Shadowing Practice: Slow English Coffee Chat 🎨 My New Hobby! - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Hello everyone and welcome back to English Cozy Chat,

a slow English podcast which helps you to learn English in a fun and natural way.

I am Maria and before we get started with today's episode,

I have to tell you about my cozy drink.

Ta-da!

I just got a new coffee maker because my old one broke.

It had actually been broken for a long time and it wasn't working right,

but it was still producing coffee.

and I was still kind of okay with it

but my mother-in-law came to visit the mother of my husband

and she said this coffee maker has to go please let me buy you a new coffee maker So I did.

And we went to the store and bought a coffee maker that has a cold brew function.

Now, cold brew is another word for iced coffee. and I thought

that iced coffee was simply just coffee over ice as in

you can just take a hot coffee pour it over ice

and there you go it's iced coffee right but no that's not true cold brew

is actually brewed slower and somehow in a different way.

Obviously it's not brewed with hot water and it takes about five minutes for my coffee maker to brew this cold brew.

And then I add ice and it is a super nice, refreshing drink, which is perfect for the summer.

Cheers, guys.

As you guys know, I love hobbies and I love learning new things.

So I'm really excited to tell you all today about a kind of new hobby that I have started.

I have young kids and they like to paint.

And for a long time, I was just setting the materials up for them to paint.

and they would be painting at the table while I did work or work around the house or other things like that.

For me, it was nice that they had something to do

and were playing to give me some time to do other things.

But just recently, I have started sitting down and painting with them because I thought,

hey, why not?

This kind of looks fun.

And since they do it so much, why don't I try to do it too

and maybe that's fun right plus they really like it

when I sit down and actually paint or draw with them

so I started doing that and I realized I was really having a good time with it.

It's actually really fun when you paint and something comes out a lot nicer than you even expected it to.

So since it is the summer I do have a little bit more time.

And whenever we were recently in a store,

we have a store near where I live that has lots of things for a very low price.

It is very cheap, but they have a lot of art supplies.

They have lots of pencils,

markers, paint, paint supplies, and everything like that.

So the last time I went there,

I thought I'm gonna buy some different paint supplies just to try to do some new art projects for the summer.

So I bought some different kinds of paint.

I also bought some canvases,

some plain white canvases, which are good to paint on and to hang on the wall.

and I thought, hey, why don't we just have some fun with this?

So we came home.

I got on YouTube.

Guys, I love YouTube.

I love YouTube because you can find everything that you would want about whatever topic it is that you're looking for.

So I looked up kids painting tutorials or easy painting tutorials

and there are so many that show you how to paint correctly

and how to paint different kinds of pictures and things like that.

So we were able to learn from these videos.

the real correct way how to paint.

Whenever I was little, I never really knew the correct way to paint.

I always just took paint and put it on the paper and that was it.

But there's a lot more to it than that.

And so one of those videos showed how to paint a

rainbow tree or a colorful tree with acrylic paint

and the way you do it is drip the paint on the paper in dots

and then you kind of blend the colors together for the leaves which makes a pretty rainbow tree.

So are you ready to see the rainbow tree that I painted?

I moved my artwork over there so that my iced coffee wouldn't spill all over them.

I'm actually going to move my coffee.

here it is so you just draw the tree in black

and as you see we did drops of paint all around the tree in different colors

and then I just took a brush around flat brush

and like blended it together and I think it came out really pretty.

See then I drew some grass some little flowers there's my tree and the sky all around.

I love drawing and painting suns so that was exciting and then just some birds.

This one was really fun because it was fun picking out the colors of the tree

and actually doing this little blending exercise.

Plus I just really liked adding all of the details

and then when I was done I was like hey I really like this.

This was just done on regular paper and I have to think of how to frame.

I would like to frame it but it kind of pops up from the paper

see it's like shiny but that's kind of cool

and I have to find a frame that is good for it

but anyway I'm really proud of this one you guys do you want to see what my kids made

so here's my kids trees

this one she told me it's important

that you see the branches she really wanted all of her

branches to be seen she also she did her grass first she gave me the idea to do the grass

and then the sky and the sun

and then she added some birds after she saw mine and this one also added a rainbow

and wanted to do more red paint.

What do you think guys?

Do you like these trees?

So this was the first art piece that really kind of got me excited.

I was like oh this is fun and I like my tree that I made.

How cool is that right?

And then we didn't do anything else for like a week or two maybe.

So then after we did the tree projects they wanted to paint on these canvases.

These are the canvases that I bought.

These were really cheap.

This is just a surface

to paint on and these have a frame built in and I was surprised at how cheap these were.

100

So I bought several of them and let me show you what they did.

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One of them drew this, said it is called

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the beach and I thought it was really interesting how she did the water

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and right here where the water meets the sand she was painting along

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that line and it started blurring a little bit with the blue

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and I said oh be careful it's smearing when colors smear that means they rub together I said,

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careful, the yellow is smearing with the blue.

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And she said, that's okay, because water splashes.

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And it does kind of look like it's splashing, doesn't it?

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I was like, this is actually really beautiful.

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Looks like modern art.

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I really like this one.

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and then another one is this one a watermelon in the sea with some fish

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and the beach this was also something

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that we learned how to paint on YouTube the watermelon

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and then I was inspired to also do a canvas as well so are you ready to see my canvas project

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Ta-da!

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This was yet inspired by another YouTube tutorial,

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which was about an artist that I don't remember her name,

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but she always did paintings with three lines.

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This is the horizon, the mountains,

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and the sun and she did this in all different kinds of ways with different colors

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and I did this and I just really like it.

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I don't know why I was really proud because I blended the blue

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and the green to make this pretty turquoise color and I think it kind of looks like the sea.

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I really want to hang this one up another cool one that my kids did is this one it is a

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sunset and a palm tree I thought

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that was really good afterwards she said no no I need to add birds

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and she went back added some birds with a pencil but I thought these were all really fun

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to do and actually ended up pretty cool.

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So it really makes me think, you know, these things that kids do, they're actually really fun for adults as well.

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I have not painted since I was a little kid or maybe an art class when I was a teenager,

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but I've never really thought about

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doing it until now but it really does feel so good

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and fun to do something creative

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and to have something beautiful afterwards it's also very relaxing to paint

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and to sit there and think about what you're going to do.

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And it's just really soothing to just sit there in quiet and just paint.

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And then the other night, I was thinking, I really want a book to read.

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Like, I needed a new book to look at before bed, or to read before bed.

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And I didn't have one.

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So I decided to grab this book.

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This is a book from the library where we live.

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It is in Catalan.

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But it says, tu también puedes ser un artista, which means you also can be an artist.

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I got this for my kids.

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And it's really interesting because it talks about different artists,

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what they did, and how you can also do a similar kind of art at home,

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like this one.

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What I really like about reading this book is

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that usually before bed I don't like reading in other languages that is not English.

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I like reading in English before bed

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because I don't have to think as much

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but what I like about reading a book that's kind of for kids is

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there's pictures so you can read it's easier to read

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and plus there are pictures to look at

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which makes it all easier to understand so I thought

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that was kind of a fun piece of advice for you guys

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if you can get your hands on English books for kids then

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that might be really interesting to you to just practice reading because it is written in an easier way.

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There's pictures and they're usually shorter.

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So what do you think you guys?

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Do you like my new hobby?

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Do you think it's cool?

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Is painting something that you like to do or something that you would like to start doing?

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or do you have any new cool hobbies?

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Let me know in the comments.

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Thank you all so much for watching.

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I hope you have a wonderful day and I cannot wait to see you in the next episode.

169

Bye!

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This video has 169 sentences and 1920 words to shadow. The speech runs for 17:37. The speaker talks slowly, about 109 words per minute, so there is time to copy every sound. 87% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow.

Key vocabulary in this video

15 less common words from the video, with pronunciation and meaning:

brew /bɹuː/ (verb) — To make tea or coffee by mixing tea leaves or coffee beans with hot water.
canvas /ˈkæn.vəs/ (noun) — A type of coarse cloth, woven from hemp (traditionally) or from cotton and polyesters, useful for making sails, tents, and overcoats or as a surface for…
maker /ˈmeɪk.ɚ/ (noun) — Someone who makes; a person or thing that makes or produces something.
blend /blɛnd/ (verb) — To mingle; to mix; to unite intimately; to pass or shade insensibly into each other.
hobby /ˈhɑ.bi/ (noun) — An activity that one enjoys doing in one's spare time.
grass /ɡɹɑːs/ (noun) — Any plant of the family Poaceae, characterized by leaves that arise from nodes in the stem and leaf bases that wrap around the stem, especially those grown as…
tutorial /ˌtjuːˈtɔːɹɪəl/ (noun) — A self-paced learning exercise; a lesson prepared so that a student can learn at their own speed or convenience.
afterwards /ˈæf.tɚ.wɚdz/ (adverb) — At a later or succeeding time; after that;
brush /bɹʌʃ/ (noun) — An implement consisting of multiple more or less flexible bristles or other filaments attached to a handle, used for any of various purposes including…
inspire /ɪnˈspaɪə(ɹ)/ (verb) — To infuse into the mind; to communicate to the spirit; to convey, as by a divine or supernatural influence; to disclose preternaturally; to produce in, as by…
pencil /ˈpɛnsəl/ (noun) — A writing utensil with a graphite (commonly referred to as lead) shaft, usually blended with clay, clad in wood, and sharpened to a taper.
splash /splæʃ/ (verb) — To hit or agitate liquid so that part of it separates from the principal liquid mass.
topic /ˈtɑpɪk/ (noun) — A subject; a theme; a category or general area of interest.
sand /sænd/ (noun) — Rock that is ground more finely than gravel, but is not as fine as silt (more formally, see grain sizes chart), forming beaches and deserts and also used in…
plain /pleɪn/ (noun) — An expanse of land with relatively low relief and few trees, especially a grassy expanse.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

come out /ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/ (verb) — To be discovered; to be revealed.
look at (verb) — To observe or watch.
read in (verb) — To accept as input.
sit down (verb) — To assume a sitting position from a standing position.
think about /ˈθɪŋk əˌbaʊt/ (verb) — To ponder.
end up (verb) — To bring to a conclusion.
get on (verb) — To board or mount (something), especially a vehicle.
go back (verb) — To return to a place or state after having been there at a previous time.

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 21 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, I'm, didn't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “sh” and “zh” sounds: brush /bɹʌʃ/, splash /splæʃ/, refresh /ɹɪˈfɹɛʃ/

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 brew, canvas, maker.

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	been broken · is actually brewed · be seen
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	have started · have not painted · I've never really thought
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	drink, which is · canvases, which are · leaves which makes
Past continuous was/were + -ing — an action in progress at a moment in the past	wasn't working · was still producing · was just setting

What is the Shadowing Technique?

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

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

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

Key vocabulary in this video

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

Grammar in this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?