Shadowing Practice: Learn Real British English: In The City | Comprehensible Input B1 Intermediate - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Hello everybody, my name is Sam and welcome to English Sponge.
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Today you are going to learn lots of city vocabulary through comprehensible input where you watch,
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you listen and you learn more English.
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Today we are in the town of Reading doing a little travel vlog for you guys and
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if you like this sort of content make sure to check
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out the English Sponge website where we have lots of exclusive
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and original content for you guys learning let's get into the video
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so today we are here at reading train station if you look over there we have the beautiful station
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as some of you may know i'm not the biggest fan of modern architecture
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but next to it we have a wonderful pub
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and as you can see the beautiful british weather is uh
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being very nice to us today here as you can see
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we have a very traditional british black cab now these are more linked with london normally
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but here in the south of england you'll see these black taxi cabs everywhere
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so guys as we are walking down the street here as i mentioned before beautiful british weather lots of rain
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and lots of puddles on the floor we have some beautiful brick buildings
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and a local supermarket here as you see it's almost christmas time
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so behind me we have some lovely christmas lights decorating the
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street we are here on the high street as you can
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see this is the part of town with all of the shops with all of the people
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and as you can probably hear with
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that non -coffee writing music in the background um it is
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christmas time last i checked it was still only november 20th
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so uh i think it's a bit early personally
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but come with us as we walk a little bit down
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reading high street on the left we have a famous bank
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on the right a famous department store a little bit of
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everything as well these little stalls are only up for christmas
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they're not usually here this one is selling ridiculously overpriced cookies three pound 50 each ouch
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continuing down you can see just how busy it is we're
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out here in reading peak christmas season everyone's getting their shopping done
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and it's horrible as you can see on most people's faces they don't look happy today
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and to be honest neither am i it's raining
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hello could i get a oreo hot chocolate please cheers thank you
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so sam what are you buying i'm buying an oreo hot chocolate as many of you know i love oreos so
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yeah yeah they do the banging flama as the argentines would say
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thank you could i play with card please
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no it's all good thank you thank you cheers have a
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great day i have to say it doesn't quite look like the little model
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that they had in front
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but it tastes absolutely fantastic I'm gonna give this a solid 9 out of 10
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so it's a good day so far the rain is not ruining our spirits
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so Paddington I know you're a Peruvian living in the UK was it difficult to to learn english uh -huh
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and so you learn english through watching hundreds of hours of aj's videos
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you watched aj's white boy whiteboard series 347 times wow you should be like paddington
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okay guys so as you can see we've come across a little market selling some different fruits
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and vegetables there we have some bananas some strawberries raspberries blueberries i have no idea what that is what is it
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castle apple some type of apple some oranges of course and
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if you keep coming over here james we have pineapples more oranges watermelon
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and some nice juicy red apples apples my favorite of course next to the apples there are some pears
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and over on that side we have some tomatoes as well
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so if you want to get some nice fresh fruit
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and vegetables this little market seems to be the best place to go so
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if you continue coming down with me we get some beautiful
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old victorian style buildings both on this side of the road
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and this side of the road there's some really that's a really really beautiful architecture in this town
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and this is what most of england is like reading is not exactly special
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or different from most of the towns we just are blessed
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to live in a country with such fantastic architecture now i'm not a christian
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but look over at this church here we'll get a better shot of it over here
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and here we are stood in front of an amazingly designed
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church really really beautiful as you can see this sort of pattern on the church is called a checkered pattern
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and there are four points right up the top the i
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don't know what i'm trying to say what i am trying
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to say though is this is a really really lovely church
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the windows are designed beautifully a lot of amazing attention to
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detail this church has some really fantastic attention to detail with the way it's been designed really impressive
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and england is full of little spots like this
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so here i am stood in front of the world famous purple turtle bar now this bar is so famous
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because a few years ago uh a clip went viral on
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this street a man was walking down the road like any man would
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when he got hit by a bus yes you heard me
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right he got hit by a double -decker bus instead of
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seeking medical help instead of calling an ambulance the first thing this man did was get up
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and walk straight into this bar the most british thing you will ever see in your life
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and here we have a bus ruining our shot the video
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is for sure one of the most british things you will ever see in your life
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and i'm sure james will put the clip afterwards right now
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so here we have an outdoor menu many restaurants put things like this out the front
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so you can decide if you want to eat here
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or not before you go in having a look at the
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special lunch menu um in all honesty for the uk these
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prices are pretty good 19 pounds 50 for two courses
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or 23 pounds 50 for free honestly in the south of
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england you're not going to get very many restaurants with a better price than this
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and it's an argentine steakhouse so i'm sure the food is absolutely fantastic
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and of course we have a lovely little what do you
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call this a wire reindeer um as some christmas decorations really nice um yeah fantastic
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so we are now inside the shopping center we actually don't know
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if we're allowed to film in here or not so
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if we're not you may see us outside next
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but walking through we have a lot of really different shops
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firstly hugo boss designer clothes expensive high quality really really good looking stuff
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but it's hugo boss i'm sure you guys have heard of
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it before on this side it looks like we have a makeup shop what do you call
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that a makeup shop a makeup shop some cosmetics on the
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right hand side here we have a technology shop lots of different electronics phone cases speakers headphones anything electric
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that you might want you can find it here at Vivitech.
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This side we can buy some sunglasses if you so desire.
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I've never been a very big person on sunglasses to be honest.
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I think living in the UK you really don't need them but there is a Black Friday sale on.
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Every year around November there are some really great discounts, really great sales around the shops.
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Blame the Americans for
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that one here we have tag heuer some luxury expensive watches
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i have to say these are definitely some of my favorite watches
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and on the other side we have the world famous rolex
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yes really really luxury really really expensive are they worth the
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price i personally would say no i think you can buy
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a watch that's you know just as high quality for much less price
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looking here we have lots of different types of jewelry we
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have some earrings some necklaces we have some rings as well these are really nice
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but if you look at the prices pair of earrings
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575 pounds
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if i'm not mistaken that's around 700 dollars yes you can buy lots of luxury goods here in the uk
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but be prepared to pay the price for them here in front of us we have some escalators
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so now i almost fell we are going up the escalators yes now we're going up the escalators
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and in a second wait for this guys we will be going down the escalators
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thrilling thrilling content here at english sponge guys never never before seen content we just went up the escalators
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and you'll never believe this down the escalators we go yeah
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try and find content this exhilarating anywhere else i dare you
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so guys people often ask me during my lessons sam what
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is the best part of living in the uk is it
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the beautiful weather is it the lovely happy people is it the king
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or queen that sits above us is it london there are
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so many amazing things about this country but one thing rules above them all nando's our national treasure.
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The greatest, greatest dining experience a person could ever have.
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Trust me, you will never get chicken this tasty at this good a price anywhere else.
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If I give you one recommendation for something to do when you come to the UK, it's to come to this fine dining establishment.
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Nando's, we salute you.
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So guys, that is it for today's video.
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Thank you so much for watching.
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I really hope you enjoyed the video and I hope you learnt some new city vocabulary today.
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If you enjoy these videos, be sure to check out the playlist here for more B1 and B2 content.
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And if you want more exclusive English Spongebob videos,
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check out our premium membership here on YouTube or check out our website as well for lots of exclusive, original content.
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Stuff you won't see anywhere else.
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my name is Sam thank you for watching one more time and I will see you in the next video
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B1 speaking lesson is built on the video “Learn Real British English: In The City”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: beautiful, shop, content, english, price. This video has 137 sentences and 1762 words to shadow. The speech runs for 12:44. The speaker talks at a steady 138 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. 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
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| escalator noun | /ˈɛs.kə.leɪ.tɚ/ | Anything that escalates. |
| pound noun | /ˈpaʊ̯nd/ | A unit of weight in various measurement systems. |
| sponge noun | /spʌnd͡ʒ/ | Any of various marine invertebrates of the phylum Porifera, that have a porous skeleton often of silica. |
| dine verb | /daɪn/ | To eat; to eat dinner or supper. |
| earring noun | /ˈɪəɹɪŋ/ | A piece of jewelry worn on the ear. |
| argentine noun | /ˈɑː(ɹ).d͡ʒənˌtiːn/ | Any osmeriform fish of the genus Argentina, especially a European argentine (Argentina sphyraena). |
| thrill verb | /θɹɪl/ | To suddenly excite someone, or to give someone great pleasure; to (figuratively) electrify; to experience such a sensation. |
| sunglasses noun | Tinted glasses worn to protect the eyes from the sun or other bright light, and may also be worn as a fashion accessory. | |
| vocabulary noun | /vəˈkæb.jə.lə.ɹi/ | A usually alphabetized and explained collection of words e.g. of a particular field, or prepared for a specific purpose, often for learning. |
| vegetable noun | /ˈvɛd͡ʒ.tə.bəl/ | A plant raised for some edible part of it, such as the leaves, roots, fruit or flowers, but excluding any plant considered to be a fruit, grain, herb, or spice… |
| cheers | /t͡ʃɪəz/ | A common toast used when drinking in company. |
| menu noun | /ˈmɛn.juː/ | The details of the food to be served at a banquet; a bill of fare. |
| clip noun | /klɪp/ | Something which clips or grasps; a device for attaching one object to another. |
| ruin noun | /ˈɹuː.ɪn/ | The remains of a destroyed or dilapidated construction, such as a house or castle. |
| blueberry noun | /ˈbluˌbɛ.ɹi/ | An edible round berry, belonging to the cowberry group (Vaccinium sect. Cyanococcus), with flared crowns at the end, that turns blue on ripening. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| check out verb | To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.). |
| go up verb | To move upwards. |
| walk down verb | To continually advance (on an opponent) and punch (the opponent) in order to control the fight and dominate the opponent, while shrugging off the opponent's… |
| come across verb | To change sides; to cross over to work for the opposition. |
| come down with verb | To develop symptoms or signs of (an illness). |
| come over verb | To affect in a sudden, unprecedented or surprising manner; to overwhelm a person's ordinarily contrary impulse. |
| get up verb | To move in an upward direction; to ascend or climb. |
| go down verb | To descend; to move from a higher place to a lower one. |
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 | we've come · it's been designed · have heard |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | are stood · is called · are designed |
| Superlatives the -est / the most … — the top or bottom of a group | the biggest · the best · the most british |
| Possibility with “might / may” might/may + verb — something that is possible but not certain | may know · may see · might want |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 28 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, don't, we're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: thrill /θɹɪl/, cloth /klɒθ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: decoration /ˌdɛkəˈɹeɪʃən/, recommendation /ˌɹɛkəmɛnˈdeɪʃən/, treasure /ˈtɹɛʒəɹ/
- Long words — get the stress right: escalator /ˈɛs.kə.leɪ.tɚ/, vocabulary /vəˈkæb.jə.lə.ɹi/, comprehensible /kɒmpɹəˈhɛnsɪbəl/, ridiculously /ɹɪˈdɪk.jə.ləs.li/, amazingly /əˈmeɪzɪŋli/
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 escalator, pound, sponge.
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.