Shadowing Practice: I think we've forgotten how to live. - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Sometimes I wonder if we've forgotten how to live.

Now we have more conveniences than ever before, yet we're constantly running out of time.

More entertainment than we could ever consume, and yet somehow still feel like something is missing.

We're more connected than ever, yet so many of us feel disconnected from the world right in front of us.

And the strangest part is that so much of this has become normal that we rarely stop to question it.

I mean, who has the time, right?

Well, I've been thinking about this a lot lately.

Last year, I started writing a book on intentional living.

I've written hundreds of scripts on this topic before, so if anything, I could just compile all the materials and wrap a big bow around it.

But after spending far too many weeks trying to stitch it all together, I had to face the real reason why it wasn't progressing.

For years, I've been answering the question, what can I live without?

But I was leaving out the second half of that question.

What makes life worth living? And what does

that mean to me now as a 36 year old compared to the 30 year old who started this YouTube channel?

This wasn't something I was going to figure out sitting behind a desk.

And I thought maybe I needed to stop writing about intentional living

and actually go out and live it and what better way to do

that than a road trip five countries a few weeks away from our usual routines isn't

this exactly the kind of experience we've been saving up for so we packed up our bags and started our journey

first stop vienna the beauty of vienna kind of hits you hard.

You can see that for centuries people have put extraordinary care into ordinary things,

like turning something as simple as a doorknob or a fountain into an art piece.

Nowadays we're so used to measuring the value of something by how useful it is or how much time it saves us,

and I've talked a lot about this in my minimalism videos too, but Vienna challenged that perspective.

Because when something is truly beautiful, it moves us.

It becomes something worth cherishing and preserving.

Somewhere between the Gothic churches and the beautifully curated gardens,

I was also reminded that I am in charge of making my own life as beautiful as I want.

Whether it's drinking coffee from my favorite ceramic, or creating my outfit of the day,

or filling my home with that perfect warm orange glow in the evenings.

Not beauty defined by someone else's standards, but beauty that feels meaningful to me.

And speaking of life's essentials, a good apple strudel with a side of vanilla ice cream might be just one of them too.

Thank you so much to DJI for sponsoring today's video.

When I was planning this trip, I knew I wanted to capture as much as possible,

So I was really excited when DJI reached out and asked me to try their new Osmo Pocket 4P.

It's the perfect travel camera because it's compact, practical, and literally fits in my coat pocket.

So let's unbox it together and I'll show you some of my favorite features.

I got the standard bundle in pearl white and everything comes in this cute little pouch.

Inside, you'll find the camera, the fill lights for the evening shots, a USB cable, and a little handle.

I really appreciate that it has two lenses with different focal lengths,

so whether I'm filming a wide shot of a beautiful cityscape or zooming in to capture the little details,

I can do it all with one device.

And the image quality?

Clean and crisp.

Plus, the built -in gimbal keeps the footage very smooth.

speaking of compact even has a built -in storage

so i don't have to worry about carrying around extra memory cards with me

so if you are looking for a compact camera for traveling

or for everyday filming definitely check out the dji osmo pocket 4p let's go

and film with it now we are in budapest

and we're gonna go and explore today it's such a beautiful day again i'm just getting really blessed with the weather.

There's so much life just outside the doors.

We're staying at the Jewish Quarter.

Can't wait to explore!

For the duration of the trip, I decided to take some time off of YouTube.

At first, I was in my head about the inconsistent income, the engagement of the channel, and all these made -up numbers.

But the more that I sat with it, I could hear my own voice yelling at me.

I've been doing this for six years.

I've saved up and worked to free up my time, and for what?

If I can't give myself permission to go out and enjoy life, what was all of this for?

And I see this all around me.

My peers, friends, and family.

We're so used to putting off enjoying life until we feel like we've met some arbitrary deadlines.

But will that day really come?

Or is it just a narrative that we keep telling ourselves?

Maybe we've forgotten that we don't need permission to enjoy.

We are doing a dinner river cruise in Budapest and we're just passing the parliament. So beautiful.

So yeah, we bar hopped the ruined bars, wandered around the city at night and ended the trip with an evening cruise along the Dinoo.

Because we're 36 in Budapest, only once.

We just checked out of our Airbnb in Budapest

and now we're heading to Kratislava and we're stopping on the way to one of the lakes called Tata Castle.

That's where the castle is.

My husband and I love road trips, mainly because it's easier with the dogs,

but I really love the feeling of the open road ahead of us.

We pass by a lot of tunnels, semi -trucks, cows, storms, little towns,

and to be honest, a whole lot of nothing.

And it's funny because we say smart things like it's all about the journey, not the destination.

But I don't think we talk about the fact that the journey is usually a whole lot of nothing.

Waking up, going to work, groceries, and cooking.

That's 99 % of it.

And we blame social media for creating unrealistic expectations of life.

But I think this was always the case we as a society put

so much emphasis into the one percent like graduations and weddings

and vacations that it's easy to let our whole lives pass us by welcome to slovakia we're in bratislava

sure the tunnels the semi trucks the cows were not as exciting as exploring the beautiful old town of bratislava

but even passing through the nothingness i was next to my husband

my dogs in the back made me realize that it's enough just to be there for it

we are at the design show in prague right now and it's huge there's just so many cool exhibitions

and so cool to see different people doing different things

the thing that's really cool about design shows like this is

that you get a little glimpse into other people's worlds what they're interested in their personal style their unique vision

and what they want to put out into the world

you guys know i spent years trying to simplify my life

and decluttering forces you to ask a pretty important question what no longer belongs in my life

but after going through all that decluttering cleansing resetting whatever you want to call it,

I realized that there's another question that's just as important.

What do I want to bring into my life?

Because whether we realize it or not, we're always consuming something.

The things that we buy, the places we visit, what we read, what we watch, the people we surround ourselves with.

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And all those little choices eventually shape the world that we live in.

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The tricky part is that nowadays there's always someone telling us what to buy, where to go, and what to be interested in.

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And some of those recommendations are great, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they're right for us.

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And I think that's something we can only figure out by experiencing things for ourselves.

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Discovering what we love and what we couldn't care less about.

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And slowly, we get to know ourselves a little better.

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and speaking of one of the things

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i love a dear friend flew all the way to see me in prague we ended our time there giggling

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and talking the night away first day in berlin

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i am all bundled up it's freezing outside even though it's really sunny uh

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we're gonna take the dogs for a really long walk uh since it's one of the nicer days

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that we're gonna have can't wait to explore the city my babies are ready are you ready

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and then here we were in berlin i'll be honest i didn't really know what to expect from berlin

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the creativity and the alternative culture i heard

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so much about were everywhere on the sides of the buildings out on the streets

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and it wasn't all beautiful nor did it make sense but it didn't have to.

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Here I am living a pretty unconventional life myself and who am I to say what someone else's should look like?

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And isn't that the beauty of self -expression?

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It doesn't have to make sense to anyone else but ourselves.

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And what is an alternative lifestyle anyways?

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Alternative to what? it.

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I guess the same could be said about what makes life worth living.

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I spent this entire trip trying to put it neatly into words, as if there's only one right answer.

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But maybe I've been asking the wrong question.

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Maybe it's not about what makes life worth living, but how we can make our lives worth living.

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Not just once, but over and over again.

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Sometimes, the things that once mattered so much to us might not matter anymore.

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Relationships change, priorities shift.

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We find ourselves asking these questions all over again.

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We don't always get to choose what happens to us, or how the world changes around us.

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But we can keep choosing how we live through it all.

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i came home to three thousand something emails and

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that same blank google doc staring back at me

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and yep the trip was absolutely worth having to deal with this

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but hey i think i finally figured out how to write a book one word at a time

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This speaking lesson is built on the video “I think we've forgotten how to live”. This video has 134 sentences and 1777 words to shadow. The speech runs for 12:01. The speaker talks at a steady 148 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. 84% 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
explore verb	/ɪkˈsploɹ/	To examine or investigate something systematically.
pocket noun	/ˈpɑ.kɪt/	A bag stitched to an item of clothing, used for carrying small items.
berlin noun	/bəˈlɪn/	A four-wheeled carriage with a separate sheltered seat behind the body.
compact adjective	/kəmˈpækt/	Closely packed or densely constituted; having much material in a small volume.
castle noun	/ˈkɑːsəl/	A large residential building or compound that is fortified and contains many defences; in previous ages often inhabited by a nobleman or king. Also, a house or…
capture verb	/ˈkæp.(t)ʃɚ/	To take control of; to seize by force or stratagem.
tunnel noun	/ˈtʌn(ə)l/	An underground or underwater passage.
cruise noun	/kɹuz/	A sea or lake voyage, especially one taken for pleasure.
cow noun	/kaʊ/	An adult female of the species Bos taurus, especially one that has calved.
nowadays adverb	/ˈnaʊ.ə.deɪz/	At the present time; in the current era.
bundle noun	/ˈbʌn.dl̩/	A group of objects held together by wrapping or tying.
consume verb	/kənˈsum/	To use up.
intentional adjective	/ɪnˈtɛnʃənəl/	Intended or planned; done deliberately or voluntarily.
topic noun	/ˈtɑpɪk/	A subject; a theme; a category or general area of interest.
necessarily adverb	/ˌnɛs.əˈsɛɹ.ə.li/	Inevitably; of necessity.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
figure out verb		To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce.
go out verb		To leave, especially a building.
check out verb		To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.).
go through verb		To travel from one end of something to the other.
leave out verb		To omit, to not include, to neglect to mention.
live through verb		To survive a difficult period or event
make up verb	/ˌmeɪk ˈʌp/	To constitute, to compose.
pass through verb		To go through, to travel through, to transit or lie across a place or from one place to another.

Sentences worth repeating

Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:

Sometimes I wonder if we've forgotten how to live.
For years, I've been answering the question, what can I live without?
I've been doing this for six years.
What do I want to bring into my life?

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on	I've been thinking · I've been answering · we've been saving
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	we've forgotten · has become · I've written
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	was also reminded · could be said

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 52 contractions and reduced forms, such as we're, I've, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “sh” and “zh” sounds: capture /ˈkæp.(t)ʃɚ/, intentional /ɪnˈtɛnʃənəl/, vacation /veɪˈkeɪ.ʃən/, exhibition /ɛksɪˈbɪʃən/, destination /dɛstɪˈneɪʃən/
Long words — get the stress right: intentional /ɪnˈtɛnʃənəl/, necessarily /ˌnɛs.əˈsɛɹ.ə.li/, ordinary /ˈɔɹdɪnɛɹi/, priority /pɹaɪˈɒɹɪti/, exhibition /ɛksɪˈbɪʃən/

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 explore, pocket, berlin.

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.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: I think we've forgotten how to live. - Learn English Speaking with Video

Choose a practice mode

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

Key vocabulary in this video

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Sentences worth repeating

Grammar in this video

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?