Shadowing Practice: Talking about the office πŸ’»πŸ‘¨β€πŸ’ΌπŸ–‡ Real Easy English - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

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Hello and welcome to Real Easy English.
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Hello and welcome to Real Easy English.
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In this podcast, we have real conversations in easy English to help you understand.
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I'm Neil.
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And I'm Beth.
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You can watch a video of this podcast and find a worksheet to help you learn on our website,
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bbclearningenglish.com Hi Beth, how are you today?
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I'm very good, Neil.
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How are you?
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I'm very well.
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What are we talking about?
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Today we are talking about work and the office.
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An office is a place with desks and computers where people do their jobs.
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OK.
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We are in a studio in the office,
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but we'll go back to the office after this.
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Yes, we will.
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So, Neil, where do you work?
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Do you work at home or do you work in the office?
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Well, I do both of those things.
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I work in the office usually three days a week,
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and I work from home two days a week.
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Okay.
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I'm the same.
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We have the same schedule.
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So, yeah, at home twice where I have a sort of place that could be considered a home office.
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Do you like working in the office?
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I do like working in the office.
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I think it's easy to get work done in the office because it's an office environment.
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It's a workplace.
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But I also quite like working from home sometimes because commuting,
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London is a big city,
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you know, coming to work and going back is really tiring
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if you do it every day yeah i know what you mean um i i like working from home
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occasionally but i definitely prefer being in the office i think being with colleagues around you
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and i i need people and then i can work better yeah
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so what's wrong with working from home ah Oh, a lot.
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I think when you're in the office,
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yeah, it's louder than at home,
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but I like having the people around me.
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I like being able to have conversations.
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I find it's easier to work in an office environment because everyone else is working.
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But I feel more lonely at home because it's just me.
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So, yeah.
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Yeah, I understand what you mean.
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I also have a bit of a problem with working from home,
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because the boundary, or the line between work and home,
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is not so clear.
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So when you finish your day,
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you close your computer, and you think,
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oh, hang on, I'm still at home,
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this is where I've been working all day.
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And sometimes you feel like you should be doing things for home when you're actually working.
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Yeah, it's a bit weirder.
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Like, it's strange being at home because it's harder to know whether you should be working or doing a bit of housework.
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In the office, it's easier to just sit,
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be with your laptop, be with your colleagues and just be working.
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Have you ever worked somewhere that is not an office?
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Yes.
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So I used to work at a farm.
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It was a farm park,
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so lots of children playing,
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and there was a cafe,
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there was a play area,
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go-karts, being with animals, so lots of different areas,
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and it was fun, lots of variety.
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So that wasn't an office.
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What about you?
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I've worked in all kinds of places,
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especially when I was a student.
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I worked in factories, farms,
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I've worked in restaurants, bars,
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all kinds of places that are not offices.
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You've done it all.
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Done it all.
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Let's recap some of the vocabulary we heard in this podcast.
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We had office, a place with desks and computers where people go to work.
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Sometimes at BBC Learning English we work in the office.
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We had working remotely, which we often also call working from home,
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and that means working somewhere that isn't the office.
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For example, your home, but it could also be a cafe or something.
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We also had colleagues.
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These are the people that you work with.
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And we compared working from home with working from an office,
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and we used lots of comparatives,
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so it's harder to concentrate at home or it's more difficult to get your work done in the office.
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Yes, and it's louder in the office, but sometimes that's better.
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That's it for this episode of Real Easy English.
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You can test what you've learnt with a worksheet,
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which you can download for free from our website bbclearningenglish.com.
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Bye!
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Thank you.

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About This Lesson

In this lesson, you will practice English conversation skills related to the workplace and office environment. Through a real conversation between two speakers, you will enhance your listening comprehension and speaking abilities, critical for your IELTS speaking practice. By focusing on dialogue that reflects actual workplace discussions, you will learn to express your thoughts about working in an office versus working from home. This is particularly useful for improving your everyday English speaking skills.

Key Vocabulary & Phrases

  • Office - A place with desks and computers where people perform their jobs.
  • Commuting - Traveling to and from work, often seen as tiring in a big city.
  • Colleagues - People you work with in the same organization.
  • Work from home - Performing job responsibilities from one's residence.
  • Environment - The surrounding conditions in which a person works.
  • Lonely - Feeling isolated or alone, especially when working from home.
  • Boundary - The line that separates work and home life.
  • Productive - Achieving a significant amount of work or results.

Practice Tips

To maximize your learning from this lesson, consider using a shadowing app for effective practice. Start by playing the audio at a slower speed to catch every word and phrase. Focus on mimicking the speakers' tone and rhythm, especially since the dialogue reflects casual conversations in a professional setting. As you become more comfortable, you can gradually increase the playback speed to challenge yourself, allowing for the improvement of both your listening and speaking skills.

Engage in shadow speak techniques during your practice sessions. Listen to a segment, pause, and then try to repeat it aloud, matching the speaker's intonation. This method will not only bolster your vocabulary but will also make you sound more natural in conversations, improving your English speaking practice overall.

Remember to incorporate this dialogue into your learn English with YouTube routine. Watching videos like this provides context to the vocabulary and phrases, making it easier to remember and use them in real-life situations.

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 β€” 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 β€” making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

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