Shadowing Practice: The American Dream Is Getting Expensive - Learn English Speaking with Video
B2How America Got So Good At Buying Sh*t
B1Stepmom left Dad for LUXURY and Now He is a Billionaire | English with Conversational story
B1Dining with wealthy friends is quite stressful.#shorts
B2원어민 실제 영어 표현 배우는 생활경제 뉴스 쉐도잉 리스닝 연습
B1Learn Real Life English with the Sad Truth About American Food 🍔 | Comprehensible Input
B1I moved to Vietnam but never expected to live like this
B21955 vs 2025, who actually had it better?
B2Walt Disney
B2The Poverty Trap
B130 Days to Build Your English Identity | Do You Know Where Your Money Goes? 💸 | English Speaking
B1$1 vs $25,000,000 NYC Apartments
B2The fuse has been lit
Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 29 sentences and 231 words to shadow. The speech runs for 1:06. The speaker talks fast, about 210 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 88% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| poverty noun | /ˈpɑːvɚti/ | The quality or state of being poor; lack of money |
| slave noun | /sleɪv/ | A person who is held in servitude as the property of another person, and whose labor (and often also whose body and life) is subject to the owner's volition… |
| generous adjective | /ˈd͡ʒɛn(ə)ɹəs/ | Noble in behaviour or actions; principled, not petty; kind, magnanimous. |
| retire verb | /ɹəˈtaɪɹ/ | To stop working on a permanent basis, usually because of old age or illness. |
| anyways adverb | /ˈɛn.iˌweɪz/ | Anyway, anyhow, in any case. |
| paycheck noun | /ˈpeɪ.t͡ʃɛk/ | A periodic payment, usually in the form of a paper check, received by an employee from an employer for work performed. |
| earner noun | One who earns money. | |
| measly adjective | /ˈmizli/ | Particularly of pigs or pork: infected with larval tapeworms or trichinae (parasitic roundworms). |
| payment noun | /ˈpeɪmənt/ | The act of paying. |
| saving noun | /ˈseɪ.vɪŋ/ | A reduction in cost or expenditure. |
| rent noun | /ˈɹɛnt/ | A payment made by a tenant at intervals in order to lease a property. |
| debt noun | /ˈdɛt/ | An action, state of mind, or object one has an obligation to perform for another, adopt toward another, or give to another. |
| insurance noun | /ɪnˈʃʊɹ.əns/ | A means of indemnity against a future occurrence of an uncertain event. |
| spend verb | /spɪnd/ | To pay out (money). |
| hurt verb | /hɝt/ | To cause (a person or animal) physical pain and/or injury. |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 7 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, I'm, we're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like poverty, slave, generous.
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.