Shadowing Practice: Speak 10X Clearer: Do These 3 Vocal Exercises Daily! - Learn English Speaking with Video

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The common flaw that people tend to have

while they're speaking every day is they don't give the word at the beginning

and the last word they say before they breathe the same amount of breath support.

So it often sounds like this when people are talking.

Hi everyone, it's really good to be here

and I'm really excited to take you through the content that we're about to speak on now.

And what I want to do now is I really want

to be able to share with you some of the key components.

So they start with great breath support and then towards the end, they trail off and they go into what's known as vocal fry.

Vocal fry is that, you know that sound when I'm sounding like this and that's when there's not enough air.

This three-part practice session takes about nine minutes.

This is one of the biggest secrets to sounding like you've got lots of vitality, there's energy, there's enthusiasm.

Your voice just has a zest to it, right?

That's what happens when you give it good breath support from the first word to the last word.

Exercise number one, the foundational breath.

People sometimes think to themselves, oh I know how to breathe.

This is lame.

Talk about another topic, man.

No, let's focus on this because you have to understand that breathing gives you life and without it, it takes away your life.

You take 20,000 plus breaths a day.

So if you can improve this one thing, there is a compounding benefit that's just staggering.

So let's focus on this.

The first thing is I want you to just take a seat for me.

Okay, take a seat at a table and then we're going to work from the head down.

First thing we're going to do is we're just going to relax everything.

So first, I want you to just focus on your head.

And then the first thing I want you to really lean into now and think about is, is your jaw clenched?

Think about this for a moment.

Is your jaw clenched?

If it is, unlock your jaw.

Just unlock your jaw, move your jaw from side to side, open your jaw up and close it again.

Just pretend you're chewing gum.

Unlock your jaw, relax the jaw, make sure there's no tension in your jaw.

That's the first thing I want you to pay attention to.

Now, the second thing I want you to pay attention to now as we go down the body is your neck.

Make sure there's no tension in your neck.

And the placement of your neck, if you were to think about the alignment of your body, imagine your head being positioned just on top of your spine.

Another way to imagine it is a string pulling your head up towards the wall.

So again, jaw, no tension, neck relaxed, and head positioned just on top of the spine.

And then next, as we go down the body, shoulders.

Make sure they don't look like this.

Okay, make sure your shoulders don't look like that.

That's ridiculous.

Okay, make sure your shoulders are down and back.

All right, make sure there's no tension in your shoulders.

And a lot of the times what you'll notice is when there is tension in your shoulders, when you're like this, when you lock your jaw, when your neck feels really stiff, and you're jutting it forward,

what that often leads to is poor breathing.

So when your body is more relaxed, you're able to take in more air, you create a more resonant voice, very beneficial.

So shoulders down, back, neck relaxed, jaw, no tension.

And then we go down further in your body, just make sure your feet are firmly planted on the ground.

This is foundational as we go into the exercise.

Okay, this first exercise, I want you to do for three minutes.

So this first exercise, focus on this, everything relaxed, like I said, in the first step.

Now, this you do for three minutes, but pay attention to these three things.

First thing is breathing through your nose only, no mouth breathing.

When you breathe through your mouth, it's not good for your vocal cords, right?

When you breathe through your nose, it moistens the air, it optimizes the oxygen intake.

It's a much better way of breathing.

So while you're doing this exercise, only breathe through your nose.

Next, I want to share with you too that you need to engage in diaphragmatic breathing.

And what that means is you need to pop your belly out every time you take a breath in.

Right?

So every time you take a deep breath in with your nose, you have to make sure you pop your belly out.

Okay.

And don't say I don't have a belly.

We all have bellies.

We all do.

And as you're popping your belly out on every breath in, also just imagine yourself expanding your ribcage.

Just imagine it and then it happens in reality.

Just imagine your ribcage also expanding as your belly is popping out as you're doing this.

And I just want you to do this with me for three breaths.

Okay.

Just do it for three breaths and see how you feel.

There's a lot of things to remember shoulders down back neck

and head positioned right unlock the tension the jaw okay

so deep breaths we'll just do three together okay breathing through

the nose popping belly out rib cage expanding got it okay here we go

I've just done it three times and it's just beautiful.

You want to learn to do this all throughout the day.

Whereas often what happens for most people through the day is shoulders starts to lift as they're sitting at the computer, neck starts to jut out, and then they shallow breathe,

they breathe only into their upper lungs, they don't really breathe into the diaphragm, into the belly, as my vocal coach used to say all the time.

So please make sure you do that for three minutes.

That's the first part of the exercise.

If you're interested in becoming a better conversationalist, I've actually recorded a free two hour masterclass on conversational frameworks that help you become better at this.

So if you wanna access that, just click the first link you see in the description or click the first link that's in the pinned comment below.

The second part of the exercise to really help you develop what we call breath support is now

that you're starting to take good quality breaths and you're taking a diaphragmatic breath, Now you want to create again, what vocal coaches will call breath support.

And you practice that by hissing.

The second activity is also for three minutes.

And as you're doing your diaphragmatic breaths, on the breath out, instead of just breathing out through your nose, you're gonna breathe it out as a hiss.

So you take a diaphragmatic breath in, shoulders down, back, everything relax, and you go.

Deep breath in again.

Get the picture right?

And you go until you're completely out of breath and you can really take a diaphragmatic breath in again, belly pops out, rib cage expands, and you do that for three minutes.

And what you're doing there is you're learning to get the right amount of breath

and a consistent amount of breath while you're hissing.

And what you're training that for is so that when you're speaking, you've got constant airflow.

What people don't realize about constant airflow is that a steady stream of air, that is the foundations of having more stamina.

That is the foundations of stronger volume.

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That is the foundations of a more resonant voice.

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All of that requires the foundation of steady airflow.

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And then you can transfer that hissing sound into a third activity.

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And this third activity, you're doing pretty much the same thing as the hissing, except now you're replacing the hiss sound with numbers.

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So now we're trying to train it so that we can create that consistent breath support while we're speaking.

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So the way you do this, same thing.

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So remember, each one of these activities, where the first one was the breathing, second one is the hissing, third one now is counting.

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So you take a diaphragmatic breath in, right?

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Again, shoulders relax.

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I'm reminding you because I'm being an annoying teacher, but all of this is important.

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So shoulders down, back, head position, highest and high on top of the spine, jaw, release the tension, diaphragmatic breath in, pop the belly out, rib cage expands.

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So breathe in and you do this, you go.

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1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15.

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So as you run out of breath, whatever number you end on, stop, diaphragmatic breath in again.

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1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13,

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14, 15, 16 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 Now notice what I'm doing there, right?

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The amount of breath support

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that I give the number 1 is the exact amount of breath support that I give the last number that I count.

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Once again, three minutes of breathing because we're trying to make that foundational form of diaphragmatic breathing habitual, right?

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So practicing three minutes a day, it just starts to get you focused on it.

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You're spending three minutes of consciousness on it.

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And as you do it more and more and more, that behavior starts to become unconscious and you start to hopefully do it throughout the day.

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Diaphragmatic breathing, a way better fuel source for your voice, right?

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Second thing, hiss.

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Practice that hissing, right?

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And while you're practicing that hissing, I really want you to focus on your stomach going in as you're hissing.

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You start to notice this the second, third, fourth, fifth time you do it.

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You go, oh, it's kind of like a gas pedal.

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It's kind of like as I, you know, I can hiss strong.

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And if you were to hiss harder, then that's you stepping on the gas pedal, right?

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And you start to form this mind and body connection to how your voice and your entire instrument works.

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But again, I won't go into too much detail here.

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Practice it.

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Practice the hissing, good breath support.

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And then practice it, the same thing, with numbers, and you counting numbers.

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This allows you just to transfer all of these behaviors that you're practicing into everyday speech.

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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.

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

Shadowing Practice: Speak 10X Clearer: Do These 3 Vocal Exercises Daily! - Learn English Speaking with Video

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