Shadowing Practice: Walk & Talk in the English Countryside | Comprehensible Input - Learn English Speaking with Video

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I've just left home, grabbed my airpods and I'm off for a relaxing walk around my town.

So relax, watch and listen while I describe what I can see and what I do,

providing you with English listening practice through comprehensible input.

First of all, I'm walking down this really steep hill.

As you can see, it's very steep.

The inclination is very high.

Luckily I'm walking downhill and not uphill because walking up this steep hill would be exhausting.

On this corner you can see that this house is being renovated and this what you can see here is scaffolding.

Now let's turn to the right and go along this public footpath.

This is what the footpath looks like and it's a nice rural way of disconnecting from work.

Because working from home, working remotely, teaching all of my classes inside my own house means that I really need to get out of the house.

So staying at my parents house is lovely Because look,

we live in the countryside surrounded by lots of hills, trees and fields.

You can tell that summer is coming to an end

because we have lots of leaves that have fallen to the ground

and many of them are brown which means autumn is coming then winter is coming.

If there are any Game of Thrones fans let me know in the comments.

In front of me you can see there are some blackberries growing

and I'm gonna pick this one because it looks ripe and well let's try it let's see what it tastes like.

Quite sweet, quite tasty, yeah thumbs up.

But careful not all of them are ripe.

The red ones are a bit unripe so they wouldn't be very juicy and they wouldn't be very tasty either.

But look, there's so many of them.

You see, I could make a lovely blackberry pie.

And watch out, look out, because there's another thing you need to be careful of.

This part here, it is barbed wire.

The purpose of barbed wire is to prevent people or animals getting on to private property.

Do you have any idea what this green stuff is called?

Well, this is called moss.

Oh hey, now I'm gonna open the gate and close it.

Down here there are plenty of logs of wood to start a fire

but as you can see from these fields a lot of the grass is very dry.

It is parched and that's because of the heat wave and the drought that we've had in England this summer.

So a lot of farmers are praying that it's going to rain soon.

Fingers crossed!

Here we have another plant that people need to be careful with.

They are nettles.

And if you touch nettles, well the nettles sting you and and then, ah, it really hurts.

But wherever you have nettles, there are always dock leaves.

And they are the natural antidote to nettle stings.

So if you ever get stung by nettles, look for a dock leaf and rub it on the sting, and it will alleviate the pain.

It will relieve a little bit of the pain.

There you have some more dock leaves.

This is almost like Bear Grylls, isn't it?

I'm teaching you how to survive in the British countryside.

This is a dandelion seed head and when I was a child I used to always blow these.

So let's take a trip down memory lane and blow it!

Now I'm walking through a really pretty village, a really pretty town just next to my house,

and I'm gonna walk down to a stream and then onto the canal.

This here is a wheelie bin

and in front me you have a lovely little courtyard in this house the milkman has been to deliver fresh milk

and we have more wheelie bins and even more so many wheelie bins there you can see a trampoline

and there we have a wheelbarrow

and in front of me you have a little plastic goal where kids can train their football skills.

Yorkshire is just so picturesque, isn't it?

It's beautiful here in the countryside, so I am definitely grateful for where I was brought up, where I grew up as a child

because since I've been alive I've always been wandering around these little footpaths

and getting my steps in because I like to take care of myself

and look after myself and I try to make sure

that every single day I do at least 10 kilometers between running and walking.

And today helping myself to lots of blackberries.

Along this wall we have a lot more barbed wire.

So yeah this one looks even more dangerous than the last bit.

I suppose this sign explains why there's so much barbed wire

because it is private land there is no public right of way

but not to worry because i'm going to continue on the public footpath

and i'm going to go downhill again

and in order to continue i'm going to cross this footbridge this bridge

that is only designed for people who are walking underneath the bridge you have a little stream

that is flowing a stream is essentially a very very very small river

and on these paths sometimes i need to jump up and over a little wall

In order to reach all of these beautiful, scenic, rural paths where the water is crystal clear.

It's transparent.

That being said, I still wouldn't drink it because I don't want to get an upset tummy.

Your tummy or your belly is your stomach.

and an upset tummy is when you have pain in your stomach

and you probably need to go to the toilet quite a lot.

The less said about that the better.

Look at how pretty these little blue flowers are.

I believe they're called bluebells.

This is where it seems the stream gets really really muddy.

so that reinforces why you shouldn't drink it.

Then it leads to a private pond.

Let me show you what it looks like.

Behind me you can see the private pond and it seems like the water is quite stagnant.

It's not flowing but if you ask me it's still quite a pretty pond

and if you live in one of these houses it's lovely to look out to.

There's also a bin in case you need to throw away any of your rubbish.

Now I've just come across a group of rowdy kids and can you guess what they told me?

They looked at the t-shirt I was wearing and pointed to the Leeds badge.

One of them said come on Leeds

but another one said oh I don't like Leeds and he said he was a Man United fan So I chuckled,

I laughed a little bit, and I said, ha, good luck mate.

Now this part of the path is a little bit overgrown.

It's difficult to get past because all of these plants and trees have grown too much.

It is overgrown.

You see, I can barely get past.

I can hardly get past.

And as I warned you, You have to be careful of the nettles.

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And you also have to be careful because here there is a little bit of a cliff.

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There is a drop.

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So if you're walking along here, be careful not to slip and fall into the stream.

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It seems like this path is a little bit treacherous.

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A treacherous path is a dangerous path.

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that is full of obstacles but despite

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that despite the challenges I've made it I'm out

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and behind me you can see some lovely green meadows

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and it's a bit of a cloudy day now let's keep going

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and let's make it to the canal to the Leeds Liverpool canal so let's follow

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the public footpath go through the gate over these stones

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and keep going I'm gonna cross another footbridge like the one

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you can see behind me let's go go go go go go go go go

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warning these horses may kick and bite which horses you may ask it sounds a little bit scary

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These horses may kick and bite.

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Please do not feed the horses.

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These horses are on a special diet.

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Your kindness may kill.

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I'm biting my nails.

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I'm nervous.

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I'm a kind person.

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Are the horses going to kill me?

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There you can see the horses.

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There are two of them.

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And they're all covered up.

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They don't look so scary.

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but hey, I better not feed them or anything like that because I don't want them to kill me, do I?

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And in English there is actually a phrasal verb with horse.

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It is to horse around.

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And if you are horsing around it means you're joking, you're messing around, you know,

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you're pulling someone's leg so I'm just horsing around.

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Now I'm going to walk up these steps and onto the canal.

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That is a really common sign that you'll see all over the country.

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This house is for sale and look it's a beautiful house as well literally right on the canal.

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Now I'm walking along the canal in the middle of it because this canal goes from Leeds to Liverpool.

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And look, look at this cutie.

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This dog is lying down having a little bit of a rest.

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And along the canal is usually the place where I come

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when I want to go for a run because it's all flat.

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There are no hills at all.

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But right now I'm just gonna walk, just gonna stroll along the canal because this morning I've already been for a run.

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Unfortunately, unlike the stream, the canal isn't crystal clear.

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It's a little bit dirty it seems.

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Above me you have some more berries but I don't think these are edible or at least I've never eaten them before.

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If something is edible it means you can eat it and the opposite is inedible.

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In front of me there is a feather on the floor, so I've just picked it up.

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This is a feather.

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Now, I don't want to keep it, so I'm going to drop it.

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Look what's across the canal.

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If I zoom in, you can see the Union Jack, a British flag, and a pirate flag.

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And there you have lots of greenhouses

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and huts sheds where people grow their plants herbs

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and lots of other things this place is called an allotment now the path has got a little bit busier

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and there are more pedestrians walking or cycling along this canal path

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and it's funny because in small towns around the uk

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when you see a complete stranger even if you don't know them well

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that is a complete stranger you always do this action

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and you say all right all right or if not

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that you might say hiya hiya you're right so

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if you see someone in a small town in the UK just nod and say all right or hiya.

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There you can see some geese.

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This is an irregular plural.

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It is one goose and many geese.

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And now there are lots of narrow boats.

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This is the name of these canal boats and every narrow boat has its own name.

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Straight and narrow, Ain't no Russian, At Last, Bonnie Mary, and lots more geese.

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And obviously, this is a common place to come and walk your dog.

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Most people who walk their dog walk it on a lead.

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In American English, they say a leash.

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And this sign, no fouling, means don't leave your dog poo on the street.

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How about a bit more wildlife?

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In front of me, flying away, you have a common pigeon.

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As I said, this is the Leeds-Liverpool Canal.

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So from Leeds all the way to Liverpool, people will travel along the canal, cycle along it, walk along it.

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And it was really, really useful during the Industrial Revolution to transport goods from one city to another.

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and it also crosses through Manchester in the middle.

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But if that's the case, what happens when these narrowboats need to go upstream?

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You know, up a hill but along the canal.

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The canal is always flat.

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Always.

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So they came up with a solution.

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And it was to make locks.

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This is just one example of many.

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The Bingley Five Rise Locks on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal.

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cared for by us made possible by you now i'm walking

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down the hill right next to the five rise locks

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but don't worry i'm gonna walk back up

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and show you it properly this is the view from the bottom

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and the narrowboat will enter one of these locks when

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that happens he will close the door and the water will start to fill up.

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Then the boat will start to rise with the water and you repeat the process five times.

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Now I'm walking up the locks and this is what it looks like on the inside as this starts to fill up.

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You see the lock that is just above it is already full

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and this is starting to empty and the water will go down into the next lock.

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It's quite impressive engineering isn't it?

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But you can tell you're from a small town when this is probably the most famous thing about Bingley, my hometown.

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The Five Rise Locks.

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Fascinating isn't it?

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Now I'm going to start walking back up the hill and home to prepare for my evening classes.

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But this is a closer look at what an allotment looks like.

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You know, the place where people come to grow their own plants and stuff like that.

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Down here someone's even growing their own pumpkins.

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So I think that's enough for this walk and talk.

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I hope you liked it.

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If so, leave a like and I'll see you next time.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This video has 204 sentences and 2328 words to shadow. The speech runs for 16:58. The speaker talks at a steady 137 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. 82% 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
canal noun	/kəˈnæl/	An artificial waterway or artificially improved river used for travel, shipping, or irrigation.
wire noun	/ˈwaɪɚ/	Metal formed into a thin, even thread, now usually by being drawn through a hole in a steel die.
goose noun	/ɡus/	Any of various grazing waterfowl of the family Anatidae, which have feathers and webbed feet and are capable of flying, swimming, and walking on land, and…
sting verb	/ˈstɪŋ/	To hurt, usually by introducing poison or a sharp point, or both.
narrow adjective	/ˈnæɹəʊ/	Having a small width; not wide; having opposite edges or sides that are close, especially by comparison to length or depth.
bite verb	/baɪt/	To cut into something by clamping the teeth.
dock noun	/dɑk/	A fixed structure attached to shore to which a vessel is secured when in port; usually for loading and unloading.
steep adjective	/stiːp/	Of a near-vertical gradient; of a slope, surface, curve, etc. that proceeds upward or downward at an angle approaching vertical.
pond noun	/pɑnd/	An inland body of standing water, either natural or man-made, that is smaller than a lake.
countryside noun	/ˈkʌn.tɹiˌsaɪd/	An area located outside of towns and cities; an area that is not urban or suburban; a rural area.
blackberry noun	/ˈblækbɛɹi/	A fruit-bearing shrub of the aggregate species Rubus fruticosus and some hybrids.
gate noun	/ˈɡeɪ̯t/	A doorlike structure outside a house.
stomach noun	/ˈstʌmək/	An organ in animals that stores food in the process of digestion.
crystal noun	/ˈkɹɪstəl/	A solid composed of an array of atoms or molecules possessing long-range order and arranged in a pattern which is periodic in three dimensions.
scary adjective	/ˈskɛə.ɹi/	Causing fear or anxiety

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Meaning
get past verb	To continue around a blockage; to get around (something); to surpass something that is in the way.
fill up verb	To make (something) completely full.
bring up verb	To mention.
come across verb	To change sides; to cross over to work for the opposition.
come up with verb	To manage to produce, deliver, or present (something) by inventing, creating, thinking of, or obtaining it.
cover up verb	To conceal or disguise.
get on to verb	To contact (someone) in order to raise or discuss a certain matter.
get out of verb	To leave, exit or escape from; to become free of.

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 70 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, don't, I've. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: feather /ˈfɛðə/, underneath /ˌʌndɚˈniθ/, thumb /ˈθʌm/, footpath /ˈfʊtˌpæθ/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/, rubbish /ˈɹʌbɪʃ/, inclination /ˌɪn.klɪˈneɪ.ʃən/, leash /liːʃ/
Long words — get the stress right: essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/, irregular /ɪˈɹɛɡ.jə.lɚ/, alleviate /əˈli.vi.eɪt/, comprehensible /kɒmpɹəˈhɛnsɪbəl/, dandelion /ˈdæn.dəˌlaɪ.ən/

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 canal, wire, goose.

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	I've just left · have fallen · we've had
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	being renovated · is barbed · is called
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	brown which means · people who are · people who walk
Possibility with “might / may” might/may + verb — something that is possible but not certain	may kick · may kill · might say

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 →

Shadowing Practice: Walk & Talk in the English Countryside | Comprehensible Input - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

Key vocabulary in this video

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

Grammar in this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?