Shadowing Practice: How to Practice English by Yourself (Vlog) - Learn English Speaking with YouTube
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Hello everybody today we're will we're will me..
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Hello everybody today we're will we're will me..
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Hello everybody today we're filming a walking/hiking video and Dan is here to help us with more vocabulary. He's just better than me.
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We are just arriving at the train station here.
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I think it's every 20 minutes and we missed it.
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We just saw it pass by us.
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So we should have checked the schedule on our phones but...
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we are now in a small town in Germany.
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Dan's about to kill me. This is our train that's leaving.
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I just remembered that I forgot my power bank at home charging, which you're not supposed to leave unattended in case you didn't know.
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We got the power bank. I, I swear to God this vlog is just going to be us going home and back to the train station. Okay. A bit of vocabulary. So we have traffic lights.
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Those are traffic lights. Then we have tracks.
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These metal things are train tracks. That is a trash can.
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Do you know that there's actually a lot of idioms that are connected to the trains and the word train.
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So you know when you say that somebody is off the rails, like they've gone crazy. They're gone like berserk.
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So it's like a train that jumps off the rails, which is crazy to happen.
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Right. You can also be a train wreck. So many like things with train accidents.
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Okay. The train is here. We can finally get on it.
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All right. We arrived in the center. Let's go. Wait, I think it's that way though.
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It's so nice. It's 20 degrees today. I'm very hot already. So let's go hiking.
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Technically this is the most popular spot here in Karlsruhe.
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This is literally the palace of the founder of the city, but it is in renovation right now and we were lucky enough to have visited it when we came here like a few months ago.
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Our host was like, you guys need to go now because the castle is going to be closed for 10 years for renovations. Can you imagine?
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So we actually got inside and um, visited the museum and everything, but now it's closed so we can just walk around it.
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So look at these trees.
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I don't know if they like chop them up like that or that's how they grow.
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Oh my goodness. There's so many people out.
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Look at this beautiful shaded area. Oh, I wish I had a blanket to just throw on here and just take a nap.
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Look at these flowers.
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These are technically bushes or what's the other word for bushes?
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Shrubs. These are shrubs. Such a beautiful day today. Oh wow.
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There's a little pond here, which is a small lake.
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There's some ducks there. There's some people biking.
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This looks like a little meadow. It's so beautiful.
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More dandelions. They smell amazing. Wait a second.
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What kind of dandelions are these?
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Why is there like five of them on one stem?
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Why is there smoke over there? Oh my goodness.
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That is so funny. That's a train. So cute.
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Oh, that's so cute.
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I want to get on one. I wonder how much is it. Oh, look at this pathway.
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There's literally not a single soul here.
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It's so quiet except for the birds and the wind.
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Can you hear the birds?
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I'm not sure what this metal fence is for.
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Maybe surrounding the park somehow.
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But then there's is this called the stone wall?
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Yeah, sure. Yeah, it's not a brick wall, right?
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Although these do look like huge bricks.
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So if you're ever in a park by yourself walking around, you can always comment on everything you see around you and pretend you're doing what I'm doing, like vlogging.
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OK, so there's train tracks here that are going into the forest over there.
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So I have to be careful not to get hit by a train, by the train, not a train, because literally there's only one train that is for tourists going through this entire park.
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Can someone explain why this trunk has a crown on top?
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It's pretty cute, though. I like it.
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OK, we found a bridge here.
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I think it's to.
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Oh, yeah, you cross that highway on this bridge.
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You can bike or walk on it.
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So it's for bikers and pedestrians.
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Look at this highway.
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So clean. Oh, hello there, friends.
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We having lunch. There's so many dogs.
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Be a lady. This one's green and that one's purple.
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Drinking some water, scratching the wings, swimming, having some fun.
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This is so relaxing. This one's still doing her thing.
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OK, our walk is done.
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We are now looking for a place to eat.
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And I think we're choosing between Asian food or Turkish food, because that's what's around us.
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Look at this sculpture.
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It's so cool and weird.
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It's a little disturbing if you ask me.
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Wow. Look at this building.
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You guys, we came to a Turkish restaurant and we have gozlemes here with spinach and cheese.
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And then we have a doner calzone, which is like insane.
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And it's so big. Like this is my hand.
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These gozlemes. Hold on. Look.
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Mm. There's spinach and cheese.
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And then we have the doner calzone.
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This is like a small Turkish restaurant here in Karlsruhe.
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And you just order at the counter.
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This is the restaurant we went to. It's called Truvas.
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OK, sorry for the abrupt jump into this video, but I forgot to film an outro at the park.
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But basically what I wanted to add is that this is how I practice my English, because I speak English to my husband and I speak English whenever I travel and I need to communicate with really anybody.
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Being a content creator has given me this opportunity to always have the motivation and the drive to record these videos, right?
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And speak English.
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However, not everybody wants to be a content creator or needs to be a content creator in order to be able to practice English.
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And I just wanted to be clear.
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Practicing English is not learning English. OK, a lot of people get caught into this trap of thinking that whenever they practice, they have to either be corrected, make sure they're saying things perfectly and learn new things.
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You learned a couple of words or an expression or a grammar rule.
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And then the next step is for you to actually put that into practice and repeat it hundreds of times until it becomes something that you are familiar with and you're used to.
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So, for example, if I were to go to the park and comment, it could it could also be just in your head.
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Like you don't have to actually say things out loud, but sometimes I'll go and I'll just whisper like this.
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Nobody really cares.
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You can put some headphones on and then people will just think you practice something while you're talking to someone on the phone.
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The point is, if you go to a park like I went today, I forgot the word shrubs, for example, right, for bushes.
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And I knew this word because I used to work on a blog about plants and I could see this word ten times a day.
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Shrubs, shrubs, shrubs, perennial shrubs.
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Things that I don't normally use or words I don't normally use in my daily life.
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So when I went to the park and I wanted to say that, my brain had to, you know, search for it, look through my vocabulary list in my head and produce that word.
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And if you do that with daily words, daily expressions.
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Can you hear the chicken?
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Anyway, but when I think another chicken is trying to shut her up.
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So when you do that with daily expressions and words and you rotate them frequently in your brain on your lips, you're going to get so much more used to them.
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So it might seem like you're not learning something new or you're not adding vocabulary words, but that's not how you're going to master the skill of speaking.
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For example, when I worked as a cook in a restaurant in Alaska, I was being taught how to chop, slice, and cut certain things a certain way.
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And I had to become really good at it and fast at it because I needed to be quick.
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So for example, the first time they showed me how to cut, I don't know, chives.
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For example, I had to make them super, super, super tiny and thin because they were used as a garnish on a certain dish.
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So I was supposed to hold my hand a certain way, hold the knife a certain way, and then do the little motions and control how I was moving my hand and my other hand with the knife.
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So I get the result I wanted.
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And at the beginning, it was very awkward because my hand was not used to be held like that, like I never held my hand like this when I was cutting something.
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So I had to do the same motion multiple times a day for two weeks straight until I was able to actually master it.
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So when you learn something in English, do you take it and practice as much as I did without motion?
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Because if you're not getting your muscles used to the sounds and to the melody and to the tone and whatever you're saying, and you don't practice it multiple, multiple times, then it'll forever feel foreign on your lips.
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And in your mind, because you're not going to be able to control it as well.
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So I said this multiple times, but I'll say it again.
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If you study something for five minutes, make sure you practice it three times longer than that.
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So 15 minutes.
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If you study something for 10 minutes, you have to practice for 30 minutes because you cannot expect your brain and your muscles to communicate and to produce the result you want them to produce only by ingesting information.
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You are basically lying to yourself when you're sitting down to study, thinking that after that you'll be able to speak better.
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And I get these comments every day.
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People ask me why they can understand everything I say, but they can't speak the same way.
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And that is the reason it's because you ingest, you absorb a lot of information that is passive knowledge that you're getting, but you are not turning it into active.
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And when I am speaking, I'm doing that actively.
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I'm using my vocabulary, my grammar rules, whatever I learned actively.
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And if you don't know exactly what activities to do every day or how to practice or how to put yourself in a position where you have to speak English or produce English, I have an English workout routine.
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It's a weekly set of exercises for every single day of the week, except Sundays, that you can rotate every week.
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So you get it once and then you can just rotate it because each activity is very flexible and it is adaptable to the topics and the fields that you're interested in.
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You can find the link to my routine in the description below and in the pinned comment and let me know if you have any questions about it.
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comment and let me know if you have any questions about it.
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Thank you so much for watching and I'll see you in the next one.
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Bye.
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Why Practice Speaking with This Video?
Practicing English speaking skills in an engaging way is essential for learners who wish to improve fluency and confidence. This video provides a unique speaking context as the presenter, while vlogging, discusses various elements in a scenic environment, showcasing everyday vocabulary and expressions. Engaging with such content allows learners to experience language in context, helping them understand how to use phrases informally and effectively. By mimicking the speaker's tone and phrasing, you can significantly enhance your speaking abilities, making use of techniques like shadowing to reinforce learning. Additionally, this format is perfect for those preparing for IELTS speaking practice, as it emulates conversation style while encouraging spontaneity.
Grammar & Expressions in Context
Throughout the video, several key structures and expressions are used that aid in comprehension and usage:
- Present Continuous Tense: The speaker frequently uses the present continuous, for example, “We’re filming a walking/hiking video” and “We’re just arriving.” This tense conveys actions currently in progress, useful for real-life conversation.
- Idiomatic Expressions: The mention of idioms like “off the rails” and “train wreck” offers learners insight into colloquial language, which often differs from textbook English. Understanding these phrases enriches vocabulary and contextual familiarity.
- Question Formation: The casual and inquisitive style, evident in phrases like “What’s that?” or “Did you know...?”, models how to naturally form questions, essential for engaging conversations.
- Descriptive Language: The speaker effectively uses adjectives and comparative structures, such as “beautiful shaded area” and “smaller-than-expected pond.” Such descriptions enhance the ability to convey details vividly in speech.
Common Pronunciation Traps
As with any spoken content, certain words may present challenges for learners. In this video, attention should be given to:
- Words with Multiple Syllables: Vocabulary like “transportation” and “surrounding” may be tricky; practicing these through a shadowing app can help emphasize the correct syllable stress.
- Connected Speech: Notice how the speaker blends phrases, such as “gonna” instead of “going to.” This natural flow is commonplace in spoken English and practicing through a shadow speak technique will improve fluency.
- Expressive Phrasing: Understanding and mimicking the speaker's tone and inflection allows for better emotional expression in speech, crucial in real conversational contexts.
Incorporate these elements into your practice routine. Using a shadowing technique can vastly improve your pronunciation, rhythm, and authenticity in speaking. The opportunity to repeat after the speaker will fortify your learning experience as you engage with dynamic and real-world English.
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.
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