Shadowing Practice: The grindification of hobbies - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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Something weird has happened to hobbies.
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They don't feel like hobbies anymore.
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Whether you're into music production, skateboarding, painting, photography, or filmmaking,
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our culture has made us feel like this recreation time is a waste unless it's building towards something bigger.
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You can't just paint anymore.
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You have to be developing your artistic voice.
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You can't just skateboard.
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You have to be progressing, filming tricks, building your style.
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Photography isn't about taking pictures you like.
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It's about finding your niche, maybe shooting some weddings on the side.
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But here's what's really happening.
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We've taken everything that used to be just for fun and turned it into another form of work.
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We've lost the ability to do something just because it feels good to do it.
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Everything has to have a trajectory, a purpose beyond just existing, and honestly, it's killing the joy out of everything.
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The thing that made hobbies special was
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that they were the one area of your life where you could be terrible at something and it didn't matter.
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Where you could experiment, mess up, try weird stuff, and there were no consequences because it was just for you.
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Now we're tracking our progress, setting goals, comparing ourselves to others online, treating our free time like it's another job we're not getting paid for.
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We've infected our downtime with the same productivity mindset that already dominates everything else.
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I see this constantly with creative stuff.
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Someone starts making beats because they think it might be fun,
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but within a week they're watching YouTube tutorials on the producer mindset and building your brand as a beat maker.
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They haven't even finished their first track, and they're already thinking about SoundCloud followers and getting signed to a label, or painting.
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People download Procreate to mess around with digital art, but suddenly they're researching brush settings and watching speedpaint tutorials
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and feeling frustrated because their stuff doesn't look like what they see online.
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The experimentation phase gets skipped entirely.
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Social media obviously makes this worse.
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Everything becomes content.
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You can't just skateboard for the feeling of it.
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You should probably be filming tricks for TikTok.
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You can't just produce music for yourself.
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Why not post those beats on Instagram?
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The act of documenting the hobby becomes more important than actually enjoying the hobby.
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And then there's the productivity guilt.
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We live in a culture where rest feels irresponsible.
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If you're not hustling, grinding, building something, what are you even doing?
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Hobbies feel frivolous because they don't directly contribute to your career or your bank account or your personal development.
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But that's exactly the point.
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Hobbies aren't supposed to be productive.
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They're supposed to be the antidote to productivity culture, not another victim of it.
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When you make music just because certain sounds make you happy, when you paint just to see colors mixed together,
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when you skateboard just to feel the movement, that's not wasted time.
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That's your brain getting to play.
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That's you remembering what it feels like to be human instead of a productivity machine.
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We've convinced ourselves that if something doesn't lead somewhere, it's pointless.
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But what if the point is just the doing?
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What if the value is in the experience itself? not in any outcome or product you might create.
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We've made everything into a potential side hustle.
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Every interest has to be justified through productivity or profit.
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But when every hobby becomes a business opportunity, we lose something essential about what makes them valuable in the first place.
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Your hobbies don't owe you anything.
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They don't have to make you money or make you better or make you more interesting.
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Sometimes the most radical thing you can do is just enjoy something for the sake of enjoying it.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “The grindification of hobbies”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: hobbies, productivity, skateboard, hobby, becomes. This video has 53 sentences and 624 words to shadow. The speech runs for 3:42. The speaker talks at a natural 168 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 84% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| hobby noun | /ˈhɑ.bi/ | An activity that one enjoys doing in one's spare time. |
| productivity noun | /ˌpɹɒdʌkˈtɪvəti/ | The state of being productive, fertile, or efficient. |
| skateboard noun | /ˈskeɪt.bɔɹd/ | A narrow, wooden or plastic platform mounted on pairs of wheels, on which one stands and propels oneself by pushing along the ground with one foot. |
| hustle verb | /ˈhʌsəl/ | To push someone roughly; to crowd; to jostle. |
| tutorial noun | /ˌtjuːˈtɔːɹɪəl/ | A self-paced learning exercise; a lesson prepared so that a student can learn at their own speed or convenience. |
| mindset noun | /ˈmaɪn(d)ˌsɛt/ | A way of thinking; an attitude or opinion, especially a habitual one. |
| antidote noun | /ˈæn.tɪ.doʊt/ | A remedy to counteract the effects of poison. |
| downtime noun | /ˈdaʊnˌtaɪm/ | Time lost due to the failure of some system or machinery, such as a computer crash or power outage. |
| experimentation noun | /ɪkˌspɛɹ.ə.mənˈteɪ.ʃən/ | The act of experimenting; practice by experiment. |
| filmmaking noun | The activity of preparing edited video works, formerly principally films, whether for entertainment or other purposes. | |
| frivolous adjective | /ˈfɹɪv.ə.ləs/ | Silly, especially at an inappropriate time or in an inappropriate manner; lacking a good reason for being, or for doing what one does; due to or moved by a… |
| frustrate verb | /ˈfɹʌsˌtɹeɪt/ | To disappoint or defeat; to vex by depriving of something expected or desired. |
| infect verb | /ɪnˈfɛkt/ | To bring (the body or part of it) into contact with a substance that causes illness (a pathogen), so that the pathogen begins to act on the body; (of a… |
| speedpaint noun | An accelerated screen recording showing the creation of art, particularly digital drawings. | |
| follower noun | /ˈfɒləʊə(ɹ)/ | One who follows, comes after another. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| mess up verb | To make a mess of; to untidy, disorder, soil, or muss. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- You can't just paint anymore.
- Photography isn't about taking pictures you like.
- You can't just skateboard for the feeling of it.
- You can't just produce music for yourself.
- If you're not hustling, grinding, building something, what are you even doing?
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 27 contractions and reduced forms, such as we've, can't, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: experimentation /ɪkˌspɛɹ.ə.mənˈteɪ.ʃən/, recreation /ɹiːkɹiˈeɪʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: productivity /ˌpɹɒdʌkˈtɪvəti/, experimentation /ɪkˌspɛɹ.ə.mənˈteɪ.ʃən/, trajectory /tɹəˈd͡ʒɛktəɹi/, irresponsible /ˌɪɹ.əˈspɑn.sə.bəl/, recreation /ɹiːkɹiˈeɪʃən/
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 hobby, productivity, skateboard.
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.