Shadowing Practice: Quanto desta conversa você consegue entender? - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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It's right here, good.
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Alright.
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Hello everyone, I'm here with Thiago.
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And today the video will be a little different because I'm meeting Thiago for the first time, personally.
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We already know you on the internet.
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And I don't know a lot about him.
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So it will be very good for me.
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And you will meet him together.
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So I'm going to make some basic questions in English.
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We'll see where this conversation is going.
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I'm a kid.
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They'll think we're in the kid garden.
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It's been three years since I moved to São Paulo and I am an English teacher.
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I'm an actor and also filmmaker.
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So I do lots of stuff, you know, especially related to performing arts.
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Okay.
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And so you said you're an actor.
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What do you act in?
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What type of things do you do?
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most of the time I'm a musical theater okay yes so do you sing and dance yeah
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we've been here in United States touring with our group a couple of years ago
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and what kind of dance do you do depends on the show
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but we do jazz we do hip-hop we do contemporary oh I love
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that that's so cool I didn't know that awesome and And why did you decide to start studying English?
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Where did this interest in English come from?
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I always say that through movies, you know?
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There's this thing called Sessão da Tarde in Brazil.
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They know what I'm talking about.
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Yeah, yeah.
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And we used to watch those movies and everything about the United States, the houses, the schools.
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It really caught my attention, you know?
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Very different from my reality.
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So I was really curious about that language and also coming here to this country.
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And what's really beautiful with movies that you mentioned is besides the language, you're actually seeing the culture, the differences.
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A lot of people come here and they notice the yellow school buses.
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Like, oh, it's just like in the movies.
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It's cool.
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Yeah, it's like a little bit of an escape in some ways to a foreign place.
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I love that.
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And when you first started studying English, what did you think?
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Did it come naturally to you?
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Was it frustrating?
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It was a mix of everything, but especially because when I started studying English, I didn't have the resources.
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Okay.
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So I used to, my mom used to work as a maid.
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Okay.
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And I used to ask her mommy,
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can you, can you try to get some English dictionaries or some kind of material with the people that you work for?
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I also found a school that they used to throw some books away, the garbage, and I would go take those books and materials.
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I was really focused, but I didn't have any type of audio resources to study, you know, to improve my pronunciation.
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So for so long, I studied vocabulary and structures, but I couldn't really speak.
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Yes.
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You know, so that was frustrating.
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Yeah.
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But after a while I was able to get those tapes, you know, those white tapes.
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Yeah.
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With those conversations and dialogues and everything.
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And then later on CDs.
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Okay.
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And I would memorize all of the dialogues, you know, from the CDs and shadowing.
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I didn't know what I was doing.
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Right.
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I was doing something.
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Isn't that interesting?
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There's things that you do kind of instinctually.
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Yeah.
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No, it just helps, but you didn't know
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that there was like a name for it or that that actually was like a proven technique to help you learn.
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Yeah, but I do think that's something that a lot of people relate to because back in the day, back in the dinosaur age when I was a child too,
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we didn't have access to audio content, even video content like we do now.
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and learning without that input is really challenging yeah so that's something
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that i think nowadays we're realizing
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that you know input just immersing yourself as much as possible
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and actually just being truly interested yeah that's like the one thing that i think
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people underestimate genuine interest in learning like if you're genuinely interested and you can't you can't really sell that.
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The person has to want it, the person has to be interested.
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Because then you're listening and you're paying attention and you're repeating and you're actively involved in it.
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And that makes a really big difference.
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And the culture really helps that.
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Because if you, for example, I always loved watching um american movies
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and um listening to english songs to pop artists to r b i love r b mario chris brown
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and all of those singers you know so i grew up singing
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and listening to those type of song those types of songs
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so that really kind of uh helped me yeah because it was something that i was already interested in Yes.
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So it helped me a lot.
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Yeah.
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Oh, that's great.
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Well, your English is super good.
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So you definitely do what he did.
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Take notes.
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It works.
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And did you imagine yourself being an English teacher at any point?
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No. No. Not really.
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You know, I started, I had a dream, you know, back in the day, like having a English diploma
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would say like certificate or something like
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that mean man used to mean a lot a lot you know especially for to get a better job
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or something like that yes nowadays it's not that important anymore
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if you're able to speak they don't care if you have the paper
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or not exactly you know right
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but back in the day like you should have it
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and I was always I mean I used to talk to my parents say my dream is to study English
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and that's cool and and all that I studied studied studying English when I was like nine years old.
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Okay.
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And then when I was around 16, I was able to go to a regular English school.
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I took this like level test or something like that.
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And then they put me in a pre-advanced level.
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Oh, great.
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So to pay the school, I would teach English in my community you know
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so that's how i became a teacher you know
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and do you feel that you learned more as a student
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or more as a teacher i think both yeah
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but the level i i was teaching was very basic you know
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so but but i mean that was cool yeah it was cool yeah we had fun
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and you did go to the united States you spent some time in the US.
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Yes.
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How did that happen and what brought you to the US?
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This dream to make movies.
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Okay.
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Yeah.
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Okay.
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So um it's always been a dream to attend New York Film Academy and study filmmaking.
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Uh-huh.
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Since I was a little boy like that was my dream school.
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Yeah and um i always love it to write stories
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and plays so i'm christian so at my church i was the director
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for a performing arts program and everything
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so um i think i'm really good at creating stories you know yeah it's things like that
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so i did this movie in my town my hometown we
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fundraised uh we got like we were able to raise 30 000 reais something like
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that yeah and then we made this long this feature film
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which uh we got seven nominations in international film festival
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and how old were you i was 21 oh that's amazing
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and then we got when it we we got three of those um the awards
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and after After that I kind of thought, okay, that's what I want to do.
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I'm going to try to go to the United States to study film.
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And I make this plan, like telling my story.
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And I didn't tell the school that I didn't have the money to pay, the tuition and all of that.
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So I enrolled myself and I was in all of the process,
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like interviews and English tests and portfolio and all of that
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and I was approved through the whole process and then they told me, okay Tiago you're approved this is your invitation letter
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but this is the money that you gotta pay
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and I made this video online telling my story telling people how important
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that was for me and how I started studying English
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and what I had returned to my community you know and then people started donating That's amazing.
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That was pretty cool.
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They took me to TV, to radio, to newspapers.
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I love that.
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To help promote your story and get more donations.
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Yeah.
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That's very cool.
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And then, but I was able to raise just 6,000 reais and I needed so much more.
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And I remember on November 30th, I was at my house and I got this email from the school saying
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that there was a deadline to pay the school.
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I just had that 6,000 reais.
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And then somebody here in the United States watched my video and they paid my school.
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Like the whole thing?
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Yes.
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The full tuition?
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And I didn't know.
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And there wasn't the deadline.
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And I got the receipt and the invoice and everything.
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Oh my god.
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What was your reaction?
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I was crying.
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Just like a movie.
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I'd be like, what?
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I was crying.
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Just like a movie.
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And a couple of days later, I got this calling from this person through Facebook.
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And he said, before you were born, my parents lived in your city.
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And your daddy, my dad used to be a bricklayer.
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Your daddy built the house of my family and we never forgot about him.
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So that's why we helped you out.
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Oh my goodness.
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I just got goosebumps.
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That's so cool.
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What a beautiful story.
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And he was at my house last week.
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I think I saw the stories on Instagram but I didn't know the whole backstory about him
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And I wrote my story and I just launched a book Yes, I want to hear all about this book This name,
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this is my book This is a gift for you Thank you!
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The dream is not finished, the girl who wanted a paper axe I love this
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they they denied my visa twice before that school you know approval and all that so i was
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i had this record of you know heartbreaks you know rejection it's like rejections
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and those but i kept moving
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because education was the only way out from the reality
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that was raised in you know very poor a lot of drugs
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and all that
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so i'm really thankful for um also to be a good student i always love to study yeah
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but i lost
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so many friends you know my neighbors the friends i used
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to i was gonna ask about this they talk about like
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when people want to leave the community or
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when people want to maybe even leave the family to pursue bigger
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and better things yes they call it like
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when you put lobsters in a bucket
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when one lobster tries to crawl out the other lobsters yeah pull them back in um
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and i've heard so many stories and i think there's some guilt
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that comes along because some people might take offense to the fact that you want more or they might think,
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oh well he thinks he's better than us or things like that.
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Like how was that experience for you?
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Did you go through stuff like that?
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Is that why you lost certain friends?
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Because they saw you going in a different direction?
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I think I've always been open about the goals
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that I had in life and
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that was kind of awkward to them like to hear me saying that I'm gonna go to the United States, gonna do this yeah what were their reactions like yeah i
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remember the last day high school i said at the last
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day of high school i told my my friends um you
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guys gonna see me on tv yeah you know i love
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that like confidence that you had yeah yeah
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and i always wrote my life i mean i had i
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used to use i used to write journals to practice writing my english writing
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but also to manifest the life that i wanted to live i love
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that i was so focused on that that i used to
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write like interviews uh-huh like journalists interviewing me about the last movie
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that i did and i had all of that you know it's
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so funny yeah but it's i mean obviously you did the work to make
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that happen too yeah
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and i think that's why some people you can't just like
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wish your life to happen you really have to see it imagine
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that it's possible and then do everything you possibly can to make it to make it happen
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and answering your question about the people
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that stayed um of course i had a couple friends
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that kind of uh made fun of me uh
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but they they everybody knew
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that it was different there was something different about me every school
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that i i went to the teachers would say that
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because i was that kid that goes to the stage on stage
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and and talks and presents
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and even preach i was five years old i was preaching already on service okay
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so you just were like born with that yeah i had
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that i feel comfortable you know uh in
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that kind of environment um maybe and for you
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that you don't know my artistic work i've um i've directed a web series for netflix
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a couple documentaries and movies that were streamed in the movie theaters.
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Oh, that's awesome.
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I toured a couple countries with my musical theater crew, you know?
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Oh, how cool.
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So on social media, people don't know, I mean, the whole story.
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Well, that's so true.
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That's another lesson about social media.
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What you see is like 0.5% of a person's life you know there's
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so much else and I think also
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when you have a profile that's dedicated to English teaching you don't really mix all the other things
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that you do on that same profile I love that
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and were your parents always supportive or were they ever like worried
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that you had dreams that were maybe too big or anything like that the fun part about that everybody asked me that.
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It makes no sense, but they always supported me.
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My dad is a brake layer, my mom is a maid, and I would say, Mommy,
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I want to go to São Paulo because I want to take that acting workshop for a month,
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for a week.
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And then she would bake cakes for me to sell.
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My parents, my dad always helped me.
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So now, I'm going to shift gears a little bit.
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So now you're an English teacher and you're still working in the film and acting and things like that.
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so tell me about your your family life
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because i know you're married yeah
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so tell me about your family how many kids how old
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are they yeah i'm married to amanda this year we celebrate
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10 years anniversary wonderful we got two kids kawán who is one year old
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and kevin who is four years old okay
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they are the joy of our lives
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and um we live in san paulo far from our family
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so it's kind of hard you know at times you know we miss our parents
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and sometimes having people to help with the kids and all of
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that yeah but um they are such a joy me
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and my wife she's a singer as well and an actress
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so we are in the same musical theater company um a couple maybe last month i launched my book
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and i wrote a musical about my story oh my gosh i want to know how do you have
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so much time I guess it's like creative energy to write a book to produce all this content, to have the two kids to be doing all this stuff.
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I take the whole family along, you know, everywhere I go the whole family goes along.
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You know, we are rehearsing and the kids are messing around, they go up to stage, you know, like.
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But it's nice because Kevin is very artistic.
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I post a couple videos with him.
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He speaks, he's learning how to speak English.
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So I'm, I'm like since he was, he was born, I always spoke English with him.
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Yes, that's good.
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So he already speaks and understands a lot.
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Good deal.
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At home, right?
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Yes.
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So maybe Kevin is going to be an influencer or something because he likes the attention.
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Yes.
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You know, he's very communicative.
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Oh, that's great.
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You never know.
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You never know.
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If influencers are still a thing in the future yeah i
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don't know who knows maybe we'll be replaced that's it it's all like ai bots instead
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you're right all right so to wrap up here so this doesn't end up being too long
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um to people that are watching this
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that have been studying english for a long time
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or maybe even have other dreams besides being fluent in english
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like what's what advice would you give to them um my
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advice would be never lose the track of who you are
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never lose yourself fighting for any dream it's not worth it yes you know yeah
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so um try make sure that you have people around
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that are supporters that are going to be with you in the darkest moments
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and also in the joyous joyful moments yeah um and
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and make a little bit a little bit every day you know don't try to
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to reach the sky at once at one shot you know
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little by little baby steps a step at a time i love
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that that's perfect yes there's a a saying in english that say how do you eat an elephant
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bite by bite which is not the best visual but
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when you think about it like to me it's very helpful you want to do this really big thing
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but the only way to do it is like what what tiny little step can i take today yeah
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and i also really like what you said about don't lose yourself in the process yeah
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because i do think it's very easy to do
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that like you will get offers
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and be tempted to sell your soul in some ways to get a little bit more fame
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or a little bit more money
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and there's always a cost yeah we especially with social media
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you know i've been struggling uh i had i think i had uh i had my momentum maybe a year
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and a half ago yeah and i wasn't i wasn't able to replicate
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that yeah and for some for some time i kind of felt a little bit depressed
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because i felt like i'm not interested anymore people don't want
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to hear what i have to say uh i'm i'm my numbers i I always talk to Lilian, you know, and she always tells me, Tiago, you're not your numbers, you're not the algorithm.
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Exactly, yeah.
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And all that.
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Yeah, it's true.
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And if you think of, I mean, at least for me, there were moments when I was doing like really amazing on YouTube and social media, and those were not very happy moments in my life.
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So it's kind of like maybe I was killing myself to produce a lot of content
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and do really well on the internet, but then in my personal life, I was sacrificing things
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so it's like the balance yeah yeah that's beautiful i love
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that well thank you thank you so much for being here
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and now he's going to interview me yeah and
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so you guys got to click on the link in the
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description to to hear this interview we'll see where it goes
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but definitely buy his book follow him i'll post all the links thank you very very inspiring story thank you
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so much thank you for sharing thanks for having me bye guys bye
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Getting to Know the Conversation: A Real-Life English Dialogue
The video features a casual chat between two speakers meeting for the first time, covering topics like careers, hobbies, and language learning. This natural, unscripted exchange mirrors real-world interactions, making it ideal for practicing listening and speaking skills. The dialogue includes common phrases, cultural references (like Brazil's Sessão da Tarde), and personal stories, offering a rich context for learners to grasp both language and culture.
Top 5 Phrases for Daily Communication
- "We'll see where this conversation is going" – A flexible way to acknowledge an unplanned discussion, useful in casual settings.
- "I do lots of stuff, you know" – A conversational phrase to simplify describing multiple roles or activities.
- "It really caught my attention" – Expresses strong interest, perfect for sharing what inspires you.
- "A mix of everything" – A quick way to describe a combination of feelings or experiences.
- "I didn't have the resources" – Honest and relatable, used to explain limitations in learning or other contexts.
Step-by-Step Shadowing Guide for This Video
Shadowing (repeating speech immediately after a speaker) is a powerful technique to improve pronunciation and fluency. Here's how to use it with this video:
- Listen first, then repeat: Watch the video once to understand the context. Pause after short phrases (2-3 seconds) and repeat, focusing on intonation and rhythm. This mimics real conversation flow, great for IELTS speaking practice.
- Focus on weak forms: Notice how words like "it's" and "you're" are shortened. Shadowing helps train your mouth to produce these natural sounds, which a shadowing app can also reinforce with slow-motion playback.
- Emulate emotion: The speakers show curiosity and enthusiasm. Repeat their lines with similar energy—this builds confidence in expressing feelings, a key skill for shadow speak.
- Record and compare: Use your phone to record your shadowing. Compare it to the video to spot differences in stress and pacing. This self-feedback enhances accuracy.
- Practice daily: Even 10 minutes a day with this dialogue will improve your ability to keep up with real-time conversations. The shadowing technique works best when consistent, making it a staple for effective language learning.
By engaging with this authentic dialogue, you'll not only learn practical phrases but also develop the ability to communicate naturally—essential for both daily interactions and exams like IELTS.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| “Used to” used to + verb — a past habit or state that is no longer true | used to watch · used to work · used to ask |
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | have been studying · i've been struggling |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | was really focused · was approved · were born |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | we've been · i've heard · I've always been |
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.