Shadowing Practice: Summer 🌞⛱️ British English Podcast - Listening Practise for Intermediate English Learners - Learn English Speaking with Video

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It's finally summer and it feels like we've been waiting for summer to come around for months and months and months.
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It's been raining so much and it's been so wet in England
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and it felt like the winter or the spring were never going to end.
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So now that summer's here, we're going to learn some words about the heat,
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because hopefully it's going to be warm, and some idioms which are related to the summer and heat.
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The first adjective that we have is scorching.
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Scorching means that it's extremely hot but it's not comfortable.
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It's not a nice warm heat.
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It's that type of heat where you can't be in the sun.
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So, in Italy, when I went on holiday,
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it was scorching outside, so I had to spend time under the parasol when I went to the beach.
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sometimes when it is very hot
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and there is a lot of moisture in the air
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and it makes you feel sticky your skin feels sticky then you say that it's humid or muggy
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Sometimes it's cloudy but it's still really really really hot and you can say that it feels muggy.
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When I went to London a few years ago it was extremely muggy
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and I felt the need to have a shower multiple times per day.
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Another word is arid.
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Arid means very dry and hot and it's normally used to describe a desert.
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So in the Sahara you can say that they have an arid climate because it's very hot and very dry.
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When you experience a period of hot weather
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that lasts like several days or a weekend or a few weeks
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and it's not usual then we call it a heat wave.
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We have already had a few heat waves in the UK.
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It was very hot, it was about 30 something degrees
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and maybe that doesn't seem that hot for you
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if you live in a hot country but I think that people don't really realise that
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in warm countries houses are prepared for the heat and
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when you go inside it doesn't seem as hot
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because the buildings are built differently but here
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because houses are built to stay warm in the summer it gets extremely hot inside
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and a lot of people don't have air conditioning at least here in England.
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I know
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that like in America in the United States a lot of people have aircon especially in the south
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but here you might have it in offices
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but people don't normally have it in their houses
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when it's hot some people like to stay in the sun
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i personally don't like the sun i prefer to stay in the shade you have to be careful with
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that word because a a lot of people say shadow.
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The opposite of being in the sun is the shade.
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So I like to stay cool in the shade.
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I normally stay inside when it's too hot out to keep cool.
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But a lot of people like sunbathing.
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So they go outside, they lie in the sun, maybe at the pool or at the beach
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or just in their garden to get a tan tanning is quite a big thing in the uk
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and maybe you haven't heard of it but a lot of people get fake tans fake tans are when you
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go to a tanning studio or salon and they basically spray tan on you so that your skin
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is darker so your skin is like more brown
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but you have to be careful
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because a lot of people sometimes look quite orange some people don't go to Cylons
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and they do it at home
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and what they do is they buy it's like a cream and they basically put it all over their body
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and it washes off so sometimes you see people
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and their hands are a different colour to their arms
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because in the end you wash your hands a lot more than you wash your arms so the colour
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comes off a lot quicker.
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So in the UK a lot of people like tanning, especially when they go on holiday abroad.
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If you want to say that you were under direct and very intense sunlight,
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you can also say bake.
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We normally use the word bake for baking a cake
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or baking a pie but if you say that it was very hot yesterday and we baked in the sun for hours,
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it means that you spent a lot of time in direct sunlight
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and the sun was very strong and you were very hot.
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You You can also say that you're melting.
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If you say can we turn on the aircon,
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the air conditioning or can we turn on the fan because I'm melting it means that you're very hot.
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So you want to turn it on to keep cool.
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Now let's go with some idioms.
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The first one is catch some rays.
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Sun rays are what you call a ray of light from the sun.
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So the beam of light that travels from the sun to the earth.
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And if you say that you're going to catch some rays it means
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that you're going to sunbathe or spend time sitting out in the sunshine.
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You could say that you're going to the beach this afternoon to catch some rays.
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Soak up the sun means to enjoy the sun and enjoy the heat.
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And you normally So you normally soak up the sun when you're relaxed.
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So I love going to the beach in the morning and soaking up the sun.
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And the last one is beat the heat.
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Beat the heat means to fight against the heat and win basically.
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So it means to find different ways to cope with the heat, to deal with the heat.
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So for example, it might be a good idea to install aircon this summer to beat the heat.
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It's important to beat the heat because you might get sunstroke
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or heatstroke which is a medical condition which you might suffer from
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if you spend too much time in the sun or in the heat.
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Some people faint or pass out when they spend too much time in the heat at the beach or just outside.
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It's also important to wear sunscreen or sunblock.
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Sunblock is the American word
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and in British English we normally say sun cream compared to sunscreen or sunblock.
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This is the lotion that you apply to your skin so that you don't burn it.
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It's important to wear sun cream because there is
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so much radiation from the sun and you can get burnt very easily without noticing it,
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especially if you're distracted having a good time outside this summer.
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I'm really looking forward to this summer.
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I really want to unwind which means to relax and to stop thinking about work and stress
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and I'm planning on doing a few getaways
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which means some quick holidays and I'm also planning or doing a staycation for a few weeks.
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A staycation is when you spend your holidays at home or in your local area instead of going somewhere else.
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So it's kind of being a tourist in your own area.
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I think that a lot of times we forget how nice it is to live where you live and it's
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easy to not do things like visit your local art galleries,
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spend time in nature nearby
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and I think that a staycation can be very enjoyable especially if you don't want to travel far away.
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If you have enjoyed this video please give it a thumbs up and subscribe.
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Hopefully this summer we can make a lot more videos.
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Let me know if you've enjoyed it and I'll see you in the next one.
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Bye!

About This Lesson

Welcome to your summer-themed English listening practice! In this lesson, you will immerse yourself in the vibrant world of summer vocabulary and idioms used in British English. You will learn how to describe different weather conditions, such as scorching heat and muggy days, and understand terms related to summer activities like sunbathing and tanning. This exercise aims to enhance your English speaking practice through contextual listening, enabling you to communicate more effectively about summer experiences. With a focus on shadow speech techniques, you’ll be able to improve your pronunciation and fluency while enjoying the warmth of summer!

Key Vocabulary & Phrases

  • Scorching: Extremely hot and uncomfortable, often used to describe weather that is too hot to enjoy.
  • Muggy: A combination of heat and humidity that makes the air feel sticky.
  • Arid: A term used to describe very dry and hot conditions, frequently associated with deserts.
  • Heat Wave: A prolonged period of excessively hot weather, which can be unusual for a specific location.
  • Shade: The area away from direct sunlight; a cooler place to relax.
  • Sunbathing: The practice of lying in the sun to get a tan.
  • Fake Tan: A cosmetic treatment used to darken the skin without sun exposure.

Practice Tips

To maximize your learning experience, consider using shadowing techniques while watching the video. This means you should listen closely to the speaker and repeat phrases immediately after hearing them. The speed and tone of the conversation in this podcast are perfect for this method, allowing you to focus on intonation and rhythm in spoken British English. By utilizing a shadowing app, you can record yourself to compare your pronunciation against the original speaker. This will not only help with your english speaking practice but also build your confidence as you learn english with YouTube content. Remember, the key to mastering shadow speak is consistency and practice, so make it a routine to listen and repeat regularly! Doing this will deepen your understanding of seasonal vocabulary and improve your overall fluency.

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.