Shadowing Practice: Unfortunately, YouTube Really Is This Simple - Learn English Speaking with Video

So YouTube is actually very simple when you realise it is just a mirror.

So let me show you how this way of thinking enabled me to generate millions of views.

And the best way to do this is to start with an example.

So I want you to imagine that you have a YouTube channel that is teaching people how to write a book.

Now you would think all you need to do, right, is go and make videos that teach people how to write a book.

But that is the exact reason your channel won't grow.

So let me go a little bit deeper now and I'll show you how this works.

So we're going to imagine that there's three types of viewers

that make up the audience of people who might want to write a book.

Type 1, they are age 60.

Excuse my awesome art.

And they have just retired.

They have had an amazing life, they've learned lots of things, and now they have all the time in the world.

And what they want to do is write a book about their life, otherwise known as a memoir. so the content

that they want to see reflected back at them is about memoirs not writing a book

but it doesn't just stop there we also want to drill

down a little bit deeper on what this type of viewer might want

so they have retired

that now means they have eight hours a day suddenly free as a result

that means they want to watch a lot of content

so you need to post three times a week because

that type of person is going to devour every single thing you want simply because they have the time.

They also will sit and listen because they have the time.

They're patient and they really want to do this.

So you don't need much editing.

You can keep things very simple.

You can make long videos that go on little tangents and maybe they don't even mind because, hey, they're in no rush, right?

Now, this is where it gets interesting because the second type of viewer,

Well, these guys are completely different and they want different things reflected back at them because they are 20.

So the things that they want reflected back at them, the things that they'll click on, the things that they'll watch, are not about writing memoirs.

These people want to know how to make their first dollar writing a book.

They also want to know about writing tips.

they have a part-time job they're at uni

so they have very little time

so the content they want to see reflected back at them needs to talk about these things instead, meaning you would make videos for this audience that look like this.

Now, there is another type of viewer.

These people, once again, want to write a book, but they want to see different things reflected back at them.

So they're 40.

They got kids.

They got a full-time job.

They have no time

whatsoever and they want to quit their job one day to become a full-time author

so every single thing you need to do needs to reflect back these things

so for example you would make a video about how to quit your job

and become a full-time author you would make videos about how to finish a book

when you have no time

and you wouldn't post tons of content you'd post one high quality video a week

that was optimized for someone who has no time.

Meaning you wouldn't go and ramble forever.

You'd treat every second very carefully.

Now you might be thinking to yourself, I don't want to do that.

I want to target everyone.

But let me show you exactly why that will stop your channel from growing.

Well, let me show you the problem with that.

So we have our three viewer types.

So we know we have a 60 year old, we have a 20 year old and we have a 40 year old.

And let's just say we make a video this is the intro this is the end

and somewhere around here you decide to give an example of how to write a book

and you make it about harry potter the six year old

who just wants to write a memoir even though they could

learn something from this is going to start to think i just want more specific examples

that are relevant to writing a memoir because

that is the thing they're interested in

that they want your content to reflect back at them

so they're gonna switch off now the 20 year old might turn around and go harry potter that's boomer nonsense

i'm too young and cool and hip for

that they might get switched off whereas the four year old might go i don't know i love harry potter

so these people become more engaged these aren't as engaged

and these people switch off meaning what you end up doing is putting off two thirds of your audience

because you try to appeal to everyone the thing is

if you try to appeal to all three of these at

once all of your examples become really watered down you don't really hook people

and as a your viewers won't gravitate towards you as much.

Whereas let's imagine a completely different scenario here where you have picked the 60 year old to write a video for, and this is specifically about writing a memoir,

the thing they want reflected back at them, and around here you decide to give an example of someone who wrote a killer memoir

and you go back 50 years to someone

that these guys looked up to when they were kids and you tell their story.

Suddenly the 60 year olds engagement raises, they are more hooked they start to feel nostalgia they start to think this creator gets me

and uses fantastic examples you might then go on to talk about one of your clients who just retired

and wrote a killer book

and your six-year-old client's going to be sitting there going this

is exactly what i want this person gets me results the thing is

if it's as simple as

that why do businesses continually struggle to be able to grow on youtube well the reason

that they do struggle is

because they never actually spend the time to ask well who is my viewer

and what are the things they want

so let me show you how you do this and

if i was to work with someone one-on-one this is the

thing i would probably spend all of my time obsessing over

so the first thing we need to do is is just start from something basic

and ask how old is our viewer

because age can change many things what's their location

because location can change many things what is their goal what are they looking to achieve

and then what are their problems what are the things

that stop them hitting that goal

when you know their age you know what kind of examples

to use in content you can also work out what style

of content to make older people generally like slower stuff the younger guys like more edited stuff

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when you know their location you can talk about things more specific to location

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so i'm english we have tons of slang i have to be very careful

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that i don't drop that slang into this content

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because most of my viewers are in the usa

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so i'm constantly thinking wait do people in America actually know what that means.

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Then you establish their goals.

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So we know that people wanted to write a book, but then we needed to work out their problems.

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And as we went deeper on this avatar, we established that, oh, actually the 60 year olds problems are not the same.

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So you start with a rough educated guess.

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And the easiest way to do this is actually to make your viewer you a few years ago.

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And you think about what was the thing I really want to achieve?

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What was stopping me from hitting it?

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And then once you've got this filled out, you use it as a benchmark to make every decision.

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So let's say, for example, with our book channel, we decided we want to pick an avatar who is 40

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and we come up with this title and thumbnail we might look at it

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and say hang on a sec is that really appealing to their goals

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and their problems and i believe the answer is no

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so we would change it to look more like this

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and now we've got packaging for every single decision you make

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from thumbnails titles to the examples you give to the stories

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you tell to the way you reduce your content to the

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time to the amount you post is impacted by this

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but how do you continue to develop

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that how do you learn more well this is where data comes into play

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so every time you post a video I tell my clients

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this it's not your goal to get views it's a goal to learn one lesson

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so we can carry that lesson into the next video

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so how do you learn a lesson well I'll give you

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a couple of examples the first way is by looking at views

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if you post a video and the views are down you look at the thumbnail

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and title and ask does it appeal to the people on this list?

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Did I actually hit one of their pain points or one of their goals?

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And often the answer is no. The other way is the retention graph.

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So when your retention loads, go and look at your graph and it will look something like this.

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You'll have a big drop and then you might have something like this, right?

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Now that is telling you something.

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That is telling you did something in this part of your video

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that the viewers who clicked on it didn't like so you go

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and watch that part of the video and you ask why

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and when you establish why you then carry that lesson over

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so what we might have done let's say this is our

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40 year old this part of the video might have been

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a recap where we basically just re-explained what was here and

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because these guys are in a rush they all skipped forward to this point and went yeah get it move on

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it could have just been that we went too deep it could have just been

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that we went on a tangent so you watch it back

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and then you learn the lesson

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and over time just by doing this you basically build up a big mental list

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or one that's written down on paper

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that tells you exactly what your viewers want and what they don't want

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so that's why youtube's actually very simple

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because all you have to do is work out who your viewer is

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and what they want and then reflect that back in the content you make over and over again.

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The thing is, if you are a business, there is another level of depth here because we don't want viewers, right?

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We'd want buyers.

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So watch this video next.

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I'm going to show you exactly how to build a channel that turns viewers into buyers.

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About This Lesson

You're practicing English with "Unfortunately, YouTube Really Is This Simple" using the Shadowing technique — a method originally developed for professional interpreter training.

Focus on sounding like the speaker — not just repeating words. With 15–30 minutes of daily practice, you'll build real-world speaking confidence.

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	have just retired · they've learned · have retired
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	people who might · someone who has · someone who wrote
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	was optimized · is impacted
Possibility with “might / may” might/may + verb — something that is possible but not certain	might want · might be · might turn

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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