Shadowing Practice: Learn English Hearing our Embarrassing Stories | Comprehensible Input Podcast - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Hello everybody and welcome to English at Ease,

a podcast designed to help you learn English by listening to natural conversation between two native English speakers.

My name is Adam.

And my name is Desiree.

And in today's video, we'll talk about embarrassing moments in our lives.

Yeah, this is one that I am not super excited for.

I'm excited to hear your embarrassing stories, but I'm not super excited to tell my embarrassing stories

because they're just kind of memories that I don't like reliving because they were very, very embarrassing.

But let's go ahead and get started.

Do you want to start first or should I tell my story first?

You can start off first.

All right, let's start with probably the most embarrassing thing to ever happen to me in my entire life.

This happened when I was probably about, I don't know, maybe like 10 years old.

I was pretty young.

Yeah.

Okay, so this was a while ago.

Yeah, long time ago uh and i remember during this time my brothers

and i really liked playing

this trading card game called magic the gathering maybe some of you guys know about it it's it's really popular

it's kind of like pokemon but a little bit different well during that time we were really into this game

Magic the Gathering.

And we liked to go to this game store where people would play that game, where they would play

Magic the Gathering.

So we'd go there pretty regularly to play with people.

Well, one day, I remember it was a Sunday, and I was feeling very, very sick that Sunday.

I was totally sick.

I was feeling terrible.

And I remember we had just finished watching a football game on the TV.

We had just finished watching the Chargers football game, which is my favorite team.

I think they lost, which they usually do, which is kind of sad.

But I remember after the game finished, my brothers asked me, do you want to go to the game store?

They wanted to go to this game store to play

Magic the Gathering.

And I was like, I don't think so because I felt so sick, right?

You don't want to go outside when you feel sick.

No, definitely not.

Yeah, that's the time you least want to go outside.

Yeah, for sure.

But this time, I was kind of considering it because my brothers really wanted to go to this game store.

And I also really liked going there.

So it was kind of like, do I just go and hope for the best?

Or do I stay home?

And then I knew if I stayed home, I would just be thinking about it the entire time.

Thinking, man, I wish I went to the game store.

You would have missed out.

Yes.

So my brothers kind of pressured me.

When somebody pressures someone, we mean that they kind of really try to convince somebody

and really try to get somebody to do something.

And eventually, I agreed to go to the game store.

Huge FOMO?

Yeah, exactly.

I had FOMO, which is like slang, which means fear of missing out.

So I was kind of like, I didn't want to know that my brothers were at the store and I was just at home.

So I was like, okay, fine.

I'll go to the game store.

So I went to the game store and we were playing

Magic the Gathering and I was feeling okay.

Actually, I felt almost completely better.

I wasn't feeling sick at all.

But you know how this goes when you're sick.

You'll randomly feel better for a while and then he'll feel terrible again

Do you have that ever?

Yeah, all the time every time I'm sick that happens.

Yeah So it just kind of goes back and forth you'll feel sick

and then you feel better and then you feel sick again

So I was feeling good for a while and I was like man

It was a good decision to come out here.

It was great choice

But then all of a sudden I started to feel really really sick and it kind of set on very very quickly

Usually does whenever you're sick.

Yes, 100%.

It was like I was feeling good and then within seconds or minutes I was feeling very sick.

And it was so bad that it felt like I needed to throw up.

Oh no. Yeah, it felt like I needed to vomit or to throw up.

And I just wasn't really thinking straight at the time, probably because I was 10.

So I didn't like go outside or anything.

I kind of just tried to hold it in.

and then all of a sudden I realized I wasn't going to be able to hold it in.

So I literally got up and I started running to the restroom in the game store

because I was hoping I could reach the restroom and then I could throw up in the toilet in the restroom.

but i wasn't able to reach the restroom

so i it just started kind of pouring out pouring out coming out

and um i tried like covering my mouth but it was just kind of coming out

and uh eventually i made it to the restroom i was able to throw up in the restroom

and then the worst

and most embarrassing part was i had to open the door to the restroom

and just stand in front of everybody who had just seen me throw up all over the store

because everybody saw it i also

destroyed or ruined a bunch of the stuff that they were selling there because i accidentally

threw up on a bunch of like little stuffed animals

that they were selling i think they were like pokemon stuffed animals

and i threw up on a bunch of them so those were totally ruined

so did you have to pay for it no

they didn't make me pay for it i think

you were 10 yeah imagine they charged you i think they felt kind of bad for me

because i was obviously a kid yeah

so they were very nice about it there was a guy

who clean who had to clean up my throb for me

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and the worst part was is

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that at the time yeah uh not neither of my brothers knew how to drive

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so my brothers are older than me

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but they were still not able to drive at that time

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so we had to call my mom

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and ask her to come pick us up

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but we lived like 20 minutes away

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so it took her like 20 minutes to arrive

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so I just had to wait inside the store in shame

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in shame as I waited for her to arrive uh

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and do you not like tell anyone like hey I'm not feeling good or did you just immediately decide to just run.

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I just immediately decided to run.

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I didn't tell anybody I was feeling bad.

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You got ruined by surprise.

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And the worst part is I probably could have easily avoided

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it being such a big problem because there were like trash cans all around the store, like little trash cans.

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And for some reason, I didn't just pick up one of those trash cans and throw up in the trash can.

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Like it would have been maybe a little bit embarrassing if I threw up in a trash can and everybody saw me.

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Yeah.

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But at least I wouldn't have thrown up all over the store.

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But for some reason, I just didn't think about those little trash cans in the moment.

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You have to give yourself some grace.

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You were 10 years old.

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Yeah, that's true.

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Yeah, I was very young, but it was definitely very, very embarrassing.

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And you might even say traumatizing for me because I didn't go back to that game store for like another three years.

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I remember I only built up the confidence after like three years

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because I decided that when I was about 13 years old,

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anybody who still went there probably wouldn't recognize me because I looked much older.

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I had grown a lot and I just looked much different than I did before.

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So I was like, okay, I think I can go back now because they're probably not going to remember

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that I was the kid who threw up in the store.

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They're also seeing many faces each day, you know.

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Yeah, but I don't think they would forget my face after I threw up everywhere.

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And you had to wait 20 minutes.

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Yeah, so that was the worst, one of the worst moments of my life.

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It was very, very embarrassing, and it took me a long time to recover from that one.

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I don't think I'd even have the courage to go back there.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, I don't know how I did it eventually

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But it did take some time but sorry to everyone at home

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if that story was kind of gross I probably should have given you guys a warning beforehand

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So hopefully none of you guys were eating a meal while watching this video, but my bad All right.

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Do you want to go ahead and tell your embarrassing story?

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and we'll see if it's more embarrassing or less embarrassing.

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I'd probably say less.

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So my story was when I was in high school.

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This happened in Spanish class and I'm not like I speak Spanish but I'm not the best at it.

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I feel like I'm better at understanding it than speaking it.

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So we had to do a project where we had to present in front of the entire class.

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What were you supposed to be presenting to everybody?

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So yeah we had to choose someone that represented Hispanic culture.

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The person that I chose was a singer.

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I'm not sure if you guys are familiar with her

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but her name is Selena Quintanilla

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and we had to give like like what they did and like how they impacted you know

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Hispanic culture and I remember not really caring about the project, so I didn't really give my all into it.

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So I just basically Googled, translated everything.

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So this project was supposed to be in Spanish, right?

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Like you were supposed to present everything in Spanish?

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Yes, in Spanish, yes.

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Okay.

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We were supposed to, yeah, everything in Spanish without reading the presentation.

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Okay.

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Okay.

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So like you, to make your presentation, you just like wrote it all in English,

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but then you just put it into Google translate and then just copied and pasted it onto your presentation.

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There was no way I would have done it without it.

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Oh, like you just, because I, Is it just too much work or?

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Um, I'd say my Spanish is not the best.

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Like I said, I'm better at listening than speaking and writing yeah

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so I feel like if I wrote it my Spanish will be completely off

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so the Google translation I felt like helped me yeah

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I think the reason why we weren't allowed to read the presentation

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while you know presenting it in front of the class was

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because um I think the teacher might have been um I think the teacher might have known

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that like students would have gone on Google translate and done

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that you know instead of really like doing the assignment like they're supposed to yeah

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so he was afraid of students like you so he was like

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that your teacher was trying to like test you guys

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and make sure that you really understood what you were saying right

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so he basically you're saying

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that he told you you weren't allowed to look at your like your presentation

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while you were presenting it yeah

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you just had to do it from memory yeah okay we were able to glance at it

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but not like fully just like you know like just read

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it from it yeah you can look look at it

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and then look at the audience or whatever your classmates you know

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and I'm guessing you probably didn't memorize what Google Translate came up for you very well right no

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I was not a good student Spanish class I didn't really care about now

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that I look back at it I would have definitely done

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a lot more than what I you know did the moment I went up to present I was

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so embarrassed because I didn't know what to do

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because then I remembered

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that we weren't supposed to look at the board we were supposed to well we could look at it

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but we're not supposed to completely look at it we're supposed to like memorize everything um

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so I just stood there for bit looking

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so nervous not knowing what to do

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so um eventually i just read the board completely without you know looking at the audience

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so you just like totally froze yeah how long how long did you just stand

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there not saying anything do you remember like it for to me it felt like forever

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but it was probably like five seconds okay it's not

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that bad I guess

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but it's a little embarrassing well I mean especially looking at how everybody else was presenting

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and seeing how they were doing I did not do any of

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that yeah that's understandable I think it's pretty embarrassing

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but it's definitely not as embarrassing as throwing up in a store

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but I do understand a little bit why your teacher had you do

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that because as a teacher myself i i don't teach a language class like spanish

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or english or something

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but um we do have kind of a similar thing with

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with ai these days where a lot of students will use ai to write stuff for them

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and i i do notice um the same thing where the

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students won't actually read through what the ai came up with after they had the ai create the paper for them.

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Instead, they'll just have AI create the paper for them.

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They'll submit it.

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They won't look at it once.

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They won't read through it once.

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So then when you ask them about it, they don't know at all what they wrote or what AI wrote for them.

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They can't tell you anything about it.

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Like what assignment is that again?

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Exactly.

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Just like how you stood up there and you just did not memorize anything.

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It's the exact same way when students write papers from AI.

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Yeah, I think it's a bigger problem now with AI since it's like basically all over the internet.

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And I think kids now just rely on that.

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Yeah, that's true.

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I bet that happens a lot in schools where students will have AI create a presentation for them, just like you did with Google Translate.

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And then when they're asked to present it, they just don't know what to do because they haven't really studied what they're supposed to be presenting.

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Yeah.

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But those are some of our embarrassing stories.

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I hope you guys enjoyed hearing them and were able to laugh at us a little bit.

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Give us an opportunity in the comments to all come together and hear your embarrassing stories as well.

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So let us know what is your most embarrassing story.

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This is a great opportunity to practice your English writing skills

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by writing out an entire story in English in the comments below.

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Anyways, I hope you guys enjoyed this

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Easy English podcast.

238

For more videos like this one where you can learn English through comprehensible input, please subscribe to the channel.

239

Thank you so much for watching.

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Goodbye.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This speaking lesson is built on the video “Learn English Hearing our Embarrassing Stories”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: embarrassing, store, sick. This video has 240 sentences and 2646 words to shadow. The speech runs for 15:33. The speaker talks at a natural 170 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 86% 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
trash noun	/tɹæʃ/	Useless physical things to be discarded; rubbish; refuse.
presentation noun	/ˌpɹɛzn̩ˈteɪʃn̩/	The act of presenting, or something presented.
gather verb	/ˈɡæðɚ/	To collect normally separate things.
translate verb	/tɹænzˈleɪt/	To change spoken words or written text (of a book, document, movie, etc.) from one language to another.
ruin noun	/ˈɹuː.ɪn/	The remains of a destroyed or dilapidated construction, such as a house or castle.
sudden adjective	/ˈsʌd.ən/	Occurring quickly with little or no warning or expectation; instantly.
arrive verb	/əˈɹaɪv/	To reach; to get to a certain place.
assignment noun	/əˈsaɪn.mənt/	The act of assigning; the allocation of a job or a set of tasks.
podcast noun	/ˈpɑdˌkæst/	A program, especially an audio program, produced on a regular basis, delivered over the Internet in a compressed digital format and designed for playback on…
pour verb	/poɹ/	To cause (liquid, or liquid-like substance) to flow in a stream, either out of a container or into it.
meal noun	/ˈmiːl/	Food that is prepared and eaten, usually at a specific time, and usually in a comparatively large quantity.
gross adjective	/ɡɹoʊs/	remarkably great, big, vast in an often unpleasant way; (of behaviour) Highly or conspicuously offensive.
skill noun	/skɪl/	A capacity to do something well; a technique, an ability, usually acquired or learned, as opposed to abilities that are regarded as innate.
translation noun	/tɹænzˈleɪʃən/	The conversion of text from one language to another.
input noun	/ˈɪnpʊt/	The act or process of putting in; infusion.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
throw up verb		To vomit.
come out verb	/ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/	To be discovered; to be revealed.
go back verb		To return to a place or state after having been there at a previous time.
go ahead verb	/ˌɡoʊ əˈhɛd/	To proceed with; to begin.
miss out verb		To miss an experience or lose an opportunity, etc. that should not be missed.
read through verb		To thoroughly read something to check or proofread it.
build up verb		To erect; to construct.
clean up verb		To make an area or a thing clean; to pick up a mess; to tidy.

Sentences worth repeating

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

I'll go to the game store.
I wasn't feeling sick at all.
Do you have that ever?
Usually does whenever you're sick.
What were you supposed to be presenting to everybody?

Grammar in this video

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

Structure	In the video
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	game, which is · FOMO, which is · anybody who still
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	weren't allowed

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 68 contractions and reduced forms, such as didn't, don't, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: gather /ˈɡæðɚ/, throb /θɹɒb/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: trash /tɹæʃ/, presentation /ˌpɹɛzn̩ˈteɪʃn̩/, translation /tɹænzˈleɪʃən/
Long words — get the stress right: accidentally /ˌæk.sɪˈdɛnt(ə)li/, comprehensible /kɒmpɹəˈhɛnsɪbəl/

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 trash, presentation, gather.

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: Learn English Hearing our Embarrassing Stories | Comprehensible Input Podcast - Learn English Speaking with Video

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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?