Shadowing Practice: Make the Bed With Me in English - Learn English Speaking with Video

Get ready to learn real life English.

Today you are invited to my house to join me for real life

so that you can go out into the real world and speak real English.

That's what we learn here on this YouTube channel.

If you are new, hi, I'm Vanessa and here on my YouTube channel, you will learn real daily life English.

Not that textbook stuff, but real English and today, Guess what you are going to do?

You're going to join me as I do one of my least favorite chores, which is changing the sheets on my bed.

I just realized this shirt and this comforter are quite busy, but that's okay.

You are going to learn real life English today, and I can't wait to teach you all about it.

And like usual, I have created a free PDF worksheet with all of today's important vocabulary,

expressions, sample sentences, and when you download this free PDF worksheet,

you're going to get a bonus audio version of today's lesson.

That means that you can download the audio version of today's lesson, kind of like a mini podcast episode, and you can listen to it wherever you want.

Maybe while you're changing the sheets.

Amazing!

So how can you get this free worksheet, all you need to do is click the link in the description, enter your name and email address, and voila, just like that,

the PDF worksheet and bonus audio version will land in your email inbox.

And the cool thing is you never have to sign up for my free worksheets ever again.

I will automatically send them to you every single week in your email inbox.

It is my gift to you.

So click on the link in the description to get the free worksheet for today's lesson.

So to get started changing the sheets, I have to have a couple things.

I have to have some clean sheets prepared, and I also need a laundry basket.

This is where we're going to put the dirty sheets.

They're not really that dirty, but you know what?

It's a good idea to change your sheets every now and then, and it's something that I put off.

I should do it probably every other week.

That's the goal, but I put it off except for today.

In today's lesson, I am not putting it off anymore.

This is for you.

So the first thing that we need to do is we need to strip the bed.

You could say simply take off the old sheets, but we often use this word strip.

I'm going to strip or strip off this quilt.

I'm going to strip off this comforter.

It's actually a duvet comforter.

You can put a duvet cover over top of it, but I just call it a comforter.

And I'm going to take off this sheet.

I will explain all about these sheets in just a minute.

Now this I'm going to wash so I will put it in my laundry basket.

I'm going to also take these pillows and you might ask why do you have so many pillows?

Are there, why are there four pillows?

Well why would I live in a world where I just need one pillow when I can have two pillows, right?

So these are not decorative pillows.

Some people have decorative pillows on their bed.

I'm not that kind of person, but I like to have one pillow under my head and sometimes I hug a pillow.

Sometimes I have that pillow for back support.

We call that lumbar support sometimes when I'm sleeping and I'm going to throw the pillowcases in the laundry basket.

Let me know, are you someone who sleeps with more than one pillow?

I definitely am, and I feel grateful that I live in a world where I can sleep comfortably, right?

So let's take all these off.

As you can see, I am not a stickler for matching sheets or matching pillowcases.

So these are a matching set.

You can see, I think you can see a little bit that these are matching.

They have little polka dots on them.

But really, whenever I do the sheets, I just grab whatever sheets are clean, whatever pillowcases are clean, and that's what I put on the bed.

Some people are pickier than me, but I am not.

All right, so next we need to take off Thank you.

the fitted sheet.

So this sheet has elastic and I'm going to take off this fitted, fitted sheet.

I need to go all the way around the bed and not trip, trip over things.

So I will take off this fitted sheet.

This is the one that is annoying to put on.

Some fitted sheets don't actually fit a bed very well, but this one, this one seems to fit okay.

So I'm going to take off this fitted sheet and the next thing is,

I need to find the new clean fitted sheet somewhere in here.

Note that the pronunciation of this, fitted, those t's are going to sound like Ds in American English because they're surrounded by vowels.

Fitted, not fitted.

Fitted, fitted.

That's one of the tricks that makes spoken English sound so fast because we change one letter for another,

one word kind of blends into the next word because of all those little tips and tricks.

All right, this is my clean fitted sheet.

I have two pairs of fitted sheets for this bed, which means one of them can be dirty and the other can be clean.

And I don't need to do the laundry in order to have a clean set of sheets.

So that's generally the term that we would use.

This is a set of sheets, the matching set.

This is not a matching set.

I don't care.

But I'm going to put this on my bed

and you're going to see there's an inside and an outside

and I have to figure out which side is the long side and which side is the short side.

I think that's a problem everybody has when they make the bed with this type of with these types of sheets.

All right I'm going to tuck it in

around here and oh I did it wrong I have the long side here so what I'm going to do

pull that off and find this corner

so this is the corner of the sheet I'm going to try to tuck it under the mattress

and back here as well I'm going to tuck this corner around the mattress

and usually the truth is

when I make the bed I have at least one child very excited

that there is a big flat jumping surface available and somebody is jumping on the bed while I'm doing this,

but I sent everybody outside while I was making this video for you.

All right, so I'll get this one tucked in and you might see we have this lovely patch.

I sewed on this patch because I love these sheets.

They're so comfortable.

I think they're like linen sheets.

They're really nice.

They're a little wrinkly, but it's okay.

But they got a rip in them.

Sometimes natural fibers just aren't as durable as like polyester or more like man -made materials.

So these linen sheets, they're just not very durable, but I didn't want to throw them away.

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I wanted to try to fix them myself.

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So I cut, I had a piece of extra fabric.

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You can see from these sheets, there was like an extra little square, a little like bag that these sheets came in and I had saved that.

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And I cut that little bag.

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It was not a bag to use to carry stuff.

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It was just to stuff the sheets in when you buy it.

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And I sewed it onto the hole and now there's a nice little patch there and we can use these sheets again.

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Hooray!

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All right now that we have the fitted sheet on let's get the flat sheet.

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That's what this guy is called.

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And there is a top and a bottom you can see there is a thicker seam here to here.

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This is the seam.

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This is a thin seam right here

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but this thick seam is going to go at the top, ideally so I'm going to just toss this across the bed

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and Make sure that it's relatively even.

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We don't want to let Dan have all the sheets, right?

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I got to have some sheets too on my side.

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All right, that is good enough for me.

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Usually I'll tuck the corners in so that they don't get messed up too much.

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My kids love to hide under my sheets and they play in the blankets,

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which means that oftentimes all of my sheets and blankets end up on the floor.

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Maybe it's just foolhardy to think that if I tuck the corner of my sheet in they'll stay in place.

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Yeah I'm probably fooling myself but that's the way it goes.

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All right next I'm going to add this duvet cover

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because there's a tag I try to keep

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that at the bottom of the bed so that it's not in our faces

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and this one pull up like this and this quilt I'm going to just throw on.

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Now this quilt is not a special homemade quilt.

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We do have a quilt that Dan's great -grandmother sewed and we often use that on our bed.

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I did not bring it out for this video but that's a very special quilt.

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You can tell it's a quilt, not just a blanket because it has these little squares.

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And this is just from a company,

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nothing very personal, but it still has the squares of fabric that have been sewn together.

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And in older times, people would save patches of their fabric,

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of their clothing after their clothing got old, and they would make blankets out of it because you had to reuse things more.

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I try to be thrifty as well

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but I don't think I could ever make a quilt unless

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I really needed to unless it was a necessity all right here we go

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and next we have our assorted pillowcases

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and I'm going to put a couple on it's interesting some pillowcases I don't know if it's the same in your country.

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Some pillowcases have this little flap here to keep the pillow in,

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and some pillowcases are just a little opening and you have to shove the pillowcase or the pillow in.

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This one has a little flap, but it maybe keeps the pillow in better.

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I'm not sure.

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All right, let's see if I can shove it in a little bit better.

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And I know this is Dan's pillow.

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So that's gonna go up there.

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This pillow is mine and I'm gonna put the pillowcase on this as well.

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There is a tag on the pillow so technically maybe some people would put that at the very end, but I don't care.

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Like I said, this is my least favorite chore.

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You see how cool this is?

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There's like a little flap and then you can pull up that piece so that it stays nice and tucked in there.

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Great.

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All right, now here's the choice.

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I can give my second and pillow, the same color as my first pillow.

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Let's do it.

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Let's just be sensible, won't we?

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I think this pillow case is actually from another set.

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It doesn't belong with the linen blue sheets, but it's still blue.

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So that's all right, that's what matters to me.

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Now what's worse than doing the sheets on my bed is doing the sheets on my kids' bed.

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Oh, that's the worst they have a bunk bed

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and they like to sleep with a lot of stuffed animals

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so I have them take off all of the stuffed animals from their bed

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and I ask them to take the sheets off their bed to strip their beds

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but it's kind of hard for them at this age young age to put their own sheets back on the bed, especially that fitted sheet.

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So I'd have to do that.

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I don't know.

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It's just a chore I don't like.

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It's not a big deal, but you know, there's always, there's always chores that we don't like, even though they're not a big deal.

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And then whenever you do them and they're finished.

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it feels good.

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I feel good right now.

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Have you ever had that happen where you have

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a chore or a phone call you have to make

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and you're just dreading it and then you do it and it wasn't actually that bad in the first place?

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This is the same for me all the time.

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Well, thank you for joining me for this very intimate daily life chore, something that I don't enjoy,

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but I enjoy telling you about.

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So I hope that you can go out into the real world, express yourself better, and just feel confident when you speak.

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That is the whole goal.

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No matter what you're talking about, maybe you're talking about making the bed, maybe you're talking about something else.

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I want you to feel confident when you speak.

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So don't forget to download the free PDF worksheet with all of today's vocabulary, key expressions, sample sentences, definitions,

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and that bonus downloadable audio so that you can listen to this lesson wherever you are.

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It doesn't matter.

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You can listen to it while you are also changing your sheets.

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Don't put it off any longer.

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Listen to this lesson while you're changing your sheets.

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And I hope you'll be able to immerse yourself in English, in real life English.

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So to get this free worksheet all you have to do

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is click on the link in the description enter your name

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and email address and voila just like that the free worksheet

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and audio will land in your email inbox this is my

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gift to you okay before you go i have to show

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you this beautiful quilt this is the one i was mentioning this is the one

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that my husband's great grandmother made she sewed all of this by hand

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so there's little beautiful stitches for every single one of these colors and there's stitching even on the white.

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So here she's made beautiful patterns.

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This is what we call a labor of love.

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This is absolutely a labor of love and this quilt is not the fuzziest or the warmest thing that we have,

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but it is so special and it's really an heirloom.

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It's something that's passed down in our family and I hope someday my kids get to enjoy this as well.

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All right, well thank you so much for learning English with me.

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Thank you for joining me in my home

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and I will see you again next Friday for a new lesson here on my YouTube channel.

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Bye!

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But wait, do you want more?

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I recommend watching this video next where I fold all of the laundry for my family including some interesting items

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that maybe you've never heard of.

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I'll see you in that video.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This video has 210 sentences and 2562 words to shadow. The speech runs for 17:33. The speaker talks at a steady 146 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. 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 less common words from the video, with pronunciation and meaning:

sheet /ʃit/ (noun) — A thin bed cloth used as a covering for a mattress or as a layer over the sleeper.
pillow /ˈpɪl.oʊ/ [ˈpʰɪɫ.ö̞] (noun) — A soft cushion used to support the head in bed.
lesson /ˈlɛs.ən/ (noun) — A section of learning or teaching into which a wider learning content is divided.
tuck /tʌk/ (verb) — To pull or gather up (an item of fabric).
strip /ˈstɹɪp/ (verb) — To remove or take away, often in strips or stripes.
audio /ˈɔ.di.oʊ/ (adjective) — Focused on audible sound, as opposed to sight.
laundry /ˈlɔːn.dɹi/ (noun) — A laundering; a washing.
patch /pæt͡ʃ/ (noun) — A piece of cloth, or other suitable material, sewed or otherwise fixed upon a garment to repair or strengthen it, especially upon an old garment to cover a…
blanket /ˈblæŋ.kɪt/ (noun) — A heavy, loosely woven fabric, usually large and woollen, used for warmth while sleeping or resting.
bonus /ˈbəʊ.nəs/ (noun) — Something extra that is good; an added benefit.
fabric /ˈfæb.ɹɪk/ (verb) — To cover with fabric.
basket /ˈbæskɪt/ (noun) — A lightweight woven container, generally round, open at the top, and tapering toward the bottom.
linen /ˈlɪnɪn/ (noun) — Thread or cloth made from flax fiber.
inbox /ˈɪnbɑks/ (noun) — A container in which papers to be dealt with are put.
trick /ˈtɹɪk/ (noun) — Something designed to fool, dupe, outsmart, mislead or swindle.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

take off (verb) — To remove.
talk about (verb) — Used to draw attention to the speaker's characterization of someone or something.
live in (verb) — To reside on the premises of one's employer (used especially of domestic staff such as nannies, cooks, maids, etc.)
pull up /ˌpʊl ˈʌp/ (verb) — To lift upwards or vertically.
put on /ˌpʊt ˈɒn/ (verb) — To don (clothing, equipment, or the like).
come in /ˌkʌm ˈɪn/ (verb) — To enter.
figure out (verb) — To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce.
go at (verb) — To try to solve a problem a specific way; to undertake a task.

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 73 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, don't, they're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: clothing /ˈkloʊðɪŋ/, thick /θɪk/, grandmother /ˈɡɹæn(d)ˌmʌðɚ/, thin /ˈθɪn/, thrifty /ˈθɹɪfti/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: sheet /ʃit/, shave /ˈʃeɪ̯v/, pronunciation /pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/
Long words — get the stress right: vocabulary /vəˈkæb.jə.lə.ɹi/, decorative /ˈdɛk.ə.ɹə.tɪv/, technically /ˈtɛk.nɪˌkəl.i/, necessity /nɪˈsɛsəti/, ideally /aɪˈdi.ə.li/

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 sheet, pillow, lesson.

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 created · have been · you've never heard
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	chores, which is · someone who sleeps · bed, which means
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	are invited · is called
Past continuous was/were + -ing — an action in progress at a moment in the past	was making · was mentioning

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 →

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

Key vocabulary in this video

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

Grammar in this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?