Shadowing Practice: Oprah Winfrey - Who am I ? (with subtitles) - Learn English Speaking with Video
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146 sentences
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The three things that I want to leave with you, just these three, I could do ten, I could do a whole life class.
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But just these three things will carry you if you let them.
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First and foremost, knowing who you are.
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Knowing who you are.
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Being able to answer this question, who am I?
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And what do I want?
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You know, many times when I go out of the country, I am baffled by that question.
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To explain what is your occupation.
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I've stood there for 10 minutes.
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Well, am I talk show host?
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Well, I'm more than a talk show host.
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Am I a business woman?
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I'm a business woman.
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I'm more than a business woman.
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Am I an entrepreneur?
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I'm more than an entrepreneur.
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So I just leave it blank or self-employed.
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So I'm not asking for the roles that you play as daughters.
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I'm not asking that question.
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What are the roles that you play as a daughter, as a friend, as a sister?
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You're going to be a lawyer, you're going to teach, you're going to be a pharmacist.
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I'm asking the bigger question of who am I?
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Who am I really?
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My answer is I am God's child.
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I am that which is born of all that is.
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I am, as Pierre de Chardin said, a spiritual being having a human experience.
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Come trailing the breath of the ancestors yet, but trailing the breath of the angels.
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And understanding that because I am connected to the source of all that is,
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All that is possible is possible for me.
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That's who I am.
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And what do I want?
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I don't want to just be successful in the world.
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I don't want to just make a mark or have a legacy.
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The answer to that question for me is I want to fulfill the highest,
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truest expression of myself as a human being.
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I want to fulfill the promise that the creator dreamed when he dreamed the cells that made up me.
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Number two, you must find a way to serve.
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Martin Luther King said that not everybody can be famous but everybody can be great because greatness is determined by service.
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Now we live in a world where everybody wants to be famous and where we admire people for just being famous.
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We think being known brings us value.
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The truth is all of that will fade in time.
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In three years you won't be able to name the housewives a banana.
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The real truth is that service and significance,
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service and the significance that you bring to your service is that which is lasting.
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So to be able to whatever your occupation or job or talent or gift is,
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our honorees today getting doctorate degrees to apparently opposite fields,
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HIV and AIDS and the spoken word.
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But what they have in common is service, using the spoken word in service to community and the world,
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using your knowledge and information about HIV and AIDS and medicine in service to the world.
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And if you look at all the most successful people in the world, whether they know it or not, they have that paradigm of service.
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Everybody's talking about Mark Zuckerberg and IPO.
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Service, Jay-Z rapping, service.
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Through the word, to people, through song.
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For many years, I was really just happy to be on TV and people would stop and say, oh, you on TV?
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Yeah, I'm on TV.
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I like being on TV.
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It's a nice job.
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And it was about the time that I received my honorary doctorate from Spellman around 1993, so I don't know if that had something to do with it.
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I thought of myself as Dr. Winfrey.
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Then I went back
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and I took a long look at what it was I was doing on TV and made a decision
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that I was no longer going to just be on TV but I was going to use TV as a platform, as a force for good,
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and not be used by TV.
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And I will tell you,
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my decision to make that significant change in the way I operated on television,
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using television as a service, changed my career exponentially.
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Service through medicine, service through art.
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Using whatever it is you produce, your product, as a way of giving back to the world.
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When you shift the paradigm of whatever it is you choose to do to service, and you bring significance to that,
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success will, I promise you, follow you.
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Service and significance equals success.
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Number three, it's so simple but so hard to do.
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Always do the right thing.
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Always. Be excellent.
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People notice.
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Think of how you notice.
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You go to Taco Bell, somebody gives you extra napkin and some sauce, you notice.
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You wanna go back to that person.
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Because even at Taco Bell, excellence shows itself. Be excellent.
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Let excellence be your brand.
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Everybody talks about building a brand.
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I never even knew what that was.
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When people say, you're a brand, I would say, no, I'm just Oprah.
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What I recognize now is that my choice to in every way, in every example, in every experience,
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to do the right thing and the excellent thing is what has created the brand.
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years ago I did an ad for Revlon for for an ad they were doing called unforgettable women
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and what I know is that
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when you are excellent you become unforgettable people remember you you
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stand out regardless of what it is you become an unforgettable woman
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and that is what we all want we want to be unforgettable and not forgettable so doing the right thing even
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when nobody knows you're doing the right thing will always bring the right thing to you i promise you
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that why because the third law of motion is always at work for every action there's an equal and opposite reaction.
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That is so true in all of our lives.
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That's what Newton said.
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Celia in the color purple said it.
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Everything you even try to do to me.
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Already done to you.
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So you don't have to worry about revenge or getting back at somebody.
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making sure they pay you just have to do the right thing
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and the right thing will follow you even
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when people don't support it people don't always like you
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and they're not always happy for you and
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if you surround yourself with people who are not accustomed to your success they become fearful they become scared
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because you are reflecting back something to them that they don't recognize.
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Now they're not gonna say,
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you know I'm very fearful because you're reflecting back to me something I don't recognize.
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They're going to say, you know what they're gonna say, they're gonna say who she thinks she is,
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who she thinks she is.
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That only happens when you are around people who do not mean and want and aspire to the best for you.
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People who want the best for you want you to be your best.
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So my greatest advice to you is to surround yourself with
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people who are going to fill your cup until your cup runneth over.
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So when people say you're so full of yourself you can say yeah.
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Yes I'm full.
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I'm so full my cup runneth over.
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And to know that once your cup runneth over you You cannot spend your life with your gallon size offerings,
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offering them to pint size people.
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You have got to surround yourself with gallon size people who can hang in the same company with you
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so that you're not offering your gallons to those little pipes out there who can't hold it anyway.
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Choice to change the world.
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I love that song.
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I love hearing you all sing that song
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and what I know for sure is that the biggest choices begin and end with you.
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Your internal big questions.
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Who do I want to be in the world.
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My relationship to source energy, to all that is God.
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I'm not talking about what you believe in God, I'm talking about your experience of that which is all life,
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which is divine and universal.
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I'm talking about the big deal, being connected and aligned with that,
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when you are tuned in and charged into that,
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whenever you feel empty, you go inside yourself and you connect to the source and you know that all things are possible.
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To know that and to choose to do the right thing in service and significance,
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I promise you.
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You will create a vessel of service for yourself first because you have to honor yourself first.
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You have to give to yourself first otherwise you have nothing to give away.
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You will create a vessel for yourself, for your family, your community and the world.
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and those three things will not only lead you to a
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blessed life I stand as a witness my life is
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so blessed I can't even take it in sometimes it will lead you not just to a gifted life
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and a rewarding life that fills you up but a sweet life.
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That's what you want.
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You want the sweetness.
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You want it to be so sweet so that even when the storms come,
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and they will, you'll know this too shall pass.
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This too shall pass.
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The storm is passing over and you shall not be moved because you know who you are.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Oprah Winfrey - Who am I ?”. This video has 146 sentences and 1583 words to shadow. The speech runs for 13:24. The speaker talks at a steady 118 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. 87% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| significance noun | /sɪɡˈnɪfɪkəns/ | The extent to which something matters; importance |
| unforgettable adjective | /ˌʌnfə(ɹ)ˈɡɛtəbəl/ | Very difficult or impossible to forget. |
| gallon noun | /ˈɡælən/ | A unit of volume, equivalent to eight pints |
| surround verb | /səˈɹaʊnd/ | To encircle something or simultaneously extend in all directions. |
| doctorate noun | /ˈdɑk.tɚ.ət/ | The highest degree awarded by a university faculty. |
| fearful adjective | /ˈfɪəfəl/ | Frightening; causing fear. |
| paradigm noun | /ˈpæɹ.ə.daɪm/ | A pattern, a way of doing something; especially a pattern of thought, a system of beliefs, a conceptual framework. |
| fulfill verb | /fʊlˈfɪl/ | To satisfy, carry out, bring to completion (an obligation, a requirement, etc.). |
| entrepreneur noun | /ˌɑn.tɹə.pɹəˈnɝ/ | A person who sets up a business; generally, a person who owns and manages a business and assumes its financial risks. |
| excellence noun | /ˈɛksələns/ | The quality of being excellent; brilliance |
| bless verb | /blɛs/ | To make something holy by religious rite, sanctify. |
| occupation noun | /ˌɑkjʊˈpeɪʃən/ | An activity or task with which one occupies oneself; usually specifically the productive activity, service, trade, or craft for which one is regularly paid; a… |
| ancestor noun | /ˈæn.sɛs.tɚ/ | One from whom a person is descended, whether on the father's or mother's side, at any distance of time; a progenitor; a forefather; a forebear. |
| aspire verb | /əˈspaɪɚ/ | To have a strong desire or ambition to achieve something. |
| baffle verb | /ˈbæf(ə)l/ | To confuse or perplex (someone) completely; to bewilder, to confound, to puzzle. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| get back at verb | To retaliate against; to take revenge on. | |
| give away verb | To make a gift of (something). | |
| go back verb | To return to a place or state after having been there at a previous time. | |
| go back to verb | To stem from; to originate in. | |
| make up verb | /ˌmeɪk ˈʌp/ | To constitute, to compose. |
| pass over verb | To bypass or disregard in favour of someone or something else. | |
| stand out verb | To jut out, protrude (from a surface etc.). |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- Being able to answer this question, who am I?
- Am I a business woman?
- I'm more than a business woman.
- Am I an entrepreneur?
- I'm asking the bigger question of who am I?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | that which is · people who are · people who do |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | is born · being known · are not accustomed |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | I've stood · has created |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 45 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, don't, you're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: occupation /ˌɑkjʊˈpeɪʃən/, exponentially /ɛkspə(ʊ)ˈnɛnʃəli/
- Long words — get the stress right: significance /sɪɡˈnɪfɪkəns/, unforgettable /ˌʌnfə(ɹ)ˈɡɛtəbəl/, entrepreneur /ˌɑn.tɹə.pɹəˈnɝ/, occupation /ˌɑkjʊˈpeɪʃən/, exponentially /ɛkspə(ʊ)ˈnɛnʃəli/
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 significance, unforgettable, gallon.
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.