Shadowing Practice: New Year’s Resolutions┃Learn American English Pronunciation On the Go - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Welcome to the Rachel's English podcast.
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I'm Rachel and this podcast is made especially for non -native speakers, where we try to reveal the idioms,
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phrasal verbs, and interesting vocabulary words that Americans use in everyday conversational English.
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If you'd like a free copy of the transcript for this podcast, visit rachelsenglish .com slash podcast and search for this episode.
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This week, it is the final podcast of 2017, the final week, and we're talking about New Year's resolutions,
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goals that you make for yourself to achieve in the upcoming year.
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So I'm sitting down with my husband, David, and we're talking about any New Year's resolutions that we are making this year.
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Let's get started.
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New Year's resolutions.
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David, do you make them?
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I do make them almost every year.
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Do you really?
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Yeah, I don't keep them, but I make them.
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I feel like you also don't tell them because I didn't know that you've made New Year's resolutions.
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Well, then maybe I haven't in the last three or four years.
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Okay, but previously you would say you have made them.
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I feel like I often have in my adult life.
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Okay, And as a kid as well?
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No, I don't think so.
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I think it was more maybe mid -20s to mid -30s.
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How old was I when we met?
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Geez, I don't know.
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Great.
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30 -something.
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Upper 30s.
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So, okay, so you've been making New Year's resolutions.
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What are you resolving to do?
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I feel like there have been some common themes for me.
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Things like exercise on a regular basis or do daily meditation practice.
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So there are things that you already did, but your goal was for more consistency.
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Yeah, that's accurate.
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How did you do with meeting those resolutions?
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Not well.
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That's not strong enough.
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Horribly.
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I think it's interesting.
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We make resolutions to try to do things better.
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I wonder, do we ever look at why we don't do things well?
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Like, why aren't you consistent in working out?
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Well, because it gets really cold out and you don't like to run when it's cold.
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Like, I wonder
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if you came up with looking at the why you haven't been able to do it yet
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and then came up with strategies to count to attack
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that doubt or that I can't do it today because it's too cold.
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If you had a list of strategies as planned as part of your resolution, if it would help people keep them more.
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I think it probably would.
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Okay, let's come up with a strategy right now exercise more in 2018.
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Would you say that would be a New Year's resolution for you this year?
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Yeah.
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Okay.
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Why do you think you don't exercise consistently now?
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Well, laziness.
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Okay.
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Inertia.
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Inertia meaning?
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Like I'm in a pattern of not doing it, so it's hard to start a new pattern.
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Yeah, exactly.
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Good definition of inertia.
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A body Well, yeah, it gets cold.
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But there have been winters where I've run almost every day right through the winter.
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So that's not a good excuse.
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Well, let's look at the inertia and the laziness.
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I mean, how this is really the question that everyone has.
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If anyone could solve this, they'd make billions of dollars.
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Yeah.
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Everyone tries to solve it and they all make some money.
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Right.
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But then everyone drops out.
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I wonder if there's an app for this.
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There probably is.
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I actually saw, you know, audible .com.
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for those of you who don't know audible .com sponsors a
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ton of website a ton of podcasts they have not sponsored this podcast
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but uh it's an audiobook uh database you can download all sorts of different books read by people famous people
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and voiceover artists and um one time i must have been searching something about them
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because they started targeting ads at me and one One of the books
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that they were recommending was How to Stay Motivated for Exercise.
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And I thought, oh, wow, they know me.
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Yeah.
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They know what I need.
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So there is stuff out there on how to stay motivated.
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It just made me curious in the moment.
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I hadn't thought about this before.
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But if there was an app, and maybe it exists, called New Year's Resolutions that had a social component and,
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you know, gave you a reminder every other day that said, go running.
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Yeah.
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You've missed one, better do two in a row.
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Stuff like that.
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That was also social.
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That would be kind of cool.
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That would be.
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Could help people keep their resolutions.
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Any other resolutions you've had as an adult?
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Anything not related to exercise?
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No, I'm not thinking of anything.
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I probably need to be more specific or not more specific, branch out into some other areas.
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I don't know exactly what that would be, but.
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You know, I do think actually you're on to something by saying be more specific.
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What does it mean to be on to something?
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It's when someone thinks, okay, you've started a good idea.
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We should take that further.
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Like if you're brainstorming how to solve a problem.
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Oh, I think you're on to something.
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Let's explore that.
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I think you're on to something with talking about being specific because if your goal is to exercise more, that's very generic.
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It could be three times a week for a half hour.
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You could set something more specific that might help you keep the goal.
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You know, you were talking about the kind of goal to set.
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Yeah.
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And you were talking about a SMART goal.
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SMART here being an acronym.
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An acronym is when you take the first letter of several words and put them together.
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That is an acronym.
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And here, the acronym happens to spell an actual word, and that is SMART.
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Yeah.
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What is a SMART acronym and how did you, or sorry, a SMART goal?
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And how did you learn about these kinds of goals?
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Right.
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We were talking about this before the show.
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So one of my friends, Bradley, brought this up when a group of us a couple years ago, we were talking about New Year's resolutions
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and we decided to go around the circle and see if anybody wanted to share what their New Year's resolution was.
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And before we started, he suggested that we all try to do it in SMART format.
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And SMART stands for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and what's the T?
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Timely.
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Timely so instead of us all going around
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and saying I want to run more you know I was forced
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that year at least at the beginning of the year to
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say you know a little something about each of those areas
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how you could measure it well you would know by whether
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or not you ran whether or not it was achievable
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and realistic right getting specific right with your goal so I remember
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that being really helpful both for myself as I was thinking about my goal
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and to hear other people putting their New Year's resolutions into that format was just helpful to,
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yeah, to use that as a sort of a tool to get more specific.
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It does force you to be more thoughtful and detailed about your New Year's resolution,
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I think, when you have to say something that is specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely.
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Speaking of timely, that brings me to what I've decided to do this year, which is a little bit different.
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I find that having a goal for a year is not great for me.
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It's just, it's too much time.
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So I decided to flip the idea of a New Year's
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resolution on its head rather than making a goal to do in 2018.
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I decided towards the end of 2017,
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I was going to make a goal to do before the year was out because that provided more of a time crunch, more motivation to make it happen.
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You said flip on its head.
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Yeah, that means do it the opposite way it's been done.
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Change it around completely.
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So I flipped the idea of a New Year's resolution on
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its head by deciding I had to do it before New Year rather than in the New Year.
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Got it.
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Okay, so my goal was to, before the year is out, sign up for and take my first piano lesson.
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And it looks like I'm going to be able to do that.
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I have the piano getting tuned next week and then the week after that, just in the nick of time.
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It's going to be on the 20th of December, I'm going to have my first lesson.
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We got 10 days to spare.
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Just in the nick of time.
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Yep.
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What does this phrase mean?
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This means down to the wire.
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Oop, another idiom.
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These things mean just before time runs out.
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Is that another?
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Yeah, it is.
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Runs.
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Runs out.
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Okay.
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It becomes so hard sometimes to describe idioms without using other idioms.
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If it's just in the nick of time, That means you have done something just before the allotted time has ended.
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Just before the deadline.
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Just before the deadline.
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So the phrases we used were just in the nick of time.
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You could also say it's getting down to the wire.
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When it's getting down to the wire, that means you are really running out of time on getting something done.
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What was the other moment used?
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Oh, time's running out.
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Almost no time left.
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Right.
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Those are fun idioms.
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So anyway, yeah, I think I'm going to achieve it.
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And I'm looking forward to having that first lesson.
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I decided to have the person come to the house just because I'm a little bit lazy.
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No, it's not that, right?
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I'm not lazy.
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No, no, no, no. It just had to do with spending time.
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I would rather spend the time that I would be commuting to the lesson on practicing.
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You know, time, time is finite.
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It is not unlimited.
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So I feel like with Stoney, with running Rachel's English, I have to,
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I tend now to make many more choices based on what will save time.
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Whereas I used to make choices based on what will save money.
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Time has become more precious to me than anything now.
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So they're going to come to my house.
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I don't know who it is yet.
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It's going to be a half hour lesson.
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And I'm hoping that in the evenings before dinner, when David's the cook in our family, when David's in the kitchen and Stoney and I are playing downstairs,
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that I can be at the piano
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practicing and that he can hopefully start to get the idea
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that music and making music is an enjoyable way to spend time, is a fun way to be together.
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And I just hope that that starts to become more of a central part of our household.
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And really, I'm prepping him for a desire to study the piano as well, because I would really like to give him lessons in a couple of years.
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Yeah, definitely.
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David, did you have any kind of music lesson growing up?
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No, I didn't.
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So I really think it's great
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that he's going to have piano lessons at the very least
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at the very least I'm also kind of drawn to the
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violin I don't know I think there are definitely people out there who have studied both
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but I might have to choose there between the two
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if you had to choose between piano and violin for Stoney right now which would you choose
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oh well this is a non -musical person saying this
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but I feel like I would say piano
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because I feel like I've heard people say that that is a really generalizable instrument to learn.
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Generalizable.
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That's not a word.
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I don't think so.
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General?
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What do you mean by that?
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Like versatile?
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Well, learning that specific instrument gives you a broad general knowledge of music
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and sight reading and gives you a sense for how other instruments work.
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Okay.
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It gives you a general sense of musical knowledge.
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I don't know if that's true or not.
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The thing I like about piano is I do think it's very versatile.
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It can be used for solo performance, and then it's used a lot in ensemble, and it's used a lot in accompanying.
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So accompanying a singer or a whole chorus or a violinist or that kind of thing.
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It appeals to me a lot.
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So if you listened to last week's podcast, where we were talking about a memorable gift that we've received,
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you know that I had clips from two friends that have been on past podcasts, actually, asking them.
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And so I asked them not only their most memorable gift, but I also asked them about New Year's resolutions.
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So let's first listen to Elliot, my friend Elliot, and let's see what Elliot has to say about his New Year's resolutions?
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I think there was a period in my life where I thought I probably should.
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I've never been one to make a lot of ones that I actually, as I was making them, I seriously planned on following through with.
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But I will say last year I made a resolution to run a half marathon, which is something I'd never done before.
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I'm actually not much of a runner.
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I don't enjoy it as much as I do other kinds of exercises, but I signed up for it and followed through with it and completed it.
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And so I was really proud of that as sort of one of the successful examples of a resolution I've made.
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I would say most of them have sort of been something I intended to do, and then they kind of went by the wayside pretty quickly.
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Okay.
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So David, he just said went by the wayside.
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Yeah.
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I thought about that too.
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When something goes to the wayside or goes by the wayside, I guess we use by with that.
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Uh -huh.
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That went by the wayside.
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That means you meant to do it, you wanted to do it, you intended to do it,
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but for whatever reason, it became less important and you didn't do it.
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Right.
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You've moved on.
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You moved on.
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Yeah, you know, I meant to mow the lawn, but...
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The day got really busy, so that went to the wayside.
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Yep.
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He also was talking about, I was thinking about the idea of a smart goal.
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And he made it very measurable.
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It was very specific.
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It was to do one half marathon that year.
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Right.
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So that does make the goal.
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That's a much better goal than run more.
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Right.
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Choose a specific race and aim to do it.
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Let's keep listening to
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that conversation now will you do a second half marathon i am happy to report
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that i'm signed up for one in november of this year
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and i'm doing it actually with my company with magoosh a bunch of people are doing it
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so there's some some good pressure at work from people to keep me motivated
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and so yes i'm i'm planning to do another one this year uh and
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so we'll see it's great you know uh though i guess
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it's harder to find ways to do things like team sports and play basketball and other things so maybe with enough time,
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I'll, I'll develop a love for running that I didn't have before.
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We'll see.
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Is the half marathon in November in the San Francisco area?
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It's in Berkeley.
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Actually, it's the Berkeley half marathon at the end of November.
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And so I've, I've started, I took some time off.
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Actually, I got a little injury from running in the spring.
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So I took a little time away and, and for the last few weeks, I've started my training program again.
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So I'm excited to do that.
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The, the one I did before the first one I did was in San Francisco.
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And part of the motivational aspect of that was we got to run along the coastline.
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It was a beautiful day with the Pacific ocean off to our side.
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And so that was a nice setting to do this in Berkeley.
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It will also be special, but maybe not quite as dramatic, but it'll still be rewarding to finish.
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Yeah.
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The location makes a huge difference.
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Yeah.
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I want to do the, I have it in mind that sometime I'm going to do the Disney world marathon.
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Yeah, that would be great.
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I never will.
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Cause I'm not going to run that far, but if I could be anywhere like to run a marathon, Disney world would be it.
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You never know.
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That's exactly the way I sounded a little over a year ago that I would never do this kind of thing.
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I don't know.
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When I finished the race, I told myself I'm never doing this again.
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Uh, and here I am signed up for another one.
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It's, uh, I I've heard from other runners that kind of happens too.
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So we'll see, maybe this will become a habit.
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Now, would you ever do a marathon?
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No, that I have decided I will not do.
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What I've learned about training for a half marathon is that, and a full marathon is that at least for me, a full marathon would be completely different.
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It takes a different kind of training.
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And I, you know, I'm, I'm, your listeners won't know this, but I'm a tall guy.
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I'm not, I wouldn't say that my body type is one that's really set up for long distance running, I think probably you end up developing knee problems or something like that.
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So I think keeping it to a half marathon is ambitious enough for me at this point.
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That sounds smart.
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Wow.
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Marathons, half marathons.
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David, what's the longest run you've ever done?
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The longest race?
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I did a 10 mile run, the Broad Street run in Philadelphia, which is starts from the north,
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um, North end of the city and run straight down Broad Street.
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It's a really fun race.
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Okay, so I actually would have thought that might be kind of boring because it's just on one street the whole time.
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There's not much elevation change.
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There's not a lot of nature.
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Is that right?
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No, no, it's pointedly not nature -y.
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But it's great because you run down a street that's the city's most iconic street and is usually obviously packed with traffic.
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And people line the street and you end up down by all the sports stadiums
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and it's just it's a great it's a great race
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so not boring at all urban urban energy urban energy tons
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of people just you know walking out their front door
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and cheering and yelling it's great is this something
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that you will do again no i would love to all
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right hey maybe that's your gonna be your news resolution for this year maybe
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that is it that race has gotten so popular that You can't just decide to sign up.
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You have to win the lottery to get a bib.
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Okay.
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A bib is what you wear on the front of your shirt when you're in a race.
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Right. So when is it?
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Is it March?
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It's May. May.
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I think you should try to enter the lottery.
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Try to get that.
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It's true.
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Go down to the lottery.
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See if I get it.
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It could be a really measurable goal for this year.
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Quite.
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You know, another thing
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that I think would be fun is there is a half marathon in Manhattan that talk about urban energy.
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I think that would be really fun.
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Yeah.
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Is that the same day as the New York marathon?
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No. Okay.
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I think it's like.. one of the runs people use sometimes to qualify for the New York Marathon.
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I see.
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I'm not sure.
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New York Marathon is something that happens right around my birthday.
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It's usually the first Sunday.
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It's the first Sunday of November, right?
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Mm -hmm.
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And we a couple times have gone, and before I met David, I went quite a bit.
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It's just so much fun to watch that.
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I love seeing the elite racers go by.
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Oh, yeah.
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And then when the elite racers are done and it's just all your other more average marathoners, A lot of them have their names written somewhere,
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so you can shout to them individually.
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I love doing that.
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Yeah, that's fun.
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Cheering people on.
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That's a lot of fun.
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All right.
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Well, I'm going to make it my New Year's resolution to watch the New York City Marathon again this year.
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Because we missed it.
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We missed it this year.
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That's a great goal.
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I completely agree.
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So rather than run a marathon, my New Year's resolution is to watch the New York City Marathon.
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It's measurable.
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Either we'll be there or we won't.
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Yep.
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I'll know if I reach that one.
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Okay, when I was with my cousin Brooke recently, I also asked her about New Year's resolutions.
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Let's see what she had to say.
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Yes, so Brooke, do you make New Year's resolutions?
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If you do, do you keep them?
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Yes, I typically do make maybe one New Year's resolution.
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And my husband and my three children also make resolutions.
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And we make them public to one another.
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We write them down and we typically post them in our room.
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so we can all see what the other folks are working on.
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And I would say, I mean, it's not high stakes.
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It's not like if you don't do this, you fail.
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But it's just a goal that we're trying to aspire to in the new year.
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So do you keep it posted the whole year?
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Yes, we do.
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And generally, does everyone meet their New Year's resolution?
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They make progress toward their New Year's resolution.
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So as long as there's growth, that's what we're working for.
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So what have some of your New Year's resolutions been in the past?
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Um, my personal New Year's resolutions typically are around wellness and taking care of myself.
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So maybe like taking time in the morning to do a little bit of yoga each day or, um, reserving like 15 or 20 minutes in my calendar,
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in my schedule every day to like go on a walk.
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Um, or like even just take a little time where I don't do anything.
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Um, so that's typically what, what might have been.
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What about your kids?
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Are theirs focusing on wellness or what tends to be the focus of their resolutions?
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Xavier, who is 12, his New Year's resolution for this year was to eat more vegetables.
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And we actually didn't coach him on that.
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He came up with that on his own because he tends to have a sweet tooth and he loves candy.
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And so he was trying to kind of, you know, counteract his sweet tooth with some more vegetables in his life
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and my daughter who is nine her new year's resolution was to be able to do the splits this year
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and she's making good progress wow so she's working on her flexibility yes her flexibility i like that resolution
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david i have another idea for a new year's resolution for you this year and it is to do the splits.
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Ouch.
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How close are you to doing a split?
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It's physiologically not going to happen.
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I'm nowhere.
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I'm so not close that I would harm myself if I tried to even make progress.
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I think actually we might need to define it just in case that's not clear.
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A split is something that like a gymnast
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or a very flexible person would do where you're sitting on the ground
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and one leg is directly forward and one leg is directly backward, but you are completely down on the floor.
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Yeah.
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Ouch.
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I was never able to do a split.
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No, not even close.
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And I mean, I took dance.
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Like I was sort of supposed to be able to do one.
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Oh, okay.
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But I couldn't.
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I never quite got there.
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No. Maybe if I'd made it a New Year's resolution.
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Maybe.
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I don't know if that would be realistic though.
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The R in smart.
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Yeah, it would maybe not be a smart goal.
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But I love this about Brooks family.
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I love the public aspect so that people can look over your shoulder.
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That's a real motivator.
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So I'm thinking
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that our family should use your flipped on the head idea of it's due by January 1
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and combine it with the public thing that Brooks family does
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and every year that anyone in our world mentions New Year's resolutions,
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all of us have to make one that's due January 1 and we post them on the fridge.
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I think that'd be good.
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Okay.
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So by public, you mean sort of within the family, putting it up somewhere, rather than just saying it, you write it down.
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Yeah, written down in Sharpie and stuck with a magnet to the fridge.
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Sharpie is a brand of.. permanent marker.
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So David's saying you can't make it in pencil where you would maybe erase and change it.
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It has to be in Sharpie on the fridge.
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In smart format.
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In smart format.
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Wow.
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He's making a lot of rules here for resolutions, y 'all.
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Okay, guys, that wraps up this episode.
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And actually, it may wrap up the podcast.
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David and I have decided here it is the end of 2017.
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This is the last podcast of the year.
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And we've decided that we're going to take a break.
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We're not planning on recording in January.
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And this is one of those things where I don't know
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if it's a break where we will then record again in February, or if it's one of the things where we never record again, or maybe in a year.
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I don't know, David, what's your gut telling you on the fate of this podcast?
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Well, I don't know.
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We may be back.
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I think it's been a lot of fun, but it is a lot of work.
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So we have to figure that out.
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Yeah, basically, it's become a bigger time commitment than I expected it would with the audio editing and the podcast transcript
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and the artwork for each episode.
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And it's, yeah, it's a little bit of a bigger commitment than I thought it would be when I started out.
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So for now, it's going to fall by the wayside.
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There you go.
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To use the idiom from earlier in the podcast.
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So if you've been just loving the podcast, I do apologize.
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It's gotten some positive feedback and I hate to take away a resource that I've been offering for free.
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And so it may come back, but in the meantime, there will be a new YouTube video every week as always.
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And follow me on Instagram and Facebook.
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And this is just a way you can keep up with us in general, me and David both.
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Sometimes David and Stoney also make it into photos on the Instagram feed.
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So there are ways to keep up.
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And I appreciate all of you listeners out there who have since July been faithfully downloading and listening to the podcast.
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You are the reason why we are doing this.
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I'm wishing everyone out there the best in 2018.
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I hope that you reach all of your English goals.
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That's it, guys.
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And until the future, this is Rachel and David.
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And we're signing out from Philadelphia.
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See you later, guys.
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Thank you.
Real-Life Conversation: New Year's Resolutions
The video captures a casual chat between Rachel and her husband David about New Year's resolutions—an everyday topic that’s perfect for english speaking practice. Their dialogue reflects natural speech patterns, including pauses, follow-up questions, and relatable struggles (like failing to keep resolutions). This scenario is ideal for learning how to discuss goals, habits, and challenges in American English, making it a great resource for improving both pronunciation and conversational flow.
Useful Chunks & Collocations to Memorize
- Make New Year's resolutions: The common phrase for setting annual goals ("I do make them almost every year").
- Keep a resolution: To successfully follow through on a goal ("I don't keep them, but I make them").
- Common themes: Recurring topics in goals ("There have been some common themes, like exercise").
- Attack that doubt: To address and overcome uncertainty ("Come up with strategies to attack that doubt").
- On a regular basis: Consistently ("Exercise on a regular basis").
Your Shadowing Challenge: Improve English Pronunciation Now
The shadowing technique (or shadow speech) is a proven way to boost pronunciation and fluency. Here’s your task: Play a 30-second clip of the dialogue, pause, and repeat it immediately, mimicking the rhythm, stress, and intonation. Focus on David’s casual tone when he says, "Not well. That's not strong enough. Horribly." Notice how he shortens "that's" and emphasizes "horribly" for effect. Repeat this 5 times, then record yourself. Compare your version to the original—you’ll start to hear improvements in your ability to match natural American English patterns. This shadowspeak practice trains your mouth and brain to work together, making real-world conversations feel easier.
By practicing with this relatable dialogue, you’ll not only learn useful vocabulary but also master the nuances of everyday speech—key for confident English communication.
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.