Shadowing Practice: Matt vs Japan's Ideal Shadowing Setup - How to Shadow - Learn English Speaking with Video
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What's up guys, so I was actually pretty conflicted about whether
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or not I should make this video
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because in my opinion the ideal shadowing setup actually costs a good bit of money to acquire.
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And I know that not everyone has extra cash laying around, some people are not going to be able to afford this, but for the people that can't afford it I do think it makes a difference
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so I wanted to make a video about it.
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Now if you can't afford the stuff that I talked about in this video don't let that be a limitation for you.
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You can still shadow, you can still get fluent in Japanese or whatever language you're studying.
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But I do think that it makes a difference.
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So you might want to consider saving up and kind of investing in this setup because in the long term, it could, you know, really benefit your language studies.
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And also the expensive components that I'm going to talk about in this video, they have other uses outside of just shadowing that are pretty beneficial as well.
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So without further ado, what in my opinion, the ideal shadowing setup consists of three components.
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First of all, you're just going to want normal old earbud headphones.
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So these are just normal old headphones that were like 20, 30 bucks.
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I've had them for a super long time.
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They're not great.
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They're just normal Sony headphones.
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You know, they block out some sound when you put them in, but not too much.
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They don't have any noise canceling features or anything like that.
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They're just normal headphones.
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So you probably already have something like this laying around.
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This is the cheapest part.
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Next, you're going to want to get a Blue Yeti microphone.
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So basically, the Blue Yeti microphone is probably the best microphone you can get in around the $100 range.
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It costs about $100 on Amazon, which might sound crazy expensive for a microphone, but it's really nice for the value that it gets.
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When you look at what real professional level microphones cost, it can be like 500 or more, even sometimes more than $1,000.
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And so for what you're paying, you're actually getting a lot of value with the Blue Yeti microphone.
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By the way, Blue is the company.
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Yeti is the brand.
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A lot of YouTubers use this Blue Yeti microphone.
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You've probably seen it.
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Other YouTubers use it before.
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Dogen uses it.
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Basically, the reason why you're going to want to have a Blue Yeti microphone is
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because you can plug in your headphones directly into it.
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So right here at the top, there's a headphone jack.
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I can plug in these headphones and now I can hear what the microphone is picking up directly in real time with, you know, no lag at all.
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Now, this is important for what I'm going to be explaining in a second, but basically the reason why you want a Booyeri is for this feature right here.
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So the feature where you can plug in your headphones and get feedback in real time.
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If you find another microphone that lets you do this, then that's totally good enough.
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You don't need to have a hundred dollar microphones.
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This is the only one that I know of that has this feature.
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Now, there are ways of kind of getting real time feedback through what you're saying without having a microphone like this.
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For example, with Audacity, you can tell it to just play everything
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that your microphone is picking up in real time but
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if it's going through your computer there's going to be a
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little bit of lag like there's going to be half a second to one second lag
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and that's enough to completely throw you off
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and like mess up your rhythm you know
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because you're trying to continue to speak
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and you're hearing what you said half a second ago
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and just really kind of plays with your head so it's important
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that you have no lag at all
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and as far as i know the only real way to
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do this is to be having the sound come directly out of the microphone itself
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and not going through your computer so uh yeah it is expensive at 100 bucks
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but it's really durable i've been using this one for years
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and it's also really great for voice calls and stuff like
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that because as you can hear you know it sounds pretty nice
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and the last thing that you're going to need are noise canceling headphones
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so i've uh talked about these particular noise cancelling headphones in my immersion hardware video.
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I think they're really great.
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They're wireless.
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The battery lasts a really long time.
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The noise cancelling feature is amazing.
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The sound quality is really great.
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So, you know, if you're trying to learn a language through immersion, these are pretty much the most useful tool that you can buy.
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They're really expensive at 350 bucks, but I think it's totally worth it
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when you consider how many hours you're going to be spending with these on your head, you know and it's not important
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that you have these this exact model you can get any
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noise canceling headphones there's also uh the bose quiet comfort 25s
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these are the 35s there's the bose quiet comfort 25s
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that are only 180 bucks on amazon i know those are really popular as well
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so those could be just as good uh so basically it's just important
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that you have noise canceling headphones so the way
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that this setup works is
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that you're going to be putting in uh you're going You're going to plug your headphones into the microphone
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and you're going to put one side in, but not the other.
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Then you're going to put on your noise canceling headphones
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and you're going to connect them to your computer and turn them on.
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And so what happens is because the noise canceling is so strong, it actually is going to make it so that you can hardly hear your own voice.
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It's actually quite hard to just have a normal Skype call with the noise canceling feature of these headphones on
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because you can't really hear your own voice and it feels like you're shouting almost.
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And so what this does is, first of all, it cancels out your subjective voice.
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Now, this is
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actually really important
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because we've all probably had the experience of listening to a recording of our own voice
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and then being surprised that it doesn't sound anything like how we feel like we sound when we're just speaking, you know, normally.
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And this is because when you're speaking normally, your voice is resonating with your skull and echoing inside your skull.
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And There's like an actual explanation for it.
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But anyway, the way that you sound to yourself subjectively is different than how you actually sound objectively.
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So of course, if you're trying to improve your accent, then you want to know how you actually sound objectively so that you can fix all the errors.
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And normally this is very hard to do.
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You have to record yourself and then listen to it back.
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That's why you always hear that advice, you know, record yourself, listen to it back, because then you get to hear what you sound objectively.
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Because subjectively, it's a lot harder to hear the flaws in your pronunciation.
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But with this effect, where you're basically canceling out your real voice with the noise cancelling headphones
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and then getting a direct input of what your voice sounds like objectively
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because you're speaking into the mic and then you're getting
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that feedback from the mic into your ear you get to
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hear what you sound like objectively not subjectively with real-time feedback
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so this is invaluable like I think you could just practice speaking with you know noise cancelling headphones on
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and both of these in and that would probably help you a lot
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because you get to really hear like oh that sounded funny that sounded funny and you can slowly self-correct your pronunciation.
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But the other benefit is just that since you're only having, you're only putting one of the earbuds in,
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and then you're going to play your shadowing material through your computer or your mp3 player,
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whatever, now it's really easy to hear both your voice
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and the shadowing material at kind of an equal level without one overpowering the other.
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And this is normally really hard to do.
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So because you're canceling out your real voice just on one side, you have what's coming out of the mic
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and the other side you have the actual shadowing material
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and then you can control the volume until they're both the ideal level
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because there's a knob right here on the front of the Yeti mic sorry you can't see it
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but you can control the volume and then on your computer
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or your mp3 player you can control the volume of your shadowing material
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so you can get them both very easily to be the perfect level
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and then now you have the perfect feedback system set up
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where you're listening to real native material you're trying to repeat it
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and then you can clearly hear the discrepancies between your voice and the recording.
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And so for me, it was only once I thought of this setup
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that shadowing really started to kind of click for me and really work for me.
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And it really feels like now whenever I use this setup to shadow
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that it actually is really helping me progress and improve.
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So I know it's super expensive, you know, like a few hundred bucks total.
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I think that it really could be worth it if you are serious about improving your accent.
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And also, you know, these headphones, they're going to benefit you in many more ways than just shadowing.
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Like I said before, it's going to help with your immersion a lot.
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And this microphone is also good if you ever are planning on making YouTube videos
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or you do a lot of voice calls or anything.
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It is just really useful.
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My brother doesn't make any YouTube videos or anything, and he has one just because it's a nice mic.
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And so I think it could be worth it.
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So for the rest of this video, I'm just going to give a demonstration on what it looks like when I shadow.
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And yeah, so let's go.
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So a lot of times when I shadow, I'll actually record with OBS.
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OBS is a free screen capture program that is pretty cool
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because it lets you record both whatever is coming out of your microphone and what's actually coming out of your computer.
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So you know that's the other cool thing about the shadowing setup is
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that if you're doing it with your computer with this microphone then you are already recording your voice
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and then you have access to what you're actually shadowing with.
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So you can record both of those and listen to them back and that can be useful as well.
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So sometimes I record both the actual recording
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that I'm shadowing with in addition to my voice
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and then i can listen back to both over each other
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which is pretty fun but realistically it's probably more beneficial to just record your own voice
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and listen back to that because that's what's really important right your own pronunciation
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so i'll do a little demonstration of both first i'll record both my voice
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and what i'm using to shadow and then i'll just record my my advice.
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So let's go.
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心との働きを持って天地の管にあるよろずのものを取り、持って異色獣の世を達し、自由自在、互いに人の妨げをなさずして、各々、安楽にこの世を渡りしめた者の主位なり。 But
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now, I'll
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just
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record my voice.
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律語経2 Okay,
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so that was just a little demonstration.
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As you can see, I'm by no means perfect.
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Definitely stumbled around a few times, but that's what it's going to look like.
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Don't strive for perfection, just keep going even when you mess up.
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Focus on the sound as much as possible and not really worry about the meaning.
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So that's it for this video.
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Again, if you have any questions, leave them in the comments and good luck shadowing, guys.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Matt vs Japan's Ideal Shadowing Setup - How to Shadow”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: headphone, microphone, voice, sound, shadowing. This video has 160 sentences and 2042 words to shadow. The speech runs for 11:46. The speaker talks at a natural 174 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 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 |
|---|---|---|
| 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. |
| headphones noun | /ˈhɛdfoʊnz/ | A pair of cushioned speakers worn over or in the ears so only the wearer can hear the sound. |
| cancel verb | /ˈkæn.sl̩/ | To cross out something with lines etc. |
| objectively adverb | /əbˈd͡ʒɛktɪvli/ | In an impartial, objective manner. |
| buck noun | /ˈbʌk/ | A male deer, antelope, sheep, goat, rabbit, hare, and sometimes the male of other animals such as the hamster, ferret, salmonid, shad, skunk and kangaroo. |
| plug noun | /plʌɡ/ | A pronged connecting device which fits into a mating socket, especially an electrical one. |
| immersion noun | /ɪˈmɝʒən/ | The total submerging of a person in water as an act of baptism. |
| subjectively adverb | In a subjective manner. | |
| pronunciation noun | /pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/ | The formal or informal way in which a word is made to sound when spoken. |
| demonstration noun | /dɛmənˈstɹeɪʃən/ | The act of demonstrating; showing or explaining something. |
| bose verb | /boʊs/ | To strike the ground with an object in order to determine, from the resulting sounds, what lies underground. |
| earbud noun | /ˈiɹ.bʌd/ | A small earphone designed to be placed in the ear canal for use with portable sound systems. |
| beneficial adjective | /ˌbɛn.ɪˈfɪʃ.əl/ | Helpful or good to something or someone. |
| accent noun | /ækˈsɛnt/ | A higher-pitched or stronger (louder or longer) articulation of a particular syllable of a word or phrase in order to distinguish it from the others or to… |
| discrepancy noun | /dɪˈskɹɛpənsi/ | An inconsistency between facts or sentiments. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| go through verb | To travel from one end of something to the other. | |
| mess up verb | To make a mess of; to untidy, disorder, soil, or muss. | |
| pick up verb | To lift; to grasp and raise. | |
| save up verb | To accumulate money, especially for a specific, planned expenditure. | |
| set up verb | /ˌsɛt ˈʌp/ | To make ready for use. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- I've had them for a super long time.
- You don't need to have a hundred dollar microphones.
- I think they're really great.
- As you can see, I'm by no means perfect.
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 67 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, they're, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: immersion /ɪˈmɝʒən/, pronunciation /pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/, demonstration /dɛmənˈstɹeɪʃən/, beneficial /ˌbɛn.ɪˈfɪʃ.əl/, limitation /lɪmɪˈteɪʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: objectively /əbˈd͡ʒɛktɪvli/, pronunciation /pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/, demonstration /dɛmənˈstɹeɪʃən/, beneficial /ˌbɛn.ɪˈfɪʃ.əl/, discrepancy /dɪˈskɹɛpənsi/
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 microphone, headphones, cancel.
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.