Shadowing Practice: Speak English Without Fearing Mistakes | Easy English Listening Practice - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Let's do a quick role play.
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You're at a pharmacy.
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Go!
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"Sorry, could you tell me where the cough syrup is?" That sentence right there,
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that's what people mean by English changed my life not a movie scene that.
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And notice I said, could you tell me where, not where is.
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Tiny shift, big difference.
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Hey everyone!
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Welcome back to Everyday English Academy, where we make English simple and useful.
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I'm Sarah.
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And I'm Mike.
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Glad you're here, wherever you are right now.
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So Mike, you opened the show with a pretty big idea.
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I did.
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English can change your life.
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That's literally the title.
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Yeah, and I keep getting stuck on it because that phrase sounds like a movie poster.
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What's wrong with the movie poster?
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Nothing until someone learns the word "hello" and waits for their life to suddenly transform.
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It doesn't really work like that.
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Okay, so what would you put on the poster?
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Honestly?
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English can change your Tuesday afternoon.
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That's the worst title I've ever heard.
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But it's more honest.
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You learn one sentence, you use it on a Tuesday, the pharmacist understands you, and you walk out of the shop weirdly happy about cough syrup.
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That's the real moment.
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Okay, fair, but Tuesdays add up.
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100 Tuesdays and your life is different.
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I'll give you that.
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Tuesdays add up.
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Before you keep arguing, quick side note.
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There's a sticky note on my fridge right now that just says, "Ask for the small one." What does that mean?
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I'll tell you later.
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It's connected.
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That's so annoying.
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I know, I'll explain at the end, it's actually the whole point.
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Okay, prove it then.
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Prove what?
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Prove that one phrase changed something.
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And quick, prove just means show me with an example that it's actually true.
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Don't just claim it, prove it.
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All right.
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You asked me to prove it?
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I'll prove it.
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There's a bakery near my old apartment.
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And one morning, I wanted a specific pastry behind the glass.
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and I had no idea what the name was.
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Classic.
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So I said, Sorry, could you tell me what that one's called?
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And the woman behind the counter smiled and said the name.
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And then I asked, Could I have two, please?
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And that was it.
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I left with two pastries and a strangely good mood.
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Hold on, slow down.
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Say the first sentence again.
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"Sorry, could you tell me what that one's called?" Right.
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That's the indirect question shape.
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Could you tell me instead of, what's that called?
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Yeah, it sounds softer, less like an interview.
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And it's so useful when you don't know the word for something, You're basically asking the other person to clarify it for you.
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Clarify.
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Good word to pull out.
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To clarify means to make something more clear.
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So if you ask someone to clarify, you want them to explain it again or explain it better.
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Could you clarify what you mean?
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That's a great line if you only understood half of what someone said.
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and it's polite which matters You're not saying, "I don't understand you." You're saying, "Help me understand." Big difference.
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Okay, what else did you actually say in the bakery?
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I think I also said, I'd rather take the smaller one, actually, because the big one looked enormous.
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"Ooh, I'd rather.
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That's a useful chunk.
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It means 'I prefer this' instead, softer than 'I want.' Right,
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I want the small one sounds a little blunt at eight in the morning.
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I'd rather take the small one sounds friendlier.
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And the word after "I'd rather" is just the base verb.
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"I'd rather have tea." "I'd rather wait outside." Easy structure.
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I use it all the time when I don't want to be too direct.
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Wait, define direct for me, for anyone who isn't sure.
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Direct just means saying something plainly, no extra words.
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Give me the small one that's direct.
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I'd rather take the small one is softer.
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Neither one is bad, they just fit different moments.
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Exactly.
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With a close friend, direct is fine.
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With a stranger at a counter, soft usually lands better.
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Okay, this is nice.
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But a bakery is low stakes.
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Nothing bad happens if you mess up.
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Low stakes, that's a great word, by the way.
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Safe, not very important.
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A low -stakes chat is the best place to practice.
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That's exactly why bakeries and coffee shops are perfect.
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Worst case, you get the wrong pastry.
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I'd take the wrong pastry.
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It's still a pastry.
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Okay, but let's push these phrases into something harder.
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Imagine your neighbor.
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You need to borrow a screwdriver because you're hanging a picture.
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borrow, quick one, To borrow means to take something for a short time and give it back, not to keep.
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Right.
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So, how do you ask?
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Okay, knock knock.
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Hey, sorry to bother you, could I borrow a screwdriver for like 10 minutes?
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Yeah, that works.
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Notice the "sorry to bother you" at the start.
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It's like a tiny pillow before the request.
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A pillow.
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That's actually a good image.
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You're softening the landing.
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And then you give a small reason and a small time for 10 minutes that makes it feel easy to say yes.
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If you just say, "Can I borrow a screwdriver?" The neighbor might wonder what's happening, For how long?
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Why?
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Are you building something terrible?
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Right.
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The little extra word makes it a real conversation, not a demand.
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Let me try one back at you.
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I'm your neighbor and I open the door.
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Go!
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Hey, sorry to bother you.
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Would you mind helping me for a second?
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I just need an extra hand holding a shelf.
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See?
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That's even better.
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"Would you mind helping me for a second?" is gold.
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It's the politest small ask in English.
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And the "for a second" tells me it won't eat my whole afternoon.
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Okay, harder one.
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A delivery just arrived, and it's the wrong item.
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"You have to call the company.
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Oh, the phone call, the thing many people dread.
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Dread is a great word for that.
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To dread something means to feel scared of something that's coming.
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Like, you really don't want to do it.
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I used to dread phone calls in English.
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That was me for years.
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Me too, honestly.
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Even now sometimes.
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So picture this.
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The delivery person rings the bell, you sign for the box, you open it, and it's the wrong thing.
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The delivery is still happening at the door.
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There's noise, you're flustered, you pick up the phone.
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And what's the first thing you say?
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something like "Hi, I'm sorry about the noise.
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The delivery just arrived.
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I wanted to ask about an order." Mmm.
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Wait, listen to this carefully, everyone.
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Would you say, "I'm sorry about the noise," or, "I'm sorry for the noise." This one trips a lot of people.
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The clue is what comes after.
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It's a thing, a situation.
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The noise.
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Right.
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We say, "I'm sorry about the noise." "About" goes with "a thing" or "a situation."
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"For" usually goes with an action you did.
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I'm sorry for shouting.
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but the noise is just there around you.
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So, sorry about for a situation.
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sorry for, usually when you did something.
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Tiny word, big difference.
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It makes the sentence sound natural straight away.
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Okay.
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So back to the phone call.
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Once you've apologized about the noise, what next?
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You explain the problem.
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I think there's been a mistake with my order.
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or, I'd like to clarify something about my delivery.
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There's clarify again, We taught it earlier, and now it's working in a real situation.
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And if the person on the phone says something fast and you didn't catch it, what's your safety phrase?
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Sorry, could you say that again, please?
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Yes.
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Or, Could you repeat that more slowly?
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Honestly, that single phrase saved me so many times, not because my English got better, because I had one sentence I could trust.
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That's actually a huge point.
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One trusted phrase beats five fancy ones you're scared to use.
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Speaking of trusted phrases, what about a staller?
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A staller.
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Good word.
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A "staller" is a phrase that buys you time when you need to think.
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Like, let me think for a second, or that's a good question, hold on. Or just...
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Hmm, let me see.
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Those sound small, but they're huge in real conversations.
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They give your brain a moment without going completely silent.
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Silence is the scary part.
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Once your mouth keeps moving, even if it's only a staller, the panic goes down.
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I tell people, memorize one staller and keep it ready, like a tool in your pocket.
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My favorite is, let me think for a second easy to say, sounds natural, buys you maybe three full seconds.
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That's enough.
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Three seconds is a lot in a conversation.
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It really is.
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Okay, one more situation.
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You're in a small group at work, maybe four or five people.
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And you have a question, but you're nervous to interrupt.
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That's the worst.
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How do you open?
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Something like, Sorry, quick question.
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Could you go back to that last point?
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That's good.
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Quick question signals it's short.
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"Could you go back?" is polite.
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Or if you have a suggestion, you might say, could we maybe try it this way?
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That's a soft suggestion, "Could we maybe" gives the other person room to disagree.
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It doesn't feel pushy.
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And then if you say something and notice you used the wrong word, you can swap it on the fly.
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Swap, there's another good one.
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To swap means to change one thing for another like swapping seats on a train or swapping a word in your sentence.
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Sorry, let me swap that, I meant to borrow, not lend.
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That's a really natural correction.
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It shows the listener you noticed and you keep going.
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Yeah, the native trick isn't never making mistakes, it's catching them and moving on.
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"Hmm, that reminds me.
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Let me test you on something." I was reading a learner forum the other day and someone wrote,
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I did a mistake when I asked for a small one, Sound right to you?
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This is exactly where learners slip so which is it did you do a mistake or did you make a mistake
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The rule is small but firm.
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We make a mistake, not do a mistake.
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Yeah.
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Make those with mistakes, choices, plans, decisions, food.
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"Do" goes with tasks, homework, work, the dishes.
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Make a mistake, do the dishes.
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Different verbs, no logic, just memorize the pairs
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and honestly this is one of those errors that doesn't stop you from being understood But the moment you fix it, your English sounds so much more natural.
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Wait, your sentence example just now: "I made a mistake
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when I asked for a small one." That's literally your fridge sticky note.
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You noticed?
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I noticed.
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Are we done dragging this out?
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What is the small one?
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Not yet.
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We'll get there.
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You're impossible.
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Okay, before we get to that, I want to bring up something.
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I saw a comment somewhere.
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I think on one of our videos, where someone wrote, i know the words but i'm too afraid to speak What do I do?
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Oh, that one.
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That's the most common one.
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And the honest answer isn't just have confidence.
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Confidence doesn't show up because someone tells you to have it.
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No. What helps is having one phrase you trust so much you don't even think about it.
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Right.
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You don't need 10, you need 1.
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one sentence you've said out loud maybe 30 times in your kitchen, So when the moment comes, your mouth already knows it.
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yeah and then that one phrase pulls the next one out of you Exactly.
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The first sentence is the hardest.
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After that, you're already in.
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Okay, and that's actually why I want to do the practice section right now, Not at the end.
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Because the whole point of this episode is that saying a phrase out loud once is the actual life change.
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Let's do it!
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Listen, then repeat after each line.
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"Would you mind helping me for a second?" Sorry,
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could you say that again?
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What does that mean, exactly?
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Could we maybe try it this way?
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Nice.
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Those four lines will carry you through a surprising number of real moments.
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especially the first one.
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Would you mind helping me for a second?
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That's a magic phrase.
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It's polite, it's soft, and it's short.
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And speaking of "would you mind," there is a tiny grammar thing learners trip on with this one.
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What comes right after?
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Okay, listen.
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Imagine you didn't catch a question and you need it repeated.
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Do you say, "Would you mind to repeat that one more time?" Or would you mind repeating that one more time?
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After "would you mind" we always use the "ing" form.
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Would you mind repeating that?
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Yeah.
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Would you mind waiting?
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Would you mind closing the window?
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Always ING.
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Even though to repeat sounds logical, It doesn't fit here.
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Mind takes the -ing.
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It's a small fix, but the moment your "would you mind" sounds right, everything around it lifts.
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Okay, Mike, the sticky note.
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It's time.
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Fine.
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So a few years ago, I was in a coffee shop in a new city.
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I wanted a small coffee.
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Just a small one, nothing fancy.
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Reasonable?
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But the menu had like seven sizes with weird names, and I panicked and just said, "Could I have the small one, please?" pointing at nothing.
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And, The barista smiled and said, "You mean the eight ounce?" And I said, "Yes." And he made it, and I drank it, and I felt absurdly proud.
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That's it?
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That's the whole story?
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That's the whole story.
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I wrote, "Ask for the small one" on a sticky note when I got home, because I wanted to remember that I had been scared, and I asked, and it worked.
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That's actually very sweet.
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It's the smallest thing in the world.
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But that's your whole argument, isn't it?
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English didn't change your life that morning, it changed your morning.
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Okay, yes, fine.
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You win.
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Say it again.
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English doesn't change your life.
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It changes the moments your life is made of.
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There it is but add up enough moments and you have a life that feels different.
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I'll allow that.
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Okay, before we wrap up, let's do a quick recap, but not like a flat list.
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Let's do it as moments.
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I'll give you a moment, you give me the word or phrase.
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Deal.
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You're at a bakery.
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You want a different size.
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i'd rather take the small one I'd rather, meaning I prefer this instead.
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Good you didn't quite understand what someone said.
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Could you clarify what you mean?
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Clarify.
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Make it more clear.
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Your turn.
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Give me one.
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Okay.
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You need a screwdriver for 10 minutes.
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"Could I borrow a screwdriver, please?" Borrow.
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Take it for a short time and give it back.
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Nice.
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You're trying to think of an answer mid -conversation.
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Let me think for a second.
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A staller, a phrase that buys you time.
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You used to be scared of phone calls.
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I used to dread phone calls.
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Dread to feel scared of something that's coming.
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You picked the wrong word and you want to correct yourself mid -sentence.
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Sorry, let me swap that.
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I meant something else.
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change one thing for another.
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Your friend is too shy to try speaking with strangers.
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Start somewhere low stakes.
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Low stakes, safe, not very important.
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A coffee shop, a bakery, a small chap.
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Someone says, "Are you sure that works?" Let me prove it.
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Prove show that something is true with an example.
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One more.
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You want to say something plainly, no soft words around it.
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That's being direct.
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Direct, saying it plainly, no extra words.
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That covers all of them.
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And remember, the magic isn't in learning all nine at once.
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Pick one.
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Use it this week, Tuesday afternoon, wherever you are.
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And ideally somewhere low stakes.
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Don't start with a phone call to the bank.
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No. Start with the cough syrup.
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Hey! listeners quick question for the comments Which side are you on?
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Does English change your life? or does it change your Tuesday afternoon?
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And tell us one moment in English that still makes you nervous, Even when you know the words, A phone call?
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A bakery?
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asking your neighbor for something, We really do read them.
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We do.
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And honestly, the comments often become tomorrow's episode.
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If this one helped, hit subscribe.
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It keeps these episodes coming.
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And go put a sticky note on your fridge.
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Just one phrase doesn't have to make sense to anyone else.
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Mine's going to say, "Ask for the small one, just to copy you." Please don't.
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Too late.
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Already wrote it.
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Thanks for hanging out with us today.
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Go change a tiny moment this week.
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That's plenty.
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Bye, everyone.
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Bye.
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Context & Background
In the world of language learning, overcoming the fear of making mistakes is essential for rapid progression. In the recent video titled "Speak English Without Fearing Mistakes | Easy English Listening Practice," hosts Sarah and Mike illustrate how small, everyday interactions can significantly impact your confidence and fluency in English. Through relatable dialogues set in common situations, such as asking for help in a pharmacy or bakery, they emphasize that each phrase learned is a stepping stone towards greater communication skills. Instead of waiting for a grand transformation, learners are encouraged to appreciate the subtle yet powerful moments that add up over time, leading to improved language command.
Top 5 Phrases for Daily Communication
- “Could you tell me where…?” - A polite way to ask for directions or information.
- “Sorry, I didn’t catch that.” - Useful for expressing that you didn’t understand a statement.
- “I would like to order…” - Perfect for making requests in restaurants or shops.
- “Can I have the small one?” - A simple way to specify your preference when making a choice.
- “What do you recommend?” - An invitation for suggestions, fostering conversations.
Step-by-step Shadowing Guide
To maximize your learning from this video and effectively use the shadowing technique, follow this structured approach:
- Watch the Video First: Familiarize yourself with the dialogue by watching the video without interruption. Focus on the context and tone.
- Listen and Repeat: Use a shadowing app or any recording tool to repeat phrases right after you hear them. Try to match the hosts' intonation and pronunciation.
- Break it Down: Isolate tricky phrases (like “Could you tell me where…”) and practice them in different contexts. This will help solidify your understanding and use.
- Add Variation: Experiment by modifying the phrases. For instance, change the subject to practice with various contexts: instead of “cough syrup,” you might ask for “pain reliever.”
- Practice Regularly: Aim for daily practice, integrating these phrases into real-life conversations. Consider joining a community or using platforms like Shadowspeak for additional practice.
Remember, as you engage in IELTS speaking practice or everyday interactions using these phrases, each small conversation builds towards your fluency. Don't be afraid to make mistakes; they are simply part of the learning process!
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| “Used to” used to + verb — a past habit or state that is no longer true | used to dread · used to be |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | I've ever heard · you've apologized · there's been |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | being understood · is made |
| Verb + -ing enjoy, keep, stop… + -ing — verbs that are followed by the -ing form | keep getting · keep arguing · mind helping |
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.