Shadowing Practice: Pronunciation Training: 3 Ways to speak English MUCH more clearly! - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Hello, lovely students, and welcome back to English with Lucy.
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I'm very excited about today's lesson.
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I am going to train you to speak more clearly in just three simple ways.
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This is going to be a pronunciation bootcamp.
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It's like three mini lessons in one, and I guarantee that by the end of this complete bootcamp,
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you'll be pronouncing word endings so much more accurately.
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First, we're going to cover how to pronounce words ending in the letters e, d.
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I have an amazing trick for this.
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Then we'll move on to words ending in s or es.
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Again, I have another trick.
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And finally, we will focus our attention on the accurate pronunciation of some common suffixes, like the shin in pronunciation.
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So we're going to cover why we say danced with a t at the end,
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loved with a d at the end and visited with an id at the end.
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I have an amazing trick.
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I'm also going to train you how to pronounce these endings perfectly every time.
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So you'll know why we go to the shops to buy clothes and you'll know why the plural of style is styles,
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but the plural of spice is spices.
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Finally, we'll talk about suffixes.
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Endings like able and shin.
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So you'll be able to pronounce so many words accurately.
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I want to remind you that I've created a free PDF to go with this lesson.
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In the PDF, you will find all of the pronunciation rules that we cover in today's video with loads of extra examples.
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To download it, just click on the link in the description box, enter your name and your email address.
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You sign up to my mailing list and the PDF will arrive directly in your inbox.
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After that, you will automatically receive all of my free weekly PDFs alongside my news, course offers, and updates.
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It's a free service and you can unsubscribe at any time.
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Okay, let's get started.
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First mini lesson, we're going to focus on ED endings.
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I like to teach through stories, so I'm going to tell you about a trip I took to Bangkok last year.
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Listen and shadow me to practice if you like doing that.
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Pay special attention to words ending in ED.
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Last year, I visited Bangkok for the first time.
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I'd always wanted to visit Thailand and was delighted when the opportunity finally occurred.
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I asked friends who'd traveled there what I needed to take.
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I went totally over the top and Will watched in horror as I packed half my wardrobe.
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We laughed out loud when Diego jumped in my suitcase too, adding to the chaos.
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I continued getting ready and then we carried our cases downstairs ready for the morning.
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If you were shadowing with me there, feel free to replay and try again.
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Let's take a closer look at those ed endings.
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One of the most common pronunciation mistakes I hear is
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when students try to pronounce the E at the end of the word and end up saying ask -ed or travel -ed.
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They should be asked, travelled.
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We only add on an extra syllable when the infinitive of the word ends in a T or D.
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So words which end in the letters D, D -D, D -E, T, T -T or T -E,
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add an extra syllable with the sound id.
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Here are the examples from the text.
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Visit, want and delight all end in the consonant sound t.
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Notice how the letters E -D add that extra syllable.
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Visit has two syllables, visited has three.
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Want has just one syllable in the present, but two in the past.
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Wanted.
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Delight similarly becomes delighted.
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Verbs ending in d behave in the same way.
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Need, needed.
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But, and this is a big but, and we like big buts, and we cannot lie.
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Most ed endings aren't pronounced this way.
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In In most ED words, the E is silent and the letter D is pronounced with a T or D sound.
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How do you know which?
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Well, it depends on whether the word ends in a voiced or an unvoiced sound.
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If it's easier to think about it in this way, it's like the letters ED are just represented by either T or D.
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One of the easiest ways to find out if a sound is voiced
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or unvoiced is to place your fingers on your throat and check for any vibration when you say it.
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If you can feel a vibration, the sound is voiced.
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If there's no vibration...
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It's unvoiced.
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Let's give it a go.
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Tuh.
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Duh.
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Tuh.
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Duh.
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I can feel the vibration with duh, but nothing for tuh.
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What about vowel sounds?
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All vowel sounds are voiced.
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Let's put the rest of the ED words from my story on screen.
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In most British English accents, the word occur ends in a vowel sound.
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Uh, occur.
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The letter R isn't pronounced.
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We match voiced with voiced, so we add the voiced consonant d to the end, and occur becomes occurred.
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Ask ends in the unvoiced consonant k.
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We match unvoiced with unvoiced, so we add the unvoiced t.
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Asked.
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That's quite a hard consonant cluster there.
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Asked.
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In fast spoken English, we often get rid of the k sound and say asked.
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I asked him a question.
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Remember, we don't pronounce the letter e, we don't add an extra syllable.
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Let's practice blending those sounds together.
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Repeat after me to practice this.
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Occur, occurred.
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Carry, carried.
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Some unvoiced ones.
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Let's try and pronounce all of the consonants together.
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Ask, asked.
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Watch, watched.
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Pack, packed.
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Laugh, laughed. and jump, jumped.
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Okay, first mini lesson done.
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Let's move on to words ending in S or ES.
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We add S, ES or apostrophe S to a noun to form the plural
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or possessive or to a verb to form the third person singular in the present simple.
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As you listen to the next part of the story, Try and notice the different ways I pronounce the S at the end of the words in bold.
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Again, this is another shadowing opportunity.
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Let's begin.
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We spent our first few days in Bangkok going for walks along busy streets,
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immersing ourselves in new sights and noises.
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We spent ages admiring the styles of clothes in the shops and devoured delicious dishes for our lunches.
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Will took hundreds of photographs.
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It's one of his strengths of the incredible places, flower markets, and rows of colourful spices.
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He wishes we could go back tomorrow.
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I have to admit that was a tongue twister for me.
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You might not know this about me, but growing up, I was unable to properly make the ss sound.
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I had what we call a lisp, which is when your tongue sticks out a little bit too far, th.
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I would call myself Luthie instead of Lucy.
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It was only as I matured that it sort of went away.
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Unless I'm cold, then it comes out.
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Back to the pronunciation lesson.
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We pronounce s and es endings in three different ways.
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With ss, with zs, or with is.
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The last sound, is, adds an extra syllable to the base form of the word.
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But, and this is where it gets a little bit more complicated, we only add is when a word ends in.
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S, z, sh, ch, j, or j.
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I've included the typical spelling patterns for each sound and more examples in the PDF.
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The link's in the description box.
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I think you'll find that very useful.
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Spice ends in s.
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So in the plural form, we add an extra syllable.
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Spice, spices.
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Then we have noise, noises, and dish, dishes.
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Remember, these rules also apply to the third person singular form of the verb.
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So, the base form wish becomes he wishes.
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Words which end with the sounds ch and j also add an extra syllable.
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For example, watch watches and charge charges.
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Very few words end with j, but there are some like massage, massages.
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Okay, so that covers when we add is, but how do we choose between the remaining two sounds s
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or z? well it's the same rule
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that we saw with the ed endings we match voiced with voiced
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and unvoiced with unvoiced here are the words from my story which end with voiced sounds So, need to be matched with Z.
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Remember, there is no extra syllable.
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We just blend the sounds together.
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There's a complete table with all of the voiced consonants, typical spelling patterns, and more examples in the PDF.
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Repeat the plural forms after me now to practise.
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Ready?
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Hundreds.
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Ourselves.
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Clothes.
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Styles.
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days, and rose.
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The remaining unvoiced consonant sounds, p, t, c, th, and th, add s.
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What about connected speech for both the s and es endings and ed endings?
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When we add s, z, t, and d to the end of a word, we often end up with many consonant sounds together.
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These consonant clusters can be really tricky to pronounce clearly.
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Let me give you a couple of tips which are pretty much guaranteed to help you articulate these sounds like a pro.
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Tip number one, when the word after, s, z, t, or d, begins with a vowel sound,
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try to attach the consonant sound to the vowel sound.
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For example, instead of saying, we laughed out loud, break up the consonant cluster by saying, we laughed out loud.
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Here are some more examples from my stories.
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Listen and repeat.
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Will watched in horror.
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Diego jumped in my suitcase.
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Going for walks along.
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Immersing ourselves in.
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Tip number two.
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When the word is followed by the same consonant sound, join the two consonant sounds together.
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Repeat after me.
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They watch television.
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We enjoy dancing.
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He walks slowly.
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And now time for our final mini lesson.
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Once Once you manage to articulate this next sound correctly, your pronunciation is going to be so much clearer.
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For the final story, focus your attention on the highlighted word endings.
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Again, this is another opportunity for shadowing.
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When we got back home, friends and family quizzed us about our trip.
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Was the hotel in a nice location?
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Was the weather pleasant?
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What was your most memorable moment?
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Well, the delicious food was a highlight.
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It was incredible.
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Learning about the culture was important too.
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But there were so many special moments.
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I don't think I could pick just one.
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Okay, in bold, we can see some common suffixes.
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A suffix is a letter or letters that we add to the end of a word to make a new word.
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All of these suffixes have something in common.
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They contain the schwa.
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That's the sound at the beginning of the word about, and at the end of the word computer.
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We make this schwa sound by relaxing the mouth and the tongue.
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My jaw opens a little, but it's not wide.
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Uh, uh.
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It's the most common sound in English, and it never appears in stressed syllables.
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Why is this sound so important for suffixes?
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Well, most suffixes in English are not stressed.
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Let's take this word from the story as an example.
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Memorable.
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Memorable.
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The main stress is on the first syllable, mem.
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The suffix isn't stressed and the letter a is pronounced as a schwa.
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One of the biggest pronunciation errors I hear learners make is when they try to pronounce full, strong vowels in unstressed suffixes.
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Knowing that many suffixes are pronounced with the schwa can massively improve the accuracy of your pronunciation.
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It's not always the case, but it will help.
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Let's take a look at some more examples from the story.
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I'll pronounce the suffix, and then one of the example words.
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Listen and repeat after me.
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Us, delicious, able, memorable, Okay,
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that's it for your pronunciation bootcamp today.
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I really hope you enjoyed it.
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Please let me know which pronunciation tip you found the most helpful
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and how you're going to apply it to your English learning journey.
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Don't forget to download the PDF that goes with today's lesson.
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There's so much more information in there.
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This was quite a long lesson, but trust me, there's more to learn.
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the link for
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that is in the description box also wherever you are on
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your english learning journey whether you are pre -intermediate intermediate or
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if you're working towards advanced english i run my beautiful british english b1 b2
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and c1 courses they are 12 -week programs with pronunciation woven through we have dedicated pronunciation lessons but there's pronunciation throughout out.
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It's such an important skill.
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If you want to speak real British English and work on your pronunciation, visit EnglishWithLucy .com.
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All of the information's there.
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I will see you soon for another lesson.
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Bye.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B1 speaking lesson is built on the video “Pronunciation Training: 3 Ways to speak English MUCH more clearly!”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: sound, word, ending, pronunciation, add. This video has 220 sentences and 2136 words to shadow. The speech runs for 15:42. The speaker talks at a steady 136 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. Only 77% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| pronounce verb | /pɹəˈnaʊns/ | To declare formally, officially or ceremoniously. |
| pronunciation noun | /pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/ | The formal or informal way in which a word is made to sound when spoken. |
| consonant noun | /ˈkɑn.sə.nənt/ | A sound that results from the passage of air through restrictions of the oral cavity; any sound that is not the dominant sound of a syllable, the dominant… |
| syllable noun | /ˈsɪl.ə.bəl/ | A unit of human speech which often forms words corresponding to one opening of the mouth; a vowel and its surrounding consonants. |
| suffix noun | /ˈsʌfɪks/ | A morpheme added at the end of a word to modify the word's meaning. |
| unvoiced adjective | /ˌʌnˈvɔɪst/ | Not spoken or expressed. |
| vowel noun | /ˈvaʊ.əl/ | A sound produced by the vocal cords with relatively little restriction of the oral cavity, forming the prominent sound of a syllable. |
| plural noun | /ˈplʊəɹəl/ | The plural number. In English, referring to more or less than one of something. |
| litter noun | /ˈlɪt.ɚ/ | Straw, grass, and similar loose material used as bedding for people or animals. |
| schwa noun | /ʃwɑ/ | An indeterminate central vowel sound as the "a" in "about", represented as /ə/ in IPA. |
| vibration noun | /vaɪˈbɹeɪʃən/ | The act of vibrating or the condition of being vibrated. |
| memorable adjective | /ˈmɛm.(ə)ɹə.bl̩/ | Worthy to be remembered; very important or remarkable. |
| delight noun | /dəˈlaɪt/ | Joy; pleasure. |
| verb noun | /vɝb/ | A word that indicates an action, event, or state of being. |
| spice noun | /spaɪs/ | Aromatic or pungent plant matter (usually dried) used to season or flavor food. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| break up verb | To break or separate into pieces. | |
| come out verb | /ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/ | To be discovered; to be revealed. |
| end up verb | To bring to a conclusion. | |
| find out verb | To discover, as by asking or investigating. | |
| get back verb | Return to where one came from. | |
| go away verb | To depart or leave a place. | |
| go back verb | To return to a place or state after having been there at a previous time. | |
| grow up verb | To mature and become an adult. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- I'm very excited about today's lesson.
- Finally, we'll talk about suffixes.
- Let's take a closer look at those ed endings.
- How do you know which?
- What was your most memorable moment?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | should be asked · aren't pronounced · is pronounced |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | I've created · I've included · have dedicated |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | lisp, which is · tips which are |
| Superlatives the -est / the most … — the top or bottom of a group | the most common · the easiest · your most memorable |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 28 contractions and reduced forms, such as you'll, don't, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: cloth /klɒθ/, throat /ˈθɹoʊt/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: pronunciation /pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/, schwa /ʃwɑ/, vibration /vaɪˈbɹeɪʃən/, dish /dɪʃ/, shin /ʃɪn/
- Long words — get the stress right: pronunciation /pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/, articulate /ɑːɹˈtɪk.jə.leɪt/, accurately /ˈæk.jə.ɹɪt.li/, intermediate /ɪn.tə(ɹ)ˈmi.di.ət/, apostrophe /əˈpɑs.tɹə.fi/
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 pronounce, pronunciation, consonant.
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.