Shadowing Practice: Learn English with Netflix's YOU - Learn English Speaking with Video
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271 sentences
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Should I get the queen or the king size bed?
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Your bedroom isn't big enough to fit a king.
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You're right, it's two.
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How do you know that?
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It's New York.
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No one's bedroom is big enough to fit a king.
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Get ready for some excitement, because today we're learning English with Netflix's popular psychological thriller, You.
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So, You is about Joe Goldberg.
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He's a brilliant but deeply disturbed bookstore manager who becomes dangerously obsessed with any woman he falls in love with.
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So, he's a stalker, someone who obsessively follows or watches another person, usually without that person knowing.
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It's called You because in the series we hear Joe's internal monologue, and he always refers to the current object of his obsession as You.
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So we'll get a taste of Joe's creepiness in this lesson, just like in that initial clip where we saw
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that Joe knows a lot about Beck's apartment because he's watched her from outside.
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And if you're tired of being stuck at intermediate and want to become a confident,
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natural, advanced English speaker, then you should be learning with this lesson on the RealLife app.
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You can actually practice your speaking with our AI coach and with other global citizens from around the world.
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I'll tell you more about that in just a little bit.
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Now let's check out Joe and Beck's first meeting at the bookstore.
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you buy?
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You sound apologetic, like you're embarrassed to be a good girl,
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and you murmur your first word to me.
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Hello.
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Do you work here?
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Guilty.
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Can I help you find something?
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Paula Fox?
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It's a good choice.
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Okay, I'm going for it.
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Good, you won't regret it.
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I better not.
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You have enough cash to cover this, but you want me to know your name.
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Guinevere?
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But everyone just calls me Beck. And you're Joe?
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Goldberg.
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Everyone calls me Joe.
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Aren't you going to tell me to have a nice day?
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You have a nice day, Beck.
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You have one yourself, Joe.
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You smiled, laughed at my jokes, told me your name?
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Asked for mine.
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Ugh, that was pretty unsettling.
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Anyways, let's learn the advanced vocabulary pronunciation and grammar.
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Your blouse is loose.
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This is a blouse.
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It's a shirt made for women, usually a little dressier than a plain shirt.
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You're not here to be ogled, but those bracelets, they jangle.
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To ogle someone means to stare at them in an obvious, often creepy way way, usually because you're attracted to them.
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Think of paparazzi ogling celebrities on the red carpet.
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Here's another example from before midnight.
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I'm not complaining, I'm getting a lot of attention.
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But you never stop ogling girls like...
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I don't ogle girls.
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I don't ogle girls.
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Now, if you shake a set of keys in your hand, what sound do they make?
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They jangle, they whistle, they hum.
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Right, Django describes that light, metallic clinking sound, like bracelets, keys, or coins knocking together.
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So Joe is saying that Beck wears these bracelets to make noise so people will look at her.
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Quite presumptuous if you ask me.
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When you say, I bite, you mean, okay, I'm curious, go on.
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Like a fish taking the bait.
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Well, what do you think I listen to?
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That's a very interesting question.
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Okay.
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I'll bite.
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I have never met you!
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Me, Damien.
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I don't know what kind of con you're running, but I'm not biting.
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And I bet you feel frustrated when natives speak fast and you can't understand us.
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Actually, this isn't usually about speed, but connected speech.
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That's how we cut, reduce, and link our words together when speaking fluently.
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Listen to this again for example.
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So we have two native T patterns we can observe here.
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First of all, the T in not is a glottal T.
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This means we cut it off at the back of the throat.
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Then the T in to sounds like a soft sound.
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This happens when a T is between two vowels, like in butter or cat and dog.
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So we get...
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Here to be.
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Listen to Joe again and try to say that just like him.
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You're not here to be ogled.
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Alright, check out Joe's next observation of Beck.
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To murmur something is to say it very softly and quietly, almost as if you're speaking under your breath.
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Do you work here?
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Guilty.
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And then guilty here isn't about a crime.
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It's a playful way of saying, Yep, that's me!
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Or, you caught me.
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Like if someone asks, Did you finish the whole box of cookies?
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And you just say, guilty.
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Now, if I asked, Do you feel more confident listening to English than speaking it?
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You might respond, guilty.
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I totally feel you.
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The first time I moved to another country, to Germany, I felt pretty helpless.
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See, I've been in German classes for three years, but no one could understand me when I spoke.
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This is because I had plenty of opportunities to study German, but not to speak it.
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But with time and patience, I did eventually become fluent.
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Now, that wasn't because I was studying more.
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It's much simpler than that.
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It's because I had people to speak with and a reason to speak every day.
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And honestly, if you know a lot of English, but you don't feel natural speaking it yet, that's probably what's missing for you too.
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So we built a place for exactly that inside the RealLife app.
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A place where you don't just learn English, you live it.
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It's called the RealLife Speaking Club.
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Every single day you get a new fascinating topic
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that you can discuss with serious learners from all around the world in real conversations and become more fluent.
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This really is the best way to go from intermediate learner to advanced English speaker.
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And if If you're nervous about speaking, you can practice the questions with your AI coach first, and then jump into your first conversation.
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It's free, so start your adventure right now with the link in the description.
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And we have another great instance of connected speech we can look at in Beck's question.
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Aren't you going to tell me to have a nice day?
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You have a nice day, Beck.
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Native questions almost always have connected speech like this.
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First off, when we have a T plus U in native English, they usually morph into a CHOO sound,
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You probably already know that usually we say gonna instead of going to.
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Similarly to what we saw before, this too morphs into a T and the article A reduces to just a schwa sound, and links to have.
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Let's put it all together.
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And then let's take a look at some interesting grammar in Joe and Beck's final exchange.
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So normally, we'd expect yourself to point back to the subject of the sentence,
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like, don't hurt yourself.
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But here, Beck's using it a little differently.
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It's an old-school, slightly formal way of saying you too.
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You'll hear this a lot in customer service.
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Have a nice day.
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You too.
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Same to you.
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Peck's version is just a fancier way of saying the same thing.
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Finally, let's circle back to the first clip we watched.
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So maybe bed sizes are measured differently in your country, in which case this could have been confusing.
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In the US, a queen-size bed and a king-size bed are the two biggest standard bed sizes you can buy, with king being the bigger of the two.
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Again, this is super creepy because Joe knows how big Beck's bedroom is from observing her from outside.
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So after Joe first meets Beck, he goes on an internet deep dive to learn everything he can about her.
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He's able to piece together her routine, which means at any time of the day, he knows where she is.
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Let's see what he found out.
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You caress the sweaty backs of volemic, dead-eyed, real mommies of Soho.
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I am loving your form today, Tasha.
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By 10, you're at campus to TA a romantics class and play Vanna White to Sam Shuri.
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After class, you head to your favorite cafe to write for the first time all day, but your life doesn't cooperate.
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Your wealthy girlfriends have just now woken up and have nothing better to do than plan their next
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pointless yet instagramable night can we get real for a second you have questionable taste in friends back you've been
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your social media is a liar it says you're a happy-go-lucky dilettante
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but underneath it all you seem like the genuine article as soon as the door closes your back of the keyboard, trying to write.
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Now if you're anything like me, this level of session gives you the chills.
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But there's also a lot of great expressions for us to learn there.
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Let's take a look.
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Crack of dawn means super early in the morning, right as the sun's coming up, and adding ass to it just emphasizes it.
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It's one of those phrases people used to complain about early mornings, like, tomorrow I have to get up at the crack of dawn for our flight.
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Here's another example.
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Tomorrow morning we gonna get up at the crack of dawn and I'm teaching you how to fish.
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You caress the sweaty backs of bulimic, dead-eyed, real mommies of Soho.
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To caress someone is to touch them gently and lovingly, like a soft, slow stroke.
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Obviously, Joe is being ironic here.
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And dead-eyed describes someone who looks completely empty or exhausted, like there's no life or spark left in their eyes.
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You might describe someone as dead-eyed after they've studied all night, or sat through one too many boring meetings.
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You caress the sweaty backs of bulimic, dead-eyed, real mommies of Soho.
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Most Americans are familiar with Soho, a neighborhood in downtown Manhattan known for high-end shopping and art galleries.
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Basically a place where rich people hang out.
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And in this next line, there are a couple other cultural references you might have missed.
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First, TA is short for teaching assistant, a student, usually in graduate school, who helps out a professor with a class.
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It's also used as a verb, like Joe does here.
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To TA a class just means to work as one.
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And then Vanna White is a woman from an American game show called Wheel of Fortune.
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Her whole job is to smile and flip letters on a board without saying much.
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So playing Vanna White means you're just there to look pretty and gesture at things, not actually contribute anything meaningful.
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And shirt here is slang for a guy, one that's usually so forgettable that Joe Joe doesn't even bother learning his name, he just describes him by what he's wearing.
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Now, when something cooperates, it goes along smoothly with your plans.
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So if your life doesn't cooperate, it means things keep getting in the way of what you actually want to do.
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And in this next line, Joe uses some interesting word formation.
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Pointless yet Instagrammable night.
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Word formation is this great thing in English that can help you learn words.
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Let's take able for example, which means capable of or worthy of.
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For example, comfortable means something is able to provide comfort.
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If you buy a shirt that's not washable, then you probably need to take it for dry cleaning because you can't wash it.
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Adding able to Instagram means something is beautiful enough to photograph and post online.
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We could also say something is Googleable, meaning you can easily find it with a search.
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By the way, check out this lesson
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if you want to learn how to use word formation to add thousands of new words to your vocabulary.
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To get real means to stop being unrealistic and face the truth.
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Basically, let's be honest here.
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Come on, man, let's get real.
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What you did with your boss was honorable, impressive, and stupid.
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When someone has questionable taste, it means their choices in gifts, decor, fashion, whatever, seem a little off or hard to justify.
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Check out these examples.
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It was a Christmas gift from Dave.
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Well, I'm sure he's a great guy, but with questionable taste.
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You still have highly questionable taste in music.
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And pay attention to how we pronounce that word.
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Questionable.
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Questionable.
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Now, did you know that when you practice pronunciation of expressions on the real life app, just like you did here, you actually receive immediate feedback?
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It's a much more effective way to improve your English because you get practice and you're guided, so you're not just learning passively.
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Alright, so Joe finishes here by criticizing Beck, saying that the appearance that she puts on for others is not who she really is.
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Happy-go-lucky describes someone who's carefree and easygoing.
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Nothing really seems to stress them out.
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Think SpongeBob SquarePants energy.
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And what do you think dilettante means?
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Take a guess.
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Someone who's a total expert in their field.
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Someone who learns a bit about something without committing to it.
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Someone who's extremely wealthy.
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Nice!
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A dilettante is someone who just plays around with something casually.
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Art, music, a hobby, without any real depth.
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In other words, Beck acts like a rich artsy girl on her social media and with her friends.
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But in reality, she's a poor artist.
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But underneath it all, you seem like the genuine article.
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Finally, underneath it all refers to who someone really is, deep down.
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Once you look past the surface, listen to these examples.
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He was such a sweet boy underneath it all.
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David tries so hard to project this whole devil may care, bachelor facade, but underneath it all, he's a real softie.
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You've done great today, but let's get real.
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Now comes the most important part of the lesson.
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You'll test everything that you learned by watching all the scenes again without subtitles and answering some quiz questions.
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You've got this.
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student.
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Your blouse is loose.
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If someone is staring at you in an obviously attracted and slightly creepy way,
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they're murmuring at you, ogling you, cooperating with you.
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You're not here to be ogled, but those bracelets, they jangle.
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You'd like a little attention okay i bite you search the
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books will you buy you sound apologetic like you're embarrassed to be a good girl
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and you murmur your first word to me hello do you work here guilty
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can i help you find something paula fox it's a good
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choice okay i'm going for it good you won't regret it
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i better not you have enough cash to cover this but you want me to know your name
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guinevere but everyone just calls me beck and you're joe goldberg everyone calls me joe
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Aren't you gonna tell me to have a nice day?
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You have a nice day, Beth.
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You have one yourself, Joe.
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You smiled, laughed at my jokes, told me your name, asked for mine.
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Which of these describes an early morning wake-up call?
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The crack of dawn?
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Underneath it all?
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A dilettante.
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Our day starts the S-crack of dawn.
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I know from your posted schedule that you teach a 6.30 class called Get Up and Flow.
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You caress the sweaty backs of bulimic, dead-eyed, real mommies of Soho.
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I am loving your form today, Tasha.
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Off by 10, you're at campus to TA a romantics class and play Vanna White to some shirt.
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After class, you head to your favorite cafe to write for the first time all day.
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But your life doesn't cooperate
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Your wealthy girlfriends have just now woken up
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and have nothing better to do than plan their next pointless yet How might we describe this beautiful photo of a sunset?
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Dead-eyed, questionable, Instagrammable Pointless yet Instagrammable night.
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Can we get real for a second?
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If someone tells you to get real, they mean be more dramatic, stop being unrealistic, take a picture.
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You have questionable taste in friends, Beck.
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You've been hauled on the product now, you're old!
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Your social media is a liar.
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It says...
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Which word describes someone who's carefree and never seems to stress about anything?
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Happy-go-lucky, dead-eyed, guilty.
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It says, you're a happy-go-lucky dilettante.
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But underneath it all, you seem like the genuine article.
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as soon as the door closes, you're back at the keyboard trying to write.
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Ah yeah, I hope you had fun learning with you and that you didn't get too creeped out.
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And if you want to be able to understand fast speaking natives without getting lost, without missing the jokes, and without subtitles,
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we help you to do it every single week here on Learn English with TV series with two new lessons.
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So hit that subscribe button and bell down below and you won't miss a single one.
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And if you're ready to stop being an intermediate learner
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and finally become the confident natural English speaker you've always dreamt of being, the perfect way to do that is by learning with these lessons on the real-life app.
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Get started for free with the link down in the description.
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And if you're sticking with us here on YouTube, I bet you'll love this lesson as well.
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So you're a mathematician now, a porter, a waiter, a candlestick maker, and a kleptomaniac.
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Who was a taker?
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Now a giver.
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Does Hodges' pocket watch keep good time?
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They say that it's the unconscious desire of every thief to be caught.
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That it's the fear of incarceration that gives freedom its currency.
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The fundamental fault of man is to think the enemy is external, not internal.
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Prison is in here, not out there.
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Harga you with your art of war.
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Learn English with Netflix's "You": Practice Speaking Like a Native
This lesson uses the tense, conversational dialogue from Netflix's "You" to help you master natural English speaking. You'll practice real-world vocabulary, intonation, and the subtle nuances of everyday conversation—perfect for English speaking practice and even IELTS speaking practice. By the end, you'll feel more confident mimicking native speakers and understanding casual interactions.
Key Vocabulary & Phrases to Master
- Stalker: Someone who obsessively follows or watches another person, often without their knowledge. Example: "Joe's behavior in the show makes him a dangerous stalker."
- Blouse: A dressy shirt for women, more formal than a plain t-shirt. Example: "Beck's loose blouse looked elegant in the bookstore scene."
- Ogle: To stare at someone in a creepy, obvious way, usually due to attraction. Example: "Paparazzi often ogle celebrities on the red carpet."
- Internal monologue: The thoughts you have in your mind, not spoken aloud. Example: "Joe's internal monologue reveals his disturbing obsession with Beck."
- Murmur: To speak quietly, almost in a whisper. Example: "Beck murmured her name, making Joe lean in to hear."
Practice Tips: Master Shadowing with "You"
Shadowing—repeating lines immediately after the speaker—is a proven technique for improving fluency. Here's how to use it with this video: Shadow speak along with Joe and Beck's first meeting. The dialogue is slow enough for beginners but natural enough for advanced learners. Pause after each line, then repeat it, matching the tone (Joe's calm intensity, Beck's shy curiosity). Focus on reducing your accent by copying their vowel sounds—notice how "Beck" is short, not drawn out. For shadowspeak practice, use a shadowing site to loop tricky phrases like "You sound apologetic, like you're embarrassed to be a good girl." This trains your brain to think in English and speak without hesitation, a must for IELTS success. Remember: consistency beats speed—spend 10 minutes daily, and you'll see progress in weeks.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have never met · I've been · have connected |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | being stuck · be ogled · are measured |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | someone who obsessively · routine, which means · someone who looks |
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.