Shadowing Practice: Speak English Fearlessly with this One Question - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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What if coffee made you sleepy?
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What if trees could order a pizza?
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What if a dog became your boss?
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Most English learners can answer the question, how are you?
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But these questions, these force you to think.
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And that's why they are so powerful.
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Today, I will show you why the question, what if, is the most powerful speaking exercise I've ever found.
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Most people train memory, but they don't train to speak spontaneously.
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For example, many people learn long vocabulary lists, boring grammar drills, or passive learning with flashcards.
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These things, they are useful, but in a real conversation, it happens spontaneously.
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it's unpredictable.
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You never know what's coming next.
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Imagine your brain is a creativity machine.
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All machines need fuel to move smoothly.
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The fuel for your brain is one question.
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What if?
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Some of the greatest discoveries that humanity has ever made came from this simple yet powerful question.
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Steve Jobs asked what if a phone had no buttons?
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That question became the iPhone.
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The Wright brothers asked what if humans could fly?
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That question helped create the aeroplane.
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Not every what if question changes the world, but it does make your brain create something new,
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and that's what great English speakers do.
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So, let's play.
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What if we could learn some brand new words in this environment?
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I'm going to look for them and then ask a what-if question to stimulate my speaking.
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This is the coffee shop that we are at and this is the sign.
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It's called Every Half, which is the name of the place and that is their logo.
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It's pretty cool.
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This is the entrance to the coffee shop and we call this a door frame.
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Just like the frame that goes around a painting.
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Next to the doorframe we have bricks but what do you call the material in between the bricks?
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That stuff is called mortar.
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Now what if I built a house with bricks and mortar?
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Well the house would probably fall down after two weeks because I'm not qualified to build a house.
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I am qualified to teach English though.
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This is a pond and in the middle of the pond is a wooden bridge.
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I'm stepping on the bridge and next to me we have lotus leaves.
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These leaves are sticking out of the pond and the sticks are called stems.
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Now what if this bridge collapsed?
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Well I would fall in the pond and my phone would get wet,
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I would get wet but I might cool off because it is very hot and sweaty in Vietnam.
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Shit.
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Oh, this grass is just like the grass that we have back in England.
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It's very short and pleasant to sit on.
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Obviously I'm sat on the grass, you know that, But I bet you didn't know what the name is for an individual piece of grass.
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It's the same as for the edge of a knife.
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It's called a blade.
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We have a blade of grass or a blade on a knife.
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Now what if this blade of grass were as sharp as a as a knife.
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Well, this grass would hurt my ass.
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Let's get out of here.
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This is a beautiful bonsai tree and it's in a very large pot.
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This rough stuff is called the bark, which is the outer area of a tree.
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It's like the skin of a tree.
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In the bonsai tree pot There is soil and that's where the tree grows out from.
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You can see the roots.
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They are exposed Which means they are above the soil and visible.
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I can see them Normally roots are beneath the soil
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Another thing in the soil is this little sprout and A sprout is the beginning shoot of a plant
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Sprout as a verb also means to begin growing.
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Now, what if you watered a sprout every single day?
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Well, it would grow into something much bigger. Did you notice something?
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When I was asking those what if questions, I didn't know what I was going to say.
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you probably didn't know what I was going to say either.
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That's why it's so powerful, this exercise.
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It's spontaneous speaking, just like what happens in a regular real-life conversation.
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And that's actually the idea behind Sprout, too.
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On Sprout, you can talk with J.I., who asks you questions and keeps the conversation going.
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You have to speak spontaneously, just like you do in a real conversation.
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It's actually the closest thing that I've found to practicing real-life English without needing another person.
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Anyway, let's continue.
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One what-if question is fun, but when you start asking a chain of what-if questions, every answer becomes the next question.
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Your brain really starts working.
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And you can play this alone, or if you have a lovely partner or a friend, you can play this with them.
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So today Chang and I are going to play the What If Chain game.
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The rule is simple, every answer must create the next question.
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So Chang, We're at a coffee shop.
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What if coffee made people sleepy?
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Then all the coffee shops would become nap shops.
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What if all the coffee shops became nap shops?
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If all the coffee shops became nap shops then the menus would be pillows.
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What if the menus were pillows?
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then I would feel very comfortable ordering food
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okay what if you felt comfortable ordering food if I felt comfortable ordering food I would order
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10 pizzas and be fine about it that's so you yeah that's very me so as you can see
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Chang and I had no idea where that conversation would go we just asked the questions and answered
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the first thing that came to our heads.
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Just like in a real conversation, just like in real life.
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So why does this practice work so well?
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In school, most English practice trains your memory.
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Vocabulary, grammar, phrases, it is useful.
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But when you bring that to a real life conversation,
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you might still struggle to speak because you haven't trained that spontaneous speaking element and you might still translate in your head.
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So what Chang and I were just doing by playing the What If Chain game, we were having this spontaneous conversation.
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Everything was improvised, it was happening in the moment, on the spot.
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The goal with this is to get comfortable asking questions and creating answers.
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There's no right or wrong answer.
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And confidence in English comes from knowing you can always keep the conversation moving.
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Now, before we continue, I want to show you something you might not know about pronunciation.
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We've been saying the words what if a lot in this video,
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but British people don't always pronounce them the same.
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If you want to speak like the Queen of England, you would enunciate your T and you would connect the two words together.
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For example, what if, what if, what if.
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If you don't want to speak like the queen and you want to speak like a regular Brit, a regular British person, then you drop the T.
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For example, what if, what if, what if.
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You can choose whichever one you want, whichever one you feel comfortable using.
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Now there's one There's one more word I want you to notice and pay attention to.
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And that word is would.
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Notice that when I say this word, wuh, would, my lips are very tight and pushed forward.
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Almost as if I'm trying to kiss you. Would, would, would.
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What would you do if I kissed you?
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Mosquito.
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Now let's practice putting those two things together.
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The what if and the would.
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What if I got bitten by a mosquito?
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Well then I would be itchy.
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Asking what if goes beyond English.
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It's a question that helps us generate ideas, solve problems, and see possibilities that we might otherwise miss.
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What If encourages us to look beyond what's in front of us and imagine what could be.
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I started writing about seven years ago, and to this day, the What If question is still my favourite.
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Why?
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I would say that it opens my mind to possibilities.
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It makes me think in ways that I would not normally think.
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I enjoy the novelty and the creativity of this question.
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So, my challenge for you guys is to write one what-if question in your notebook every morning.
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Then, you will answer that question for one minute.
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Spend a minute just exploring spontaneous speech.
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It doesn't matter if you can't give the perfect answer.
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That's not what being fluent in English is about.
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But communicating and being comfortable with communicating is what English is about.
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And that develops your confidence.
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And you do that every day.
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You build that tiny habit.
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It grows.
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So what if I did one thing differently today?
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What would that be?
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Maybe I would go to a cafe.
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I've never been before.
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Maybe I would talk to a stranger with a smile.
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Maybe I would do some exercise. Who knows?
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What if?
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We used it to learn new vocabulary, create conversations, and practice speaking spontaneously.
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And we discovered that there doesn't need to be the perfect answer.
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The goal is simply to keep the conversation moving.
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So, before you leave, I have a challenge for you guys.
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Comment a what-if question down below, and then answer somebody else's what-if question.
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Let's see if we can create the world's biggest what-if chain.
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If you'd like to keep practicing spontaneous speaking, you can continue the conversation with J.I on Sprout.
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The link is in the description.
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And remember, what if learning English was easier than you think?
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Why practice speaking with this video?
This video introduces a revolutionary way to improve your English speaking abilities through the powerful question, "What if?" Unlike traditional language learning methods that often focus on memorization and grammar drills, this approach encourages spontaneous thinking and creativity. By engaging with such imaginative scenarios, you not only expand your vocabulary but also enhance your conversational skills in unexpected contexts.
Practicing your English speaking with the "What if?" technique helps to build confidence. When you use this question, it compels you to think outside of the box, making your conversations richer and more engaging. Whether you're shadowing recognized speakers or practicing with a shadowing app, you'll find that this technique allows you to express your thoughts more freely and fluently. Your brain becomes a creativity machine, generating responses that reflect your personality and unique perspective.
Grammar & Expressions in Context
In the transcript, several key structures exemplify natural English expression:
- Conditional Sentences: The phrase "What if..." sets up a conditional scenario, prompting learners to think critically and respond creatively. This structure helps in formulating other conditional sentences, such as "What if I were to..." or "What if we could..."
- Present Continuous: The speaker uses the present continuous tense to describe actions in the moment, enhancing the immediacy of the conversation. For example, "I'm stepping on the bridge" illustrates ongoing action and makes the scene vivid for learners.
- Passive Voice: "The house would probably fall down" demonstrates the use of passive voice in a hypothetical context, important for learners to express actions without focusing on the subject.
Focusing on these elements during spoken practice or using a shadowing site will strengthen your grammatical accuracy while speaking.
Common Pronunciation Traps
Certain words and phrases can be challenging to pronounce correctly. In the video, the speaker mentions "mortar," "blade," and "collapse." These words are fundamental in everyday conversation but may trip up non-native speakers due to their unique sounds:
- Mortar: Watch out for the "or" sound, which is often mispronounced by learners. Practice saying it slowly to build confidence.
- Blade: The long "a" sound can be tricky; ensure that your pronunciation clearly distinguishes it from "blaid."
- Collapse: This word may prompt confusion because of the consonant cluster at the beginning. Break it down: "co-lapse."
Incorporate these tricky words into your shadow speech exercises, practicing with each pronunciation to improve your fluency. Whether through a shadowing technique or using a shadowing app, focusing on these terms will significantly enhance your spoken English skills.
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.