Shadowing Practice: the social skills every smart woman needs - Learn English Speaking with Video
Choose a practice mode
Each mode opens a full-screen practice room.
193 sentences
If sentences are too short or too long, click Edit to adjust them.
1
You are one of the smartest women in every room you walk into.
2
You know it.
3
The people around you know it.
4
And yet somehow there's always that woman.
5
The moment she walks in, the energy shifts.
6
People lean in, opportunities find her, conversations bend in her direction.
7
And you've watched it happen enough times to know that whatever she has, It isn't on some resume.
8
And I know you.
9
You've spent so much time building your career, getting hotter, smarter, richer, becoming someone who's truly undeniable and impressive on paper.
10
But no one ever taught you the other game that runs underneath every room you've ever walked into.
11
That ends today.
12
Hello my muses!
13
Welcome back to my channel where women who want everything learn to have their cake and eat it too.
14
I'm your host Nadine and I'm rebuilding the village woman once had
15
so we can have the right conversations and create lives that feel as good as it looks.
16
Please subscribe if you're new so you don't miss any of our chats.
17
Here's what I've come to understand about truly socially intelligent women
18
they are playing a completely different game than everyone else in the room.
19
They understand power, they understand people, and they understand how to position themselves without ever looking like they're trying.
20
I think of it as social chess, and it is one of the most under leveraged skills an intelligent woman can develop for her career and for every relationship,
21
every room, every version of the life she's trying to build.
22
And the great thing about it is you can absolutely learn it.
23
It's one of those things where once you see it, you can't unsee it.
24
So here are five things you need to master to be the social chess grandmaster.
25
As always, we don't gatekeep, so let's step into it.
26
First, every room has a power map, so learn to read it within 60 seconds.
27
Most people walk into a room
28
and immediately start performing a version of themselves they think they need to be in that room.
29
They're thinking about how they're coming across, what to say, who to approach.
30
And because all of their attention is pointed outward at themselves, they completely miss what's actually happening in the room.
31
The first move in social chess is to flip that entirely.
32
You walk in and instead of asking, how's my hair?
33
How do I look?
34
You ask, what is actually going on here?
35
Every room, dinner party, work meeting, social gathering has what I call a power map.
36
Anchor.
37
This is the person the room is emotionally organized around.
38
This is the person whose mood sets the tone.
39
Pay attention to where people's eyes go to when something funny happens, who they turn to look at to watch their reaction.
40
That's the anchor.
41
That's the person whose social approval the people in the room wants.
42
The second is the connector.
43
This is the person who knows everyone and is actively introducing people and initiating conversations and getting people together.
44
They are almost always the most genuinely liked person in the room and the most trusted.
45
If you want to integrate into a new social environment quickly, find the connector and treat that relationship with care.
46
The third is the observer.
47
This is the person who was saying the least, but watching everything that's happening carefully.
48
The observer is the most underestimated person there.
49
They are usually the most valuable to have on your side because they have seen everything and said nothing,
50
which means they know things nobody else knows that they know.
51
So here's the move.
52
In any new room you step into, spend the first five minutes identifying these three people before you engage deeply with anyone.
53
It takes practice.
54
It's not comfortable at first.
55
It pushes you to get out of your comfort zone.
56
But once you can do it, you will never walk into a room not knowing how to position yourself again.
57
Second, learn to actually read people past their personalities.
58
We live in an era obsessed with personality frameworks, Myers -Briggs, Engrams, attachment styles, and look, I love them and I think they're so much fun,
59
but they only tell you about a person's general wiring, okay?
60
They don't tell you what that person needs right now, in this very moment, in this dynamic.
61
I've always found that people always tell on themselves, but not directly in what they say.
62
I like to pay attention what they brag about, what they complain about, or what they ask questions about.
63
What someone brags about shows their insecurity.
64
Really pay attention.
65
The person who is constantly talking about their title or their salary
66
or their connections is telling you that those things feel fragile to them and they need them validated.
67
But don't confuse this with people who are actually just genuinely excited to share positive news, okay?
68
That's different.
69
Now, what someone likes their values.
70
If someone is always frustrated that people don't listen to them, they deeply value being heard and understood.
71
If someone is always complaining that people are flaky, they value reliability and follow through.
72
Isn't that kind of interesting that you can tell?
73
And like when someone asks questions, pay attention to what they ask about because that shows their desires.
74
The questions people ask in conversations are windows into what they're actually thinking about, working through, or wanting for themselves.
75
Once you start listening at this level, conversations become very interesting and provide a lot of information.
76
You start actually hearing people and when you can hear what someone actually needs,
77
saying, you become someone they feel very comfortable around and trust because you make them feel understood.
78
This is active, deep listening, and it helps build genuine connections and trust.
79
Third, stop trying to be interesting and become interested.
80
One of the most counterintuitive truths in social intelligence is
81
that the women who are the most magnetic in social situations are almost never the ones who are trying to be impressive.
82
They're the ones who are the most genuinely curious about the people in front of them.
83
When someone is clearly very accomplished or intelligent, people expect them to be somewhat self -centered.
84
When you, a smart, beautiful woman, turn the full beam of your attention onto the person you're speaking with
85
and asking them questions that really show you were listening, it is a little disarming because it's unexpected.
86
So it creates an instant bond.
87
Your intelligence is not your most powerful social asset.
88
Your curiosity is.
89
And here's a real life application.
90
Most people ask surface level questions and conversations.
91
What do you do?
92
Where are you from?
93
How do you but they're not memorable.
94
The woman playing social chess asks what I call second layer questions.
95
She takes whatever answer you just gave her and goes one level deeper.
96
You say you just got back from a work trip.
97
She doesn't say, oh, how was it?
98
She asks, what was the most unforgettable thing about it?
99
You say you're thinking about changing careers.
100
She doesn't say, oh, really?
101
Why?
102
Or to what?
103
She asks, what finally Second layer questions do something very important here.
104
It signals that you are actually listening to them and it invites the other person into a more interesting version of themselves, even if it's just for 10 minutes.
105
that woman for someone else, even for a moment, makes you unforgettable.
106
Fourth, understand the difference between social capital and social debt.
107
This is a framework I don't think gets talked about enough, and it completely changed how I think about every social interaction I have.
108
Every interaction you have with another person either deposits into
109
or withdraws from what I call your social capital account with that person.
110
account, the balance determines what's available to you when you need it.
111
Social capital deposits are small but consistent.
112
You remembered something that they said three months ago.
113
You sent them something that made you think of them.
114
You showed up and celebrated them even when it was inconvenient for you.
115
You defended their name in a room they weren't in.
116
You celebrated their wins without making it about you.
117
None of these are really grand gestures, but they are hallmarks of a good and also micro deposits you make that compound over time.
118
Social debt, on the other hand, is less obvious than most people think.
119
I mean, yeah, it can look straight up like selfishness,
120
but it usually looks like the friend who likes to process all of their thoughts out loud all the time, but never asks how you're doing.
121
Or it can look like the colleague who is warm
122
and charming when they want something from you and professionally distant the rest of the time.
123
can look like the person who shows up for the fun moments and disappears the moment things are difficult for you.
124
None of these people think of themselves as takers, but their social account is overdrawn and the people around them feel it even when they can't fully understand it.
125
If you are playing social chess, you need to understand that social debt compounds just like financial debt.
126
Small withdrawals that go unaddressed don't stay small.
127
They accumulate into this negative feeling And once people feel that way about you and they have that impression about you,
128
it is very hard to turn around.
129
I don't know about you girls, but there are some friends that I've dropped around my Saturn return dark night of the soul.
130
And it was mostly due to this selfishness or this lack of awareness.
131
And no matter how they try to explain themselves or whatever, you just have that impression of them and you can't really go back to how things work.
132
The framework is so useful because we're usually completely unaware about our social account balances.
133
why certain relationships feel transactional, why certain people seem kind of distant, why we don't get invited into certain rooms anymore.
134
And the answer is almost always that you have been overdrawing from an account.
135
Unless and less and less.
136
You meet an insecure girl The universe knows how much I have to say about that.
137
But I have a separate video in the works about insecure girls because ew, Anyways, the woman playing social chess is aware and mindful of this.
138
So she makes deposits before she needs to make withdrawals.
139
And she understands that the most valuable social capital you can build is the kind
140
that makes people feel like you're someone worth getting to know or being friends with.
141
The girlies around me who are great at doing this invest a lot of time
142
and energy into making plans and communicating and offering help where they can.
143
I don't know if there's even an Chinese,
144
there is a phrase called which pretty much means your fate or luck with people is just really good.
145
People like you, you're charismatic, people gravitate towards you naturally.
146
So make deposits before you make withdrawals.
147
The key to networking is thinking about what you can do for others before asking what they can do for you.
148
And the fifth and last one, master the energy of the room.
149
Now, here is something that took me honestly way too long to figure out and fully understand.
150
Communication is only partially verbal.
151
In fact, research suggests
152
that the feeling people walk away with from an interaction is largely determined by your energy than by what you actually said.
153
I'm sure you've heard of people say this.
154
It's not what you say, but it's how you say it,
155
feeling upset or uncomfortable, or you can say very little and leave people feeling completely at ease and in awe of you.
156
There's a concept I love called emotional contagion.
157
It's a scientifically documented phenomenon where we unconsciously absorb and mirror the emotional states of the people around us.
158
You walk into a room where two people just had an argument and even though nobody told you, you feel it.
159
You sit next to someone on the plane who is anxious and you start feeling
160
someone who is genuinely so positive and carefree that you leave feeling more inspired and excited about life.
161
And it's because we have what is called mirror neurons, cells in our brain that literally fire in response to the emotional states of others.
162
We are wired to catch each other's feelings, which is kind of cool, isn't it?
163
Like in some ways we're kind of telepathic.
164
So the social chess or social game implication of this is huge
165
because it means that the most powerful thing you bring into any room is not a talking point or a strategy.
166
It is a regulated, grounded, genuinely present, good energy.
167
When you are that woman, you become the emotional anchor of every room you walk into.
168
People feel better around you without knowing why.
169
They trust you faster.
170
They open up more easily.
171
They want to be near you.
172
And here's a little wisdom for my muses and may mays.
173
The energy
174
Your energy is the accumulated output of how you have been living pause rewind
175
that back okay your energy is the accumulated output of how
176
you have been living a woman who is genuinely at peace
177
with her choices who is building something she believes in who is not betraying herself in her relationships
178
or her work she walks into rooms feeling confident and expanded There's no performance because she has nothing to perform.
179
So the most magnetic version of you is the result of you actually living your best life.
180
And that is both the most inconvenient and the most liberating thing I can tell you.
181
So here's your homework for this week.
182
I want you to walk into one social situation, a work meeting, a dinner, a catch up with a friend.
183
It can be anything.
184
And I want you to practice one to two things from today
185
and then come back here and let me know in the comments how it went.
186
This is a challenge, okay?
187
Because I know it'll make you zone.
188
But just like any skill, social chess is built one move at a time.
189
That's all the cake I have for you today.
190
Thank you so much for watching until the end.
191
I appreciate it so much.
192
And if you enjoyed our little chat today, please like hype and leave a comment to share your thoughts and I'll see you in the next episode.
193
you you you you you
Download App
Everything you need to speak fluently
AI PronunciationScore every sentence
IPA PracticeMaster every sound
VocabularyBuild your word bank
Vocab GameLearn while playing
📺 Same Channel
B24
10 social rules every smart woman should know
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B26
can i tell you something? | getting in my own way, inner thoughts, chit chat
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B22
you're not too late | most people quit, consistency is a superpower
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B27
8 smart girl mindsets i live by | be confident, successful, and unbothered
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B23
allow me to de-influence you | relationship edition
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
B210
why you need more time alone | the art of solitude
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B29
the harsh reality of outgrowing friends | how to handle it
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
how to be chic | underconsumption | developing your taste
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B25
how to be respected as a woman | stop being nice, self-betrayal, people pleasing
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B23
the mindset shift that changed my 30s | why you still feel stuck
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B25
the hidden rules of life | cheat codes, main character energy, glow up
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B22
the 6 friendship rules i use to build a real village
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
B25
become your own case study | get hot, smart, and confident
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B23
rich girl habits that elevated my finances
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B26
the social playbook for smart women
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
✨ Recommend Video
B21
104 sentences
Give me 8 minutes, and I'll improve your sales skills by 176%
Business EnglishWorking Adults
B21
458 sentences
Successful Women Reveal the Traits That Make Success INEVITABLE
Business EnglishDaily ConversationWorking Adults
B224
22 sentences
How to build social skills and remain authentic
Business EnglishWorking Adults
B21
125 sentences
The #1 Career Mistake Women Keep Making
Business EnglishWorking Adults
B22
25 sentences
Why Every Question Is A Gift
Business EnglishWorking Adults
B21
179 sentences
She learned one new skill that unlocked a $120K salary
Business EnglishInterview EnglishWorking Adults
B21
50 sentences
How to Have Composure at Work: the Inner Piece of Presence
Business EnglishWorking Adults
B25
433 sentences
7 Tiny Habits That Make People RESPECT You (Without Saying a Word)
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B23
120 sentences
The Art of Winning at Anything (Even If You’re Lost Right Now)
Business EnglishUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B23
144 sentences
why aren't you living like you're in a romcom?
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “the social skills every smart woman needs”. This video has 193 sentences and 2443 words to shadow. The speech runs for 15:07. The speaker talks at a natural 162 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 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
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| chess noun | /t͡ʃɛs/ | A board game for two players, each beginning with sixteen chess pieces moving according to fixed rules across a chessboard with the objective to checkmate the… |
| genuinely adverb | /ˈd͡ʒɛn.ju.ɪn.li/ | In a genuine manner; truthfully, truly. |
| accumulate verb | /əˈkjuːmjʊˌleɪt/ | To heap up in a mass; to pile up; to collect or bring together (either literally or figuratively), often gradually and without active intent. |
| anchor noun | /ˈæŋ.kəː/ | A tool used to moor a vessel to the bottom of a sea or river to resist movement. |
| withdrawal noun | /wɪðˈdɹɔ(ə)l/ | Receiving from someone's care what one has earlier entrusted to them. Usually refers to money. |
| brag verb | /bɹæɡ/ | To boast; to talk with excessive pride about what one has, is able to do, or has done; often as an attempt to popularize oneself. |
| connector noun | /kəˈnɛktɚ/ | One who connects; a networker. |
| inconvenient adjective | /ˌɪn.kənˈviːni.ənt/ | not convenient |
| overdraw verb | To withdraw more money from an account than there is credit; to make an overdraft | |
| selfishness noun | /ˈsɛl.fɪʃ.nəs/ | The quality of being selfish, the condition of putting one's own interests before those of others. |
| unforgettable adjective | /ˌʌnfə(ɹ)ˈɡɛtəbəl/ | Very difficult or impossible to forget. |
| muse verb | /mjuːz/ | To become lost in thought, to ponder. |
| insecure adjective | /ɪnsəˈkjʊɹ/ | Not secure. |
| observer noun | /əbˈzɝvɚ/ | One who makes observations, monitors or takes notice. |
| magnetic adjective | /mæɡˈnɛtɪk/ | Of, relating to, operating by, or caused by magnetism. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| come across verb | To change sides; to cross over to work for the opposition. |
| come back verb | To return to a place. |
| figure out verb | To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce. |
| follow through verb | To execute or complete a commitment. |
| get out of verb | To leave, exit or escape from; to become free of. |
| go back to verb | To stem from; to originate in. |
| open up verb | To open. |
| show up verb | To appear, arrive, or attend, especially suddenly or erratically. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- You walk in and instead of asking, how's my hair?
- How do I look?
- You ask, what is actually going on here?
- Isn't that kind of interesting that you can tell?
- What do you do?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | have been overdrawing · have been living |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | women who want · person who knows · person who was |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | you've watched · You've spent · you've ever walked |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | is pointed · is always frustrated · is called |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 46 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, they're, you're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: withdrawal /wɪðˈdɹɔ(ə)l/, telepathic /ˌtɛlɪˈpæθɪk/, withdraw /wɪðˈdɹɔ/, underneath /ˌʌndɚˈniθ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: selfishness /ˈsɛl.fɪʃ.nəs/, transactional /trænˈzækʃ(ə)nəl/, unconsciously /ˌʌnˈkɑnʃəsli/, implication /ˌɪmpləˈkeɪʃən/, initiate /ɪˈnɪʃ.i.eɪt/
- Long words — get the stress right: genuinely /ˈd͡ʒɛn.ju.ɪn.li/, accumulate /əˈkjuːmjʊˌleɪt/, inconvenient /ˌɪn.kənˈviːni.ənt/, unforgettable /ˌʌnfə(ɹ)ˈɡɛtəbəl/, charismatic /ˌkɛɹəzˈmætək/
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 chess, genuinely, accumulate.
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.