very strong rice.
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It can hold lots more liquid than normal rice.
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Moving on, we'll combine our bloomed saffron with our seafood stock, which now smells unbelievable, and then in goes our stock.
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At this point, we also want to season with a sprinkle of salt.
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Spread the rice evenly and do it very carefully because this is the last time you get to stir it.
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Simmer for 10 minutes, rotating the pan occasionally for even cooking.
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Now, evenly distribute those lima beans, reduce your heat to low, and let this cook for 25 to 30 minutes, continuing to rotate your pan as needed until the rice rises to the top.
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By now, you're probably going to want to get in there with a spoon and taste it, but resist the urge and wait until it's done.
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The next step is to add our shellfish.
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We've got a few different kinds here, including those shrimp you saw earlier, as well as some mussels, clams, and calamari.
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We're gonna nestle these into the rice.
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We don't want to just lay them on top.
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They should be partially buried so they steam in the liquid and release their juices directly into the rice for flavor.
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In just a few minutes, the seafood should all begin to open up, cooking but more importantly, sharing each of their individual flavors with the rest of the paella.
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Once all the shellfish are open, we'll increase the heat to medium-high for one to two minutes
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and begin to listen for a gentle crackling and smell for a toasted aroma coming from the pan.
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This is called socarrat, and it's this crispy toasted rice crust that we create on the bottom of the pan.
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It's basically the entire point of paella.
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Once you think the base is fully crisp, remove it from the heat and let it rest for five to ten minutes.
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To finish, we'll hit our whole paella with some chopped parsley, and finally, no paella is complete without a squeeze of fresh lemon.
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Just like opening a steak, it's now time for the moment of truth.
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We need to find out if if we got that crispy bottom.
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Beautiful.
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This right here is a dream bite.
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This is the kind of bite that everybody fights over at the table.
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You hear that crunch?
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No words.
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That's so good.
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So maybe three words.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “How To Make Authentic Spanish Paella”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: paella, rice, stock, add, color. This video has 98 sentences and 1512 words to shadow. The speech runs for 6:23. The speaker talks fast, about 237 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. Only 80% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| paella noun | /pɑːˈeɪ.(j)ə/ | A savory Valencian dish made of rice, cooked in a frying pan with vegetables and meat or shellfish. |
| seafood noun | /ˈsiːfuːd/ | Food from the sea, including that derived from fish, shellfish, crustaceans, cephalopods, seaweed, algae, marine mammals, and other marine organisms. |
| shrimp noun | /ʃɹɪmp/ | Any of many swimming, often edible, crustaceans, chiefly of the infraorder Caridea or the suborder Dendrobranchiata, with slender legs, long whiskers and a… |
| tomato noun | /təˈmeɪ.toʊ/ | A widely cultivated plant, Solanum lycopersicum, having edible fruit. |
| bean noun | /ˈbi(ː)n/ | Any plant of several genera of the taxonomic family Fabaceae that produces large edible seeds or edible seedpods. |
| flavor noun | /ˈfleɪvə/ | The quality produced by the sensation of taste or, especially, of taste and smell in combined effect. |
| stir verb | /stɝ/ | To disturb the relative position of the particles (of a liquid or similar) by passing an object through it. |
| simmer verb | /ˈsɪmɚ/ | To cook or undergo heating slowly at or below the boiling point. |
| ingredient noun | /ɪnˈɡɹiːdi.ənt/ | One of the substances present in a mixture, especially food. |
| saffron noun | /ˈsæfɹən/ | A plant of species Crocus sativus, a crocus. |
| spoon noun | /spuːn/ | An implement for eating or serving; a scooped utensil whose long handle is straight, in contrast to a ladle. |
| onion noun | /ˈʌn.jən/ | A monocotyledonous plant (Allium cepa), allied to garlic, used as vegetable and spice. |
| garlic noun | /ˈɡɑɹlɪk/ | A plant, Allium sativum, related to the onion, having a pungent bulb much used in cooking. |
| pepper noun | /ˈpɛp.ə/ | A plant of the family Piperaceae. |
| blister noun | /ˈblɪstɚ/ | A small bubble between the layers of the skin that contains watery or bloody fluid and is caused by friction and pressure, burning, freezing, chemical… |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| bring out verb | To elicit, evoke, or emphasize (a particular quality). |
| find out verb | To discover, as by asking or investigating. |
| go in with verb | To commit to something with; to partner with. |
| open up verb | To open. |
| stand back verb | To maintain distance. |
| turn down verb | To refuse, decline, or deny. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- We'll begin by making our seafood stock.
- To begin, I'll prep my ingredients.
- It made a sauce that I've never forgotten.
- I've done cheese, sausage, potatoes, but never a tomato.
- We're gonna nestle these into the rice.
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 | have ever made · I've never forgotten · we've created |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | are prepped · will be cooked · is cooked |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | paella, which will · stock, which will · here, which are |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 61 contractions and reduced forms, such as we'll, I'll, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: shrimp /ʃɹɪmp/, preposition /ˌpɹɛpəˈzɪʃən/, shellfish /ˈʃɛl.fɪʃ/, shrimpy /ˈʃɹɪmpi/, crush /kɹʌʃ/
- Long words — get the stress right: ingredient /ɪnˈɡɹiːdi.ənt/, preposition /ˌpɹɛpəˈzɪʃən/, calamari /kæləˈmɑːɹi/, indescribable /ɪndɪˈskɹaɪbəbl̩/, consistency /kənˈsɪs.tən.si/
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 paella, seafood, shrimp.
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.