Shadowing Practice: Please allow me to introduce myself @JonPengEnglish - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Unnamed Podcast.

I'm still thinking about two different names.

You can tell me which one you like better.

I'm thinking first one is The John Pang Show.

Sounds kind of boring.

Or the What'd You Say Bro?

podcast.

And if you don't know, What'd You Say Bro?

is one of my many, many popular catchphrases.

If you've seen my videos, you'll see I'll do this face a lot.

If you're listening to audio, it's my constipated phase.

So with that said, let's get into today's episode.

So first and foremost, this is episode number two.

Excuse me.

This is episode number two, and I am just so appreciative and very excited about what's to come.

So far, I have launched the first episode on video platforms everywhere.

and the reception has been really good.

I really appreciate all the comments I've gotten for everyone.

Some of you are listening to learn English.

Some of you, surprisingly, are watching, listening to fall asleep, which is weird that I will be in your dreams.

And third, some people just enjoy learning more about my story, and I'm really excited about that.

So that means that's good.

People want more, so we're going to do that.

Now, as you're listening right now, I am currently working on having the podcast on all places where podcasts are available.

So look out for that.

I will let you know.

You can check out the video description to see where it is all available.

And as we go forward, I would love for you, in every episode, I would also like to answer some of your questions.

I would like to interact with you as well.

So if you had any questions you want me to answer, if you had any funny stories,

funny topics, if you had some gossip or drama you want me to talk about,

please let me know in the comments and I will talk about them, all right?

So I'm going to do my best to have a topic in each episode.

I can't necessarily promise that I always follow the topic because I'm always so scatter brain.

You know, my brain is always all over the place and sometimes I tend to ramble a lot.

You I'll be talking about this and then this and then that, and then I forget where I'm at.

But I will try to have a theme for each episode.

And of course, if you just like listening to somebody just talk and talk and talk, I could definitely do that.

And another piece of feedback we got as well is that people want longer, more.

Goodness gracious.

So a lot of people said, well, Mr. Peng, 10 minutes is not long enough.

I need half an hour.

Okay, so I will give you half an hour.

So by the end of this episode, if I pass out or if I lose my voice, if I just sort of die,

that's because I was talking straight for half an hour.

But again, we're still working on this.

You know, I'm still working on the background, the lighting, the audio.

I think for right now, this mic, if you're listening right now,

I'm just kind of using like a wireless mic kind of clipped onto my chest right now

but I am looking into a very high -end mic and high -end camera as well, okay?

But with that said, I want to talk to you today about just some recent stuff that's been happening to me

and just some interesting thoughts about life and everything.

So one of the things I kind of want to do is I just kind of want to, like, introduce myself to you because actually,

like, a lot of people surprisingly...

Hmm.

Don't know who I am.

Like, so again, I've been doing content for like 10 or 15 years now,

and a lot of people kind of know me as like this weird,

funny guy, or like this guy that makes these weird faces or dresses up as a waiter in public.

Okay.

But a lot of people actually don't know my background, and I wanna talk to you about my background today and where I come from,

my story, where I'm at right now.

So, first and foremost, everyone's like, John, what's the deal?

Are you Chinese?

Are you Filipino?

I've gotten Mexican.

Some people think I'm black.

That's an interesting one.

Even though I am quite tanned, I don't know why all the men in my family get super tanned.

Am I American?

Am I Chinese?

What's my national, what's going on?

So first and foremost, I guess I would consider myself Chinese American, American born Chinese.

In other terms, that's called ABC.

So I was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, in the United States.

That means I'm American.

But I'm actually mixed as well.

So actually, my dad is Chinese.

And my mom is half Vietnamese, half white or half Caucasian.

I don't know what you would call it.

So the white part, I don't know if it's my mom says

Irish or Italian, but that could be so mixed up.

So I just say white to make it easy.

And until my white homies out there, I hope you don't mind me saying why.

But that doesn't matter because I am white.

Quarter white at least.

okay so um that's why if you

if you see what i look like it's hard to kind of get a grasp of my appearances

but yeah so i grew up in california in los angeles

and basically i spent my entire life there until um after college

and then i moved to china and i've been in china for a long time now.

I've been living in China full -time more than I live in the USA, which is a trip to think about.

And I've been here, I believe, at first on and off since 2010 -ish.

And yeah, and now I'm here in the year 2026.

So let me tell you a bit about my story.

So So when I was a kid, and I'm wondering if for all of you here listening, you know, no matter where you're from,

you can also let me know in the comments if you kind of resonate with the things I'm talking about.

So growing up as like an Asian American in the States, there's really no need to speak Chinese.

You know, I think a lot of you will kind of relate to this.

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If you are second born or third born generation and your parents emigrate to a different country,

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I think the problem is that even if the parents speak their mother language to you, for example, me, like Chinese,

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just because like where you go to school or the neighborhood you live in or where you live, there's no need to actually do it, right?

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So for me, actually, when I was a little kid, apparently I spoke

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Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese, Taiwanese.

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I spoke English, obviously, but because I didn't really use it outside the home,

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I never really kind of mastered the language.

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I totally forgot it as well.

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And when I was a kid as well, remember I told him my mom is not Chinese.

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My parents got divorced.

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And so my dad was the Chinese speaker, but honestly as a kid he never really spoke Chinese to me.

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Now my grandma did but I just wasn't with her all the time.

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Now because they got divorced I spent most of my time with my mother

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and I would visit my dad on the weekends you know

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or maybe like for summertime I'd be with my dad for summer break

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and because of that obviously my mom didn't speak Chinese I didn't speak Chinese with her I just totally forgot it.

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So honestly, like as a kid, it's interesting because I never really viewed myself as Chinese at all.

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Not because like I'm not proud of who I am or my culture, my race or anything like that.

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I just kind of viewed myself as just a kid, you know?

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I didn't even see myself as an American, just a kid.

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And honestly, growing up as well, most of my classmates and friends were not Asian.

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In fact, I don't really, I didn't have any Asian friends until I was 17 or 16.

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And I'll explain, I'll explain you why in a second.

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Growing up, I mostly had like white friends, black friends, Mexican friends, and Middle Eastern friends.

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Now, when I became a bit older, like at age 17 or 16,

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I moved in with my dad.

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So I've been moving my mom before.

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I moved back in with my dad.

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Okay.

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Previously before that, I'd been living with my mom and my stepdad at the time.

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I moved back in with my dad.

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And when that happened, I had to change schools.

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So I went from a predominantly like mixed high school to a like super Asian high school, like lots of Asians.

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So if you know anything about California, and I think I have a lot of like Asian listeners, a lot of like Chinese listeners as well.

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There's a lot, a very huge Chinese population, Asian population in Los Angeles, California.

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And the area I moved to there, like it was like crazy for me because I've been used to like being surrounded by white dudes,

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like Mexican dudes, black dudes, like Persian dudes.

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And then I go to this school and switch to this Asian area.

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This is called, like, it's called the, like, the 626 area code of Los Angeles.

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And all of a sudden, I'm surrounded by Asians.

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I'm like, what's going on, man?

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Like.

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It was a little bit of like a culture shock in some ways, right?

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So it wasn't from there until I started making more Chinese friends, Indonesian friends, Filipino friends, Vietnamese friends,

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etc., etc. And to make a long story short, basically after school and everything like that,

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I never really grasped the Chinese language.

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And after I had a bit of a break, my dad basically asked me a simple question.

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He said, would you consider going to China for like a summer?

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You know, I was kind of doing like a summertime, just a part -time job.

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And I said, why?

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And he mentioned that at that time he had a friend working in China at a school.

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Shout out to East China Normal University or ECNU I apologize if I said that wrong

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By the way, I'm fluent in Chinese now

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But this is an English podcast

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So maybe I'll do a Chinese podcast sometime

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So anyways It was that time where I just said

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He mentioned to me, I think it was really interesting

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He said, you know

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You don't know anything about your culture

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You don't know anything about, you don't know the language.

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You don't know where you're from.

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I think you should give it a try.

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Okay, I said, okay, why not?

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You know, I wasn't really doing much anyways.

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It's kind of just messing around, right?

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So that began kind of the start of my China journey.

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And then what happened is that I went to school in China.

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I did a summertime program at ECNU East China University in Shanghai, China.

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Now, I have a lot of crazy stories that I will share with you about my early years in China.

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15 years ago, China, China 15 years ago was very different.

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A really interesting time compared to 2026.

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Very, very different.

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And I will share more with you about that next time.

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Some crazy, fun, exciting, scandalous stories.

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But not in this episode.

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I just want to kind of give you the rundown of me, okay?

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So basically, to make a long story short, I started sending Chinese there.

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And it was crazy.

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You know, the first time going to China as an American, in my mind, I'm like, dude, it's going to be like dirt roads,

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pagodas, like kung fu, like some dude wearing a straw hat with an ox.

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It's kind of racist, right?

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Like very stereotypical.

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But, hey, I'm Chinese, bro.

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You can't, you can't, just like, I'm white and Chinese.

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I can say whatever I want, okay? And Vietnamese, too.

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So, I was expecting, like, this, like, you know, like, just, I don't even know what I was expecting.

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But when I arrived in Shanghai, my mind was blown.

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Like, you have to understand, like, the USA is modern, developed.

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It's amazing, okay?

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Now, obviously, there's a lot of issues where I wish the infrastructure was a lot better.

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A lot of stuff is run down as well.

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It could be better.

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You know, we'll talk about where my taxes are going in another episode, right?

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But I had never seen a megacity like

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Shanghai, a true metropolis, a concrete jungle.

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I remember getting off that plane.

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I remember a few things.

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Okay, don't get mad at me.

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The first thing I remember was the pollution.

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Don't get mad at me, okay?

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Okay, let's all be honest here, okay?

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Wish the air quality was better in China.

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No haters, okay?

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Just spitting the truth, no cap.

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Is that what the kid's saying?

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No cap, right?

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Does that mean the truth or whatever?

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Just speaking the truth, right?

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I remember the pollution.

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I was like, hey, it's a little hard to breathe.

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Everyone's smoking, you know?

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That doesn't help, right?

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But I remember literally, like, I was like, where are the pagodias?

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Where are the dirt roads? literally looking and seeing skyscrapers,

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tall buildings, neon lights, as far as the eye could see,

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an incredible infrastructure, the subway system, the cars, it was insane.

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I had never seen anything like this before.

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And the mass of people.

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So this is crazy to me.

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Seeing that Many people all at once.

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Yeah, remember like in Los Angeles, you know, the USA Is spread out a lot, you know, you have to drive everywhere.

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So living in Los Angeles, California at the time I'd be used to seeing like maybe like I

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Don't know like in the most crowded places in the mall maybe like in like 50 people 50 100 people

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And I'd be walking on the streets of Shanghai, China, and seeing like hundreds of people all at once in my eye span.

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And for me, this is kind of like visually was it was a lot.

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It was a lot.

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It was intense.

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It was so intense.

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I remember I had a classmate that I was studying Chinese with, and he literally couldn't take it.

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He came from a small town in the USA, I think in Chicago, in Illinois somewhere and he preferred more of like a smaller,

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like just slow pace of life.

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And he told me that it was just too much.

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You had to go.

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It was just too intense from, you know, visually, audibly, it was too stimulating.

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You know, there's something called noise pollution.

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And noise pollution basically means like what you hear, right?

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I'll be honest with you, you know, my parents' house in Los Angeles in certain neighborhoods

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I'll go to sleep at night I don't hear anything at night maybe I'll hear like birds

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or like you know crickets sometimes you know

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that's it you know in China you hear noise all the time

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you know all the time all right even in the nicest areas you're gonna hear noise people talking you know

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so noise pollution is an intense thing so anyways I went to school here

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and again lots of crazy funny embarrassing stories of partying studying work crazy stuff

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that happened to me next episode okay basically as I continue learning Chinese more

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and more I also started to get part -time jobs as well of course

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that was teaching English all right

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so I started teaching English to some of my classmates

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and at the same time also kind of like doing some certification

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you know learning how to be a better teacher things like

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that and i began working more in this industry

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so basically i started working in china and i would visit the states back and forth

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but i kind of grew to fall in love with the lifestyle of china's particularly shanghai especially shanghai

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and as it became as it as i started doing more and more different jobs, I started moving up, up, up in my industry.

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So I began teaching just like part -time.

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Then I began teaching in the classroom, English.

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And then I began doing my corporate training teaching as well.

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And what would happen is that in these companies, I started getting more involved with management,

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marketing, communications, events, operations in particular.

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I think operations and product management within these industries was my specialty at the time.

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And as that happened, I kind of realized that, well, this is a growing industry right here.

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I have a good salary.

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I have a good setup.

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I have great friends.

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I love living in the city.

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It's very convenient.

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There's lots of stuff to do.

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It's just vibrant, you know, whereas I felt like being back in Los Angeles is kind of like, kind of dead in a sense.

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I didn't really know what I'd be doing or or like what I could do.

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And I felt the lifestyle back in the States after living in China for so long was so slow paced.

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So again, I just began working, working more and more.

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And basically after living in Shanghai for about, I think five years at the time.

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And now, again, I might be in the timeline, but it's been a long time.

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After I'd kind of, you know, worked in the director position, you know, the senior manager positions, all those like positions basically,

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I decided that I kind of wanted to do something more.

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And, you know, by doing a few things, you know, by doing like some more freelance work, doing my own, you know,

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speaking workshops, I was very involved with Toastmasters at the time.

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Toastmasters is like a public speaking club basically

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and I did very well in that club

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if you don't know Toastmasters basically it's like a worldwide public speaking organization where like there's clubs in each city

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and basically they have like international competitions

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and I had won a district competition in for like a

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Shanghai division in China where I was first place in a speech evaluation contest what that means is basically like critiquing people,

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giving them tips on how to improve themselves and how to become better speakers.

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And I got second place in an impromptu speech contest as well as just a regular speech giving contest.

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And what I realized is that by doing that, basically what happens in these clubs, you go to different clubs,

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you speak, you get invited to give workshops, I started to gain kind of a bit of an audience.

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People really look forward to hearing me speak, learning from me, or hearing tips on how to improve their speaking abilities.

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So, as that happened, I started doing more freelance work.

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And people were like, you know, you should, I wish more people would know about what you're doing.

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You know, you shouldn't be working for other companies.

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You can make so much more money doing this yourself.

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So eventually that's when I decided to become a freelancer.

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I started my own company doing training, you know, speaking, speaking training, public speaking, presentation skills, business English,

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any kind of English really.

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And from there, at the same time, I had also decided, well, I think I should also try to make some videos.

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At the time, a lot of the social media platforms you use right now did not exist, or they were just kind of beginning.

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And I originally made these videos just to promote my business.

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And if you really want to watch some cringe videos, you can kind of go to like my,

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you can scroll down to like my earliest videos when I first began, when I didn't know what the heck I was doing.

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So as I started making these videos for, excuse me, for public speaking and presentation skills for corporate training,

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luckily I would get a lot of business this way.

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People would see my video, they would contact me and it was a great sales funnel.

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But I realized something and that was you know public speaking

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and presentation skills is really like

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that is the top form the highest level of speaking you know it's not not everyone can do it

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and and even if you're you're fluent in English

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or you are a native English speaker the ability to stand

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in front of a crowd of people to present to communicate

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to give a workshop to give a TED talk to give a speech, whatever it is, is very, very, very, very difficult.

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And actually the funny thing is for most people, that's like the, I believe is like the top 10 fears in life.

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Like I think right after death itself, you know?

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So I've been doing this for so long, giving these workshops and doing this content.

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But again, it's hard for the average person to get into.

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So that's why I decided what I do is I would

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also do some English teaching videos as well to make it more accessible for everybody.

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Okay.

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So that was about, man, like 10 years ago or something like a long time ago.

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And basically from there, I started doing that.

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I started doing English teaching videos.

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I started live streaming, you know selling my courses.

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I had joined an MCN before

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It's just a company and MCN basically is a company that

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Works with creators and influencers.

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I had a great team there

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Worked with the guy there that was a at one point was a good mentor

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and taught me a lot and I appreciate him and I want to say thank you to him and

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basically from there within that period of time, just to make a long story short, everything really blew up.

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Particularly for me personally, within the last two to three years is where I've really seen my strongest growth.

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So I think right now on every platform that you could think of, both international and in China,

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I'm at a million followers or a million plus on each website.

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I think in total I'm at, I think, 10 or 12 million followers right now.

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And, you know, content, video content has its ups and downs.

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You can't always be viral, but the key is consistency.

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And I think for me, what I'm very proud of is that I've been consistently performing and, you know, pumping out content,

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you know, now entering into this new venture doing a podcast like this.

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So again, to kind of fast forward a bit, after working with that MCN,

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that's when I started a new team, a new company.

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And now I've been on my own for basically the last three years, basically.

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And it's been a very exciting time.

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Right now, I am based in Shenzhen, China and I go back to LA quite often as well

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but I'm here full -time and where does

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that leave me right now you know what's next for me

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you know I'm still always working in my main account

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which is my English teaching account that for me that's the most fun

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but you know a lot of people said too they like to get to know me a bit more

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and kind of like I've always thought about how can I mean do more long for content

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I've always worked in a podcast and everything like that

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and now this is kind of like my next journey here

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as well to be more like a you know just I guess a podcast you'd say but yeah

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Um, I am not, I'm not middle -aged yet, but I'm, uh, I'm, I'm not, I'm not a young guy.

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I'm not an old guy, but I think, you know,

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for me right now, I've never been more clear in my life about what I want to do,

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what the strategy is and I'm very lucky and blessed to have your support, to have a great support system, my friends and my family,

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and to have the ability to make your day better, okay?

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So where am I at right now?

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Again, I've been a full -time content creator for a long time.

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Now we're entering this new venture right here and we're gonna keep going.

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My hope is that this podcast I'm doing right now, we're gonna have video format, we're gonna have audio format.

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And I'm going to try to really improve everything.

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You know, I want to get a new mic.

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It's being delivered right now as we speak.

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You know, right now, you can tell me what you think about the quad.

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I'm actually on iPhone right now.

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Personally, I think actually iPhone is pretty good, honestly, for what you're seeing right now.

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We can do a bit better right now.

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We can do a bit better, though.

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I'm working on a camera as well.

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And I'd like to have guests on as well.

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You know, I'd like to do, like, you know, in -person interviews.

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I'd like to do online interviews as well.

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I think having a conversation with TV, I think that's where I'm my funniest.

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I don't think I'm that funny, but I'm a chill guy, I'm okay.

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If we met in person, we'd have a good time, that's all I'm saying.

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But yeah, so that's where we are today.

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And again, I'm very happy and blessed to be able to do this for a living and to,

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you know, when your job is your passion, it doesn't feel like you're working at all, okay?

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So with that said, ladies and gentlemen, we're ending the end of another podcast episode here.

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I'd like you to help me out, okay?

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So first of all, first and foremost, this is very important.

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Please, because we're just beginning, like, comment, and share, okay?

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Now, the most important thing is that your comments, okay?

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You know, I don't want to do like my podcast where like I'm just like saying random stuff all the time

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and just my mind is going all over the place.

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You know what I mean?

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Like I would love that to have my podcast of segments where I could answer some of your questions.

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You know, how do you do this?

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Tell me about this.

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Q &A, very important.

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But also like funny stuff as well.

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If you have funny videos, funny articles, some drama, some gossip, I would love to talk about that as well.

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All right?

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And again, everybody, this podcast will be available on all video sites.

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And also, hopefully by the time you hear this, it will be available on all podcasting sites as well, okay?

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You can just search for my name, Jonathan Peng Yuying, okay?

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Or you can search for John Peng English, or you can search for What You Say Bro?

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And hopefully you will find my podcast, okay?

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Okay, so everybody just yapped for a good 20 plus minutes and I can still keep yapping, but not for this episode.

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We're gonna save that for the next one, okay?

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Thanks everybody and I will see you next time.

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Thank you for your support.

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Love you, peace, bye -bye.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This speaking lesson is built on the video “Please allow me to introduce myself @JonPengEnglish”. This video has 400 sentences and 4632 words to shadow. The speech runs for 28:16. The speaker talks at a natural 164 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 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

15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
podcast noun	/ˈpɑdˌkæst/	A program, especially an audio program, produced on a regular basis, delivered over the Internet in a compressed digital format and designed for playback on…
shanghai verb	/ˈʃæŋ.haɪ/	To force or trick someone to go somewhere or do something against their will or interest, particularly
pollution noun	/pəˈluʃən/	Physical contamination, now especially the contamination of the environment by harmful substances, or by disruptive levels of noise, light etc.
intense adjective	/ɪnˈtɛns/	Of a characteristic: extreme or very high or strong in degree; severe; also, excessive, towering.
workshop noun	/ˈwɝk.ʃɑp/	A room, especially one which is not particularly large, used for manufacturing or other light industrial work.
foremost adjective	/ˈfɔː.məʊst/	Positioned in front of (all) others in space, most forward.
topic noun	/ˈtɑpɪk/	A subject; a theme; a category or general area of interest.
audio adjective	/ˈɔ.di.oʊ/	Focused on audible sound, as opposed to sight.
presentation noun	/ˌpɹɛzn̩ˈteɪʃn̩/	The act of presenting, or something presented.
anyways adverb	/ˈɛn.iˌweɪz/	Anyway, anyhow, in any case.
format noun	/ˈfɔːɹ.mæt/	The layout of a publication or document.
infrastructure noun	/ˈɪnfɹəˌstɹʌkt͡ʃə/	An underlying base or foundation for a building, organization, or system.
pace noun	/peɪs/	A step taken with the foot.
divorce noun	/dɪˈvɔːs/	The legal dissolution of a marriage.
lifestyle noun	/ˈlaɪfˌstaɪl/	A style of living that reflects the attitudes and values of a person or group.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Meaning
grow up verb	To mature and become an adult.
blow up verb	To explode or be destroyed by explosion.
check out verb	To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.).
dress up verb	To put on special or fancy clothes.
get off verb	To move from being on top of (something) to not being on top of it.
go back to verb	To stem from; to originate in.
look forward to verb	To anticipate, expect, or wait for, especially with a feeling of approval or pleasure; to be excited or eager to.
mess around verb	To fiddle idly.

Sentences worth repeating

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

I'm still thinking about two different names.
What's my national, what's going on?
I'm like, what's going on, man?
You know what I mean?
You know, how do you do this?

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	that's been happening · I've been doing · I've been living
Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result	if you don't know, What'd You · If you've seen my videos, you'll see
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	you've seen · have launched · has been
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	was born · being surrounded · is called

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 151 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, don't, I've. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “sh” and “zh” sounds: shanghai /ˈʃæŋ.haɪ/, pollution /pəˈluʃən/, workshop /ˈwɝk.ʃɑp/, presentation /ˌpɹɛzn̩ˈteɪʃn̩/, shock /ʃɔk/
Long words — get the stress right: infrastructure /ˈɪnfɹəˌstɹʌkt͡ʃə/, surprisingly /səˈpɹaɪzɪŋli/, visually /ˈvɪzju.əli/, necessarily /ˌnɛs.əˈsɛɹ.ə.li/, consistently /kənˈsɪstəntli/

How to practise with this video

Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like podcast, shanghai, pollution.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: Please allow me to introduce myself @JonPengEnglish - Learn English Speaking with Video

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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?