Shadowing Practice: Shadowing Technique in English: are you wasting your time? - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

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Hey everyone, it's Hadar.

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Hey everyone, it's Hadar.

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Thank you so much for joining me.

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Today we are going to talk about how to do the best possible shadowing exercise.

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If you have no idea what a shadowing exercise is, then you are in for a treat because it's really one of the best ways to improve everything about your English.

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And if you've been doing this for a while, then you might want to stick around as well because you'll learn the biggest mistakes English learners make when doing the shadowing exercise.

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And also I'm going to give you a few tips on how to improve it and optimize it.

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Because I love efficiency.

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If you're already practicing, it might as well work really, really well for you.

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And this is what this video is all about.

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But before that, if you are new to my channel, then hello.

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My name is Hadar.

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I'm a non-native speaker of English and I am here to help you sound confident, clear, and and proud when speaking English.

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Now, pride is not something that you hear, but it's something that you feel when someone else is speaking.

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And I want you to be very, very proud of your English because it's your second language or third or fourth, and you should be very proud no matter what the outcome is.

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Now, if you want to find out more about how I can help you, then I highly recommend that you visit my website, hadarshemesh.com.

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Or you can also follow me on Instagram at hadar.accentsway, where I share a new piece of content every single day.

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So I have a feeling that you're going to like it.

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I'm going to put all the links below this video.

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Now let's talk about the shadowing technique.

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The shadowing technique is basically you shadowing someone else speaking, meaning you're repeating what they are saying.

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Now, you can also call it the imitation exercise, or as I like to call it, the echoing exercise, where you're just like echoing what someone else is saying.

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Now, before we get into how to do it and how to avoid the biggest mistake, the reason why it's so good is because first, it helps you develop intuition.

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What does that mean?

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It helps you understand things in English on a deeper level.

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A level that is not logical or intellectual, but you feel it in your body.

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You feel the rhythm of the words and sounds.

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And there are things that you can't put in words, or you can't find a logical explanation to why something sounds the way it does.

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And when you're imitating someone, it's like when you're singing along or humming along with a melody, you're tapping into different layers that usually don't exist when we just think of the language as spoken language.

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or words.

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So that's the first reason.

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The second reason, it can help you understand and listen to sounds in a way that you usually don't listen to, especially if you're paying attention.

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You also start noticing things like melody, intonation, rhythm, all of which are very, very important when communicating in English.

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And they give you that extra sense of confidence and ability to express yourself and how you're feeling and your attitude towards things.

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Now, if you're only focusing on the words and sentences, then you're losing a lot of the elements that we have in normal speech.

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Things that we don't think about, but we feel and hear when other people speak.

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And this is why imitation exercises are really, really cool.

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Also, it's something that you can do on the go while you're driving or doing the dishes or walking your dog.

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So it's a very efficient exercise that you can, you know, leverage basically any situation when you're doing something and you don't have a lot of people around you into a practice opportunity, which is also a plus.

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Now, before we talk about the biggest mistakes learners make when doing these shadowing exercises, I want to talk about how to do it.

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Okay?

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And I want to give you a few tips on how to do it.

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So the first is to just play the audio and then echo the person you're listening to or shadow the person you're listening to.

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Right?

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So basically you're not pausing, you're not doing anything.

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You're just repeating it a split second after then.

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Now, at the end, I'm also going to give you a few tips on how to optimize this exercise.

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But for now, I want you to know that this is the first option that you have, right?

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And this is something that you can do on the go as you're driving your car or doing the dishes.

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Because I have worked a working class job.

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A working class job.

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I have waited tables in restaurants.

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I have ridden the subway.

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I have ridden the subway.

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I have walked the streets.

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I have walked the streets.

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In New York City.

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In New York City.

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The second option is when you are more concentrated, seated at your desk or on your couch, and ideally you might want to have the script of the speech that you are shadowing, and what you want to do is to play a line, pause, and repeat.

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Okay?

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So basically, you play a line, then you pause, and don't wait till the end.

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Like, you can take a short chunk and then pause, and then repeat.

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I started doing this because...

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I started doing this.

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I started doing this because...

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I started doing this because...

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I was having...

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I was having, I was having this incredible response.

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Response.

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Now, the advantage of this exercise is that you can go deeper, you can pay attention to more things because you're more focused and concentrated.

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You have more time to listen to things, to repeat it.

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So, this is a great way to go deeper.

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But the advantage of the first option is that you can do it anytime and pretty much anywhere.

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Well, not really anywhere, because if you do it while you're at the dentist or, you know, just at the bank, that would be a little weird or in the middle of a very important meeting.

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So maybe then you shouldn't be doing the shadowing exercise.

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I mean, you know, it's just a suggestion.

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Now, the biggest mistake you might be making when doing a shadowing exercise is that you do not set an intention as to what you're paying attention to and trying to improve.

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The idea of the shadowing exercise is not just a copy-paste or become a parrot of someone else, okay?

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No, the idea is to try to follow someone else's speech pattern, voice, intonation, rhythm, melody, and sounds.

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Yes, great.

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But also, you want to improve specific things and you want to pay attention to it.

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The brain filters out a lot of information as you're listening to other people and as you're speaking.

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When you're just repeating someone on autopilot, you're missing out a lot of information when your brain is not paying attention to specific things.

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So, you know, you're just repeating it, but you might not be repeating some of the key sounds that are important to you.

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Or maybe you're not paying attention to that intonation shift that could be beneficial for you to use more, right?

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Because you filtered it out.

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You did not listen to it.

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Because you're listening to other things.

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You're very focused on getting the words right, right?

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Or you're, you know, thinking of vocabulary or maybe something else, or maybe you're doing other things and you're really not concentrated and you have no intention as to what you're trying to improve.

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So my biggest piece of advice would be to always set an intention as to what it is that you're trying to improve in addition to doing the shadowing exercise and all the benefits that I've discussed at the beginning.

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And to that we'll add, you know, vocabulary and flow and connected speech and all of these great things that, you know, are added value when you're doing these shadowing exercises.

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But you want to set an intention.

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You want to know what you're listening to and what you are trying to change.

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So for example, if you're working on distinguishing between the sheep-ship vowel pair, right, then when you're listening to someone else during those imitation exercises, you want to detect every time they use either the tense E or the lax E.

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Or especially when they're using tricky words that could be, you know, either or like cheap chip or least list, right, minimal pairs.

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So you want to be mindful of that because when you're mindful of that, so for example, you say, I'm gonna, I'm gonna listen closely to these two vowel sounds, then you will notice it.

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All right?

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When usually if you're not setting an intention, you're less likely to notice it.

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And then when you notice it, you're more likely to do it.

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And when you're focused on getting it right, that's when you start to change things.

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That's when you start to rewire your brain.

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That's how you start to get rid of old pronunciation habits or speaking habits.

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And you start to acquire new ones.

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Not that there is anything wrong about how you used to say it, but if it affects your clarity and you're self-conscious about that pronunciation, then you can shift only with intention and repetition.

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So paying attention to those things and making sure that you're saying them is going to significantly improve the quality of your practice.

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Now, it's not just about sounds.

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It could also be intonation patterns.

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So let's say you want to improve or vary your intonation patterns when speaking English.

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So maybe you might want to pay attention to how this person ends their sentences, whether it's going up or going down.

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You want to pay attention to the stressed words only and see how they're being stressed, whether they're prolonged or maybe that person raises their pitch.

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Right?

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And then you want to imitate just that.

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Now, of course, you're imitating a whole lot of other things, you know, No words, connected speech, different sounds, but you're paying attention to stressed words.

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You're paying attention to the intonation pattern at the end of sentences.

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This is gold, because when you do, you might actually make a change in how you say things.

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And that change will stick if you say it enough times.

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Now, before we wrap up, I want to give you a few more tips on how you can optimize your shadowing practice.

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First, it's very important that you select a person that speaks in a voice that you like and even love that resonates with you.

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That you want to master a sound similar to their sound.

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Why?

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Because if it's someone that has a voice that you don't like, or that doesn't give you all these great feelings and emotions, then you might be practicing it with a slight resistance, and that is not very effective or practical.

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So you definitely want to find someone that you love their voice.

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Second, remember that you can slow down the pace.

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If it's really fast, or if you're not paying attention to all the things, then slow it down and play it at half the speed or 75% of the speed.

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You can do that with podcasts.

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You can do it with YouTube videos.

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It's super easy.

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You just go to the settings at the bottom and then change the speed of the video or audio.

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And it allows you to pay attention to more things.

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And I have encountered this type of harassment right in the subway in New York City.

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Another thing, and I've mentioned it, is to make sure that you have the script ready.

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So you can see the words in front of you.

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You can even put it on a Google Doc and then edit it, right?

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Maybe highlight words that are stressed, or divide the sentences based on thought groups.

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So you can do a lot of things with the text.

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You can underline words that are more challenging.

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You can highlight sounds that are more challenging for you so you can pay attention to it.

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So working with a script is great if you have the time, if you're not driving.

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Because, you know, don't work with a script when you're driving.

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It's not very safe.

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Now, one more thing you can do to optimize your practice is to record yourself shadowing the person.

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So for example, you play the audio, you pause, you repeat, and you record the whole thing.

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And then you listen to the recording.

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I know it sounds like a lot, but again, if you do that, you will gain so much more out of it that you would actually need to practice less to get the same results.

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Listen to me, I know.

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So you play it, you repeat it, you record the whole thing, and then you listen to it and you look for the differences.

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Because a lot of times when you listen to something from the outside, when it's not inside your head, you notice a lot more things.

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Okay?

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So, recording yourself would be the last thing.

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And again, I want to repeat how important it is to set an intention.

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You can even write it down or put it on a post-it.

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R's, word endings, stressed words, reductions, right?

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All of that good stuff that you want to pay attention to.

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Now, the last thing I want to add is don't be afraid of repeating the same phrase or paragraph or part of the video.

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You don't have to do the entire video or the entire podcast episode.

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No, you can take one paragraph and do it again and again and again.

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Now, don't try to do a lot.

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You can do less, but be very thorough.

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So you can take one paragraph and just listen to it and shadow it again and again and again and again.

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Quality, not quantity, my friends.

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Quality, not quantity.

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Okay, that's it.

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My question to you is, do you like to do the shadowing practice, right?

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And do you do it?

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Is it a part of your English practice routine?

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Let me know in the comments.

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And if you haven't yet, I invite you to join the Influency Community where we practice together on video and we do a lot of shadowing techniques there.

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There's been a thing recently where community members have been shadowing my videos and it's the best thing I've ever seen in my life.

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Because it's like me speaking with so many different other amazing voices and they're doing an incredible job.

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So a shout out to all the Influency Community members for your amazing job doing the shadowing practice.

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And if you're not a part of the Influency Community, then what are you waiting for?

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Join us.

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I'm going to post a link to it in the description below.

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All right, that's it.

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Thank you so much for watching.

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Don't forget to connect with me on Instagram at hadar.accentsway, and subscribe to my channel if you haven't yet.

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Have a beautiful, beautiful rest of the day, and I'll see you next week in the next video.

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Bye!

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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.

How to Practice Effectively on ShadowingEnglish

Choose your video: Pick a YouTube video with clear, natural English speech. TED Talks, BBC News, movie scenes, podcasts, or IELTS sample answers all work great. Paste the URL into the search bar. Start with shorter videos (under 5 minutes) and content you find genuinely interesting — motivation matters.
Listen first, understand the context: On your first pass, keep the speed at 1x and just listen. Don't try to repeat yet. Focus on understanding the meaning, picking up new vocabulary, and noticing how the speaker stresses words, links sounds, and uses pauses.
Set up Shadowing mode:
- Wait Mode: Choose +3s or +5s — after each sentence plays, the video pauses automatically so you have time to repeat it out loud. Choose Manual if you want full control and press Next yourself after each repetition.
- Sub Sync: YouTube subtitles sometimes appear slightly ahead or behind the audio. Use ±100ms to align them perfectly so you can follow along accurately.
Shadow out loud (the core practice): This is where the real work happens. As soon as a sentence plays — or during the pause — repeat it out loud, clearly and confidently. Don't just mouth the words: mirror the speaker's exact rhythm, stress, pitch, and connected speech. Aim to sound like a shadow of the speaker, not just a word-by-word recitation. Use the Repeat feature to drill the same sentence multiple times until it feels natural.
Scale up the challenge: Once a passage feels comfortable, push your limits. Increase speed to <code>1.25x</code> or even <code>1.5x</code> to train high-speed language reflexes. Or set Wait Mode to <code>Off</code> for continuous shadowing — the most advanced and rewarding mode. Consistent daily practice of 15–30 minutes will produce noticeable results within weeks.

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ShadowingEnglish.com – English Shadowing Practice

Speak English fluently using the Shadowing technique. Listen to native YouTube videos, repeat sentence by sentence, and build real pronunciation and fluency — used by IELTS learners worldwide.

Shadowing Practice: Shadowing Technique in English: are you wasting your time? - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

Context & Background

Top 5 Phrases for Daily Communication

Step-by-step Shadowing Guide

What is the Shadowing Technique?

How to Practice Effectively on ShadowingEnglish