Shadowing Practice: NYC Diaries | Everything I pack for a trip, recent pickups & building a brand! - Learn English Speaking with Video

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I'm sorry. So so

i tried these shoes on back in i think it was

like 2021 maybe 2022 these are the laueve croc collapsible loafer this probably got a way better name than

that i tried them on at the laueve store in london

and from my memory they were about 850 pounds

and i was in love with them straight away however at

that point in time i was not going to drop 850 pounds on a pair of shoes

so i passed on them

but they've been pretty much living like rent-free in my head

ever since fast forward now 2026 i found these on the real real for 250 dollars

which is what's that in pounds what is 250 dollars in pounds

so 188 pounds so instead of paying 850 pounds i paid 188 pounds

so obviously that is a huge discount

and as you can tell they are in really really good

condition they literally pretty much look brand new like they maybe have been like one once

or twice so super super happy about this and

that price is crazy now the point of this story is

not to be like hey look at like my dream loafers

that i wanted for ages and that i passed on

and i was patient and i was patient

and i finally picked them up for a much more affordable

price that's not the story here the story is how i'm going to be returning my dream pair of loafers

so i've had these for about a week now

and they've just been sitting in my home

because I've been kind of going back on forth of whether I should keep them

or not and obviously if I wear them out can't return them

so even though they are secondhand you can still return to the real world.

It's the idea of them that made me purchase them being able to get something

that I wanted so bad and that I built up in my head

so bad and that now

that I do have them here don't get me wrong I still think they're a beautiful shoe

and I do really like them but

when I look at my collection I ask myself do I need them and

if you remember back in my wardrobe clear out video i

said liking something is just not a good enough reason anymore

for me to purchase something it has to either like fill

a gap in my wardrobe there has to be a bit more of a purpose to it

so again i really like these

but i don't know what purpose they uh serve anymore we

all get kind of like caught up in the idea of something new

and that excitement

and i just wanted to kind of show you firsthand how for me i'm trying to be smarter

when it comes to spending my money

and adding items into my wardrobe hopefully also it can maybe help you

and maybe make you just second guess you know

if you actually really need that item

or you're just kind of like caught up in the moment

and again if you do really like it it serves a purpose go for it but

if it is kind of just excitement you know maybe send

it back maybe don't click you know purchase who knows i'll probably watch this back

while editing and be like oh my god i need these

and then end up keeping them but for now they're going back.

So my wife and I are heading to Belgium today

because it is her Omar and Opa's 60th wedding anniversary which is crazy,

crazy being married for 60 years so definitely huge congratulations to them.

We're going for about a week so I thought I'd show you what I'm packing.

We can use the heat to cook this well.

I have to use the heat and heat to cook this well.

We can cook this well.

I'm going to have to get a little bit of heat.

I'm going to add the heat to the hot pot.

I'm going to put a little bit of a knife in the middle. So that

is pretty much packed.

I definitely think I've forgotten some things.

I know for example I haven't even put in my laptop

but when packing and filming my brain is kind of only like 50% there so I will double check all this.

We are going for about a week.

I am going to try and film.

I'm not going to film any of like the anniversary

and stuff because that's like you know like family stuff

and intimate things but I think we're going to try have a day out in Antwerp

so I'll try get some of this there

and then we're actually going to Luxembourg

which again full transparency I didn't even know it was a place

or existed and I didn't even know it was its own country

so kind of excited to go there

so i'll see what i can film this is though my

actual airport outfit i have obviously the drees vintage drees boots

that you saw me pick up a

while back i love now traveling in cargos i found they're

super comfortable pockets again for days i know she gets she knows

that when we're leaving because she knows the suitcase

so she gets a little bit a little bit sad

but yeah this is what i'm traveling in some of you might think

that boots are crazy

but i find boots to be super comfortable i like how i can zip them on

and off but yeah this is the airport outfit so let's let's go to belgium

I'm

going

to go to the next one so

I'm sorry.

When the sun was set, I thought I was two.

100

I was the soul that died.

101

The world was dead, everything was dark At the middle of the day,

102

it was in the apogeo Who would say that it would be the end of you? And I...

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But when I look at the eyes Everything is quite different The mouth speaks,

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but the heart doesn't understand

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One down.

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Game!

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Trouble.

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Neverland.

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I'm not your chance.

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Game.

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Randy.

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I don't like it.

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We're going to go.

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I guess that is...

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oh Oh, it's close out.

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I'm not going to use that.

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Yeah, I think it's close.

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Yeah, I think it's close.

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It's a hardball, but it's...

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No, no, I think it's...

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I think it's...

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It's the shine, shine.

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It's the shine, yeah.

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So earlier you saw us doing a massive fitting

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and there's two pieces that I want to show you from that fitting that I think are just crazy.

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One is pretty much finished and the other one still needs a bit of work.

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We're going to start off first with this denim jacket.

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Absolutely beautiful and an absolute classic as well see we already did a denim jacket before

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which we love there's the distressing has all of

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that we wanted to do then one that again was a bit more classic

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and that allowed you to put in your own wear

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and tear into it we have this absolutely beautiful obviously i'm biased

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but again you'll see it on me this is beautiful indigo

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salvaged denim as you can see it has this salvage denim detailing throughout this one is still a sample

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so this one still Still needs a little bit of work, but I'll chuck it on now.

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I think this is absolutely beautiful.

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I can't stop saying it because it's, again, you see me do this a few times, but when it's, it's crazy when you put on something that you love

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and it's like you and your team have created it.

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Like, this is me, denim jacket, sorted.

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Don't need to go look for one anywhere else.

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Few things.

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Well, there's actually only one adjustment really, and you see I've kind of already done it.

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The arm is still too long, So there's quite a bit of gathering here at the bottom.

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You'll see there how long it is when I actually uncuff it.

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That's kind of cool if we were kind of going for that look.

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But again, we do want something a little bit more classic.

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And as you can see on this side, I've actually rolled it up.

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And that's pretty much almost like the perfect length there.

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But as far as the denim jacket goes, this just fits so beautiful and classic.

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As you see, oh, where is it?

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This side on the back, it might be a little bit too dark.

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We do have the leather patch as well.

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So classic, fits beautifully i'm wearing a size medium

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if i haven't mentioned that yet

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and this will be coming very soon we just need to fix these little details

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when this eventually is ready to come out i'll do like a full breakdown of it

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but i just want to show you guys on youtube kind

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of like an early preview of it now the next thing

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that we've been working on for over a year

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and they are still not ready

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so they still have like quite a bit of work to do

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so these hopefully will come out more towards the end of the year

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if we can finish them off but is a pair of jeans and actually creating

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in my opinion the perfect pair of jeans now obviously that's very subjective

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so i'm just trying to create the perfect pair of jeans for myself

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and that i feel is kind of slightly either missing

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or something that people are looking for and hopefully again it resonates with everyone

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so this is where we're at so far i'm going to chuck them on now

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and then talk you through them this is how they are looking

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so i've kind of tucked in the t-shirt just very slightly

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so you can kind of just see what we're working with

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so a few things one what we are trying to create is

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how i wish a levi's 501 fit me i've got a little bit larger thighs so for us we're kind of

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i say levi's 501 but also we're trying to create a nice kind of like straight leg

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that is a little bit more on the relaxed side yet

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it's not a relaxed gene either it's i've got a whole note written down

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and i'll try like find it

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so i'm put it on screen for you guys of like

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this whole detail breakdown of my goal for this gene

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and jeans is one of those things that everybody makes they're

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so big in the market you can get them in

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so many different price points so it's like what are you trying to do

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so that's why i have almost a whole story of what we're trying to do

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so this is how we're looking so far now the first kind of like changes

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that we are wanting to make is to make them a

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little bit more high rise right now they are a bit of a mid-rise

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which is fine like i do put them on i'm like oh i like these

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but i am a sucker for a high rise i do

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wish they sit a bit more up onto my belly button

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so that is one of the first things that we are doing The wash, especially on the knee area here, is absolutely beautiful.

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I don't know how well it'll pick it up in camera, but absolutely love this.

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That's what we're going for.

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We want them to look a little broken in.

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Sorry for the close-up here.

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It's a bit too much going on in kind of like the pocket areas and stuff like that, and it makes it a bit too much of like a wash black.

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So these are little things that we are just changing, but this is a pretty good start the thing i love

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about vintage levi's is they nailed the pockets somewhere over time

198

and go look at the jeans in your collection

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because i guarantee you they will not flatter your butt at

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all vintage levi's especially like vintage levi's like 501 really complimented the butt

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and some of you might not care about that

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but i don't want to put on a pair of jeans

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and have the pocket come down to almost here

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which almost creates a really flat and unflattering butt

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so we have we have i think we actually have footage

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somewhere of this hopefully we do i think aiden filmed it

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we actually have footage of these being drawn onto me these were literally drawn onto my butt

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so we are going to change the pockets a little bit

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but as you see they actually sit up on the butt

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and it just complements the butt cheeks a lot more

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and again i just think that is important

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if you go look at your vintage levi's they will do

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the same thing the pockets are smaller it doesn't need to

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hide the phone the phone can still fit in the back pocket

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but it doesn't need to again come all the way down

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here it just needs to go around the glutes that's enough glute talking

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but hopefully you get it's a weird thing to film this

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but hopefully you get kind of what i'm going for

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and what we're going for i can't really see what i'm showing you

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because the viewfinder is really small

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but hopefully you got some good butt action there we're gonna

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still play around we want to do just a few more

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like things there play around a little bit with the wash but overall like

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this right now again it's not like the cleanest things aren't tucked in the best

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but this right now it's a full ds fit apart from the loafers

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but one day and i just think it looks nice obviously

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So you can see it's a bit more of a cleaner silhouette.

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It's not skinny, it's also not baggy.

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It's just a nice, in my opinion, timeless silhouette.

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And that's really what we're going for.

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That's why I wanted to show you these pieces

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because I feel this really shows you kind of like where we're heading and what we can do.

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And I'm so proud of us, I'm so proud of our team.

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We work a lot, we stress a lot, and we just want to put out stuff that we're really proud of.

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And again, hopefully that resonates with you guys as well.

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Hopefully it's products that you see yourself having for a very long time in your wardrobe as well.

237

So that's how we're looking.

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Again, these aren't final things.

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Be nice, but if you have any feedback, let me know.

240

I'm thrown off by all the butt shots, but that's how we're looking.

241

I'm

242

going to

243

have a little bit of a little bit of a knife.

244

I'm sorry.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This video has 244 sentences and 2536 words to shadow. The speech runs for 19:16. The speaker talks at a steady 132 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. 85% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.

Key vocabulary in this video

The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
denim noun	/ˈdɛnɪm/	A textile often made of cotton with a distinct diagonal pattern.
jeans noun	/d͡ʒiːnz/	A pair of trousers made from denim cotton.
vintage noun	/ˈvɪn.tɪd͡ʒ/	The yield of grapes or wine from a vineyard or district during one season.
loafer noun	/ˈloʊfɚ/	An idle person.
wardrobe noun	/ˈwɔɹdɹoʊb/	A governmental office or department in a monarchy which purchases, keeps, and cares for royal clothes.
shine verb	/ʃaɪn/	To emit or reflect light so as to glow.
boot noun	/but/	A heavy shoe that covers part of the leg.
dree adverb	/dɹi/	Of the doing of a task: with concentration; laboriously.
glute noun	/ɡluːt/	A gluteal muscle.
resonate verb	/ˈɹɛz.əˌneɪt/	To vibrate or sound, especially in response to another vibration.
silhouette noun	/ˌsɪluˈɛt/	An artistic depiction, often of a person's profile, in the form of an outline without any other visual details, similar to a shadow, made by cutting a piece of…
tuck verb	/tʌk/	To pull or gather up (an item of fabric).
distress noun	/dɪˈstɹɛs/	Physical or emotional discomfort, suffering, or alarm, particularly of a more acute nature.
breakdown noun	/ˈbɹeɪkˌdaʊn/	A failure, particularly one which is mechanical in nature.
chuck verb	/t͡ʃʌk/	To playfully give a light touch, stroke, tap, etc., to someone, especially under the chin.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
come out verb	/ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/	To be discovered; to be revealed.
play around verb		To behave in a silly, childish, or irresponsible way.
clear out verb		To completely empty.
close out verb		To terminate; to call the end of.
close up verb	/kləʊzˈʌp/	To close (remove a gap) completely or fully.
come down to verb		To reach by moving down or reducing.
end up verb		To bring to a conclusion.
go around verb		To move or spread from person to person.

Sentences worth repeating

Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:

I definitely think I've forgotten some things.
I'm not going to use that.
No, no, I think it's...
As you see, oh, where is it?
That's what we're going for.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on	they've just been sitting · we've been working
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	they've been · have been · i've had
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	was set · being drawn · aren't tucked

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 99 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, we're, I've. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

Long words — get the stress right: collapsible /kəˈlæps.ə.bəl/, transparency /tɹænsˈpæɹənsi/, beautifully /ˈbju.tɪ.fə.li/

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 denim, jeans, vintage.

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 →

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

Key vocabulary in this video

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Sentences worth repeating

Grammar in this video

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?