Shadowing Practice: Walk Your Own Road - Learn English Speaking with Video

Freedom is the one thing that we as human beings all want.

How do you live a free life on your terms?

You can have an opinion, you can live the life you want, the life you want, dress the way you want.

Everybody can be who they are.

That's how it should be.

Nowadays there's a lot of extremist views happening.

I think they call it polarization.

It's quite a big fancy word.

Lots of us have strong beliefs about things.

This is the way it should be done, it's like the black keys on the pianos, or no, things should be done this way,

and it's like all the white keys on the piano.

In my life I don't want to have any beliefs that's extremist or black or white.

So for me In the year, everybody can have their opinion.

You allowed your opinion, you allowed your life, you can live your life.

I'm allowed my opinion, I can live my life.

And I can live within Orange.

Another thing we sometimes hold on to is identity.

So, you know, what is your identity?

And we create these identities.

At the moment, the thing that I'm learning to let go of is the identity that's linked to my career.

That's not my identity.

Our identity is we are stardust,

we magic, we beautiful human beings.

This is the identity.

The identity is not I'm an engineer,

I'm a designer, I'm a musician, all these categories, boxes.

I'm merging into plenty identities,

many identities, but I don't want to be holding on to specific identities.

The only constant in life will be change.

The thing is for me, I've embraced change.

Change in my work, change in people that's in my life, change in situations.

The world's changing rapidly, there's lots of destruction going on,

but the other side of destruction is creation.

So what are you choosing?

Are you choosing creation or are you choosing destruction?

That's the thing, and I'm choosing creation.

What's lovely about creativity, there's no borders in creativity.

There's no final creative output.

There's no final creative project, there's no final creative symphony.

All of it creates, it's part of your journey.

It's a nice feeling waking up with joy

because I can remember a moment in my life where I woke up and I could not get out of bed.

It's really wonderful to feel amazing when you open your eyes.

childlike wonder where you're a joyous,

excited human being that's here having this experience on this crazy planet.

There's a lot of light and sparkles and then within that you also get the shadows.

And we as humans have to accept the moment.

It's the only way.

Accepting yourself, accepting the exact moment you're in,

accepting that you're the only one that can take the responsibility for you, for creating your life.

By experiencing hardship or pain,

you know when you're experiencing love and beauty and peace.

It's like the yin and the yang.

There's always the other side.

And with finding the feeling, the one, you can actually understand the other one much better.

And also you can now embrace it because you're like, oh, this is just another layer of life.

It's just another colour.

It's another shade of turquoise, another shade of teal, another shade of azul blue.

And you just dive through it.

The The

walker your footsteps are the road and nothing more.

The road is made by walking.

Walking you make the road and turning to look behind you, you will see the path that you will never step upon again.

Walker, there is no road, only the foam trails on the sea.

This is for me very, very beautiful.

The road appears as you walk, as you take the journey.

It opens up and it's beautiful.

We create our own meaning.

So for me, the meaning is ethereal, it's just this foam.

You can't actually hold on to foam.

We as human beings, we want to hold on to things.

I want to hold on to the people I love that's left or that's in various ways.

We want to hold on to actually having a beautiful body or you want to hold on to your health,

or you want to hold on to your possessions, you want to hold on to everything.

And it's really in the letting go.

I'm getting better at letting go.

Definitely.

As time passed on, as people pass through my life.

But it's always going to be a challenge.

I do struggle with loss, people, friends, that's not in my life anymore.

It's odd, when people pass away,

you've got these journeys with people and then all of a sudden they're not there anymore.

I can see a train outside my window every day and life is like these stations.

people jump on the train and then the train might stop and then they get off.

And you're still continuing with the journey and while you're on the train, different people arrive.

And it's really to have a lot of gratitude for the new connections,

new people arriving, but having plenty of gratitude for people that's not with you on the journey anymore,

and making every second count.

Who is with you in those compartments? Are you ignoring them?

Are you really speaking to them?

And, you know, what are you making of your journey?

You die how you live.

So I trust that I'll be surrounded by the right people.

Because The journey is becoming more and more exciting.

So there's more and more, there's most wonderful people in my life.

Got a message on my fridge.

It was a beautiful card that I got from my sister, and it said, you are so loved.

And there's so much love in the universe, and it's nice to be reminded of that.

So if anybody is listening and going through a hard time, just know that there's a lot of love, and a lot of people love you.

100

Kindness to yourself.

101

It's a big one. Be kind.

102

You are worthy of love.

103

You are loved.

104

You've got a role to play.

105

Each human being has got a different experience.

106

There's no person that's got a similar experience.

107

And we don't quite, we'll never quite understand the other person's, what they're going through.

108

So the thing is to be kind.

109

We all have similar challenges changes.

110

And that's also one way where you can have a lot more empathy for the other person.

111

It's just a mirror coming back at you.

112

It just shows you another aspect of you, the other human being.

113

So it's just these reflections that's reflecting back.

114

It's definitely a love story.

115

You know, loving yourself much more, it's the only way to live, it brings a lot of peace.

116

Thank you

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so much for watching this story all the way to the end.

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And a special thank you to all of you on Patreon who help us to make these films.

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If you want to join us on the journey please click the link over here, I think.

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It just wouldn't be possible without you.

121

Thank you.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Walk Your Own Road”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: journey, hold, identity, beautiful, road. This video has 121 sentences and 1203 words to shadow. The speech runs for 15:51. The speaker talks slowly, about 76 words per minute, so there is time to copy every sound. 88% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow.

Key vocabulary in this video

The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
foam noun	/ˈfɔʊ̯m/	A substance composed of a large collection of bubbles or their solidified remains, especially
shade noun	/ʃeɪd/	Darkness where light, particularly sunlight, is blocked.
extremist noun	/ɪkˈstɹiːmɪst/	A person who holds extreme views, especially one who advocates such views; a radical or fanatic.
gratitude noun	/ˈɡɹæ.tɪ.tud/	The state of being grateful.
creativity noun	/kri.eɪˈtɪv.ᵻ.ti/	The ability to use imagination to produce a novel idea or product.
embrace verb	/ɛmˈbɹes/	To clasp (someone or each other) in the arms with affection; to take in the arms; to hug.
childlike adjective	/ˈt͡ʃaɪldlaɪk/	Innocent and trustful; credulous; artless.
ethereal adjective	/ɪˈθɪɚ.i.əl/	Pertaining to the presupposition of an invisible air-like element permeating all of space, or to the higher regions beyond the earth or beyond the atmosphere.
excite verb	/ɪkˈsaɪt/	To stir the emotions of; to cause to feel excitement.
footstep noun	/ˈfʊtstɛp/	The mark or impression left by a foot; a track.
joyous adjective	/ˈd͡ʒɔɪəs/	Full of joy; happy.
polarization noun	/ˌpoʊlərɪˈzeɪʃən/	The production or the condition of polarity.
sparkle noun	/ˈspɑɹ.kəl/	A little spark; a scintillation.
stardust noun	/ˈstɑɹˌdʌst/	Small fragments of dustlike material found in space; specifically, a type of cosmic dust that formed from cooling gases ejected from presolar stars, which was…
turquoise noun	/ˈtɝ.k(w)ɔɪz/	A sky-blue, greenish-blue, or greenish-gray semi-precious gemstone.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
go through verb		To travel from one end of something to the other.
get off verb		To move from being on top of (something) to not being on top of it.
get out of verb		To leave, exit or escape from; to become free of.
open up verb		To open.
pass away verb		To die.
pass through verb		To go through, to travel through, to transit or lie across a place or from one place to another.
wake up verb	/ˌweɪk ˈʌp/	To stop sleeping; to awake.

Sentences worth repeating

Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:

How do you live a free life on your terms?
I'm allowed my opinion, I can live my life.
Are you choosing creation or are you choosing destruction?
Who is with you in those compartments?
Are you really speaking to them?

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 27 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, you're, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: ethereal /ɪˈθɪɚ.i.əl/, empathy /ˈɛmpəθi/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: shade /ʃeɪd/, polarization /ˌpoʊlərɪˈzeɪʃən/, hardship /ˈhɑɹdˌʃɪp/, musician /mjuˈzɪʃən/, reflection /ɹɪˈflɛkʃən/
Long words — get the stress right: creativity /kri.eɪˈtɪv.ᵻ.ti/, ethereal /ɪˈθɪɚ.i.əl/, polarization /ˌpoʊlərɪˈzeɪʃən/

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 foam, shade, extremist.

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 Your Own Road - 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

Sentences worth repeating

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?