Shadowing Practice: THINK and SPEAK in English: your daily routine - Learn English Speaking with YouTube
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Vanessa: Hi, I'm Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com.
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Vanessa: Hi, I'm Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com.
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Are you ready to think and speak in English about your daily life? Let's do it.
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If you watch a lot of American movies or TV shows, you probably have noticed that people ask a lot, "Hey hun, how is your day?" Or, "What did you learn in school today?" But have you ever asked these questions to yourself? If not, that changes today, because you are going to be learning 23 common daily expressions to talk about your daily life. I'm going to be going through my daily routine, helping you learn some common phrases that might also apply to your daily routine. And to help you never forget what you are about to learn today, I have created a free PDF worksheet for today's lesson, with all of the vocabulary, all of the sample sentences, and all of the ideas so that you never forget them. And you can use them yourself. You can click on the link in description to download this free PDF worksheet today.
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All right, let's get started with the beginning of the day and a phrase that you can use in your daily life too. If I'm lucky, first thing in the morning, I'll hear my alarm, maybe push snooze and get up slowly. But if I'm not lucky, I'll hear one of my children screaming, "Mommy." And I have to get out of bed first thing. I used this expression first thing two times. The first time was at the beginning of a phrase. First thing in the morning. Make sure that you don't add first of the things, or first of the... It's only first thing. First thing in the morning, I hear my alarm, or we could use it at the end of a phrase like you just heard me say. I might say I wake up and make coffee first thing. I make coffee first thing. Actually for me, I don't make coffee.
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I don't even know if I know how to make coffee. I always make tea. I am quite an amateur. Maybe say newbie or maybe clueless when it comes to coffee. My husband Dan likes coffee, but I could say I wake up and make tea first thing, beautiful phrase. Let's go to the next part of my morning.
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After I'm awake, I head to the kitchen and start to make some breakfast. Sometimes my kids and I read a book or play a little game at breakfast because not everyone in our house is a morning person. Sometimes at least one of us will wake up on the wrong side of the bed.
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So having a little bit of fun lightens the mood and helps you to start your day off right.
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Do you know what a morning person is? A morning person is someone who wakes up happy, ready to start at the day. Are you a morning person? Or maybe you wake up on the wrong side of the bed. This is a little bit metaphorical. There's not really a good side of the bed and a bad side of the bed, but it means that you wake up grumpy, maybe a little cranky, maybe not so happy.
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You could say, "Ugh, I woke up on the wrong side of the bed today. I need some coffee." Or tea, if you're me. Then after breakfast, I drop my son Theo off at preschool. This phrase verb to drop off can be used for people or for things. So you heard me use it for people.
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I drop my son Theo off at school, or we could put it together. I drop off my son at preschool, but we could also drop something off. I dropped my computer off at the repair shop. Make sure that you don't forget the word off, because if you just say I dropped my computer at the repair shop, it means your computer fell on the ground, broke. Luckily you're at the repair shop, but it means something really different than to drop off. So make sure that you say I dropped off my computer at the repair shop or I dropped my computer off at the repair shop.
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Then I come home to start my work day. Usually I catch up on some emails. I go over any lessons that I'm going to have for my students. And sometimes I just call a friend to catch up. This phrasal verb to catch up or to catch up on is often used in daily life. And you can probably use it in our life too. Let's take a look at some situations. Let's imagine you've had a super busy week and it's the weekend and you look around and your house is a disaster.
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Right now, my couch is covered in blankets. This table has papers and everything all over it.
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Oh boy, I need to catch up on chores. I need to catch up on some cleaning that I didn't do during the week. Can you guess what this means? There's something that you've delayed doing. Maybe you don't want to, or you don't have time, and now it's time to do it. So I could say, I need to catch up on some emails or I need to catch up on some cleaning, but I also used this to talk about my friend. I call my friend to catch up. Well, it kind of has the same idea. I haven't talked to my friend for a while and now we're talking about everything that's happened since we last talked. So if you see someone, maybe you're in the grocery store and you run across someone who you haven't seen for a while, you might say, "Hey, you want to go get some coffee and catch up?" That means I haven't you for a while. I want to hear everything that's been happening. Let's catch up. I also said in my little story that I go over some lessons, and this is a simply a really common way to say review. You can use this in the workplace a lot. You might ask someone to help you out. You could say, "Hey, could you go over this email before I send it?" Maybe you're writing a really important email and you want to make sure you have everything right? You could ask a coworker, "Hey, when you have a second, could you go over this email before I send it? I would really appreciate it." That's so polite. And also if the other person is a kind person, they might feel kind of good about themselves. Like, oh, you think my opinion and my ideas are important and worthwhile? Sure. I'll go over that email for you. I will give it my stamp of approval.
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When I finish my work, I pick up my son from preschool and we head home. This verb to head somewhere is used all the time. Let me give you a couple situations. You might say like I just did, I'm heading home. That means you're going in the direction of home. You're not there yet.
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You're not stopped, but that's where you're going. I'm heading home. Or if someone calls you and says, "What are you doing?" You could say, "I'm headed to the store. I'm headed to the store." In American English, the store usually means the grocery store or the supermarket. You're going to go buy some food. I'm headed to the store. Or if you are ready to go and everyone else is just taking their good old time, you can say, "All right, it's time to head out." This phrase to head out means out of the house. Come on. It's time to head out. Let's go.
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A great way to use to head out. When we get home, sometimes my son and I have a little tea party together and chat about his day. Usually as we're eating and drinking, he kind of opens up about his day. And if he doesn't open up what we're eating, sometimes I ask some specific questions. Like how many holes did you dig today? Did you jump in the leaf pile? He goes to an outdoor nature school. So they play outside all day, all weather, any season. They're pretty tough. They have lots of good warm clothes, but asking these types of specific questions can him to kind of review his day in an easier way. You might hear people in movies and TV shows using the phrase, tell me about your day or what did you do today or what did you learn in school today, even worse.
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These types of broad questions, usually we don't really like to answer, especially at the end of the day, you feel like you just want to detox, decompress.
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And it's tough to summarize your day in just a few words like that. So maybe when you were a kid, if your mom asked you, "What do you learn in school today?" You probably said, oh, nothing because it's just too hard to summarize your day. So if you have a significant other, if you have kids, if you're just asking someone about their day, I recommend, first of all, doing something together, spending some quality time together. You don't have to have a tea party. Although, I highly recommend it. Very fun. All you need is some tea, maybe a little snack, cut up an apple, have some nuts or dried fruit, whatever you like.
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And just spending quality time together can help someone to open up.
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This is a phrase we're going to use in just a minute. I want to tell you about it, but I recommend if someone doesn't open up, asking specific questions. This helps someone to recall the information that happened to them during the day. Especially with kids this is helpful because they're just living their life. They're not thinking about summarizing at the end of the day. So when you ask a specific question, oh, what game did you play at recess today?
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Oh, did you eat anyone else's food at lunch today? These specific questions can help your child to open up. And this phrasal verb to open up is beautiful. I love this concept. When you're talking with someone, usually at the beginning, there's kind of a wall. You don't immediately share your deepest thoughts. If someone says, "Hey, Vanessa, how are you doing today?" No matter how I'm really feeling, I'll always say, "Oh, pretty good. What about you?" Because I'm not ready to open up. In those types of passing situations, we're just not comfortable sharing our inner thoughts. So when you spend quality time together, that wall kind of drifts away a little more and someone might be more willing to be vulnerable. And that's the idea when you open up, that means that you are willing to talk about your struggles, something difficult in your life. Something really meaningful in your life, not just the surface, shallow things. But when you really open up to someone, you're being your authentic self.
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So just remember these Vanessa tips, the next time that you want someone to open up to you.
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All right, let's go to the next part of my day. When the weather's nice, usually our neighbors come over and hang out. Sometimes we have snacks. Sometimes we play games.
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Sometimes we just chat. But because my backyard is very sunny, it's a favorite hangout spot.
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And this word, to hangout can be used in two different ways. It can be used as a verb.
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We love to hang out in the backyard. This means to casually spend time. Usually with other people, we hangout together. Or it can be used as a noun. This is a hangout. Or as an adjective. So I guess we can use this in three ways, a hangout spot. So it's describing this location. What kind of location is it? It's a hangout spot. It's not a professional place. It's not a private place.
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Instead, it's a hangout spot. It's where we just go to spend time with other people. After hanging out with friends, as the sun starts to go down, usually we come inside and start to cook dinner.
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While we're eating dinner, we try to sit down at the table as a family. It's nice to try to have a little bit of quality time together. So we like to ask each other some questions, the most common questions. In fact, my four year old son Theo loves to ask these to us.
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He asks us one by one. "What was the best part of your day?" And when everyone has answered, he asks, "What was the most challenging part of your day?" And it's so funny the things that kids will say to these questions. So if you haven't done this in your home, if your kids aren't familiar with English, it's okay. You can ask in your native language, but asking these questions helps to kind of prompt conversation a bit. And when you're opening up about the best thing or the most challenging thing about your day, it kind of encourages the other people at the table to open up to. Oh, what a great phrasal verb that we just learned about.
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There are two phrases that I want to share with you that I just mentioned. One of them is as a family. Now this just means the group, the whole group, the family group, but we can use the same structure in other ways. We could say as a family, as a neighborhood, as a community, as a department, as an office. So it's talking about all the people that are in that group. So for example, you could say it's important to spend some time together as a couple without your kids.
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So if you have kids, spending time without them, it's very important. So you could say as a couple, just you and your significant other. It's important to be together without your kids occasionally. Another expression that I used is quality time. I already mentioned this when I was talking about the tea party. I think I might have mentioned it. If not, having a tea party is good quality time too, but it means that you are not just having a shallow experience together.
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It's not rushed. You don't have to go anywhere. You're just enjoying each other's presence.
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So I really encourage you to try to spend some quality time with someone this week. It means that you don't need to go anywhere. You don't have any kind of schedule. You have a full hour just to take a walk with a friend or to chat on the phone or to play a game with your kids. Something that's quality time. There's no agenda. You're just enjoying being together.
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After dinner, we clean up. We put the kids to bed. We tuck them in and tell them sleep tight.
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So one of these expressions that I used, you have to be very careful about. I said, "We put the kids to bed." This means that we help them sleep. So maybe we brush their teeth. We read some books.
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We sing some songs and we help them to relax. When you say we put the kids to bed, that's what it means. But you have to be very careful because if you change the word bed for sleep, if you put someone to sleep, it's very different. Usually this is a pet. So if we say I had to put my dog to sleep last week, it means you had to euthanize, which is a nice way to say, kill your dog. Maybe that means he was really old. He was suffering. It's a really tough thing to do, but it's often necessary. So make sure that you do not say I had to put my kids to sleep.
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Instead, I had to put my kids to bed. Much better. Of course, if you say your kids, people are probably going to understand that you mean you helped them sleep, but just to make certain that you're using the best expression, you can say I put my kids to bed every night at 7:00. I put my kids to bed. Beautiful.
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The final thing that I say to my kids before they go to bed is sleep tight.
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What? Tight? This is a fun expression that's actually shortened from another full expression.
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It is goodnight, sleep tight. Don't let the bed bugs bite. Of course, we hope you don't have bugs in your bed. This is a very old expression. Sometimes we say that full expression, goodnight, sleep tight. Sometimes we say, goodnight, sleep tight. Don't let the bed bugs bite.
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But oftentimes we just shorten that to goodnight, sleep tight, or just sleep tight. And it just means I hope you sleep well. So if you hear people say this in English movies or TV shows, or if you want to say this yourself, it's great. A very natural thing to say at the end of the night.
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After the kids are in bed, Dan, my husband and I have some precious downtime.
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Sometimes we get caught up on chores. Maybe get caught up on a book that we're reading.
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Sometimes just chat about our day and decompress.
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This is a great expression, downtime. It means you have nothing else to do except decompress and relax. It's essential to have downtime, especially before you go to bed.
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If you are looking at Instagram while you're in your bed, oh no, no, no. Stop that right away.
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It's very bad for your sleep. You need to have some downtime. Give yourself a one hour pause before you go to bed to try to slow your mind down. Having some downtime with someone you or just by yourself. Relaxing is essential. When the day's over, it's finally time to hit the hay. If I've had a really busy day, I might just sleep like a log. But if I'm feeling a bit stressed or there's a lot going on in my mind, I might toss and turn a bit before finally falling asleep.
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And fingers crossed that my children sleep all night, so I don't have to wake up in the middle of the night to help them. And that's my day. Let's talk about some of those expressions I just used to hit. To hit the hay does not mean that I'm a farmer and I have a last minute chore at the end of the day, I need to hit the hay.
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No, instead it just means sleep. I need to hit the hay. My hay needs to go on the pillow. Ugh. I need to hit the hay. And I also said that I might sleep like a log.
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Does a log move? Does a log make any sounds? Nope. It's just a tree that fell over and there it is. Nice and silent and still. It means you slept very soundly, very quietly and peacefully, but to toss and turn on the other hand, toss and turn means that you did not sleep peacefully, or at least you didn't go to bed peacefully. Your body and your mind is too active. You tossed and turned. And what about the last one I used? Fingers crossed. This is just a fun way to say I hope that my kids sleep all night. Fingers crossed that my kids sleep all nights, and me too.
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So I want to know is your day similar to mine. Can you use any of these expressions to talk about your daily life? I'd like to know in the comments. Use one of these expressions to talk about your daily life. And don't forget to download the free PDF worksheet with all of these daily life expressions so that you can think and speak in English. That is the goal, right? That's why we're here. So make sure you download the free PDF. There's a link in the description. You can click and download the PDF today and never forget all of these wonderful phrases. Well, thank you so much for learning English with me. I will see you again next Friday for a new lesson here on my YouTube channel. Bye. The next step is to download the free PDF worksheet for this lesson. With this free PDF, you will master today's lesson and never forget what you have learned. You can be a confident English speaker. Don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel for a free English lesson every Friday. Bye.
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Context & Background
In her engaging YouTube video, Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com dives into the day-to-day expressions that make up our daily lives. She emphasizes the importance of thinking and speaking in English about our everyday experiences. By using relatable scenarios from her morning routine, Vanessa introduces learners to practical phrases and expressions that they can incorporate into their own conversations. This approach not only enhances vocabulary but also boosts confidence in speaking English.
Top 5 Phrases for Daily Communication
- First thing in the morning - This phrase sets the tone for the day and can be used to detail what you do right after waking up.
- Drop off - Use this phrasal verb to describe leaving someone at a location, like dropping off your child at school.
- Catch up - This phrase can be employed in various contexts, such as catching up on emails, chores, or personal conversations with friends.
- Open up - A great expression for encouraging someone to share their thoughts or feelings more freely during conversations.
- Hit the hay - A colloquial way to say it’s time for bed, perfect for casual discussions about sleep routines.
Step-by-step Shadowing Guide
To effectively improve your English through Vanessa’s video, follow this step-by-step shadowspeak guide:
- Watch the Video: Start by watching the video once without any distractions. Pay attention to Vanessa’s pronunciation and intonation.
- Listen Carefully: Replay parts of the video, focusing on the context in which the phrases are used. Take note of how the phrases fit into daily conversations.
- Practice with Shadowing: Use the shadowing technique by repeating Vanessa's phrases immediately after she says them. This will improve your fluency and pronunciation.
- Utilize a Shadowing App: Consider using a shadowspeaks app to practice these phrases interactively. Such tools often provide enhanced audio settings and repeat options to better fit your learning pace.
- Incorporate the Phrases: Try to use these new expressions in your daily life. Engage with friends or fellow learners in English conversations, consciously using the phrases you've learned.
By consistently practicing with these phrases and using the shadowspeak method, you'll notice significant improvements in your English speaking practice over time. Embrace the process, and don’t hesitate to make it part of your routine for effective learning!
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.
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