Shadowing Practice: How to Shadow Efficiently & Practice English Speaking (tips for every level) - Learn English Speaking with YouTube
C1
Shadowing can be one of the most powerful ways to improve your speaking,
245 sentences
If sentences are too short or too long, click Edit to adjust them.
1
Shadowing can be one of the most powerful ways to improve your speaking,
2
your pronunciation, your accent, but only if you do it right.
3
In this video, I'll walk you through exactly how to shadow,
4
depending on where you are in your language learning journey.
5
Whether you're just starting to focus on pronunciation and learning all the sounds of English,
6
or whether you're already deep into accent training and working on sounding more natural and fluent.
7
Welcome back to my channel or if you're new here, hi, I'm Veronica.
8
On this channel, I share everything I've learned
9
or am still learning about language learning to help you achieve your fluency goals and speak with more confidence.
10
If you want to support my work,
11
make sure to check out my Notion templates.
12
I have a Notion template specifically designed for language learners.
13
It's called your Language Learning Corner.
14
There you can organize all of your language learning for multiple languages if necessary and just keep track of absolutely everything.
15
Also, if you want to get personal updates from me,
16
make sure to sign up for my free weekly newsletter, Veronica's Weekly Vibes.
17
I don't spam, I only share my own updates, my own personal stories.
18
So if you want to join my growing community of over 40,000 people there,
19
make sure to sign up by using the link in the description.
20
Okay, so let's begin our conversation and talk about why shadowing works.
21
Shadowing did work for me personally in an amazing way.
22
Like one of the reasons why I have the accent,
23
the pronunciation I do right now is exactly because of shadowing.
24
It's because I decided to intentionally practice and work on my pronunciation.
25
So shadowing is when you repeat after a native speaker in real time.
26
So you kind of act like an echo.
27
That's why it's called shadowing.
28
Like you're being their shadow.
29
As the speaker talks, you speak along a few seconds later.
30
You try to copy absolutely everything,
31
the speaker's speech, their pronunciation,
32
their intonation, and their rhythm.
33
This method was actually originally used to train simultaneous interpreters,
34
and because it was so effective,
35
other people, other language learners, started using it.
36
And personally, I have found four reasons why shadowing has been so powerful for me.
37
The first reason is not really about your pronunciation,
38
about your accent, it's about your attention.
39
Because a lot of us language learners,
40
we don't have a lot of time,
41
sometimes we feel lazy, and so we turn something on in the background and think that we are learning.
42
I'm kind of listening to this podcast, so let's count it.
43
You know, today I have practiced this language.
44
And shadowing works in a completely different way because it forces you to actively pay attention to the language.
45
Because you're listening and speaking at the same time,
46
so obviously you have to pay attention to what you're listening to and to what you're saying.
47
And I always say that attention is absolutely everything.
48
Whatever you focus on grows.
49
You become what you give your attention to.
50
The second reason why shadowing is so powerful is obviously because you improve your pronunciation,
51
you improve your accent.
52
Shadowing helps you learn how to pronounce more accurate speech sounds,
53
phonemes, and natural intonation patterns.
54
You're constantly training your mouth and also your brain
55
because your brain has to create new neural pathways because
56
if your native language doesn't have the sound the for example
57
obviously your mouth will have to work like the muscle memory
58
and all of that on learning how to even make this sound
59
and also your brain will have to learn how to recognize the sound reason number three why shadowing is
60
so powerful is all because of speaking shadowing provides a safe bridge to speaking
61
if right now you don't really feel confident when you speak
62
if you feel very shy
63
if you stumble upon your words very often shadowing might really help you here
64
because when you shadow you have to practice speaking complete sentences.
65
But there's no pressure to actually think of words,
66
think of grammar by yourself.
67
And finally, because you know I love working with my brain,
68
helping my memory, I think shadowing is an amazing cognitive workout.
69
Because you're constantly dividing your attention between listening and speaking and that really engages your brain's working memory.
70
Okay, so now that we understand that shadowing is really good for you,
71
let's talk about how to shadow.
72
I like to talk about shadowing for all the different levels and I personally separate these levels into two categories.
73
So the first category is just pronunciation foundations.
74
You have never really worked on your pronunciation on your accent
75
and that was my category because I could already speak English really well,
76
but I had never worked on my pronunciation.
77
Like, I kind of knew,
78
you know, the rules of some sounds and some pronunciation rules,
79
but that was it.
80
Like, I had never intentionally worked on my accent.
81
And the second category is fluency and connected speech.
82
Maybe you have already worked on your pronunciation like you know how to pronounce the most basic sounds
83
and now you really want to go deeper
84
so let's talk about the first level first your pronunciation foundations
85
so you are a beginner but not a beginner in english
86
but a beginner when it comes to your accent and your pronunciation.
87
So if you're here, level one,
88
your main focus is actually not going to be shadowing full sentences.
89
I see it all the time.
90
Like a person who has never even worked on their pronunciation,
91
they don't know how to pronounce like specific sounds and they have a lot of questions,
92
a lot of you know unknowns,
93
they immediately jump into shadowing full YouTube videos or movies and if you like it,
94
if this system works for you, that is great.
95
But for me personally, it didn't work because at the very beginning of my accent pronunciation journey,
96
I felt very confused.
97
Like I just felt like I had to be doing everything and when I learned that I didn't,
98
it actually helped me make progress faster.
99
So your main focus here is going to be building a solid base of sound recognition.
100
So how do you build the solid base?
101
Right now I'm gonna share all of the key actions that you're going to take.
102
So the first thing is you have to start with sounds, not sentences.
103
Go back to the alphabet.
104
Go back to phonemes.
105
The book recommendation that I have for you guys here is Mastering the American Accent.
106
I have personally used this book literally cover to cover.
107
Like I did all of the exercises, absolutely everything.
108
The most important thing here is you have to use the audio.
109
Like don't just, you know,
110
read all the rules and be like, okay, I got it.
111
If you're not using audio,
112
how are you going to learn what sounds you need to learn and how to make them?
113
And that took some time because,
114
as I said before, if you don't have this sound in your native language,
115
that is absolutely okay that you can't pronounce it well.
116
Like, don't be too harsh on yourself.
117
It is going to take some time and that is absolutely okay.
118
If you don't want to get this book, that is okay.
119
You can just look up specific sounds on YouTube.
120
For example, the American R,
121
just like Google, how to pronounce the American R,
122
how to make the TH sound in American English.
123
I'm just talking about American English because that is something that I'm working on.
124
The two YouTube channels that I personally used and I really like are Accurate English,
125
so that is actually the YouTube channel of the author of this book.
126
Also, I always talk about Rachel's English.
127
I absolutely love her YouTube channel.
128
Okay, so the second thing you're going to move on to here to progress to here is shadowing minimal pairs.
129
And what minimal pairs are,
130
it's something that I struggled with so freaking much.
131
For example, leave or live,
132
bet or bat, thing or think.
133
To make sure that I did not pronounce these pairs of words the same,
134
it took some work.
135
For me, as a native Russian speaker,
136
I was not used to some of these sounds like bet and bat.
137
I would just say bet, bet.
138
Like Literally, I would pronounce these two words the same.
139
So the next thing, step number three that I did,
140
that my English teacher at the time really recommended, was practicing tongue twisters.
141
So you can just go to YouTube and just type in best tongue twisters for clear pronunciation.
142
Okay, and finally here, your step number four is going to be shadowing basic phrases with audio plus transcripts.
143
So you're moving on to actual,
144
you know, basic phrases, maybe sentences
145
but very very simple very easy sentences let's say you have
146
a real book on your hands like atomic habits for example you already know
147
that you can practice shadowing you know you just open the book
148
and you have to search for like the audio to this book
149
and you're just opening it up and then practicing shadowing this way
150
but here is something super super cool you can actually import your book into Link,
151
which is an app that I have recommended before many times.
152
Once the book is in Link,
153
you can tap on any word to hear how it's pronounced as you read along.
154
Even better, you can generate audio for the entire book with just one click.
155
It's basically like creating your own audiobook.
156
From there, you can just go through it sentence by sentence,
157
listen to the pronunciation and shadow along.
158
On the final day of my sophomore year of high school,
159
on the final day of my sophomore year of high school,
160
I was hit in the face with a baseball bat.
161
I was hit in the face with a baseball bat.
162
Compared to reading a physical book and then searching for audio,
163
this method with LingQ is so much smoother.
164
And the best part, you can use LingQ on your phone,
165
so you can listen to the same content anytime, anywhere.
166
LingQ was actually created by Steve Kaufman,
167
who's a well-known polyglot and someone I've had the pleasure of interviewing for my YouTube channel, actually.
168
Steve always talks about the power of comprehensible input,
169
and this method has changed my language learning, too.
170
Okay, so now let's move on and talk about level number two,
171
fluency and connected speech.
172
And you're probably going to be at this level if you are already continuing your pronunciation journey.
173
If you have already done all of this work connected to a specific sounds,
174
the alphabet, phonemes, and minimal pairs,
175
and then some phrases, and then you already practiced a lot of tongue twisters and short and simple sentences.
176
So now you really need something to hone in your pronunciation skills.
177
Like you're really looking to improve your accent even more,
178
to sound even more native-like,
179
if that is your goal.
180
It obviously doesn't have to be your goal,
181
but if it is, here is what you can do.
182
So your main focus here is going to be just shadowing as much as possible,
183
and you're going to be focusing on intonation,
184
on reduced sounds, and also native-like rhythm.
185
Because I remember for me,
186
when I actually learned like all the different sounds and all the different rules,
187
and I didn't know how to link words together,
188
and that is how native speakers talk all the time.
189
They're constantly linking words together so
190
that is why these are going to be your key actions here
191
so the first one is connected speech you're going to learn how english speakers link words for example gonna wanna
192
and stuff like that reduce sounds instead of did you did you did you do something stress rhythmically content words get emphasized.
193
And obviously for that, if you're going to be using the book Mastering the American Accent,
194
you're going to be using the later chapters of this book because this book does talk about,
195
you know, linking words together, connected speech.
196
It is really, really amazing because it covers pretty much everything.
197
If this book is not for you,
198
you can use Rachel's English youtube channel because there she also has like breakdowns
199
and she actually goes through a specific clip in a tv show like friends
200
and she shows you how the native speakers there are linking words together
201
so it's more advanced type of practice it's not just individual
202
sounds right like oh here's how to make the american r
203
sound no it's an episode where she breaks down how people actually
204
speak your key action number three is going to be shadowing with real content
205
but again try to start short
206
and simple like choose vlogs where people speak more naturally
207
and obviously use subtitles choose something that you love like you don't have to go
208
and shadow a very complicated movie because all of the dialogue there is scripted right
209
so there's a very high chance people don't actually talk like that in real life.
210
Obviously their accent and their pronunciation is still on point,
211
but the words they're using and the way they're maybe stressing some words is very specific for this specific movie,
212
for this specific scene.
213
And your action point number four is going to be using Link for more intermediate and advanced practice.
214
Because once you feel ready to shadow more advanced content,
215
LingQ becomes even more powerful.
216
It's not just books that you can import.
217
You can import music, podcasts, and even TV shows.
218
So let's say you want to shadow a scene and learn English from friends.
219
LingQ gives you the full transcript,
220
breaks it down sentence by sentence,
221
and lets you save new words into flashcards.
222
I've had a really good time tonight.
223
You know, I rarely connect with someone this much on the first date.
224
I've had a really good time tonight.
225
You know, I rarely connect with someone this much on the first date.
226
Whether you're just starting with pronunciation or you're ready to shadow full conversations and native-like speech,
227
LingQ gives you the tools to create your own audiobooks
228
and turn TV shows into lessons so that you can learn from content you love.
229
If you want to give it a try,
230
make sure to use my link in the description.
231
And I want to say a huge thank you to LingQ for sponsoring this video.
232
Okay guys, so I think it's going to be it for today's video.
233
If you liked it, please don't forget to give it a thumbs up and subscribe to my YouTube channel.
234
Don't forget to check out my Notion templates,
235
my language learning corner to organize all of your language learning.
236
And also my free weekly newsletter, Veronica's Weekly Vibes.
237
All the links to absolutely everything are going to be in the description below.
238
One thing that you always ask me about is how to stay consistent in your language learning.
239
Like, I don't have enough time, I can't be consistent.
240
what should I do?
241
Like I really wanna have this consistency in my life but for some reason I can't.
242
For some reason I always say I don't have enough time that is why I'm not improving.
243
And so I have a YouTube video that talks about this specific problem.
244
How to stay consistent in your language learning even if you don't have a lot of time.
245
So if you wanna learn the answer make sure to click right here and I'll see you there.
Download App
AI scoring for every sentence you speak
TRENDING
Popular
About This Lesson
In this lesson, you will learn the technique of shadowing, which is an effective method to enhance your English speaking practice. By mimicking native speakers in real-time, you will improve your pronunciation, intonation, and rhythm while actively engaging with the language. This exercise is particularly beneficial for learners at any stage, whether you are just beginning to tackle pronunciation or are already familiar with advanced accent training. The goal is to make your speech more natural and fluent, helping you become a confident English speaker.
Key Vocabulary & Phrases
- Shadowing: The practice of repeating what a native speaker says, acting as their "shadow."
- Pronunciation: The way in which a word or language is spoken.
- Intonation: The rise and fall in the pitch of the voice while speaking.
- Attention: The focus you give to listening and speaking, crucial for effective learning.
- Accent: A distinct way of pronouncing words, often influenced by geographical origin.
- Real-time: The immediate repetition of speech as it happens.
- Rhythm: The pattern of sound in speech that contributes to its natural flow.
- Active listening: Fully concentrating on and understanding what is being said.
Practice Tips
To maximize your shadowing experience, consider the following tips tailored to the pacing and emotional tone of the material you are working with:
- Choose Suitable Material: Select audio or video content that matches your proficiency level. For beginners, opt for slower speech, while more advanced learners can challenge themselves with fast-paced dialogues.
- Use a Shadowing App: Employ a shadowing app to facilitate this practice. Features like adjustable playback speed can allow you to control the pace and improve your confidence gradually.
- Repeat Multiple Times: Don’t hesitate to play the same audio multiple times. Each repetition will help you fine-tune your shadow speech skills.
- Focus on Details: Pay special attention to pronunciation, intonation, and rhythm. Try to imitate not just the words but the way they are emotionally articulated.
- Record Yourself: Record your voice while shadowing. Listening to your recordings can provide valuable insights into your progress and areas for improvement.
- Practice Regularly: Consistent practice is key. Aim for at least 15-30 minutes a day of English speaking practice using the shadowing technique.
- Connect with Others: Share your shadowing journey with fellow learners or in online communities like Shadowspeak. Interaction can motivate and inspire you to keep practicing.
By implementing these tips, you will elevate your shadowing practice and bring your English communication skills to a new level of fluency.
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.
☕ Buy us a coffee
ShadowingEnglish remains 100% free thanks to your support. Server and AI costs are high — your coffee keeps us going! 🙏