Shadowing Practice: Some Things I'll Never Know - Learn English Speaking with Video
B1About You - The 1975
B1Sting - Shape Of My Heart | Leon
B1NTE Shinku Character EP丨Whatever It Says
B1Taylor Swift - Cornelia Street (Lyric Video)
B1Glenn Medeiros - Nothing's Gonna Change My Love For You (Official 4K Music Video)
B1St. Julien - I Know You (Official Video)
B1Talking to the Moon
B1I Lost a Friend
B1Why - Carly Simon
B1Westlife - Fool Again (Official Video)
B1Ghostly Kisses - The City Holds My Heart (Official Video)
Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 19 sentences and 226 words to shadow. The speech runs for 3:28. The speaker talks slowly, about 65 words per minute, so there is time to copy every sound. Only 79% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
10 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| shadow noun | /ˈʃædəʊ̯/ | A dark image projected onto a surface where light (or other radiation) is blocked by the shade of an object. |
| avenue noun | /ˈæv.əˌn(j)u/ | A broad street, especially one bordered by trees or, in cities laid out in a grid pattern, one that is on a particular side of the city or that runs in a… |
| stranger noun | /ˈstɹeɪnd͡ʒɚ/ | A person whom one does not know; a person who is neither a friend nor an acquaintance. |
| awake verb | /əˈweɪk/ | To become conscious after having slept. |
| fade verb | /feɪd/ | To hit the ball with the shot called a fade. |
| reconcile verb | /ˈɹɛkənsaɪl/ | To restore a friendly relationship; to bring back or return to harmony. |
| circle noun | /ˈsɜɹkəl/ | A two-dimensional geometric figure, a line, consisting of the set of all those points in a plane that are equally distant from a given point (center). |
| memory noun | /ˈmɛm.ə.ɹi/ | The ability of the brain to record information or impressions with the facility of recalling them later, usually at will. |
| stone noun | /stoʊ̯n/ | A hard earthen substance that can form rocks; especially, such substance when regarded as a building material. |
| wild adjective | /ˈwaɪ̯ld/ | Especially, being of the wild type: being of an unbroken ancestral line of undomesticated animals, as opposed to being feral, being an undomesticated animal… |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| turn over verb | To flip over; to rotate uppermost to bottom. |
| walk down verb | To continually advance (on an opponent) and punch (the opponent) in order to control the fight and dominate the opponent, while shrugging off the opponent's… |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 16 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'll, can't, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
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 shadow, avenue, stranger.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | I've never known |
| Future with “will” will + verb — a decision, promise or prediction | I'll never know |
| Present continuous am/is/are + -ing — something happening right now or around now | I'm running |
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.