Shadowing Practice: Slow English Chat - What I did this Summer! - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Hello everyone and welcome back to English Cozy Chat,
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a slow English podcast which helps you to learn English in a fun and natural way.
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I am Maria and today I'm going to tell you all about what I did this summer.
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One of the things that I enjoyed most this summer was gardening.
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This was the first time that I had planted a garden in my life,
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and I had been wanting to plant a garden for a really long time.
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So I decided that this year was the year to start
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so to make it easy I planted some vegetables in big pots
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and I kept these pots on my balcony for some reason
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I thought having them in pot would be easier than planting them in the ground this way I could see
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if I like gardening and if it's something
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that I want to continue to do the truth is it was really
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so much fun to grow my own vegetables I grew cherry tomatoes Cherry tomatoes are the small tomatoes.
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I grew two different plants of those, along with some green peppers.
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These peppers are called pimientos de padron in Spanish,
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and they are small green peppers that are typical to where I live,
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along with some bigger red peppers.
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And I also grew some zucchini.
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I really loved having these plants to take care of.
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For me, it was really exciting to go out and water them
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and trim them and of course to pick off the ripe vegetables
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because it just felt good to take care of these plants and for these plants to give us food.
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It was also really fun for my kids because they would just go out there to the plant,
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pick off some cherry tomatoes and eat them and also cut off the peppers.
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And I just thought it was really cool to grow my own food.
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Sometimes we would have run out of vegetables at home,
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and I could just go outside and pick some vegetables that we had.
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The only plant that was not as successful was my zucchini plant.
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It only gave us three really small zucchini but they were really cute
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and it was really really special whenever we picked them and got to eat them.
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This whole experience of having a garden was really fun for me during the summer
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and I think I will definitely do it again next summer
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and our big vacation that we did this summer was a camping vacation.
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I went with my family camping for two weeks.
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It was the first time that we stayed in a camping tent.
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We had never done this before.
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And I wasn't really sure how it was going to be.
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Truthfully, I thought it was going to be very hot inside the tent when we were sleeping.
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But that ended up really being fine however it was very hot outside
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and the sun was very intense every day the sun was shining down on us very strong
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and during the middle of the day, it got really hot.
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Luckily, this campsite is near the beach.
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So during those hot days,
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we made sure that we were in the water or doing something to cool us down.
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Because if not, it was really just too hot.
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I really did like the rhythm of life while camping.
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Everything is much slower.
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I really enjoy cooking outside, which I was really happy to do,
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and just spending lots of time outside,
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especially when you are staying in a camping tent.
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Everything that you do is basically outside.
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And I found this part really enjoyable and different from our normal lives.
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I also started learning how to wingfoil.
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This is a sport that my husband does and that I have been wanting to learn.
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I actually do know how to whimsurf, which is a different sport,
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but I have been wanting to learn how to wingfoil wingfoil.
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Wingfoiling is a sport where you are in the water on a surfboard
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that has something at the bottom that sticks up
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and you kind of float along the water while you hold a wing in your hand.
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It's kind of hard to explain but it is a really cool sport
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and I had a lot of fun starting to learn.
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I love learning new things in general and especially new sports.
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So this was really exciting for me to start to learn something new.
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And we will just have to see if I continue doing it.
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While we were camping, some of my husband's friends and their families came from Germany.
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This was really interesting because it was the first time that my kids were around lots of German kids.
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Usually they only speak German with my husband,
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but this time they were with lots of other German kids.
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And for me, it was cool to see them speak German with a lot of other kids.
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Now, while we were camping, I can say that I truly disconnected.
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I really was forgetting about all of my real life things
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while we were camping and I kind of felt like I was in another world.
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I think this is really important to do sometimes and especially it's great to do it while you're on vacation.
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So for me, it was really nice to just have these two weeks to really disconnect
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and relax and focus on having fun.
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Other than that, in the summer, I tried to do some new things.
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I recently posted a video on how I did some art projects,
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which I had not done in the past that were new for me, which was fun.
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And I really just tried to relax as much as I could.
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I thought I was going to be able to disconnect more from work,
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but the truth was I still had lots of work to do in the summer,
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but I really tried my hardest to make this summer relaxing and to,
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yeah, just disconnect from.
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my normal life.
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Now that it is September, I am definitely ready to start with a routine again.
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I have so many big ideas for projects that I want to start with,
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so many new things that I want to do with English Cozy Chat.
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And my batteries just feel recharged.
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After this long break of having more rest and doing other things,
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it really helped me to get ideas on new things that I want to do.
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And I have lots of energy to start some new things and to be productive.
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So tell me, how was your summer?
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I would love to know.
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Thank you all so much for watching.
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I hope you have a wonderful day.
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And I cannot wait to see you in the next episode.
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Bye.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 97 sentences and 1139 words to shadow. The speech runs for 11:09. The speaker talks slowly, about 102 words per minute, so there is time to copy every sound. 85% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| pepper noun | /ˈpɛp.ə/ | A plant of the family Piperaceae. |
| vegetable noun | /ˈvɛd͡ʒ.tə.bəl/ | A plant raised for some edible part of it, such as the leaves, roots, fruit or flowers, but excluding any plant considered to be a fruit, grain, herb, or spice… |
| tomato noun | /təˈmeɪ.toʊ/ | A widely cultivated plant, Solanum lycopersicum, having edible fruit. |
| vacation noun | /veɪˈkeɪ.ʃən/ | An extended trip or journey away from home for rest or pleasure. |
| relax verb | /ɹɪˈlæks/ | To make something loose. |
| cherry noun | /ˈt͡ʃɛɹi/ | A small fruit, usually red, black or yellow, with a smooth hard seed and a short hard stem. |
| tent noun | /tɛnt/ | A pavilion or portable lodge consisting of skins, canvas, or some strong cloth, stretched and sustained by poles, used for sheltering people from the weather. |
| pot noun | /pɑt/ | A flat-bottomed vessel (usually metal) used for cooking food, possibly excluding saucepans (see usage notes). |
| intense adjective | /ɪnˈtɛns/ | Of a characteristic: extreme or very high or strong in degree; severe; also, excessive, towering. |
| routine noun | /ɹuˈtin/ | A course of action to be followed regularly; a standard procedure. |
| productive adjective | /pɹəˈdʌk.tɪv/ | Capable of producing something, especially in abundance; fertile. |
| shine verb | /ʃaɪn/ | To emit or reflect light so as to glow. |
| podcast noun | /ˈpɑdˌkæst/ | A program, especially an audio program, produced on a regular basis, delivered over the Internet in a compressed digital format and designed for playback on… |
| rhythm noun | /ˈɹɪð.əm/ | The variation of strong and weak elements (such as duration, accent) of sounds, notably in speech or music, over time; a beat or meter. |
| float verb | /fləʊt/ | To be supported by a fluid of greater density (than the object). |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| go out verb | To leave, especially a building. | |
| pick off verb | To remove by picking. | |
| cut off verb | /ˌkʌt ˈɔf/ [ˌkɐɾ ˈɔf] | To remove by cutting. |
| end up verb | To bring to a conclusion. | |
| stick up verb | To rob at gunpoint. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | have been wanting |
| Past continuous was/were + -ing — an action in progress at a moment in the past | was gardening · were sleeping · was shining |
| Verb + -ing enjoy, keep, stop… + -ing — verbs that are followed by the -ing form | loved having · enjoy cooking · started learning |
| Future with “will” will + verb — a decision, promise or prediction | will definitely do · will just have |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 3 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, wasn't, you're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: rhythm /ˈɹɪð.əm/, truthfully /ˈtɹuːθ.fəl.i/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: vacation /veɪˈkeɪ.ʃən/, shine /ʃaɪn/
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 pepper, vegetable, tomato.
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.