Shadowing Practice: Think In English With Me | Episode 1: Motivation - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Welcome to episode number one of think in English with me, teacher Tiffany.
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In this series, you are going to learn how to think in English, like a native English speaker using five specific sections.
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Are you ready?
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Well, then let's jump right in.
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Our episode is all about motivation.
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Section number one is the gap you can hear.
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You see, we're going to look at three real life situations.
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Each shown two ways, how a learner, an English learner would handle it and how a native,
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a native English speaker would handle it.
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No teaching yet, no breakdown, no analysis.
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I just want you to listen to recognize the difference.
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The gap between the two versions is the whole point.
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Once you hear it clearly, you can't unhear it.
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So we're going to look at three real life situations.
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Here is situation number one at the gym.
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Now an English learner would have a conversation like this.
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How do you stay motivated to come here every day?
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I just try it's hard, but I do it.
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That's good.
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Yeah, you can do it too.
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Now that's a good dialogue.
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That's a good conversation, but it's also a conversation that an English learner would have.
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Now let's listen to a conversation about the same topic that native English speakers would have.
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How do you stay motivated to come here every day?
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I'm honestly struggling lately.
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Honestly, I stopped relying on motivation.
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I just stick to the same time.
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6 a.m.
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No negotiation.
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My bags packed the night before.
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My shoes are by the door.
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My pre-workout is already measured out.
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By the time I'm thinking about it, whether I want to go, I'm already halfway out the door.
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That's smart.
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I keep waiting to feel like it.
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Yeah, that's the trap.
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Feeling like it almost never shows up.
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The system shows up for you.
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Now you can hear the difference between these two conversations.
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Again, the learner conversation and the native English speaker conversation.
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Check out this situation.
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Another example.
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We're talking about now a conversation between two coworkers.
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This is how the conversation starts for a learner.
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Do you think motivation is important?
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Yes.
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Motivation is very important.
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Without it, you can't do anything.
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I agree.
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It's important.
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Yes.
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Now that was a good conversation.
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It was clear.
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What are your thoughts on motivation?
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However, it represented a conversation that a learner, an English learner would have.
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Now listen to the difference when you hear a native English speaker have the same conversation with another native English speaker.
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Do you think motivation or discipline matters more for getting things done?
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Response.
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Discipline.
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It's not even close.
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Honestly, motivation comes and goes.
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It's a feeling and feelings are unreliable, especially when you're tired or stressed or just having a bad day.
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Discipline doesn't care how you feel.
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It just does the work.
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Interesting take.
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So you're saying motivation is overrated, not overrated.
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It's just a starting point.
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It gets you in the door.
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Discipline keeps you in the room.
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Notice the difference.
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Both dialogues, both conversations, each individual said grammatically correct statements.
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However, you noticed the difference.
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What about this situation?
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Two friends are speaking.
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This is what an English learner would say in a conversation.
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Have you ever lost motivation?
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Yes, many times.
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It's normal.
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What did you do?
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I continued.
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It's important to continue.
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You said your thought, you stated your point, and it was grammatically correct.
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Now listen to the difference.
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Again, we're recognizing this gap, the gap you hear.
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A native speaker.
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Have you ever totally lost motivation in the middle of something big?
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Oh, big time.
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When I was writing my thesis, I hit a wall around month four.
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I couldn't even open the document.
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I'd sit at my desk, stare at the screen and find any excuse to not work.
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Clean my apartment, reorganize my bookshelf, you name it.
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I was convinced I'd picked the wrong topic.
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Eventually, my advisor told me to just write the worst possible version.
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Junk, garbage, anything.
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Once I gave myself permission to write badly, I finished the draft in three weeks.
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Wow.
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So the perfectionism was the real problem.
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Exactly.
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The motivation wasn't gone.
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It was just buried under all the pressure I was putting on myself.
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You see the gap between an English learner and a native English speaker.
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This is section one again, teaching you how to think in English with me.
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Now let's move to section number two.
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You recognize the gap.
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Now it's time to look at the word you don't have yet.
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You see inside each native speaker dialogue is a word
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or phrase that an English learner wouldn't think too wouldn't think to use,
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not because it's complicated, but because nobody ever taught it as active vocabulary.
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We'll put, we pull one term out of each dialogue.
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That's what we're going to do.
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We're going to pull one term out of each dialogue, three terms total for this section,
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real words, the kind that shift how you sound the moment they enter your speech.
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So we're going to go back to the situations now, section two, and pick out a word from each dialogue.
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So situation number one, again, looking at situation number one, still talking about motivation in the conversation.
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No negotiation was said.
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This is how it was said.
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This is where it lives in the dialogue.
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I just stick to the same time, 6 AM, no negotiation.
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Now this is from the native English speakers dialogue, this expression, no negotiation.
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So what does it mean in real use?
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A non-negotiable commitment, a line you've already drawn that the daily version of you doesn't get to argue with no negotiation.
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Now why would you as an English learner not have this?
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You see, an English learner would say, I never miss it, or it's important to me.
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Both of these while grammatically correct are kind of flat.
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However, no negotiation carries the entire mindset in only two words.
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Now let's check the portability of this expression.
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Bedtime is 10 PM.
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No negotiation.
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Sundays are family days, no negotiation.
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I don't take meetings before nine, no negotiation.
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And I'll give you another example and this is a real one for me as your English teacher.
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I don't work on Saturdays, no negotiation.
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I don't help people, I don't work on anything on Sabbath, on Saturday.
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I'm a Sabbath keeper, no negotiation.
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So you see how you can use it in real life.
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Again, we're picking out one word or one expression from section one, the conversation.
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Here is situation number two situation.
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Number two.
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Now we had a very unique expression.
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We had the expression comes and goes.
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This is how it was used where it lived in the dialogue.
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Motivation comes and goes.
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It's a feeling.
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Motivation comes and goes.
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It's a feeling.
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Now let's go just a bit deeper.
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So let's see the poor, what, what it means in real use.
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You see comes and goes is something that arrives and leaves on its own unreliably.
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And it's outside of your control.
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Now, why would you not have this initially?
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You see, an English learner would say motivation is not always there.
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Or sometimes I have it.
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Sometimes I don't.
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But these two ways of saying this or expressing this thought,
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they're clunky and long, but comes and goes handles it in three words and sounds native.
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So let's do a portability check how you can use this in real life.
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The pain comes and goes.
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My focus comes and goes throughout the day.
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Friends come and go.
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Family stays.
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You see now this expression comes and goes from section one from the native English speaker dialogue.
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We pulled it out from situation number two.
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Now check out situation number three.
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Again, we're looking at this example and in our dialogue, it was said, hit a wall.
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This is how it was said.
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I hit a wall around month four.
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I hit a wall around month four we've pulled this out of the dialogue.
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Now I hit a wall.
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What does it mean?
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It's a sudden total inability to continue forward, usually emotional, mental, or energetic,
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not a slow, slow down an actual wall.
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So why wouldn't you already have this?
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You see an English learner would say, I became very tired or I couldn't continue.
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These are accurate statements, but they're lifeless.
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On the other hand, hit a wall carries the suddenness and the helplessness in three words.
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So how can you use it in real life?
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I hit a wall around mile 20.
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We hit a wall in the negotiation.
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I hit a wall halfway through the book.
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You see now how it is used in real life.
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This is why it is so powerful.
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Now we move on to section number three, how they build their sentences.
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So this is where we're going to dive deeper into understanding how native speakers build their sentences.
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The same three dialogues, but now we look underneath native speakers.
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Don't just use better words.
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They, we build our answers on hidden patterns, three patterns to recognize answering with the details,
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defending an opinion with reasons and walking someone through a personal experience.
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You see, once you start to see these patterns, you'll start hearing them everywhere.
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So let's jump into again, our first situation to see how this will play out.
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So our first situation, this is what a learner would say.
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The learner would say, I just try, but there are zero details.
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The viewer learns nothing about how we're just hearing you say, I try when I'm trying to be motivated.
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However, when we dive deeper into a native speakers response and the details,
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native speakers stack specific concrete details.
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Here's what it looks like.
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Watch closely the time 6.
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AM the bag packed the night before the shoes by the door and the pre-workout already measured out.
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Remember these were details that were included in the first dialogue.
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The first situation you see, here's the pattern that you want to notice.
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Native speakers answer how questions with things you can see, not abstractions, not, I just stay consistent,
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specific objects, specific times and specific actions.
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Now let's look at the second situation, our second situation.
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And again, remember how the English learner would have responded, would have answered in this situation.
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So an English learner again would say, yes, motivation is important.
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That's stating a position, but not giving any reasons.
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Then an English learner would just agree with whatever is said next.
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But remember, we are trying to go deeper.
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We want to see how a native speaker would respond and break down that structure, which is actually giving an opinion and adding reasons.
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native speakers state a clear position.
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They stake their position and then defend it.
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What's the position discipline.
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It's not even close.
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Reason number one mentioned motivation comes and goes.
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It's a feeling reason.
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Number two, feelings are unreliable, especially when you're tired or stressed.
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And reason number three, discipline doesn't care how you feel.
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It just does the work.
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You see, here's the pattern to notice native speakers don't soften their opinions into mush.
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They take a clear side, then back it with three reasons stacked one after another.
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The conviction is in the structure, opinion plus reasons.
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So we have the detail structure.
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Then we had the opinion and reasons.
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Now we move to number three.
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Personal experience.
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Now a learner would respond and we read the response of the learner says yes.
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Many times admitting the experience exists, but not entering into it,
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not giving the listener any more information about the personal experience.
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Now with the native, we are walking through the actual scene, thinking about the dialogue, the,
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when, when I was writing my thesis, break down moment month for couldn't open the document, different behaviors, clean my apartment,
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reorganize my bookshelf, the turning point.
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My advisor told me to write the worst possible version and the resolution finished the draft in three weeks.
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Here's the pattern to notice native speakers.
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Don't summarize their experiences.
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They place the listener inside them with a beginning, a worst moment, a turn and a result.
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This is how we build sentences and how you should do the same again, details, opinions, and reasons, personal experiences,
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which leads us to section number four, sound exactly like them.
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We've heard the gap, recognize the difference.
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We've recognized the words that were used by native speakers.
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Now we're going to, after we already kind of broke down the structure.
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Now we're going to sound exactly like them.
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You see, here's where the two layers come together.
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The structure from section three.
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Plus the term from section two working in one response.
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This is what it actually sounds like when a native speaker handles the situation
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and what it could sound like coming out of your mouth.
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So let's break it down.
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The first situation again, now looking at the learner.
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So a learner's response again, for contrast, it was, I just try it's hard, but I do it.
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And we want to have details plus the term, no negotiation.
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Remember we learned that.
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All right.
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So now look at how a native would respond.
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This is the response fully emulated native response.
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I stopped relying on motivation.
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I just stick to the same time.
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6. 6am, no negotiation.
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My bag's packed the night before.
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My shoes are by the door.
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My pre-workout is already measured out.
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What do you notice?
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The structure, specific details plus the term which is no negotiation.
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Together create the native sound.
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Neither one alone is enough.
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Details without the term sounds organized but learner flavored.
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The term without details sounds like a quote with nothing behind it.
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Again, details plus our new term, no negotiation.
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Look at this second example.
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Again, the second situation that we had for our lesson today, reminding you the learner response.
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Yes.
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Motivation is very important.
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Without it, you can't do anything.
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Now we're going to listen to the native response.
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Again, opinion, reason, and the term or expression comes and goes.
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Listen closely.
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Again, we heard this in our dialogue, fully emulated native response.
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Discipline.
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It's not even close.
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Motivation comes and goes.
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It's a feeling and feelings are unreliable, especially when you're tired or stressed.
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Discipline doesn't care how you feel.
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It just does the work.
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So what are we noticing?
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The opinion.
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Discipline is greater or more important than motivation.
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This opinion is held up by three reasons and the term comes and goes is what gives the reason number one.
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It's bite without it.
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The sentence would be motivation is not always there.
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Same idea, but it sounds like a response that a learner would give not a native speaker.
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Here's the third situation.
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Remember, we're looking first at how an English learner would respond.
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Yes, many times it's normal.
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But when we look at the native response, here's what it would be.
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Again, personal experience plus our term hit the wall.
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Big time.
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When I was writing my thesis, I hit a wall around month four.
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I couldn't even open the document.
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I'd sit at my desk, stare at the screen and find any excuse not to work.
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Eventually my advisor told me to just write the worst possible version.
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Once I gave myself permission to write badly, I finished the draft in three weeks.
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So personal experience plus our expression hit the wall.
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But what are we noticing?
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We're noticing the experience structure, when, breakdown, behaviors, turning point result.
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This carries the story and our expression hit the wall is the term that locates the breakdown moment with native precision.
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This is why it's so important.
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Again, section four sounding exactly like them.
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You're using the structure we got from the dialogue and then we're adding the word, the expression we learned in section number two.
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This leads us to section number five, your turn to think in English.
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Now, fresh questions, not dialogues, the kind of discussion questions you could be asked in a real conversation tomorrow.
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Each one comes with the flat learner response, how a regular English learner will respond.
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Not you, because you've learned now.
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And it also will show you three native responses, one built on each pattern.
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Remember the details or opinions and reasons or personal experience.
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The point isn't just to memorize any of them.
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The point is to notice that what changes
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when you stop answering like a learner and start thinking like a native speaker will help you improve your English fluency.
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So here's our first situation.
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Our first situation.
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Here's the question.
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What helps you stay motivated when you don't feel like doing something?
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All right.
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This is our question.
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So our learner response, I just try it's hard, but I keep going.
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Now, this is the question.
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Here is the first response from a native speaker using the details structure.
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I set the smallest possible goal instead of work out.
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It's put on my shoes instead of write the report.
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It's open the document.
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Once I'm there, the rest usually follows.
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This is a response based on details.
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Now let's look at a response to this question using the structure opinions plus reasons.
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Honestly, motivation isn't the answer.
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The answer is removing decisions.
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The fewer choices you give yourself in the moment, the more likely you are to actually do the thing.
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That's why people set out their clothes the night before.
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And finally, personal experience.
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Same question, but different structure for our answer.
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Personal experience would be this.
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There was a stretch last winter when I couldn't get myself to work out.
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What finally worked was telling a friend I'd meet her at 6. AM.
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I couldn't bail on her.
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So I showed up three weeks later.
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It was a habit.
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So you see again, this question, what helps you stay motivated when you don't feel like doing something?
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We have the comparison of our learner response to the native English response.
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What about this question?
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Question number two, do you think motivation matters or is it overrated?
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A learner would say this, yes, I think motivation is important.
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That's not a bad response, but we want to see how a native speaker would respond.
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Again, we're thinking in English using these five sections.
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Here's how a native speaker would respond using the detail structure.
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It matters at the start.
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The first day of a new job, the first run, the first chapter of a book, that's where motivation lights the fire.
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But after week two, it's gone and you need something else, giving details.
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Now we have the second structure, opinions plus reasons.
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It's overrated.
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Everyone treats motivation like the answer, but it's the most unreliable feeling there is.
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It shows up when conditions are perfect and disappears the second things get hard.
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That's exactly when you need it most.
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which means motivation fails you at the worst possible moment.
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And finally, our third structure, personal experience.
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I used to think it mattered.
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Then I watched a coworker finish a marathon while clearly hating every step of the training.
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She wasn't motivated.
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She was committed.
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That's when I realized I'd been chasing the wrong thing for years.
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So you see the difference, right?
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We have three different structures to answer this question.
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An English learner without the structures would simply say, yes, I think motivation is important, but now you have the right structures.
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What about this question?
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Question number three, tell me about a time you almost gave up on something important.
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Now a learner would say, yes, one time I almost gave up, but I continued no details, no opinion, no experience.
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Now a native response, starting with details to the question.
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And again, the question being, tell me about a time you almost gave up on something important with a detailed structure.
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I was three months into learning Spanish.
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I've been using an app every day, 20 minutes minimum.
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And one night I just sat there staring at the screen.
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Nothing was sticking.
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The streaks meant nothing.
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I closed the app and didn't open it for two weeks.
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Next, we have opinion plus reasons.
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I almost quit my master's program in year two.
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I told myself it wasn't worth the debt and the stress, but I realized I was running from the work, not from the program.
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Once I named that, I couldn't justify quitting because the next thing would have the same problem.
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I'd experience the same thing.
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And finally, personal experience.
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Last year, I almost walked away from a project I'd worked on for eight months.
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I called my mom in tears, told her I was done.
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She didn't argue.
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She just said, sleep on it.
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You can quit tomorrow.
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I woke up the next day and kept going.
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That call saved the whole thing.
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You see, in this section, you are thinking in English.
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You are putting into practice what you learned during the previous four sections.
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I hope you enjoyed this lesson and I'll talk to you in the next one.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Think In English With Me”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: native, learner, English, motivation, speaker. This video has 395 sentences and 3551 words to shadow. The speech runs for 25:52. The speaker talks at a steady 137 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. 85% 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 |
|---|---|---|
| learner noun | /ˈlɜɹnəɹ/ | One who is learning; one receiving instruction. |
| negotiation noun | /nɪˌɡəʊ.ʃiˈeɪ.ʃən/ | The process of achieving agreement through discussion. |
| motivate verb | /ˈmoʊ.tɪ.veɪt/ | To provide someone with an incentive to do something; to encourage; to actuate. |
| overrated adjective | /ˌəʊvəˈɹeɪtɪd/ | Given an undue amount of credit for quality or merit in a field; not necessarily related to popularity. |
| unreliable adjective | /ˌʌn.ɹəˈlaɪ.ə.bəl/ | Not reliable. |
| grammatically adverb | In a grammatical manner. | |
| stare verb | /stɛɚ/ | To look fixedly (at something). |
| advisor noun | /ædˈvaɪ.zə(ɹ)/ | One who offers advice. |
| workout noun | /ˈwɝk.aʊ̯t/ | An exercise session; a period of physical exercise. |
| thesis noun | /ˈθisɪs/ | A proposition or statement supported by arguments. |
| breakdown noun | /ˈbɹeɪkˌdaʊn/ | A failure, particularly one which is mechanical in nature. |
| bookshelf noun | /ˈbʊkˌʃɛlf/ | A shelf or shelves for storing books for easy visual reference. |
| emulate verb | /ˈɛm.jʊ.leɪt/ | To copy or imitate, especially a person. |
| portability noun | The ability of a program (or software system) to execute properly on multiple hardware platforms. | |
| reorganize verb | to organize something again, or in a different manner |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| break down verb | To stop functioning. | |
| show up verb | To appear, arrive, or attend, especially suddenly or erratically. | |
| check out verb | To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.). | |
| pick out verb | To remove by picking. | |
| work out verb | /ˌwɝk ˈaʊt/ | To calculate. |
| come together verb | /ˈkʌm tʊˈɡɛðɚ/ | To assemble; to congregate; to combine. |
| give up verb | To surrender (someone or something); to inform on (someone). | |
| go back to verb | To stem from; to originate in. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- Once you hear it clearly, you can't unhear it.
- Do you think motivation is important?
- What are your thoughts on motivation?
- Have you ever lost motivation?
- What helps you stay motivated when you don't feel like doing something?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | is already measured · is overrated · was just buried |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | Have you ever lost · you've already drawn · we've pulled |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | structure, which is · term which is |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 83 contractions and reduced forms, such as we're, don't, couldn't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: thesis /ˈθisɪs/, underneath /ˌʌndɚˈniθ/, marathon /ˈmæɹəθən/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: negotiation /nɪˌɡəʊ.ʃiˈeɪ.ʃən/, bookshelf /ˈbʊkˌʃɛlf/, abstraction /æbˈstɹæk.ʃn̩/, negotiable /nɪˈɡoʊʃəbəl/, perfectionism /pɚˈfɛk.ʃə.nɪ.zm̩/
- Long words — get the stress right: negotiation /nɪˌɡəʊ.ʃiˈeɪ.ʃən/, overrated /ˌəʊvəˈɹeɪtɪd/, unreliable /ˌʌn.ɹəˈlaɪ.ə.bəl/, negotiable /nɪˈɡoʊʃəbəl/, perfectionism /pɚˈfɛk.ʃə.nɪ.zm̩/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like learner, negotiation, motivate.
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.