Shadowing Practice: Let's do karaoke - Shadowing practice - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Let's get Hi there, I'm Tony Grant and this is Learn English with Tony.
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A weekly podcast to improve your listening skills and grow your English vocabulary.
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Join me for a new episode every Friday where I'll give a short talk on a theme
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and explore a few interesting words and phrases for you.
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Okay everyone, the holidays are over now and it's back to work, or school, whichever stage of life you're in.
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January's always a slightly tough time in the Northern Hemisphere, don't you think?
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We come back from a nice break over the end of year holidays
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and we land with a bump in the coldest month of the year.
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But I hope you've all had a nice break anyway and are feeling refreshed and ready for another year.
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One of the things I enjoyed over New Year was doing a bit of karaoke here in Tokyo.
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Who doesn't love the chance to get behind the microphone and pretend to be a rock star for a couple of hours?
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I have to admit that nobody needs to hear me trying to sing Wonderwall by Oasis, but I enjoy myself anyway.
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If you're not familiar with karaoke, it was invented in Japan in the 1960s and early 70s.
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The name comes from a combination of two words in Japanese,
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kara meaning empty and oke which is short for orchestra.
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So karaoke literally means empty orchestra, or singing without a live band.
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The story goes that in Japan in the 60s, bars often had live musicians who would accompany customers singing popular songs.
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When those musicians weren't available, bar owners started to use pre-recorded instrumental tracks instead.
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Customers could still sing, but the orchestra was now empty, so to speak.
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The person most often credited with inventing karaoke is a man called Daisuke Inoue, a musician from Kobe.
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In 1971, he created a simple machine that played backing tracks on tape while customers sang into a microphone.
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Inoue rented these machines out to bars and clubs and they became really popular.
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But amazingly, he never patented his invention.
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He never obtained a license or patent for his machines and
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that allowed other people to copy his idea and create competing machines, and they all spread quickly across Japan.
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By the late 1970s and 80s, karaoke boxes appeared.
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These were small private soundproof rooms that could be rented by the hour,
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which were absolutely perfect for small groups of friends to use, and that's what you can find today all over Japanese cities.
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From the 1980s onwards, karaoke spread outside Japan, first through East and Southeast Asia,
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and then eventually to Europe, America and beyond.
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There are a few differences, of course.
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Western karaoke is often about public performance, and you find yourself singing in front of a bar,
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whereas Japanese karaoke is mostly private and in small groups.
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And believe it or not, in 1999, Time magazine named Daisuke Inoue,
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one of the most influential Asian people of the 20th century, acknowledging karaoke's massive global cultural impact.
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But the benefits of karaoke might not only be cultural.
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Studies have shown that singing might actually have a lot of health benefits too.
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It's believed that singing directly activates the vagus nerve through our vocal cords and the muscles at the back of the throat.
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The vagus nerve is a major part of the nervous system connecting your brain to your organs
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and it plays a big role in rest and relaxation.
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When you exhale or breathe out
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while singing you stimulate the vagus nerve causing endorphins to be released
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which can create pleasure and a sense of well-being and also reduce pain.
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So singing really can reduce your stress levels
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which is something I think the Japanese must have known since at least the early 1970s, given that there's a karaoke box on almost every street corner here.
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I wouldn't be surprised if hearing singing has a similar effect on our stress levels too.
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I don't mean hearing someone like me trying to sing Bohemian Rhapsody in karaoke of course.
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I'm thinking of more gentle, calm types of singing.
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After all, most mothers of newborn babies sing to their child, and the mother's singing seems to have a sort of calming effect on the baby.
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That's where lullabies come from, gentle songs that we sing to children to send them to sleep.
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One of the most striking benefits of singing though is its positive effect on the brains of people suffering from cognitive decline,
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like elderly people with dementia.
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Singing demands a lot from the brain because it requires attention and forces us to remember words and lyrics.
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It's also believed that singing helps the brain to rewire itself, creating new pathways and networks of neurons.
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And that's why it's being used by some researchers to help treat people who have suffered a brain stroke, to help them recover their speech.
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Isn't the human brain amazing?
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Anyway, regardless of all these benefits of singing, it's also just plain good fun, especially in a karaoke box with your mates.
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So on that note, I think I'm going to sit down and plan my New Year's karaoke playlist.
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Thank you for listening to Learn English with Tony.
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If there's a topic you'd like me to talk about in a future episode,
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just send an email to learnenglish.mobile at britishcouncil.org and remember, stay safe everyone.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Let's do karaoke - Shadowing practice”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: singing, karaoke, brain, sing, Japanese. This video has 61 sentences and 904 words to shadow. The speech runs for 6:52. The speaker talks at a steady 132 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. Only 80% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| karaoke noun | /ˈkæ.ɹiˌəʊ.ki/ | A form of entertainment popular in clubs, at parties, etc, in which individual members of the public sing along to pre-recorded instrumental versions of… |
| vagus noun | /ˈveɪ.ɡəs/ | A homeless person or vagrant. |
| orchestra noun | /ˈɔː.kɪs.tɹə/ | A large group of musicians who play together on various instruments, usually including some from strings, woodwind, brass and/or percussion; the instruments… |
| musician noun | /mjuˈzɪʃən/ | A composer, conductor, or performer of music; specifically, a person who sings and/or plays a musical instrument as a hobby, occupation, or profession. |
| nerve noun | /nɝv/ | A bundle of neurons with their connective tissue sheaths, blood vessels and lymphatics. |
| invent verb | /ɪnˈvɛnt/ | To design a new process or mechanism. |
| microphone noun | /ˈmaɪ.kɹəˌfəʊn/ | A device (transducer) used to convert sound waves into a varying electric current; normally fed into an amplifier and either recorded or transmitted over radio. |
| distress noun | /dɪˈstɹɛs/ | Physical or emotional discomfort, suffering, or alarm, particularly of a more acute nature. |
| gentle adjective | /ˈd͡ʒɛntl̩/ | Tender and amiable; of a considerate or kindly disposition. |
| patent noun | /ˈpeɪtənt/ | An official document granting an appointment, privilege, or right, or some property or title; letters patent. |
| endorphin noun | /ɛnˈdɔ(ɹ)fɪn/ | Any of a group of peptide hormones found in the mammalian brain that act as neurotransmitters and have properties similar to morphine. |
| exhale verb | /ˌɛksˈheɪ̯l/ | To expel air from the lungs through the nose or mouth by action of the diaphragm, to breathe out. |
| lullaby noun | /ˈlʌləbaɪ/ | A cradlesong, a soothing song to calm children or lull them to sleep. |
| neuron noun | /ˈn(j)ʊɹɑn/ | A cell of the nervous system, which conducts nerve impulses; consisting of an axon and several dendrites. Neurons are connected by synapses. |
| onward adverb | /ˈɒnwəd/ | In a forward direction. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| come back from verb | To become successful, confident or effective again after an injury, setback, failure, embarrassment, etc. |
| get behind verb | To come to believe or support something. |
| sit down verb | To assume a sitting position from a standing position. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | was invented · could be rented · be released |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have shown · have suffered |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | oke which is · people who have |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 14 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, don't, you're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: musician /mjuˈzɪʃən/, refresh /ɹɪˈfɹɛʃ/, relaxation /rᵻˌlækˈseɪ.ʃən/, dementia /dɪˈmɛnʃə/, invention /ɪnˈvɛnʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: karaoke /ˈkæ.ɹiˌəʊ.ki/, amazingly /əˈmeɪzɪŋli/, accompany /əˈkʌm.pə.ni/, vocabulary /vəˈkæb.jə.lə.ɹi/, instrumental /ɪnstɹəˈmɛntəl/
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 karaoke, vagus, orchestra.
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.