Shadowing Practice: notting hill｜movie clip - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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Of course, I've seen her films and always thought she was, well, fabulous, but, you know, a million, million miles from the world I live in.
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Which is here, Notting Hill, my favorite bit of London.
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There's the market on weekdays, selling every fruit and vegetable known to man.
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The tattoo parlor with the guy outside who got drunk and now can't remember why he chose I Love Ken.
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The radical hairdressers, where everyone comes out looking like the cookie monster, whether they want to or not.
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And then suddenly it's the weekend, and from break of day hundreds of stalls appear out of nowhere, filling Portobello Road right up to Notting Hill Gate.
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And wherever you look, thousands of people are buying millions of antiques.
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Some genuine, and some not quite so genuine.
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And what's great is that lots of friends have ended up in this part of London.
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That's Tony, for example, architect turned chef, who recently invested all the money he ever earned in a new restaurant.
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And so this is where I spend my days and years, in this small village in the middle of the city, in a house with a blue door that my wife
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and I bought together before she left me for a man who looked exactly like Harrison Ford, and where I now lead a strange half-life with a lodger called...
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Spike!
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Hi.
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You couldn't help me with an incredibly important decision to do.
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This is important in comparison to, let's say, whether they should cancel Third World debt.
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That's right.
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I am at last going out on a date with the great Janine, and I just want to be sure I've picked the right T-shirt.
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What are the choices?
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Well, wait for it.
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First is this one.
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Cooler.
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Yeah, it might make it hard to strike a really romantic note.
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Point taken.
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Don't despair.
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If it's romance we're looking for, I believe I have just the thing.
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Yeah, well, there again, she might not think you had true love on your mind
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love on your mind right just one more true love here I come
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Well, yeah.
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Yeah, that's, that's, um, perfect.
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Great.
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Thanks.
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Wish me luck.
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Good luck.
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And so it was just another hopeless Wednesday as I walked the thousand yards through the market to work, never suspecting that this was the day that was gonna change my life forever.
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This is work, by the way, my little travel bookshop.
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Morning, Margaret.
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Morning, Monsignor.
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Which, um, well, sells travel books, and to be frank with you, doesn't always sell many of those.
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Classic.
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Profit from major sales push.
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Minus 347 pounds.
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Shall I, um, come get you a cappuccino?
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You know, ease the pain a bit.
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Yeah, yeah.
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Better make it a half.
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All I can afford.
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Get your logic.
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Demi Capu coming right up.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 49 sentences and 478 words to shadow. The speech runs for 3:30. The speaker talks at a steady 136 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. 83% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| genuine adjective | /ˈd͡ʒɛn.juˌɪn/ | Belonging to, or proceeding from the original stock; native. |
| earn verb | /ɝn/ | To gain (success, reward, recognition) through applied effort or work. |
| romantic adjective | /ɹoʊˈmæn(t)ɪk/ | Fantastic, unrealistic (of an idea etc.); fanciful, sentimental, impractical (of a person). |
| nowhere adverb | /ˈnoʊ.(h)wɛɹ/ | In no place. |
| incredibly adverb | /ɪŋˈkɹɛdɪbli/ | In an incredible manner; not to be believed. |
| ease verb | /iz/ | To free (something) from pain, worry, agitation, etc. |
| radical noun | /ˈɹædɪkəl/ | A root (of a number or quantity). |
| invest verb | /ɪnˈvɛst/ | To spend money, time, or energy on something, especially for some benefit or purpose; used with in. |
| pound noun | /ˈpaʊ̯nd/ | A unit of weight in various measurement systems. |
| romance noun | /roʊˈmæn(t)s/ | An intimate relationship between two people; a love affair. |
| wherever | /(h)wɛɹˈɛvɚ/ | Regardless of the place in, at or to which. |
| chef noun | /ʃɛf/ | The presiding cook in the kitchen of a large household. |
| cancel verb | /ˈkæn.sl̩/ | To cross out something with lines etc. |
| tattoo noun | /tæˈtuː/ | An image made on a body part, usually the skin with ink and a needle. |
| architect noun | /ˈɑɹ.kɪˌtɛkt/ | A professional who designs buildings or other structures, or who prepares plans and superintends construction. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| come out verb | /ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/ | To be discovered; to be revealed. |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 8 contractions and reduced forms, such as I've, can't, couldn't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- Long words — get the stress right: incredibly /ɪŋˈkɹɛdɪbli/, cappuccino /ˌkæpəˈt͡ʃinoʊ/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like genuine, earn, romantic.
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 | I've seen · have ended · I've picked |
| Possibility with “might / may” might/may + verb — something that is possible but not certain | might make · might not think |
| Present continuous am/is/are + -ing — something happening right now or around now | are buying · we're looking |
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.