Shadowing Practice: TRACK 39 - Learn English Speaking with Video
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24 sentences
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Track 39 I'm going to talk about an Italian dish, a risotto.
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It's a rice dish and most people in my country enjoy it.
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Unlike in most countries, we fry the rice with onion in olive oil before we add any liquid.
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We don't cook it in water,
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but a kind of soup or broth which can be made of meat, fish or chicken.
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I'm from Milan and our traditional risotto is made using saffron which gives the dish a beautiful yellow colour.
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It's a very creamy and delicious dish.
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We usually have it as a starter, not as the main meal.
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Firstly, I think that it's popular in my country because, and not a lot of people know this,
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but Italy is one of the biggest producers of rice in Europe.
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It's very simple to cook and, as I said before, you can use all types of ingredients.
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Anything that you can find in the fridge.
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Also Italians don't like to waste food so if you have some fish
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or some meat and it isn't enough for a meal you can always make risotto.
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I love it first of all because it always reminds me of home.
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My mother is very fond of cooking risotto and
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if I was unhappy she used to make it for me and it always cheered me up.
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I don't live at home now and so when I'm feeling homesick
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and missing my family I always try to find an Italian restaurant and have some risotto.
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And secondly I like it because it's a great meal to make for friends.
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Easy to prepare but very tasty.
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You can get risotto everywhere nowadays, but it isn't always that good.
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If you visit my country, especially the northern part, I recommend that you try to taste risotto there.
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It really is special and I promise that you will find it different to any risotto that you have tasted before.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
The speaker keeps coming back to these words: risotto, dish, meal, rice, Italian. This video has 24 sentences and 322 words to shadow. The speech runs for 2:23. The speaker talks at a steady 135 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. Only 80% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| dish noun | /dɪʃ/ | A vessel such as a plate for holding or serving food, often flat with a depressed region in the middle. |
| meal noun | /ˈmiːl/ | Food that is prepared and eaten, usually at a specific time, and usually in a comparatively large quantity. |
| producer noun | /pɹəˈdjuːsə/ | An individual or organization that creates goods and services. |
| liquid noun | /ˈlɪk.wɪd/ | A substance that is flowing, and keeping no shape, such as water; a substance of which the molecules, while not tending to separate from one another like those… |
| remind verb | /ɹəˈmaɪnd/ | To cause one to experience a memory (of someone or something); to bring to the notice or consideration (of a person). |
| delicious adjective | /dɪˈlɪ.ʃəs/ | Pleasing to the sense of taste; tasty. |
| soup noun | /sup/ | Any of various dishes commonly made by combining liquids, such as water or stock, with other ingredients, such as meat and vegetables, that contribute the food… |
| nowadays adverb | /ˈnaʊ.ə.deɪz/ | At the present time; in the current era. |
| olive noun | /ˈɑ.lɪv/ | A tree of species Olea europaea cultivated since ancient times in the Mediterranean for its fruit and the oil obtained from it. |
| cheer verb | /t͡ʃɪɹ/ | To gladden; to make cheerful; often with up. |
| unhappy adjective | /ʌnˈhæpi/ | Not happy; sad. |
| starter noun | /ˈstɑɹ.tɚ/ | Someone who starts, or who starts something. |
| fond adjective | /fɑnd/ | Having a liking or affection (for). |
| onion noun | /ˈʌn.jən/ | A monocotyledonous plant (Allium cepa), allied to garlic, used as vegetable and spice. |
| secondly adverb | /ˈsɛk.(ə)ndli/ | In the second place. |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 8 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, I'm, isn't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: dish /dɪʃ/, delicious /dɪˈlɪ.ʃəs/
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 dish, meal, producer.
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.