Shadowing Practice: Listening + Speaking: The 2 pieces you're Missing - Learn English Speaking with Video
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133 sentences
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This is a jigsaw piece.
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These are jigsaw pieces.
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And I think that learning English is like doing a jigsaw puzzle.
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In school, we learn to solve lots of English puzzles like vocab, grammar and reading.
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but somehow, not listening and speaking.
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In this video, I'm looking for these two secret pieces that will make the complex puzzle of learning English simple.
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Guys, I have just made this super delicious,
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highly nutritious, brain -boosting smoothie for my brekkie.
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And brekkie is a British term for breakfast.
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There's about a million of my five a day in this bowl.
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Now before I talk to you about the listening puzzle piece,
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I want to share a little idea in a book that I've been reading recently which is this book here
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How to Eat by Thich Nhat Hanh.
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A grain of rice contains the universe.
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When we look at a grain of rice one second of mindfulness
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and concentration allows us to see that this grain contains the whole world.
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It's a beautiful book by a beautiful man now let's pay attention to the ingredients in this smoothie bowl
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so we can use it as an opportunity to learn some new english
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and discover the story behind these ingredients first we have blueberries and spinach
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they start their humble journey on the farm where the farmer plants them them,
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waters them, and harvests them.
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Then they meet with a truck driver who drives them straight to the farmer's market.
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Blueberries and spinach both made the same trip into this bowl.
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But what about the yogurt?
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This yogurt contains sunlight inside it.
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The sun's energy grows the grass.
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The grass feeds the cow and the cow creates milk.
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Someone milked her and they let that milk sit and ferment into yogurt.
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Ferment means it uses good bacteria to change or preserve the food.
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People usually ferment things with sugar or salt and they taste really good and apparently they're very good for our guts.
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Our gut is all the organs inside our tummy.
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But how about this bowl?
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This bowl started its journey as clay dug up from the earth.
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A potter shaped it with their hands.
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It was fired in a kiln.
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A kiln is a clay oven.
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And that kiln was hot enough to turn clay into this ceramic bowl.
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Apparently the whole universe is in this bowl.
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The English language is no different.
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Idioms don't appear from thin air.
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We humans shape the language through our culture and our habits.
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So let's look at an idiom to spill the beans.
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Spill the beans means to reveal a secret or hidden information that you probably shouldn't.
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And this idiom comes from ancient Greece where when they used to vote with black and white beans in a jar,
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if somebody knocked that jar over and the beans spilled out, then the secret would be revealed.
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The voters would know who is getting voted in.
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Speaking of secrets, now it's time to reveal the first secret puzzle piece which is to listen with attention.
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Just like eating with attention, you slow down and you focus on only what's in front of you.
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So instead of watching video after video, you can choose one video that's slightly above your level and then watch it twice.
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The first time with subtitles.
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Slow down and try to follow the story, not every word.
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the second time you'll watch it without the subtitles really try to hear
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and listen to the rhythm of English the sound of the speakers you're training your ears here
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when you have a conversation you don't have subtitles we listen to English not like a task or a chore,
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but we listen to immerse ourselves in the language.
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Treat it like something that you're curious about and something that you enjoy doing.
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If you want content that matches your level, you can watch it on sproutlanguage .com.
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Now, listening with attention is just the first piece of the puzzle, there's a more important piece, one that's harder to fit in.
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But before I talk about that, I want to go to a new cafe that I've heard about.
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So, let's go.
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Don't wanna be a one -man woman Got me stranded like a boat in the sand
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Just the thought of not spreading my wings drives me crazy Hello, can we have the lemon espresso?
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Lemon espresso?
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Yeah, one lemon espresso Right guys, we've just arrived at a cafe called I Hate Mondays
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and it's pretty cool in here it's our first time here
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and it's actually just started pouring down with rain outside we are sitting by the window it's light bright
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and the view
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is just right i'm feeling good we've just ordered a lemon espresso tonic
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that beautiful thing it's in a wine glass with a sprig of rosemary
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and a wedge of lemon
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which you squeeze inside sour after we eat i've
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got some work to do on my laptop but before
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that i want We want to look around the environment and see if we can immerse ourselves in some English.
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On the left hand side of the picture we have a small plant in a blue vase.
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On the right hand side we have a yellow lamp with a light bulb inside.
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You can see the reflection of the yellow lamp shade in the window.
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The chefs are in the kitchen cooking food.
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This is a ceiling fan, keeping the cafe customers cool. Do you hate Monday?
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Wow, what a beautiful view.
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So cool in here guys.
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Love the branding.
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There's text everywhere, there's fun writing, fun pictures.
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It's very playful.
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It's a bit of me.
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Bit of me.
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It means I relate to it.
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I like it.
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Awesome.
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And this is a cute little lemon tree in a plant pot.
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This lemon is still green.
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It's not ripe yet.
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When a fruit is ripe, It means it's ready to eat.
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This is a fridge.
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A tough fridge.
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Oh, hello. Is that you?
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Right now I'm standing upstairs and Chang is sitting downstairs in the window.
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This is a salmon salad.
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Chang is holding the piece of salmon on the fork.
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It's in a white bowl
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and to the right of the white bowl is the salad dressing which she is pouring over the salad.
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Beautiful.
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She's squeezing the lemon juice.
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into the wine glass.
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These are seeds or pips.
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It's a great word here guys.
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This thing is called a carafe and you use it to pour water into the glass.
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Here we have some roasted vegetables with some kind of dip.
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In British English this is It's called rocket.
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In American English, it's called arugula, like the rocket that takes the astronauts up into space.
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So what was the word that you shared this morning with me?
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The word was epiphany, my word of the day, a sudden realization, a flash of inspiration.
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what am i doing i am dabbing my mouth with the napkin to dab
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i've just finished my meal it was lovely i'm pretty full i'm feeling satisfied
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and now i think it's time to reveal the second secret puzzle piece
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which will make your english fantastic I know a lot of
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you struggle with your English speaking you might not feel like it's good enough
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but I want you to throw away
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that belief right now I want you to release that belief
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and let's keep things nice
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and simple to get better at speaking focus on building a small daily habits small actions create big reactions.
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You build momentum like a ball rolling down a hill.
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10 minutes every single day is much better than four hours on a weekend.
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I want to show you how you can use Sprout to cultivate and build a speaking habit.
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We just added a super cool feature where you can turn any YouTube video into an English lesson.
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Sprout gives you key vocab from that video and you can speak about it with J .I.
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He will ask you questions about the video topic and help you use the new words you learned.
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After you finish speaking, you get feedback to find out what you're doing well and where you can improve.
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It's such a simple but powerful way to become fluent in English.
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Listening with attention and speaking every day.
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If you want to check out Spout, I'll leave a link in the description box.
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You can try it for seven days free and turn any YouTube video into an English lesson.
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Learning English is like doing a jigsaw puzzle.
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It takes time, patience, and focus but every piece matters and each piece of action you take is something worth celebrating.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “Listening + Speaking: The 2 pieces you're Missing”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: english, piece, bowl, puzzle, lemon. This video has 133 sentences and 1459 words to shadow. The speech runs for 13:40. The speaker talks slowly, about 107 words per minute, so there is time to copy every sound. Only 80% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| lemon noun | /ˈlɛmən/ | A yellowish citrus fruit. |
| puzzle noun | /ˈpʌzəl/ | The state of feeling confused or mystified because one cannot understand a complicated matter, a problem, etc.; bewilderment, confusion; (countable) often in… |
| reveal verb | /ɹɪˈviːl/ | To uncover; to show and display that which was hidden. |
| bean noun | /ˈbi(ː)n/ | Any plant of several genera of the taxonomic family Fabaceae that produces large edible seeds or edible seedpods. |
| clay noun | /kleɪ/ | A mineral substance made up of small crystals of silica and alumina, that is ductile when moist; the material of pre-fired ceramics. |
| habit noun | /ˈhæb.ɪt/ | An action performed on a regular basis. |
| grain noun | /ɡɹeɪn/ | The harvested seeds of various grass food crops, especially wheat, maize, rye, barley, and rice. |
| salad noun | /ˈsæl.əd/ | A food consisting principally of raw vegetables (especially greens, e.g. lettuce), other savoury ingredients (typically cooked), fruit, or confectionary; often… |
| pour verb | /poɹ/ | To cause (liquid, or liquid-like substance) to flow in a stream, either out of a container or into it. |
| spill verb | /spɪl/ | To drop something so that it spreads out or makes a mess; to accidentally pour. |
| yogurt noun | /ˈjɒɡ.ət/ | A milk-based product stiffened by a bacterium-aided curdling process, and sometimes mixed with fruit or other flavoring. |
| lesson noun | /ˈlɛs.ən/ | A section of learning or teaching into which a wider learning content is divided. |
| belief noun | /bɪˈliːf/ | Mental acceptance of a claim as true. |
| grass noun | /ɡɹɑːs/ | Any plant of the family Poaceae, characterized by leaves that arise from nodes in the stem and leaf bases that wrap around the stem, especially those grown as… |
| rocket noun | /ˈɹɑk.ɪt/ | A cylindrical projectile that can be fired to a great height through combustion, (specifically) a type of firework of this form, typically exploding with light… |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| slow down verb | To decelerate. |
| check out verb | To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.). |
| find out verb | To discover, as by asking or investigating. |
| look around verb | To inspect a building or area. |
| roll down verb | Synonym of wind down. |
| throw away verb | To discard (trash, garbage, or the like), to toss out, to put in the trash. |
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 just made · I've heard · we've just arrived |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | was fired · would be revealed · is called |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | recently which is · piece which is |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 22 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, I've, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: thin /ˈθɪn/, rhythm /ˈɹɪð.əm/, smoothie /ˈsmuːði/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: flash /flæʃ/, inspiration /ˌɪn.spɪˈɹeɪ.ʃən/, delicious /dɪˈlɪ.ʃəs/, concentration /ˌkɑn.sənˈtɹeɪ.ʃən/, chef /ʃɛf/
- Long words — get the stress right: ingredient /ɪnˈɡɹiːdi.ənt/, inspiration /ˌɪn.spɪˈɹeɪ.ʃən/, concentration /ˌkɑn.sənˈtɹeɪ.ʃən/, momentum /ˌmə(ʊ)ˈmɛntəm/, realization /ˌɹɪə.laɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/
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 lemon, puzzle, reveal.
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.