Shadowing Practice: Mauricio Pochettino Is What Wayne Rooney Warned Us About... - Learn English Speaking with Video
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148 sentences
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Manchester United have reached a verbal agreement with Maurizio Pochettino.
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December 2018.
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Manchester United sack their manager.
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The name everyone wants is Maurizio Pochettino.
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United choose someone else.
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November 2021.
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Another sacking.
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The same name.
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Someone else.
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April 2022.
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Someone else again.
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Summer 2024.
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And he is out of work.
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They keep the man they have different year.
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Same name, same answer.
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And in April 2022, 17 days before
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United made their choice, the club's record goalscorer said this.
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If I'm choosing from one of them two, that's who I'd choose.
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I'd go with Pochettino and give him time.
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That is Wayne Rooney on Monday Night Football, almost eight years after he first said it.
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And five managers later, Manchester United are about to make the same call he made.
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This is Matchball HQ Football on the record.
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Rooney's answer is easy to hear as a pundit naming his favourite.
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It was more specific than that.
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He gave reasons and then he gave a condition.
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I think Pochettino has done it in the Premier League.
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He knows the Premier League.
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He's got a Tottenham.
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He brought a lot of young players through at Southampton as well.
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He knows the league.
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He brings young players through.
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And then the last three words, which United have never managed.
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Give him time.
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Rooney was not guessing from a studio.
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That spring, he was managing
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Derby County through administration with a 21 -point deduction, so he knew exactly what time means to a manager.
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Hold on to those three words, because this whole story keeps coming back to them.
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To see why he said it, go back to where it started.
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On Tuesday 18th December 2018, United sacked Jose Mourinho.
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Two days later, Pochettino sat down for a Tottenham press conference, and a reporter tried to ask about the job.
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Tottenham would not let him talk about it.
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United did not wait.
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Ole Gunnar Solskjaer came in as caretaker and won his first six games, one of them against Pochettino's Spurs at Wembley.
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On the 19th of January 2019, Rooney was asked on ESPN who he would appoint.
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He said Solskjaer had earned his chance first and then he said this.
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If I had the opportunity to appoint someone then I think I'd go all out for Pochettino.
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His reason was youth.
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United, he said, had always built around young players and Pochettino gave them a chance.
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In March, United gave Solskjaer the job permanently.
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Nine weeks later, Pochettino was standing in a Champions League final in Madrid with a Tottenham side
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that had not signed a single player all season.
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Rooney was not the only one who thought so.
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In May 2016, Sir Alex Ferguson had asked the League Managers Association for Pochettino's number and invited him to lunch in London.
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Pochettino later described it as a meeting between a genius and an apprentice.
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According to Sky Sports, Ferguson told people that Pochettino was the best manager in the Premier League
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and in 2020 the Daily Mail reported that he had wanted Pochettino instead of Solskjaer.
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Rooney was simply the one who said it on camera.
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That was the first time.
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The second came in November 2021.
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United lost 4 -1 at Watford and Solskjaer was sacked the next day.
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Pochettino was at Paris Saint -Germain by then and once again he was the name.
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Days later after a defeat at Manchester City he was asked about United and would not rule it out.
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United made inquiries.
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PSG would not let him go in the middle of the season
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and their sporting director said Pochettino had never asked to leave.
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A week later
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United appointed Ralf Rangnick as interim manager and decided to find a permanent one in the summer.
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That gave Pochettino a second chance at the job.
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It also gave him four months to lose it.
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In March 2022 at the Bernabeu his PSG side were 2 -0 up on aggregate against
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Real Madrid with half an hour to go.
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Karim Benzema scored three in 17 minutes and PSG were out.
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Less than four weeks later, Rooney was asked again.
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This time, he finished the thought.
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I think for managers now, they need time to come in and actually put their blueprint on the club, on the team.
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And if you give them time, I think he'll do well.
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17 days later, on the 21st of April, United made their announcement.
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Eric Ten Hag is the sixth manager to take the hot seat at Old Trafford since Sir Alex Ferguson retired in 2013 team.
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Eric Ten Hag from Ajax.
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According to reports at the time, United's people liked his interview and his fresh ideas, and he was far cheaper to bring in.
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Pochettino Sky Sports said this week had been interviewed as well.
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It was the third time.
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And here is the part that makes this stranger than a normal told you so.
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Three years earlier, Ten Hag and Pochettino had already met in the biggest game of their careers.
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The Champions League semi -final Amsterdam, May 2019.
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At half -time, Ajax were 3 -0 upon aggregate.
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Pochettino's Spurs scored three in the second half and Lucas Moura's winner went in at the end of stoppage time.
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On the day 10, Hag got the United job.
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A Sky reporter said this.
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In that semifinal in Amsterdam, he was ultimately outwitted by Maurizio Pochettino, the other leading candidate for this job.
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United chose the manager who lost that night over the manager who won it.
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That is not proof they chose wrong.
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Football is not decided by one semifinal.
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But it tells you the choice was never about who was better on the day.
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It was about something else.
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To be fair, to United, the record since then gives the doubters plenty to work with.
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PSG sacked Pochettino in the summer of 2022, two months after he had won them the league.
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At Chelsea, he finished sixth and left by mutual consent after one season.
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This summer, at a home
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World Cup, his United States side lost 4 -1 to Belgium in the last 16.
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He said he was responsible.
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He has never won a league title in England, and this week, plenty of former players have said he is not an elite manager.
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Some of that is fair.
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None of it is the test
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Rooney set, because the fourth time is the one that should hurt United most.
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In May 2024, Pochettino left Chelsea and was free.
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Manchester United were reviewing their manager.
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The Telegraph reported that the club had held talks with his representatives, and in June there were reports that Ferguson was still pushing for him.
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They decided to keep
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Ten Hag and gave him a new contract.
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In September, Pochettino took the United States job.
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Seven weeks later, United sacked
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Ten Hag anyway.
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The one summer he was available, at no cost, United said no. By the time they changed their minds, he was gone.
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Count the managers since Rooney first said it.
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Solskjaer Rangnick, Ten Hag, Ruben Amorim, 14 months.
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Michael Carrick, who got the job permanently in May after taking
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United back into the Champions League.
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Five managers since 2019 and not one of them lasted three years.
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Under Carrick, United are 18th with one league win this season.
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At the time I'm recording this, he is still in charge and the club have said nothing.
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By the time you watch it, he may not be.
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Back in 2022, Rooney had a warning for this exact moment too.
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He knows how to work with top -class players, but also with young players.
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And I think they need to get that blend right because they can't afford to fail again.
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Before the caveats, one question.
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Did Rooney see something United missed?
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Or is a pundit's pick easy to make when you never have to pay for it?
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Tell us in the comments.
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And if you're new to Matchball HQ, subscribe.
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We keep the receipts.
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There are real limits to this.
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Rooney did not say Pochettino would win the league
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and the Pochettino of 2026 is not the one who reached a Champions League final in 2019.
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He is seven years older and his last two club jobs did not end well.
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The people above him are the same people who made the last two appointments.
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And none of it is official yet.
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If United have learned anything, it will show at Anfield on the 22nd of November and in what they do in January,
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not in what they announced this week.
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But look at the shape of it one name four times across almost eight years.
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United said no to him at Tottenham at PSG against
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Ten Hag and when he was free in that time they spent five managers looking for what
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Rooney described in one sentence.
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Now they are about to say yes.
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That only answers half of what he said.
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The other half was this.
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Here's I go with Pochettino and give him time.
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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 “Mauricio Pochettino Is What Wayne Rooney Warned Us About..”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: Pochettino, manager, league, Rooney, Hag. This video has 148 sentences and 1478 words to shadow. The speech runs for 9:02. The speaker talks at a natural 164 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 85% 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
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| sack noun | /sæk/ | A bag; especially a large bag of strong, coarse material for storage and handling of various commodities, such as potatoes, coal, coffee; or, a bag with… |
| appoint verb | /əˈpɔɪnt/ | To set, fix or determine (a time or place for something such as a meeting, or the meeting itself) by authority or agreement. |
| sixth adjective | /sɪksθ/ | The ordinal form of the number six. |
| reporter noun | /ɹɪˈpoɹ.tɚ/ | Someone or something that reports. |
| permanently adverb | /ˈpɜː.mə.nənt.li/ | In a permanent manner; lastingly. |
| aggregate noun | /ˈæɡ.ɹɪ.ɡət/ | A mass, assemblage, or sum of particulars; something consisting of elements but considered as a whole. |
| earn verb | /ɝn/ | To gain (success, reward, recognition) through applied effort or work. |
| elite noun | /ɪˈlit/ | A special group or social class of people who have a superior social or economic status and attendant power, advantages, or privileges in society; a member of… |
| consent verb | /kənˈsɛnt/ | To express willingness, to give permission. |
| genius noun | /ˈd͡ʒin.jəs/ | Someone possessing extraordinary intelligence or skill; especially somebody who has demonstrated this by a creative or original work in science, music, art… |
| announcement noun | /əˈnaʊns.mənt/ | An act of announcing, or giving notice. |
| invite verb | /ɪnˈvaɪt/ | To ask for the presence or participation of someone or something. |
| announce verb | /əˈnaʊn(t)s/ | To give public notice of, especially for the first time; to make known. |
| mutual adjective | /ˈmjuːt͡ʃuəl/ | Having the same relationship, each to each other. |
| inquiry noun | /ɪnˈkwaɪ(ə)ɹi/ | The act of inquiring; a seeking of information by asking questions; interrogation; a question or questioning. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| go back to verb | To stem from; to originate in. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result | If United have learned anything, it will show |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | was asked · was sacked · had been interviewed |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have reached · has done · have never managed |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | one who thought · one who said · one who reached |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 8 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'd, I'm, can't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- Long words — get the stress right: permanently /ˈpɜː.mə.nənt.li/, inquiry /ɪnˈkwaɪ(ə)ɹi/
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 sack, appoint, sixth.
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.