Shadowing Practice: How to Wash Dishes (Learn English) - Learn English Speaking with Video
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53 sentences
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hello i'm teacher jim i have a lot of dirty dishes to wash and i have many clean dishes
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in the dish drain where the water drains down and goes down into the pipe into the plumbing
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so what do i have to do i need to remove
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the dirty the clean dishes right i need to remove them
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and make room for the dirty dishes to be cleaned and then put into the dish drain.
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Okay, so I have cleared the dish drain of the clean dishes and I put them on the dish rack.
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And now I'm going to take the food scraps from this little dish,
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this container, and I'm going to just throw the food scraps into the garbage.
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And that prepares it for the washing.
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So I'm going to start by getting my sponge.
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I'm going to put some soap on top of my sponge and put some water on top of the soap.
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And I'm going to mix it around,
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get it foamy and bubbly and ready to wash my spoon and all of the other dishes that I have.
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So the way
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that I wash dishes is I do not let the water run as I wash the dishes because that will waste water.
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I want to wash everything first and then I will rinse everything at the same time.
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This is a bowl that I'm washing.
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I make sure to get the bottom of the bowl as well as the inside of the bowl.
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So that's done being washed.
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I'm going to put that down and here's another plate
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so you can see here that the food has been dried onto the plate
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and it's kind of stuck
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so i need to put a little more effort into scrubbing the dry food
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and releasing it from the plate because if you don't put in enough effort
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and you go to rinse the soap off you'll find
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that the food is still stuck and that's not good we want to have clean dishes right
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so i tried scrubbing with a little more effort putting a little more force into the movement
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and it's not coming off
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so what i'm going to do is i'm just going to let the um the foam sit on the food
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and it's going to soak into the food and it's going to add moisture to the dry pieces of food.
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So I'm going to wait for that to work by itself
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and I'm going to put that on the side
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and that's going to loosen the food while I am washing the rest of the dishes.
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So when I wash things like spoons or forks or even knives,
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I make sure not only to get the part of the utensil that you put into your mouth,
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I also make sure to scrub the handle of the utensil
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because food might be on there and you want to make sure
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that the entire object is clean so after you wash several dishes you'll notice
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that you know some food gets onto the sponge and at
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that point i feel like i want to give the sponge a little rinsing
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or washing itself so i'm going to just
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kind of rub both parts of the sponge together both sides
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and remove the food from the sponge
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so after letting the foam sit on the dry food particles
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that were attached to the plate I see
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that they have soaked up moisture
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and now they're ready to be removed from the plate They will easily be released when I start scrubbing again.
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You can see that the food is easily coming off the plate now.
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So I've washed all of the dishes, and now I'm just rinsing the soap off of the sponge.
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And now I'm ready to rinse the soap off of the dishes and put them into the dish drain.
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What about you guys?
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How do you wash your dishes? please let us know in the comments i thank you
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so much for watching and i hope you have a lovely day or a pleasant evening
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This A2 speaking lesson is built on the video “How to Wash Dishes”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: dishes, wash, sponge, dish, plate. This video has 53 sentences and 688 words to shadow. The speech runs for 4:54. The speaker talks at a steady 140 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. 80% 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 |
|---|---|---|
| dish noun | /dɪʃ/ | A vessel such as a plate for holding or serving food, often flat with a depressed region in the middle. |
| sponge noun | /spʌnd͡ʒ/ | Any of various marine invertebrates of the phylum Porifera, that have a porous skeleton often of silica. |
| wash verb | /wɑʃ/ | To clean with water. |
| soap noun | /soʊp/ | A metallic salt derived from a fatty acid, commonly used in cleaning products. |
| drain noun | /dɹiːn/ | A conduit allowing liquid to flow out of an otherwise contained volume; a plughole (UK) |
| scrub verb | /skɹʌb/ | To rub hard; to wash with rubbing; usually, to rub with a wet brush, or with something coarse or rough, for the purpose of cleaning or brightening |
| moisture noun | /ˈmɔɪs.t͡ʃɚ/ | That which moistens or makes damp or wet; exuding fluid; liquid in small quantity. |
| scrap noun | /ˈskɹæp/ | A (small) piece; a fragment; a detached, incomplete portion. |
| spoon noun | /spuːn/ | An implement for eating or serving; a scooped utensil whose long handle is straight, in contrast to a ladle. |
| foam noun | /ˈfɔʊ̯m/ | A substance composed of a large collection of bubbles or their solidified remains, especially |
| soak verb | /soʊk/ | To be saturated with liquid by being immersed in it. |
| knife noun | /ˈnaɪ̯f/ | A utensil or a tool designed for cutting, consisting of a flat piece of hard material, usually steel or other metal (the blade), usually sharpened on one edge… |
| pipe noun | /ˈpaɪp/ | A wind instrument consisting of a tube, often lined with holes to allow for adjustment in pitch, sounded by blowing into the tube. |
| pleasant adjective | /ˈplɛz.ənt/ | Giving pleasure; pleasing in manner. |
| garbage noun | /ˈɡɑɹ.bɪd͡ʒ/ | Food waste material of any kind. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| come off verb | To become detached. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- This is a bowl that I'm washing.
- What about you guys?
- How do you wash your dishes?
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 | be cleaned · being washed · has been dried |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have cleared · has been dried · have soaked |
| Future with “going to” be going to + verb — a plan or something you can see coming | I'm going to take · I'm going to just · I'm going to start |
| Future with “will” will + verb — a decision, promise or prediction | will waste · will rinse · you'll find |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 20 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, you'll, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: dish /dɪʃ/, wash /wɑʃ/
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 dish, sponge, wash.
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.