Shadowing Practice: unavoidable college experiences - Learn English Speaking with Video

Let me give you a breakdown of the average college lecture.

First off, you're gonna have a professor with a super thick accent, but you just gotta power through it because you're paying $20 ,000 a semester.

Eventually, you get tired of listening, so you look around the lecture hall at the other students, and like 90 % of people are not paying attention.

At least six or seven guys in there are gonna be playing poker on their laptop, and a bunch of girls are gonna be online shopping, getting ready for spring break in October.

Then there's gonna be two or three tryhards in that class trying to outdo each other answering every single question, and you think they're annoying, but also you're grateful that they're there because if they weren't,

the class would be dead silent every time the professor asked a question.

Eventually, you realize that you've zoned out looking at other students for the past 20 minutes

and you've missed 50 slides of notes, and now you're basically screwed for the upcoming test.

So you decide to cut your losses short, leave the class early, and meet up with your friends at the dining hall to eat the most abysmal food ever conceived by man.

to eat yapping about nonsense, you notice a girl who's in a couple of your classes and you make eye contact with her.

Now the weird thing is both of you find each other attractive

but neither of you have the courage to talk to the other person

so for the entire semester you're just going to be awkwardly

making eye contact whenever you see each other in class or around campus.

Now at least once a week you're going to be up at night thinking about this girl telling yourself

that tomorrow's the day that you go and talk to her but you don't.

You guys proceed to have this weird eye contact entire semester and then one of two things happens.

One, you don't have the balls to talk to her and she doesn't have the balls either.

And then you never see her again after that class and you're stuck wondering what if.

Or two, you ask her out on the last day of class and she says, what took you so long?

And then you proceed to have a couple sloppy hookups before forgetting each other exist.

Or maybe something wholesome like you fall in love and get married, but probably not.

This is college phenomenon that only really happens in college.

Have you ever drunkenly made out with someone at a party and then whenever you see each other on campus, you both pretend like you don't know each other and like the other person doesn't exist?

I don't even know you and I don't think either of us really want to get to know the other person, but we've done this very affectionate thing.

I was at a frat party a couple weeks ago and a girl tapped me on the shoulder and said,

So I was like, yes, and then she was like, do you want to make out with her?

And I was like, yes.

So then we did.

We made out for like 15 minutes, then went our separate ways, and now I can't stop running into her on campus.

We just kind of awkwardly side -eye each other and then look away, and I think we're gonna keep doing that until graduation.

But I mean, you really haven't cringed until you've been in a class with a girl

that you haven't seen since high school, and now you gotta pretend like you don't know this person, but we don't need to get into that.

I don't know about your college, but at UT Dallas, there's a lot of strange characters.

About a week ago, I ran into a friend that I hadn't seen since high school in our business school, and we got to talking about what we've been up to since then.

It was a good conversation, a great way to pass the time, but then I hear my friends say,

"Oh no." I turn around and there's a guy on all fours crawling towards us, Barking.

Yeah, like a dog.

Everyone in the vicinity turns and looks at us, and I'm confused on who this is.

Eventually this guy crawls towards us, gets up, steals my friend's phone off of his desk and then runs away.

My friend didn't seem that bothered.

I was like, bro, he just took your phone.

He told me, don't worry, he'll be back.

Apparently this doggy guy is known for doing this.

Basically, he'll pick a target and then pester them whenever he sees them.

And my friend made the mistake of being nice to this guy one time like three years

but his idea of friendship is crawling towards someone on all fours, barking at them, and then stealing their property.

Eventually, he came back five minutes later, returned to my friend's phone, and started asking, like, really personal, uncomfortable questions.

At first, I thought this guy was special needs or something, so I didn't want to judge him too hard, but the longer I observed him,

the more I realized that he wasn't special needs.

He was just weird as shit.

to avoid that guy and not engage with his conversations

because I do not want to be a target of his barking attacks.

Speaking of barking, I don't even want to talk about this.

There's a non -insignificant population at my university of...

Furries.

Now for the longest time I thought this was an urban legend, I had heard that there were furries at my university, but I had never seen any.

That was until second semester of my freshman year

when I took a night class where at around 10pm as I was leaving my class,

I saw a congregation of figures in the distance standing at the center of campus.

I couldn't really make out what they Standing there were about 50 people wearing full body fursuits.

Yeah, I guess these guys are nocturnal because they definitely came out at night.

Then it dawned on me that my university accepted these furries as well as myself.

Then I got really depressed when I realized that my university accepted the barking guy as well as me.

So technically, we share something in common.

that was a horrifying thought.

Speaking of horrifying thoughts, in college you'll meet people of both genders who stack bodies like John Wick.

And it's like, I'm not one to judge, like do you, but also, bro, there's more to life than being Glenn Quagmire.

I'm not even gonna lie, I did that entire last segment just so I could make the horrifying thought joke,

so hopefully Thank you.

What's that one Chief Keef song?

Love no thotties.

Yeah, that's pretty much how I feel about it.

Nah, but for real, there are a lot of interesting characters on my college campus.

We have a lot of squirrels on our campus because there's a lot of trees, and I'll see people around like feeding the squirrels and like talking to them.

They're basically like snake charmers, but for squirrels, like they'll take a nut out and make the squirrel twirl for a nut.

Twirl for a nut is a crazy

I think another thing that you realize once you get to college is

that there's levels to college and that there's levels to life in general.

Once you get to college, you'll meet someone who's in better shape than you.

You'll meet someone who has better grades than you.

You'll meet someone who has more money than you.

And at that point, you'll realize that you need to level up every aspect of your life.

Whatever they taught you in high school about accept yourself and you're perfect the way you are.

Nah, nah, nah.

Get rid of all of that shit immediately.

It's go time, bro.

put in the work, I mean you have less responsibility and more freedom than you ever will have again in your life.

So use it take the risk, put in the work, and turn yourself into the person that you've always wanted to become.

But most importantly, Don't crawl up to people and start barking.

That's so weird.

I can't believe that guy actually exists.

Hey, hopefully you enjoyed this one.

I really liked recording it.

I'm not gonna lie.

Also, I know I always say it, but please follow me on Instagram.

I'm gonna start posting there by the end of this month.

So let's get those numbers up.

Bye.

100

Bye.

✨ Recommend Video

100 sentences

Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This video has 100 sentences and 1446 words to shadow. The speech runs for 8:06. The speaker talks at a natural 179 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 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

15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
bark noun	/bɑɹk/	The exterior covering of the trunk and branches of a tree or of various other woody plants.
semester noun	/sɪˈmɛstɚ/	Half of a school year (US) or academic year such as autumn or spring semester.
crawl verb	/kɹɔːl/	To move by dragging one's body along or close to a surface, like a worm or insect, or on one's hands and knees, like a human baby.
squirrel noun	/ˈskwɪ.ɹ(ə)l/	Any of the rodents of the family Sciuridae.
steal verb	/stiːl/	To take illegally, or without the owner's permission, something owned by someone else without intending to return it.
pretend verb	/pɹəˈtɛnd/	To speak or behave so as to give a false or simulated appearance.
proceed verb	/pɹəˈsid/	To move, pass, or go forward or onward; to advance; to carry on.
lecture noun	/ˈlɛk.t͡ʃə/	A spoken lesson or exposition, usually delivered to a group.
confused adjective	/kənˈfjuːzd/	unable to think clearly or understand
thick adjective	/θɪk/	Relatively great in extent from one surface to the opposite in its smallest solid dimension.
silent adjective	/ˈsaɪ̯lənt/	Free from sound or noise; absolutely still; perfectly quiet.
legend noun	/ˈlɛd͡ʒ.ənd/	The life story of a saint (such stories are often embellished, but any kind is called a legend).
desk noun	/dɛsk/	A table, frame, or case, in past centuries usually with a sloping top but now usually with a flat top, for the use of writers and readers. It often has a…
aspect noun	/ˈæspɛkt/	Any specific feature, part, or element of something.
bother verb	/ˈbɑðɚ/	To annoy, to disturb, to irritate; to be troublesome to, to make trouble for.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
make out with verb		See make out, with.
come back verb		To return to a place.
get up verb		To move in an upward direction; to ascend or climb.
look around verb		To inspect a building or area.
look away verb		To ignore something; to pretend not to have seen or noticed something; to avoid dealing with something.
make out verb	/meɪk aʊt/	To draw up (a document etc.), to designate (a cheque).
run away verb		To flee by running.
turn around verb		To physically rotate (usually around a vertical axis) for a half turn (180 degrees), a whole turn (360 degrees), or an indefinite amount.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	you've zoned · you've missed · we've done
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	someone who has
Verb + -ing enjoy, keep, stop… + -ing — verbs that are followed by the -ing form	stop running · started asking · start barking
Comparatives -er than / more … than — comparing two things	more money than · more freedom than

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 65 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, gonna, you're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: thick /θɪk/, bother /ˈbɑðɚ/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: friendship /ˈfɹɛn(d)ʃɪp/, graduation /ˌɡɹæd͡ʒuˈeɪʃən/, freshman /ˈfɹɛʃ.mən/, congregation /ˌkɑŋɡɹəˈɡeɪʃən/, affectionate /əˈfɛkʃənət/
Long words — get the stress right: uncomfortable /ʌnˈkʌm.fɚ.tə.bl̩/, phenomenon /fəˈnɒm.ɪ.nən/, technically /ˈtɛk.nɪˌkəl.i/, importantly /ɪmˈpɔɹ.tənt.li/, graduation /ˌɡɹæd͡ʒuˈeɪʃən/

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 bark, semester, crawl.

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.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

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