Shadowing Practice: This Could Be The Most Life-Changing Video You Watch Today - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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Excuse me sir, I'm not selling anything I promise.
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I'm a portrait photographer.
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You're?
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I'm a portrait photographer and I think you have an amazing look.
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But you don't have to say yes to me.
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It's okay, I can show you what I do.
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No, I just checked your energy and your energy was good.
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What's your name sir?
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Xavier.
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Are you from London originally?
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I've always lived here.
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Jamaican heritage but yeah, lived in London most of my life.
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Excellent.
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Are you a happy man?
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Incredibly, yeah.
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You seem it?
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Yeah, because of the way how I view the world.
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The lens that I have is very truthful.
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Most of the time, people that are struggling with their life is because of what they're comparing it to.
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So I'm saying, okay, cool, stop comparing it to that.
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And now let's compare it to yourself.
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You're being a bad copy of somebody else rather than being an authentic version of self.
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How are you with getting your photo taken?
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Are you cool?
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You're cool, yeah?
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I'm all right.
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I'm over myself.
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I'm not lonely, I am alone sometimes.
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I spend a lot of time alone, even though I come from a huge family.
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I've got five older brothers.
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But I spend a lot of time alone.
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And what I do in that time, or what I do in that space, is create, I evolve, I imagine.
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And we used to do this thing when we were children.
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We used to sit down in class, we used to look out the window, and we used to do this thing that they call daydream.
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Most adults never daydream.
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You do it as a kid, you sit down and you just imagine, you imagine, you imagine, and the things that you imagine are brilliant things, are amazing things, and anything is possible.
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And then as adults, you sit down and that time is spent worrying, so you don't dream anymore.
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Your body doesn't know the difference between a thought and an event, your body just responds.
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There's a lot of people that have a lot of people around them and are lonely.
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So they're not alone, but they are lonely.
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When you understand the difference between the two, then you start appreciating, okay, cool.
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The best company that you need to have and keep is your own.
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And then make that a happy place or make that even an interesting place, a place that you can appreciate.
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Your authentic self, some people will hate, some people will love.
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And the ones that love you, they stay, the others, you let them pass.
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So then this loneliness thing then starts to disappear.
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And like, well, I put out this and they put out the wrong image.
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Stop lying.
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You're upset that they didn't believe it, but you didn't believe it.
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Do you have regrets in life?
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Do you believe in regrets?
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People say, by this age, by this stage, should be, should have, should this.
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And I'm like, well, for you maybe, but for me, no. I didn't design my life this way.
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So how I've designed my life, I'm living in perfect time and in perfect synchronicity with it.
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My mum, she's passed now.
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She'd always say, I don't mind dying as long as I live first.
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That's always stuck with me my whole life.
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I need to live.
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I need to do this.
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I need to just experience it.
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It's like, that might be bad.
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It's like, well, cool, I'll learn from that.
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Bad things can happen.
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Sometimes I will be alone.
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Sometimes I will feel depressed and stressed and anxious.
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So when you accept it, it's like, okay, cool, now I'm in it.
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What now?
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So I'm like, well, fine.
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Let's sit in this for a minute, for an hour.
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And I'll set a timer on it.
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And then I'm like, OK, I'm bored now.
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Let's go and do something else.
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And I'd go for a walk.
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I was going to go straight home.
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But I thought I'd go for a little stroll.
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I don't come down to the West End much.
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So when I do, I like coming around and looking at architecture.
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And just I love people watching as well.
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But the more people do that, the better it is.
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Sometimes people's poison, what they believe is poison, is actually their antidote, which is actually getting out,
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being amongst people, and going for walks and going for strolls and everybody's behind their phones.
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And that thing stops you from doing the one thing that we were born to do was touch, communicate, the social media isn't social.
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I just travelled a minute ago and I went to the airport and they go to me, you can go to the automatic machine.
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And I was like, no, thanks, I'd rather speak to a human.
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And the guy looked at me like, literally, his face was like, but I'm always trying to get human connection, contact.
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It's just key.
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We're desperate for it, but we're also a little bit scared of it.
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I'm speaking for myself.
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I'm desperate for it, but I'm also a little bit scared of it. Because?
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We're going up doing this, like going up to somebody.
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I'm always preparing for the worst.
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The person's going to be dismissive, be rude, and I'm going to feel rejected, but that hardly ever happens, actually.
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Your reference point is nine times out of ten?
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Yes.
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I'm good.
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You still focus on the one.
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Yeah.
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Why?
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You're always scanning for danger. For?
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Danger.
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The interesting thing is when you start thinking of the worst thing, the worst thing appears in your psyche, in your energy.
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So then think of the opposite.
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The minute you start challenging that narrative, then the narrative starts to disappear.
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Living is a choice.
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Dying is an inevitability.
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You don't have a say in it.
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Now, do you want to live?
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Perfect.
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Thank you so much.
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It's been a pleasure.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “This Could Be The Most Life-Changing Video You Watch Today”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: cool, imagine, alone, sit. This video has 110 sentences and 1003 words to shadow. The speech runs for 4:58. The speaker talks fast, about 202 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 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 |
|---|---|---|
| daydream verb | /ˈdeɪdɹiːm/ | To have such a series of thoughts; to woolgather. |
| stroll verb | /stɹoʊl/ | To wander on foot; to ramble idly or leisurely; to rove. |
| authentic adjective | /ɔˈθɛn.tɪk/ | Of the same origin as claimed; genuine. |
| scare verb | /skɛɚ/ | To frighten, terrify, startle, especially in a minor way. |
| poison noun | /ˈpɔɪ.zən/ | A substance that is harmful or lethal to a living organism when ingested. |
| disappear verb | /dɪsəˈpɪɹ/ | To vanish. |
| antidote noun | /ˈæn.tɪ.doʊt/ | A remedy to counteract the effects of poison. |
| dismissive adjective | /dəsˈmɪsɪv/ | Showing disregard, indicating rejection, serving to dismiss. |
| inevitability noun | /ɪˌnɛvɪtəˈbɪlɪti/ | The condition of being inevitable. |
| synchronicity noun | The state of being synchronous or simultaneous. | |
| truthful adjective | /ˈtɹuːθ.f(ə)l/ | Honest, and always telling the truth. |
| loneliness noun | /ˈloʊnlinəs/ | A feeling of depression resulting from being alone or from having no companions. |
| timer noun | /ˈtaɪmɚ/ | A device used to measure amounts of time. |
| evolve verb | /ɪˈvɑlv/ | To move (something) in regular procession through a system. |
| bore verb | /boɹ/ | To inspire boredom in somebody. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| put out verb | To blind (eyes). | |
| sit down verb | To assume a sitting position from a standing position. | |
| come around verb | /kʌ.məˈɹaʊnd/ | To change one's mind, especially to begin to agree or appreciate what one was reluctant to accept at first. |
| come down to verb | To reach by moving down or reducing. | |
| get out verb | To leave or escape. | |
| go up verb | To move upwards. | |
| look out verb | To be vigilant and aware often as an imperative to alert a person to danger. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- What's your name sir?
- Are you a happy man?
- How are you with getting your photo taken?
- Do you have regrets in life?
- Do you believe in regrets?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| “Used to” used to + verb — a past habit or state that is no longer true | used to do · used to sit |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | I've always lived · I've designed · It's been |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | is spent · were born |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 49 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, don't, you're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: authentic /ɔˈθɛn.tɪk/, truthful /ˈtɹuːθ.f(ə)l/
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 daydream, stroll, authentic.
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.