Shadowing Practice: Living Small in Japan | Full House Tour - Learn English Speaking with Video

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By Australian standards, my house in Japan is small, but when I look around, I don't know what I'd need a bigger home for.

There are a few things that make that possible, and some are easier to show you than explained.

If you're new here, I'm Cheney, an Australian living in Wakayama, Japan.

Today I'm taking you through my house, I'm showing you how I use the space and the little choices that make it work for me.

From the windows and high ceilings to furniture that moves when I need it to.

There's quite a bit going on in this little house.

One room looks very different depending on the time of day.

Come in and I'll show you around.

I work as an English teacher during the week

and one of the best things I did was get this parcel box sitting at the front of my house

and I never miss a delivery

when I'm at work now as you know I have my K van to go camping in

so that meant I needed a garage door and a ramp

so that my car can mount the curb

and back into the garage everyone buys these little rubber ramps here sometimes you can get metal ones

but mine is rubber this manhole is for my water pipes

which are out the front of the house I've got a nice little garden out the front as well

which is doing really well at the moment

and everyone in my area has a septic system this means the sewage is processed on site

and then it is pushed out to wherever it goes next

i don't know where it goes this is my catio out the back

i'm going to take you out to the garden a little bit later

but i have my cat millie so she has a fully enclosed catio

so she can go outside and play i recently got the house painted

and it's an amazing silicon paint here

that also acts as a bit of an insulator

so my house is freshly painted and it's looking really fine from the outside.

I have a cat letterbox and I have a smart door as well.

I am sort of living like a Japanese in

that I take my shoes off at the door mainly to keep dirt out of the house.

The genkan, the entrance area, marks the boundary between the outside and the inside.

So of course I have my shoe cupboard

which I put all of my shoes in here

and I do have a pair of slippers that I sometimes wear around the house.

Sometimes I forget to put them on.

Recently I have been using a Japanese shoe horn which I love so much.

I have my emergency go bag at the front door just in case there's an earthquake.

It's very common that people have an emergency bag that's got a few little supplies in it ready to go.

Right next to the front door is the toilet room.

One clever feature of Japanese toilets is when you flush, fresh water comes out the top so you can rinse your hands.

My toilet also has a heated toilet seat

and all of the bidet functions that are pretty standard with a lot of modern Japanese toilets.

Right next to that room is my garage.

One of the main reasons

that I actually bought this house was the option to turn this old room into a garage for my car.

I wasn't keen on having my car parked.

Right then we just got an earthquake alert.

Sorry about that.

I was saying I wasn't keen on having my car parked outside.

Okay well next to that is the bathroom

and I am in the process of putting these stained glass sort of decorations on all the windows of these doors.

But the bathroom, I wasn't entirely happy with how bland it was.

So I added these peel and stick sort of look like tiles

and I brought in some green into the area just to brighten it up.

It was a little bit clinical.

I added a tension pole above the door, which just gives me a little more hanging space when I need to hang things up.

I've got all of my towels here in baskets.

Inside the bathroom, It's quite a good size.

It's sort of like a shower room or a wet room and I've got those magnetic hooks up on the ceiling.

Everything in here is magnetic.

The bath comes with these covers so

if you want to fill it up with hot water

and it's going to be a little while before you have a bath,

it just keeps all of the heat and the hot water in the bathtub.

I found this cute little stainless steel hook

which acts as a place to hang my hairdryer because I'm sort of short on cupboard space in this room.

Now into the main living room and as you know I got

that Kimiko window installed but one of the things

that I love about this whole house is the amount of light that comes in and I'm capitalizing on that.

I didn't want too many solid walls

but I also needed a way to keep the air conditioning

and the heating in so I decided to put this curtain rail up

and it acts as a thermal curtain

and I only need to use this during the hottest summer months or the coldest winter months.

The rest of the time I just leave it wide open to let all of the light come in

and one of the things like I said before is there are so many windows in this house.

It also has really high ceilings.

Like, I don't know if this video shows you how high the ceilings are, but I get light coming in from the front door.

I was careful to not buy a solid front door

and I was also careful to make sure there weren't heavy window coverings on any of the windows

because I want as much light in the house as possible.

Because it is a small house, I think light

and high ceilings makes

it feel a lot bigger than

what it actually is

this lounge room

area is probably the place that i spend most of my time

if i'm not upstairs in the office editing i'm just down here listening to music

and hanging out in this room it's a room

that i've really come to love

and bit by bit i've made it work for me with furniture

that fits the size now this is an adjustable table

that i built a couple of years ago i actually made a video

and it's about my financial choices in japan if you want to go

and check that out during that time i bought a second hand table

and i changed out the top of it i also recently purchased

this tv stand off amazon it means i can move it around the room

and help the room work in different ways i was also tossing up whether to get curtains

or not and i ended up going with some really easy to install tension rod blinds

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so these come they sort of just tension rod in there's no screws

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or anything required they have actually been working really well

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so i'm quite happy with that and they're very minimalistic

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and they're not heavy on the window and they blend nicely with the wallpaper so you know they don't stand out.

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Now as you know I live with a cat this is Millie.

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Millie is a rag doll and she needs her fur brushed a lot otherwise it sheds everywhere and it can get matted.

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So she's learnt from a young age

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that she has to get brushed every day to keep her fur coat in tip -top condition

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and this just helps me not get too much fur around the house as well.

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Before she goes outside I usually give her a brush and outside is her little reward.

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Now I'm coming outside because I have this hole in my garden.

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It's where a few things died over summer and it's time to fill up that space.

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I've gotten a bit of basil,

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a bit of parsley and just a little bit of hardy plants that might last their way through the cold winter months.

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I'm not sure if the basil or the parsley is going to last

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but i'll give it a go apart from having space to

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put a car like a garage my next requirement was i

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definitely wanted to be able to garden in my house in japan i didn't want a house

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that was sort of landlocked now this house only sits on 100 square meters

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which in australia

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that would be quite shocking most houses sort of are on lots of 400 square meters

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that's four times the size of land that I have here in Japan

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but I find this garden bed

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and then I've got two garden beds down the side as

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well is actually plenty for me to just potter around in

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and even sometimes it gets a bit overwhelming for me with the weeds

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so I don't want for any more land than the land

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I have especially as I'm sort of living on my own it's not like there are other people

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that can help me garden and it's just a hobby

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and something I do on weekends

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and I have a bit of fun with it my pawpaw plant has started to flower

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so that is very exciting I just hope there are some male flowers

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and some female flowers otherwise I won't be getting any pawpaws

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I often come and sit out in the garden mostly in the morning

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or the late afternoon Millie won't come out

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when I've got the hose on

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but as soon as I turn

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it off she's more than happy to venture out she's a

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little bit afraid of the water her favorite spot at the

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moment is to jump up onto the hot water system now i do have a ledge there for her

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but since i've put the hot water system in it's a new electric system she loves sitting way up high

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and she's as high as the birds so she sits up there

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and watches all the comings and goings now speaking of millie i have this dji AI robot vacuum,

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which is amazing for picking up all of her little bits of fluff.

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I have an air purifier, which I sit right next to the laundry because that's where Millie's litter robot is.

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So Millie's litter robot just tucks neatly in here.

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This is where I've got my washing machine.

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It's actually under the stairs.

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It's the perfect spot for it.

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Actually, it was outside when I bought the house, but one of the first things I did was move it inside

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and it has been the best thing

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i did i don't want to go out in the elements to do my washing

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i can shut this room off with this concertina door

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but i tend to keep it open unless people are coming around well

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it's time to take you upstairs millie is going to lead the way

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and i want to show you one of the things

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that has been annoying me since the time i bought

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this house yes there is a lovely window here letting the light in it's perfect for the stairwell

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but this whole area don't ask me why it's the only part of the house

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that has suna kabe suna means sand kabe is wall

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so it is a sand wall and i dislike this wall

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so much why they put this wall where the stairs are I don't know it's a high traffic area

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which means there's always sand coming off the wall

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if you just bump the wall for a second there's going to be sand coming off it

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so I'm thinking about what I might do to change

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this out once you get upstairs there are three rooms my bedroom to the right my office to the left

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and the spare room I have a smoke alarm upstairs and I have another one downstairs as well.

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It's such a small house I don't need any more than the two smoke alarms.

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This is my office

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and I did a video about a year ago about me

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renovating my office from a cluttered office to a nice YouTube studio.

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It doesn't look like this at the moment.

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It's a little bit messier than when I did it up

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so I've got to get in there and give it a clean

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but this is what it looks like

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when it's clean next to the office is my spare room

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and this is the room i have for guests

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so at the moment i have nothing in here just the beautiful tatami mats

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but my good friend is arriving from australia tomorrow

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because we are going on a little trip

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so i need to get the futons ready

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and get her bed ready i have quite a few spare futons because quite often friends,

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family and my kids come over and stay with me in Japan.

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So I've got enough for everyone when they come and stay.

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One thing is a lot of my friends find it really hard to sleep on the floor, Japanese style.

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So what I've got is a mattress, but then I've got this foam mattress topper.

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It just helps ease the pain a little bit for those who aren't used to sleeping on a futon.

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So a Japanese futon has two main parts

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this bottom part is the shiki buton this is the mattress underneath you

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so what i normally do is i put the shiki buton down

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and i wrap it in a fitted sheet and

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that just holds everything together next i put a sleeping pad on top

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if it's summer it's a cooling pad and

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when it's a little bit cool like now i'm just putting this quilted one on

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so it's nice and warm the next part is the kakebuton

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and the kakebuton is the quilt that you pull over yourself

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and in Japan they've got these little tags

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and you've got to tie it all in

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so it doesn't move around within the sheet part and that is all that's to a futon.

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The good thing about futons is it frees up the floor space during the day.

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Next up is my room.

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Now both these rooms are actually exactly the same size.

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Now, in my room, I have no door.

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I just have this sliding door, which Millie has decided to attack for some reason.

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She doesn't touch the tatami mats.

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She just wants to scratch her claws on this door.

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So I found this sort of timber sponge foam thing, which is probably more like a doorstop.

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And that's working really well to stop her from damaging it any further.

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I did have a double bed in here, but I've swapped it out to a single bed.

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And it's given me a lot more room.

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I've got my beautiful kimono up on display and a Harry Potter outfit

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because you know what it's Halloween soon

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and at my school we're all dressing up we dress up every year

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I've got a collection of Millie's toys in this room

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because she tends to wake up at two o 'clock in the morning I also hung a mirror up so that

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when I get changed I've got my wardrobe right here in this little space

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I recently hung curtains here just to I don't know hide the clothes from my bedroom and it's working really well.

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I'm actually very happy with it.

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It's a lot better than when it was just all open.

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Next to where my hanging clothes are is the futon cupboard.

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Now this is a mosquito catcher thingy.

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I turn that on sometimes if a mosquito gets in the house from when Millie's been outside.

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For some reason, they always make their way up to my bedroom.

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I don't know why they do it, but in the middle of the night,

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you know, you hear that little buzz and I turn that little mosquito catcher on and it seems to work really well.

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Apart from the downstairs living room area, I have to say this bedroom is my second favorite room in the house.

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It's exactly how I like it.

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I've got my favorite cushion covers and at nighttime I've got my fairy lights

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and I have the projector here and it just works like to wind down in the evening.

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I can watch a movie in bed

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and it's just a very very comfortable room

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so I'm really happy with how it is

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so that's where I sleep although Millie seems to think it's her room too

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and speaking of Millie

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I came home from work to find a lovely member of the post card club had sent her a massive parcel.

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I am so looking forward to opening this so let's see what's inside together.

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Millie has such a big personality for someone who spends so much of the day asleep.

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She has her own opinions about things and she's very good at making sure I know what she wants.

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With my boys all grown up

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and living their own lives I really enjoy having her here to care for our little routines of dinner time

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and giving her her brush keeping her fur nice

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and clean are just a nice part of my day

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and my routine and I still find myself talking to her all the time as

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if she's going to answer me

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and sometimes with the look she gives me I think

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she is answering me now I thought

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this strawberry was going to be way too small for her to fit in but She was like,

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no, that is definitely where I'm going to go.

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You're in the strawberry house.

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I'm going to put the cat beds upstairs and one in the office and one in the bedroom.

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And a lot of those toys I'm actually going to pack away for Christmas.

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I've got people coming at Christmas time,

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so it's probably a good time to bring them out when there's people around and she can play with them then.

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Well, thanks for checking out the house if you're new here.

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If you've seen it all before, hopefully I showed you something you haven't seen before.

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but I will say in Australia you know this would be considered a very small house

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but I know a lot of people are living in a lot smaller houses here in Japan especially

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if you're living in one of the major cities I know a lot of people live in smaller apartments

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so I guess it's all definitely relative to what you call small thank you

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so much for being here and we look forward to seeing you again in next week's video see you later bye

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Thank you.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This speaking lesson is built on the video “Living Small in Japan”. This video has 260 sentences and 3223 words to shadow. The speech runs for 17:19. The speaker talks fast, about 186 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. Only 81% 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
bedroom noun	/ˈbɛdˌɹum/	A room in a house, apartment, hotel, or other dwelling where a bed is kept for sleeping.
toilet verb	/ˈtɔɪ.lət/	To assist another (a child, etc.) in using a toilet.
garage noun	/ɡəˈɹɑʒ/	A building (or section of a building) used to store a car or cars, tools and other miscellaneous items.
ceiling noun	/ˈsilɪŋ/	The overhead closure of a room.
upstairs adverb	/ˌʌpˈstɛɹz/	Up the stairs; on or to a higher floor or level.
sand noun	/sænd/	Rock that is ground more finely than gravel, but is not as fine as silt (more formally, see grain sizes chart), forming beaches and deserts and also used in…
brush noun	/bɹʌʃ/	An implement consisting of multiple more or less flexible bristles or other filaments attached to a handle, used for any of various purposes including…
curtain noun	/ˈkɜɹt(ə)n/	A piece of cloth covering a window, bed, etc. to offer privacy and keep out light.
spare adjective	/spɛɚ/	Being more than what is necessary, or what must be used or reserved; not wanted, or not used; superfluous.
robot noun	/ˈɹoʊ.bɑt/	An intelligent mechanical being designed to look like a human or other creature, and usually made from metal.
tension noun	/ˈtɛnʃən/	The condition of being held in a state between two or more forces, which are acting in opposition to each other.
mat noun	/mæt/	A flat piece of coarse material used for wiping one’s feet, or as a decorative or protective floor covering.
mattress noun	/ˈmætɹɪs/	A pad on which a person can recline and sleep, usually having an inner section of coiled springs covered with foam or other cushioning material then enclosed…
mosquito noun	/məsˈki.toʊ/	A small flying insect of the family Culicidae, the females of which bite humans and animals and suck blood, leaving an itching bump on the skin, and sometimes…
wash verb	/wɑʃ/	To clean with water.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
come off verb		To become detached.
come out verb	/ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/	To be discovered; to be revealed.
dress up verb		To put on special or fancy clothes.
look forward to verb		To anticipate, expect, or wait for, especially with a feeling of approval or pleasure; to be excited or eager to.
check out verb		To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.).
come around verb	/kʌ.məˈɹaʊnd/	To change one's mind, especially to begin to agree or appreciate what one was reluctant to accept at first.
come over verb		To affect in a sudden, unprecedented or surprising manner; to overwhelm a person's ordinarily contrary impulse.
end up verb		To bring to a conclusion.

Sentences worth repeating

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

Come in and I'll show you around.
I wasn't keen on having my car parked.
I've got all of my towels here in baskets.
This is where I've got my washing machine.
I'm actually very happy with it.

Grammar in this video

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

Structure	In the video
Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on	have been using · have actually been working
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	i've really come · i've made · I've gotten
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	is processed · is pushed · is freshly painted
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	those who aren · thing, which is · someone who spends

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 78 contractions and reduced forms, such as I've, I'm, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: bath /bɑːθ/, earthquake /ˈɝθkweɪk/, underneath /ˌʌndɚˈniθ/, thermal /ˈθɜːməl/, bathtub /ˈbæθtʌb/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: garage /ɡəˈɹɑʒ/, brush /bɹʌʃ/, tension /ˈtɛnʃən/, wash /wɑʃ/, sheet /ʃit/
Long words — get the stress right: decoration /ˌdɛkəˈɹeɪʃən/, adjustable /əˈd͡ʒʌstəbəl/, capitalize /ˈkæpətəˌlaɪz/, concertina /ˌkɑnsɚˈtinə/, insulator /ˈɪn.s(j)ə.leɪ.tə(ɹ)/

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 bedroom, toilet, garage.

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: Living Small in Japan | Full House Tour - 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?