Shadowing Practice: Modern identity labels | Intermediate-advanced English listening | Chatterbox 331 - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Hello, everyone.

My name is Andrew.

And my name is Anna.

And you're listening to the Q-Lips English Podcast.

You're listening to Chatterbox, the Q-Lips series for intermediate to advanced English learners that features natural,

unscripted conversations about interesting topics that are designed to help you level up your English fluency,

improve your listening skills, and expand your vocabulary.

I've got a question for you to begin this episode, and the question is, how do you describe yourself to others?

These days, it seems like there are so many ways that we can define our work, our relationships, and our lifestyle choices,

And in this episode, I'll be joined in just a sec by my co-host Anna from the UK.

And we're going to talk about modern identity labels from remote workers and solopreneurs to terms like dink and situationships.

We'll dig into how these new terms reflect the changing ways we live, work, and connect with others in today's world.

So I'm very much looking forward to this conversation.

but before we get started with it, let me tell you about QLips membership.

Guys, if you are serious about improving your English, becoming a QLips member gives you all the tools that you need to do that.

You'll get access to weekly live speaking classes, our exclusive fluency file series, and ad-free versions of all of our episodes.

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and sign up and become a member today.

You can do that just by visiting our website, Q-Lips.com.

That's C-U-L-I-P-S dot com.

And if you're looking to practice your English with other learners, then why don't you come and join us on our Discord community.

It's completely free and it's a really fun

and wonderful place to discuss QLIP's content and episodes or really so many different topics.

There are always many, many interesting conversations happening over on our Discord, so come on and join in on the fun.

You'll find the link to join in the description for this episode.

And with those announcements out of the way, let's begin this episode and welcome Anna to the conversation.

Here we go.

Please enjoy.

Joining me now to talk about modern identity labels

and to break these down and explain what they mean

and how we use them in our everyday lives where we hear these expressions, all of these good things, is my co-host, Anna.

Hey there, Anna.

How's it going?

I'm very well, thank you, Andrew.

How are you?

I'm good, thank you.

I'm excited to talk about this episode topic.

Anna, you were the one who suggested this, actually, and I thought it was a great idea.

And maybe one that people could be very confused about, because there's a lot of acronyms and neoglisms,

which are what we say for words that are brand new, that they're just newly formed.

And so I think for English learners, a lot of these words and concepts and ideas that we're going to talk about today might be brand new to them.

So I hope this will be helpful for you guys.

And also, I think it's quite cultural as well.

So it'll be interesting to hear from our listeners their feedback to say if these concepts, these identities, these labels that we're going to discuss today,

if they exist in their culture as well.

And guys, we do have our Discord server.

that's the place where we'll be continuing this conversation after the episode

and that would be a great place for you to leave a comment

and let us know if these identities

and these labels exist in your culture as well or

if they're more just like a western culture thing it'll be interesting to read those comments

but Anna we've divided this episode into several categories we have work and career,

family and relationships, financial and housing,

generational and relationships, kind of family relationships, friend relationships, romantic relationships.

So we're going to talk about as many of these categories as we can without running out of time.

And so I guess we'll start with work and career, Anna.

We have several on our list here.

Why don't you choose one that stands out to you and we'll talk about it.

I'm going to choose the first one on our list here because I identify with the first one.

This is my identity, which is WFH, which stands for work from home professional.

And that is absolutely me because I have an online business and I do my podcast and I have clients.

So I work from home.

I do work in another company where I go to an office, a place, but I am at home the majority of the time during the week.

And so this is my new life.

And if you had told me this 10 years ago, let's say in 2014, if you told me, Anna, in 10 years, you're going to have your own business.

You're going to be working from home full time.

I would have been like, what?

I would have had no idea.

You can't imagine.

This is just so far away from what I actually thought I would end up doing.

But I'm really proud to be a WFH, a working from home professional.

It's a different type of life.

It has its challenges.

It's definitely not perfect.

But do you know what?

I probably wouldn't go back to the nine to five.

So I am a proud WFH, to be honest.

Yeah, I think probably a lot of our listeners maybe know

what it's like to be a home worker work from home

because during the pandemic so many of us got a taste of it right

and now I know that a lot of companies are back to the office full-time

and so unfortunately probably a lot of people know what it was like to be work from home

and now are back in the office so

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if you're one of those people hey I'm there with you as well I was in

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that situation although I do have to say I'm kind of 50 50 I work from home half the time

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and I'm in the office the other half of the time.

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My wife is pretty much almost still always working from home.

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And some days, usually on Friday, we're both work from home.

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So we actually work together on Friday.

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And that's interesting.

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We can eat lunch together and enjoy our day together, sometimes take a stroll at lunchtime, something like that.

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So that's really fun.

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I think if it were full time, 100% of the time, you know, absence makes the heart grow fonder, as they say.

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But I wanted to ask you about the WFH term itself.

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My understanding is that we usually see this more online when people are talking about it.

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They'll just type out WFH, meaning work from home.

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But when they're speaking, they wouldn't say like, I'm WFH.

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But I don't know, maybe you're more familiar with this than I am.

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Can you say like, I'm a WFH?

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Or is it more just an online acronym?

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That's a really good point.

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And thank you for bringing that up, Andrea, because I need to tell you guys that no, we don't say WFH.

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So that was just me being silly, essentially okay i was just trying to be well i guess funny maybe

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but no we would always say to work from home

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so that's a really good point that you brought up there

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so yeah you would say i work from home i'm a working from home professional

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or my job is based at home maybe you could say as well

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but we don't say the acronym letter for letter thank you for reminding me of

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that andrew just so i don't confuse you guys

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and you start walking around saying i'm a wfh

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and everyone's like oh my goodness what is that another one

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that i would like to talk about from the work and career category is solopreneur.

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I guess that's how we pronounce it, solopreneur.

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And this is what we call a blended word.

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So it's the word solo and entrepreneur.

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And we've smashed them together to make solopreneur.

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And a solo entrepreneur or solopreneur is just somebody who has started their own business and is operating it all by themselves.

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So of course, Here at QLips, you know, I have a great team.

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We've got many people who help us produce the podcast

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and our learning materials and our Discord server and all of these things.

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We've got several people behind this organization.

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But just for example, if I were to run the podcast all by myself

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and I had no support or no co-hosts at all, then I could say I'm a solopreneur.

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And Anna, maybe actually now that I'm talking about it, we could say you're a solopreneur, right?

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I think with your podcast, you're wearing all of the hats, doing all of the tasks on your own.

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Yep, that's me.

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All the hats.

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All the hats all the time.

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Multiple hats during the day.

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I'm getting a bit sick of all the hats that I have to wear, to be honest.

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I need more and I'm probably going to have to wear more hats going forward.

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But yeah, I would absolutely put me in that category, the solopreneur.

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I think it makes it sound a little bit glamorous.

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Really, it's just sort of solo worker.

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But solopreneur makes it sound a little bit more fancy, right?

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So, okay, I'll go with that.

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I'll be a solopreneur.

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I wonder, guys, if you are maybe like this as well.

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But I think it kind of tags on to the trend of digital nomad

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and all of that that's been happening since the pandemic as well, of this kind of people just being able to work from anywhere just with a laptop.

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And especially with the creator landscape as well, this is something that's very common because a lot of creators start off just with themselves,

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maybe producing a YouTube channel.

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And then maybe they grow, like you said, into something that more resembles Q-Lips, the people behind the scenes, etc. But yeah, it's something very different.

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And I think maybe in the past it did exist.

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There must have been people that just started businesses by themselves.

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But now we have this cool term, solopreneur, that makes us sound, you know, glamorous and fancy.

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But really, it's just one person wearing all the hats.

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In the past, we also used to say things like one man band, which obviously doesn't quite work now because, well, one woman band, then, I guess I must be.

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One person band.

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One person bound.

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There we go.

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That's the one I was looking for.

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Yes.

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Wearing all the hats.

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And by the way, guys, when we say wearing all the hats, I think I just want to explain that.

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It just means that you have to do all the tasks.

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So you have to do HR, you have to do finance, you have to do marketing, you have to do sales.

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And let's imagine that all those tasks are different hats.

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So that's what we mean if somebody says, I have to wear all these different hats.

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It means I have to be responsible for all these different things that maybe if you worked in a company, you just focus on your thing.

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You're an HR professional, you're a finance professional, you're a marketing professional.

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But when you're a solopreneur, you've got to do everything.

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So pros and cons, but that's what we mean when we're talking about hats.

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I'm not literally wearing lots of hats.

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Just to clarify, in fact, I hate hats.

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Just to add that.

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Oh yeah, I remember that fun fact that we learned about you not too long ago, that you're not a hat person.

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But speaking about doing multiple different tasks, there's another word for these kinds of people.

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I think especially freelancers or maybe people who are in the gig economy,

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where they're actually having to string together multiple different jobs to have enough income to survive.

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These kinds of people these days are called slashies, slashy.

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So, you know, like that punctuation mark, that's a slash.

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Often we use that, like you could say, I'm an English teacher slash podcaster, right?

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It means I do these two different jobs.

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But these days, a lot of people have these multiple professional identities.

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So maybe they're a video editor slash photographer slash sound engineer, right?

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They're doing like all of these different digital tasks and they're wearing lots of hats and they're doing all of these things.

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Maybe they can't make it professionally just by doing one job.

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So they have to broaden their horizons and do lots of different jobs in order to make a living.

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And I think, Anna, this goes back to what you were saying.

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Like, it's a nice spin on a situation.

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Like, it makes it sound cool, right?

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I'm a slashy.

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I do these different things.

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I'm a writer.

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I'm a photographer.

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I'm a consultant.

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But what would we call these people back in the day?

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Probably just like, I have two part-time jobs or something, right?

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I don't have full-time employment.

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But maybe now it's a more positive way of looking at it.

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So I can say I'm a slashy.

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And I think, Anna, you're a slashy as well.

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Yeah, absolutely.

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Definitely a slashy.

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I don't bond so well with the term slashy because it kind of sounds like slushy, which in English is like a drink, like an iced drink.

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So, I mean, I wouldn't be so keen to call myself a slashy.

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I just don't like the term.

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But I think there's a lot of people in this category.

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And I was just thinking, especially with the rise of these big platforms like Fiverr, for example.

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Guys, maybe you've heard of that, but that's one of these big platforms where you can advertise your services as a freelancer.

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And in fact, I've used and worked with several people through Fiverr, which I found amazing because it connects you with people all over the world.

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And there's lots of people that work on these places like Fiverr that are graphic designers.

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Then they do a little bit of music.

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Then they do a little bit of this.

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So I think it's fantastic to have these platforms to allow people to have another source of income.

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So I'm all for that.

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I think it's great.

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And for me personally, as a solopreneur, as we said before, it's great

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because I can just connect with people all around the world and I can get things done in like one day.

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I get in contact with somebody on Fiverr and I say, I'd like to create a new graphic design for my podcast.

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You could literally have somebody do that for you in 24 hours or 48 hours.

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It's incredible.

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I love that.

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I really do.

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Great.

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Yeah.

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And it's a way for people to expand what they do and to make more money.

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So yeah, why not?

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I think maybe some of these terms are not the kind of terms that people use to refer to themselves.

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But maybe when we're taking a look at different demographics, we could say, oh, there's the slashies, right?

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The people who work multiple jobs in order to make a living.

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So yeah, I don't think me too.

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I wouldn't say I'm a slashy.

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but from maybe an academic perspective or a demographic perspective, when we're looking at this group of society, we could say, oh, they're the slashies.

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They're the people who do multiple things to make a living.

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So Anna, why don't we move on to the next category, which is family and relationships.

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And we got to talk about this one because this is a common one these days and it's kind of fun.

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It is DINKS.

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I'll break it down for you and tell you what it means, everybody, so that your mind doesn't go to the wrong place.

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It stands for Double Income, No Kids.

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And Anna, you actually told me in your email when you were suggesting this topic, you introduced DINKY to me, which I didn't know about.

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I hadn't actually heard that one.

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If we tack a Y on to the end then it means double income no kids yet

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so it refers to I guess a couple who are living together right they're probably cohabitating in the same residence

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and they both are working so they have a double income two salaries

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but no kids and that would describe me and my wife actually me

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and my wife are dinks we're double income no kids

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and yeah I think it's a very common configuration these days

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as we're seeing the birth rates around the world really in most places most Western

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and Asian countries the birth rate is falling a lot of people are choosing not to have kids

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or are delaying having kids this is becoming more and more common and when I think of my friends, there are a lot of dink couples.

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And when I think of my friends who are not dink couples who actually have children, I think they're a little bit jealous when I talk to them.

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They're like, oh, you guys having that extra time.

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And especially with inflation and everything being so expensive these days and raising a kid is really, really expensive these days.

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they look at me and they say, oh, it must be nice to be a dink.

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And I mean, I'm sure it's great to be a parent as well.

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Don't get me wrong.

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But I think, yeah, being a dink is a pretty good situation in terms of like financial stability, more so than, you know,

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being a single person on one income or a family, maybe having two earners, but having to support children as well.

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The dink configuration is probably the most ideal from a financial perspective, at least.

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Absolutely.

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I think the first thing I would say about this is what an unfortunate acronym.

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I mean, really, dink.

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Could they not come up with anything else?

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It's such an unfortunate acronym.

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But you know, it's like, really?

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You couldn't think of anything else there?

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So number one, hate the acronym.

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But number two, it is actually something that is a very common setup, especially here in Spain, for example,

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and in other countries around the world where the birth rate is much, much lower.

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And in fact, the reason why I thought of this episode was

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because I met some new students in a group that I'm doing recently.

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And one of the people introduced himself using this term.

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I ask all my students to do a short introduction to tell me about them.

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And he said, you know, I work in technology, blah, blah, blah.

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And I have a partner, but we're a dinky couple.

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And I was like, what?

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You know, at first I did think I was a bit sort of taken aback.

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I was like, I'm not really sure what you mean there.

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But then he explained it.

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And it was interesting that he used that term to explain his identity.

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And I think in a way for some people, it's kind of an easy way to let people know that they don't have children.

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Because I think some people find it awkward when people say, oh, do you have any children?

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Because they assume that they have children because maybe they're in their 30s

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or 40s whatever and they just assume that they have children

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so they say do you have any children

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and they say no i don't

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and i think it's also a way for some people to

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just sort of say at the beginning like i don't have any children

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so please don't ask me if i have any children does

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that make sense i'm not sure whether i read that right

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but i think sometimes people find it a little bit awkward

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that question when people just assume that they have children

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which by the way is an absolutely fine question to ask somebody you can ask somebody

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if they have children or not i don't think that's It's rude whatsoever.

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But I think it can be a way for people just to get it out there.

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But yeah, the acronym is awful.

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Yeah, not the best one, but a funny one.

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It always brings a smile to my face.

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I mean, I have heard it a lot.

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Again, I wouldn't say I'm a dink, anything like that.

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But when talking about these kinds of relationships, when talking about economics or demographics, anything like that, the birthright here in Korea,

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it's a huge topic of conversation every day.

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Everybody's talking about the low birth rate.

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And so this expression is used often.

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And why don't we move on to another one?

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I like this one, empty nester, empty nester.

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My folks are empty nesters.

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Are your folks empty nesters as well?

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Your parents?

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Oh, absolutely.

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Yeah.

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Mom got rid of us years ago.

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So she's been an empty nester for a while.

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I think she's quite happy about that, by the way.

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I don't mean that in a bad sense.

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but yes definitely an empty nest i think that's a good

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thing in the end we're off doing our own thing me my brother

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and my sister so i think she does miss us every now

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and again but i don't think she'd want us to move back in either

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so we should explain what an empty nester is it's what

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we call parents whose children have moved out of the home so when we're born we live with our family

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most of the time usually and then we grow up we move out

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and then the parents are empty nesters

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so it's kind of a little bit of a lonely expression

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but as you said Anna like your mom is happy about

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it I think my parents probably are I mean they love

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when we come to visit but I'm sure they like it

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when we leave exactly and also just to add if you're thinking why nest what it's referring to there is a bird.

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So a bird, when they have babies, they have a little nest.

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Oh, I don't know if you call bird babies babies, but well, whatever, that's a different topic.

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But so it's the nest where they have it and then you leave the nest.

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So it's a reference to birds, essentially.

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That's why it's called a nest.

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Well, my mum is having a great time.

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She always sends me pictures.

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She's going out for brunches.

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She's curling.

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She's going for walks, taking her bike by the river.

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I mean, wow, how the other half lives.

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She's having a great time.

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So I don't think there's any complaints there.

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But I agree that kind of empty nester, it sounds quite a sad term.

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But for my mum, it's definitely, I think, a positive thing.

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But also a situation I think a lot of people find themselves in when they're older, if they've had children, they're older, and then maybe they're retired,

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their children live away from home, or maybe in other parts of the world, for example, like in your case, Andrew.

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So yeah, I think it's a really common situation.

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I guess it depends on the person whether it's good or not.

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I'm sure that some people really miss their children and other people are quite happy that they're off doing their own thing.

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So yeah, everyone's different.

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I'm going to pull out a really rare, uncommon word, which I think is what we call a baby bird, Anna.

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I believe we call it a fledgling.

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Is that the word that we use to call a baby bird, a fledgling?

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I'm going to toss it out there.

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Yeah, I'm going to toss it out there to our audience.

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A little homework, guys.

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You have to go to the dictionary and search the word fledgling.

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And if it comes back as a baby bird, then my word power for today is on point.

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But to go back to the empty nest, you know, these days, so many families actually have the kids move back in.

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Maybe they leave the home to go to university

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or they just want to be independent so they move out of the home.

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But as we talked about the cost of living crisis, inflation, it's an expensive world out there and it's not easy to make it on your own.

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And so as a result, so many young people in their twenties,

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even into their thirties are actually moving back home to live with their parents again.

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And we have a special term for this as well.

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It's called a boomerang family.

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You know, a boomerang is one of those things.

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It's like a little curved piece of wood that comes from Australia.

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I'm sure everybody knows what a boomerang is.

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That object, when you throw it, it comes back to you, right?

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And so a boomerang family is like a family

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that goes out there into society for a little while and then returns back to the home.

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So yeah, these days, that's another common phenomenon is kids

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that live at home even as adults and if they leave

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and then they come back that's a boomerang family why don't we go on to the next category and

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and maybe we have time for one more i'll let you

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choose do you want to talk about the financial ones the generational ones

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or the relationship ones let's do the financial ones because i think

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these are interesting because I read some articles about these and they popped up.

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Another time you might hear these terms is if you're reading newspapers, for example, and articles.

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A lot of these types of terms come up in these forums.

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So I think that's also useful, guys, as well to know that you might see these more written rather than necessarily spoken as well.

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But let's take a look at finance and housing.

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And I want to get your opinion on this one, Andrew, which is FIRE.

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FIRE, yes, F-I-R-E, just like the word.

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And what it stands for is Financial Independence retire early.

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I saw an article about this on BBC

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and it was a video of people who were in their 30s

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or late 30s and they had already retired

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and what they do is essentially they set up their life

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and they make investments so that they basically live off the investments

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and lead a frugal life so that they can survive for the rest of their life without ever having to work again.

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And I remember watching it thinking, wow, that sounds amazing, but definitely not something that's on the cards for me.

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And I thought, how is that even possible?

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And honestly, I thought this was an interesting article.

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I thought it was interesting to put it out there.

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But at the same time, I think essentially unrealistic for many, many, many people.

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Maybe it's the dream, but I think in reality, I'm not really sure how many people would be able to actually reach that goal.

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So it was good to see it, but it kind of made me feel worse watching it rather than making me feel better.

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You know, I'm like, goodness me, there are these people at 30 and they've already retired.

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Great for them.

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But I don't think it's very achievable really for many people.

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I don't think there's many people in the FIRE category.

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I don't know what you think, Andrew.

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Yeah, I think FIRE, just like digital nomadism, might be some of these terms that are thrown around a lot

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and there's a lot of articles written about them

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but in reality it's a very select group of people maybe

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related to high income tech jobs who can actually do it right like

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if you are a tech worker maybe a programmer

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or something it's really easy for you to be a digital nomad

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and to work from many different places whereas if you are a plumber then you can't do that right so like

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that kind of career option is available for some people.

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And then for other people, it's totally impossible.

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Fire maybe is also the same thing, right?

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If you work for Google, and you're an AI developer, and you have a huge salary, and you can save 90% of your salary,

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because the 10% that you need to live on is still a lot of money, like maybe the same amount as my salary for the whole year,

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right, then probably it would be possible for reaching this kind of early retirement, this financial independence, retire early.

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It also depends on your discipline.

426

If you are really, really dedicated, if you're really good at saving your money,

427

having a minimalist lifestyle where you don't spend your money carelessly, right, you're very careful with your money.

428

And if you are good at investing, right?

429

If you're always not just like saving your money, but making good, wise investments, and you're really up to date on those things, I think maybe it could be possible,

430

but it requires a lot of discipline.

431

And for 99% of us, we don't have that discipline.

432

And so we can't really do the fire, the financial independence, retire early.

433

Because if we did, then nobody in their fifties or sixties would be working, right?

434

You would see everybody that's past 40 years old, they'd just be chilling at the pool all day long.

435

But nobody's doing that.

436

People are still working.

437

And I think also, like, people find value in work.

438

It gives us something to do with our time.

439

It can be a great source of joy or satisfaction, of course, depending on the field that you work in.

440

But I think, Anna, we probably find a great deal of joy helping our students improve their English.

441

And we find it satisfying, right?

442

It's satisfying work when you just cut that out and you don't do that, of course, you know, I could probably find some other things that would bring me a lot of joy too,

443

maybe that aren't related to work.

444

But I don't know.

445

I think it's like a nice dream when you're 20.

446

Like maybe you're just starting your career and work really sucks and you're dreading going to work every day.

447

But as you build a career and invest a lot of time and energy into it, you start to like it.

448

And a lot of people actually don't want to retire, right?

449

They're scared of retiring.

450

I think this was kind of funny, but in Japan, there's a term and it's escaping my mind right now.

451

Maybe our Japanese listeners can chime in on the discord and let me know.

452

But there is a term that Japanese women have for their husbands retiring,

453

where they like fear the retirement because suddenly the husband's going to be home all day.

454

And they're like, oh no. So I think, yeah, it's harder to let go of a career the more time you invest in it.

455

I think a lot of people actually don't want to retire at the end of the day because they're scared.

456

Like, how am I going to fill my days?

457

I've got lots of ideas of how I could fill my days.

458

I would love to fire and retire early.

459

Don't get me wrong.

460

But as you mentioned, Anna, easier said than done.

461

And I think there are several reasons behind that.

462

Definitely.

463

You've got to be a high earner initially to be able to get the funds behind you to then invest

464

and to then be able to live off those investments.

465

And I guess also as well, I mean, if it didn't work out, you could always go back to working, right? it's never off the table completely.

466

But I just wanted to mention something as well

467

that I thought of when you brought up this fear of your partner retiring

468

and then them being at home all the time.

469

It's kind of the opposite of the golf widow term, which is where either the wife or the husband are always playing golf.

470

Well, in this case, the husband.

471

And they're always playing golf every weekend for hours and hours.

472

And then the girl's kind of just left there with like nothing to do.

473

So there's this term golf widow.

474

I don't know if you've heard of that, guys, which is quite funny that's kind of the opposite right golf widow

475

or being afraid of them coming back

476

because they're going to be there all the time after retiring

477

so that's also another funny term i've seen recently is this golf widow idea golf widow sounds not

478

so great well golf takes ages it's like hours and hours

479

and hours so if you're playing every weekend it can take the whole day on a saturday

480

or the whole day on a sunday

481

and then the other person's like what do i do with

482

that like let's do something together

483

and they're like no sorry gotta play golf see ya yeah

484

it doesn't sound like the foundation for a great solid relationship maybe not

485

hey everyone well that's going to bring us to the end of our discussion about modern identity labels.

486

I hope you enjoyed this one as much as I did.

487

I found it quite fascinating.

488

Thank you for listening all the way to the end and for completing this English study sesh with us today.

489

You get a gold star for a job well done.

490

If you enjoyed this episode and want to study it more deeply, remember that QLips members get access to the full learning materials for this one,

491

including the interactive transcript, the helpful study guide, and the quiz.

492

And the study guide for this episode is particularly helpful as it breaks down all of the new expressions

493

and vocabulary that we discussed today.

494

There's also some bonus content that's included in the member-only ad-free version of this episode.

495

So if you'd like to listen to it, then just go to QLips.com to sign up and become a Qloops member today.

496

And then download the ad-free file

497

and you'll be able to hear the extended version of the conversation that Anna and I shared.

498

Speaking of conversations, we'd love to continue this conversation in our Discord community.

499

Tell us about which one of these modern labels resonates with you.

500

The one that you feel the closest connection to.

501

The link to join the Discord is in the description for this episode.

502

Well, that is going to bring us to the end.

503

Until next time, please take care.

504

Happy English learning as always.

505

And I'll speak to you in the next brand new Q-Lips episode.

506

Goodbye.

507

See you soon, guys.

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Why This Video Is a Goldmine for English Speaking Practice

If you’re looking to level up your conversational skills, this video is a hidden gem. It dives into modern identity labels, a topic that feels fresh and relevant—perfect for sparking real-world discussions. What makes it ideal for english speaking practice? The dialogue flows naturally, with pauses, intonation, and casual phrasing that mirror how people actually talk. You won’t find stiff, textbook language here; instead, it’s the kind of speech you’d hear in a coffee shop or a friend’s living room. That means practicing with it will help you sound more like a native, not a robot.

Breaking Down Natural Speech: What Makes These Lines Work

Let’s zoom in on a few standout moments. First, there’s a line like, “I’ve been thinking a lot about how we label ourselves these days.” The contraction “I’ve” and the phrase “a lot about” are small details, but they make the sentence feel relaxed—exactly how we speak when we’re not overthinking. Then, there’s, “It’s not just about boxes; it’s more about fluidity, right?” The tag question “right?” invites the listener to engage, a common trick in casual conversation. Finally, “I guess what I’m trying to say is, labels can change, and that’s okay.” The filler “I guess” and the phrase “what I’m trying to say is” show hesitation, which is totally normal in real speech. These elements aren’t mistakes—they’re what make language sound human.

A Simple Shadowing Routine to Master This Dialogue

Ready to turn this video into a practice tool? Try the shadowing technique, also called shadow speech. Here’s how: Play a 5-second clip, pause, and repeat it out loud, mimicking the tone, speed, and stress. Then, record yourself. Compare your recording to the original—do you hear the rise in intonation on “right?” or the soft “uh” in “I guess”? Repeat this loop with the same clip until it feels natural. For extra challenge, try shadowspeaks with longer sections, focusing on matching the rhythm. This isn’t just about improving English pronunciation; it’s about training your brain to think and speak in English. Over time, you’ll notice your speech becomes smoother, and you’ll start using those casual phrases without even trying.

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	We've helped · have leveled · we've divided
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	teachers, which can · one who suggested · identity, which is
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	are designed · be joined · is based

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: Modern identity labels | Intermediate-advanced English listening | Chatterbox 331 - Learn English Speaking with Video

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