Shadowing Practice: Why Are People Afraid To Speak English? - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Welcome to the Listening Time Podcast.
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Hey everybody, this is Connor and you're listening to episode 146 of the Listening Time Podcast.
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I hope you're all doing fantastic and I hope
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that your English learning is going well and that maybe you're starting to speak and have conversations in English.
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I know that it's hard when you first start speaking English and that's actually what we're gonna talk about in today's episode.
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I want to talk about why people are afraid to speak English.
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I think that this episode will be helpful for all of you,
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especially if you're just starting to speak or or maybe you haven't spoken yet,
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you're still waiting, and you're a little bit worried about starting,
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I think that this episode will help you if you're in that situation.
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And I think that it will give you a little bit of motivation to start if you feel like
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you're getting to the point where you're ready to speak because you understand a lot,
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but you're a little bit afraid, I hope that after listening to this,
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you'll feel a little bit more confident to start this process of speaking in English.
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So that's what we'll talk about today, so I'm sure you'll like this episode.
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And if you feel like you understand me really well already, and you want to practice with something more difficult,
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then I recommend that you sign up to become a Listening Time family member
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so you can practice with my advanced episodes in which I speak fast.
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the link to sign up is down below in the episode description.
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That's patreon.com slash listening time.
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And if you want something even more challenging, then you can practice with my U.S.
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Conversations podcast in which I have conversations with different English speakers from around the country.
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They're all teachers who teach English, and we talk about a lot of different topics.
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And with this podcast, you'll also just learn a lot about the country, about the U.S in general.
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It's a lot of fun.
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It's great practice for you.
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So the link is also down below.
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That's patreon.com slash usconversations.
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And as always, please share this podcast with any English learners that you know,
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and please give it a five-star rating and write a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
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All right, let's get started.
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Are your ears ready?
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You know what time it is.
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It's listening time.
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Okay, let's talk about why people are afraid to speak English.
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In this episode, I'm gonna talk about the three main reasons,
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in my opinion, why people are afraid to speak English, and we'll talk about why people have that fear,
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and I'll try to relieve your fears a little bit.
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Hopefully, you won't feel as afraid after listening.
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And before I mention these three reasons why people are afraid to speak,
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I want to note that I still think
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that it's important to be able to understand English pretty well before you start speaking consistently.
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I'm not saying you have to do this Everyone has different philosophies when it comes to language learning,
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and I'm not saying that I'm right and everyone else is wrong.
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However, in my experience, having conversations with people from all over the world,
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students who are learning English from many different countries,
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I've done this for many years I've talked to many people for thousands of hours
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So I'm speaking from experience here When I say that
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when people can't understand me well During our conversation The conversation does not go well
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It's not a very helpful hour or half an hour that we spend when the student can't understand me well.
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However, if they understand me well,
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then that 30 minutes or one hour is very useful for them.
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They get to practice their speaking naturally, and it's beneficial.
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but if they don't understand me, the conversation just doesn't go well.
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It's very unnatural.
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I have to repeat things many times or translate them, and it's just not that fun.
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So, in my opinion, this is only my opinion, but I'm speaking from experience,
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If you can't understand English pretty well, then that should be your focus.
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You should focus on understanding English pretty well.
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Not perfectly, of course, maybe not even to an advanced level,
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but you should be able to understand pretty well.
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And then that will really help you get started with your speaking.
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Okay?
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All right.
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That being said, let's talk about the first reason why many people are afraid to speak,
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and that is they're afraid that they're gonna say the wrong thing.
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In other words, they think that they will make a lot of mistakes, whether it be with grammar or vocabulary.
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They're gonna say the wrong word or use the wrong structure.
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Many people are afraid of this.
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And this is inevitable.
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When we say that something is inevitable, we're saying that it can't be avoided.
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So when you start speaking English,
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it's inevitable that you're gonna say the wrong words many times, okay?
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That's not something you can avoid and it's not something
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that you will avoid when you're fluent even because fluency does not mean perfect accuracy.
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Fluency and accuracy are two different things.
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So even when you become fluent in English you're still gonna make mistakes sometimes, okay?
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So don't have this idea that some people
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when they learn English they don't make mistakes and you make a lot of mistakes.
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No, that's not reality.
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We all make mistakes.
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We all say things wrong.
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We all use the wrong words when we're learning a language, okay?
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And most mistakes aren't significant.
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That's something really important that I want you to remember.
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Most of your mistakes aren't that significant.
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Some of them are, of course, but most of them aren't.
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If you use the wrong form of a verb,
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for example, maybe you used the wrong verb tense or you just didn't know how to use the verb tense correctly,
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that's usually not gonna be a huge problem, okay?
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If you used the present perfect when in reality it would have been better to use the past simple.
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Sometimes it's significant but most of the time it's not.
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Okay, so the important thing to remember is that native speakers just want to understand you.
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That's what we're focused on.
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We're not focused on all of your mistakes, we just want to understand what you're saying.
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And so if your mistake isn't significant, if it doesn't change our understanding of what you're saying,
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then it doesn't really matter that much.
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Okay?
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I'm not saying that you shouldn't try to get better and correct your mistakes.
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Of course, you should do that.
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However, don't be afraid to make mistakes
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because as long as these mistakes don't affect the native speaker's understanding of what you're saying,
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then they're not significant.
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Focus on the significant mistakes for sure.
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For example, a really big one is
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that some people have the tendency of saying she when they really want to say he.
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That's a big mistake.
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That's something that will cause a lot of problems, so focus on those big mistakes,
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but to be honest, the majority of your mistakes aren't big, so don't worry, okay?
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how do you get better at this and not make as many mistakes, not say the wrong thing?
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Well, you need to have more conversations.
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If you can already understand pretty well, of course, you need to continue listening.
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That will help you too.
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That always helps, of course,
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but having more conversations will also eventually teach you the correct way to speak.
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Okay, you're gonna develop that memory of what to say and what sounds natural if you speak a lot
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and have conversations and you hear the other person say things to you
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and over time the natural correct way to say things will become automatic for you.
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But it takes time and it's little by little, right?
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So just start having conversations if you can understand English pretty well and just know that you'll make mistakes,
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but the conversations themselves are the training that you need to eventually not make as many mistakes, right?
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Pretty simple.
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So let's talk about another reason why people are afraid to speak English,
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and that is that they are afraid that they have bad pronunciation or that they have a big accent,
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a heavy accent.
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And I talked about this recently in an episode, so some of this you've already heard me say before,
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but just know that we all have pronunciation problems and we all have an accent.
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Again, we're all in the same boat here.
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That phrase, we're all in the same boat, means that we're all in the same situation, okay?
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It's not different for some of us.
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We don't say things the way that native speakers say them when we're learning that language,
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especially as an adult.
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We don't have the same muscle memory of how to make the correct sounds and all of that.
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Okay, and I have this problem big time in French.
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When we say the phrase big time, this is used to emphasize something,
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like I'm saying really, very.
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So I have this problem big time in French.
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My accent isn't that bad in Spanish or Portuguese or maybe even Italian even though I just started learning.
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But in French, it's awful, okay?
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It's something that I really need to work on.
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But I know that most other people, when they learn French, they also have a really big accent,
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a really heavy accent when they speak.
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And I used the word awful to describe my accent,
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but I really shouldn't say that because I don't want you to think that your accent is awful or bad.
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I'm just making fun of myself.
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When you make fun of someone,
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this means that you laugh at them because of something negative about them.
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So I'm just making fun of myself by saying that my accent is awful.
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But really, don't think of accents as being awful, good, bad.
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Just think of the language and the sounds as being a system that you will get better at over time.
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And don't think that your accent is terrible,
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just accept that you have an accent and you'll work on that over time, right?
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And just like I talked about before with saying the wrong words,
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saying things the wrong way in terms of your pronunciation or your accent,
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usually this isn't too significant either.
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Most of your pronunciation errors aren't super significant.
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They don't affect the native speaker's understanding of what you're saying.
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Some of your mistakes are significant when it comes to your pronunciation or your accent.
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Some of them are, that is true, but most of them aren't.
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Again, I'm trying to help you be less afraid here.
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I'm not saying that there aren't significant mistakes.
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Of course there are, but most of your mistakes aren't significant.
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So you need to have a little more confidence and don't be afraid of making mistakes with vocabulary or grammar, or pronunciation.
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However, you should focus on the significant mistakes that you do make,
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and especially if these mistakes can be easily corrected.
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I think in the episode about pronunciation, I gave the example of stressing the wrong syllable in a word.
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This can be very easily corrected,
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And it can make a big difference in helping the native speaker understand you.
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I remember hearing this employee at a Chinese restaurant asking this native speaker if he wanted any appetizers.
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And she wasn't a native speaker, this worker.
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And she stressed the wrong syllable.
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She said appetizer.
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And the way she said it was very hard to understand for the native speaker
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because he was expecting her to say appetizer.
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That's the correct way to say it.
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And he misunderstood her and she had to repeat it.
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And in that situation, it was a significant error because he couldn't understand her,
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but it's easily correctable.
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She just needs to stress the right syllable.
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So of course to get better at things like this,
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we need to do a lot of listening and to listen with the intention of hearing the way that things are pronounced.
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Maybe some of your listening practice can be dedicated to focusing on the sounds of the language
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and not just on understanding the words.
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So listening with that intention can be really helpful.
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And of course, I'm someone who trains people to pronounce English better.
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So of course, with my membership, if you have signed up for a certain level,
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a certain tier of the membership, you'll get my pronunciation training as well.
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So of course you have that resource and other people have resources and can teach you pronunciation as well,
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but just know
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that it isn't as natural to improve your pronunciation as it is to improve your vocabulary
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and grammar so it might be a little bit harder to improve in this area
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but you can okay it's possible and with the right resources and
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dedicating the time to actually practicing this and listening intently to the sounds that you hear,
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this will help.
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It's not easy, but you can get better over time.
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But just know that all of us have pronunciation issues
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and all of us have issues with our accent when we speak foreign languages.
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And we English speakers actually expect you to have an accent
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when this isn't your first language and we hear accents all the time
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because many people learn English as a second language and so we're really accustomed to this.
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Don't be afraid that we're gonna make fun of you and criticize your accent.
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No, don't be afraid of that.
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Just know that this is normal and try to correct the significant errors, okay?
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But most of your pronunciation errors are not significant, okay?
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And one other reason why people are afraid to speak English is because they feel that they get stuck,
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like they freeze and they can't say anything, or they don't know how to say things.
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And again, this is normal.
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This is something that is gonna happen to you when you first start speaking, even if you can understand pretty well.
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I always talk about how understanding English well will help you speak and get started speaking,
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and that's true, however, you're still gonna feel like you get stuck often when you first start speaking,
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even if you understand well.
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And this is similar to learning how to drive.
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I talked about this recently in a YouTube video, and I think there will be a bonus episode about this topic,
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if I'm not mistaken, and that's
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because I'm teaching my wife how to drive right now
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so this is on my mind and this is a great comparison
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because for example my wife she read the whole handbook
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that talks about all the rules that you need to know
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when driving in California and she had to memorize all of these things,
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and she had to pass a test where she answered questions about the rules,
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and she sees me drive almost every day because we drive places,
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and she sees what I do, what I don't do.
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She sees all of the different maneuvers that I make.
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A maneuver is some type of movement that you make with some intention.
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So she sees my maneuvers.
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She sees what other drivers do.
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She can feel everything being in the car.
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So she has all of that experience of learning how to drive,
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but when she actually first started driving, it was like she was frozen.
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She felt stuck even though she knows where the brake pedal is,
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how to accelerate, she She knows the rules of the road.
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She knows all of that,
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but right now, because she just started driving actually behind the wheel as we say,
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she's the one driving, it's like she has to develop this muscle memory
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learn how to do these different things even
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if she kind of already knows them
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because she's seen me do these things she's read about them she knows them
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but she hasn't actually done them herself and now she's driven probably like six
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or seven times in total
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and she's already improved a ton she's already doing very very well compared to her first day driving
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because on her first day she felt like she didn't know
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what she was doing even though she had already learned a lot of this
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and that's exactly how it feels when you first start speaking after you can already understand well.
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You've heard so many words and phrases and sentences and grammatical structures and you understand them perfectly,
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but you haven't actually spoken yet.
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And so the first time you speak, you're frozen.
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You don't know how to speak very well because you don't have that muscle memory yet.
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You haven't said these things out loud yet.
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But after a few sessions of speaking, you already start to feel more comfortable.
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You already start to feel like you're making some improvement
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and then the process and the progress continue after that and you eventually become a good speaker.
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It works like that, just like learning how to drive.
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My wife, she gets all this passive knowledge first, and then she has to actually do it, and it's new for her,
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and it's hard at the beginning, but she's developing this muscle memory
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and after like a week of driving she's doing fantastic
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so that's how I want you to think about this topic
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when you feel stuck at the beginning
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when you don't know how to say things just know
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that that's normal and that you're gonna develop this ability through consistent speaking okay of course tons of listening as well,
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but also consistent speaking.
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Okay, this is normal and it's supposed to happen and you'll get through it if you just commit to speaking consistently.
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Okay, all right, hopefully this episode was interesting for you and hopefully it motivates you to speak if you can already understand
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pretty well.
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And don't be afraid.
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Don't think you're the only one with these issues.
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We all have these issues, okay?
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And if you want to practice with something a little bit harder than this podcast,
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make sure to become a Listening Time family member to get my advanced episodes, and you can also sign up for my U.S.
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Conversations podcast to practice with my conversations with other English speakers.
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So both of those links are in the episode description below this episode.
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And the transcript for this episode is down there as well.
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And please share this podcast, give it a five-star rating, and write a review if you can.
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All right, thank you for listening to this episode, and I'll talk to you on the next episode of Listening Time.
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Who Will Benefit from This Video?
This video is perfect for English learners ready to move beyond listening and start speaking, especially those feeling nervous about their first conversations. Whether you’re a beginner who understands basics but hesitates to speak or an intermediate learner stuck in a "listening-only" phase, it addresses common fears and offers motivation to take the next step. It’s also useful for anyone looking to improve English pronunciation and build confidence in real-world interactions.
Key Phrases to Add to Your Vocabulary
- Consistently: Regularly, without stopping. Example: "I need to practice speaking consistently to improve."
- Relieve your fears: Reduce or take away anxiety. Example: "Talking to a friend helped relieve my fear of speaking in public."
- Philosophies: Beliefs or approaches. Example: "Different teachers have different philosophies about language learning."
Tips for Nailing the Speaker’s Pronunciation
The speaker uses a clear, conversational tone—ideal for english speaking practice. To mimic his style, focus on: - Natural pauses: Notice how he pauses slightly before key points (e.g., "In this episode, I'm gonna talk about the three main reasons..."). This makes speech sound more relaxed. - Reduction of "gonna" and "wanna": He often uses casual contractions, which are common in everyday English. Practice saying "gonna" (instead of "going to") and "wanna" (instead of "want to") to sound more fluent. - Stress on content words: He emphasizes nouns and verbs (e.g., "fear," "speak," "understand") to convey meaning. Highlight these words in your own speech. For hands-on practice, try the shadowing technique: Play a short clip, pause, and repeat it immediately, matching his rhythm and tone. Use a shadowing site to record yourself and compare. Over time, this will help you sound more natural and confident—key for overcoming the fear of speaking English.
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 | haven't spoken · I've done · you've already heard |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | being said · can't be avoided · can be easily corrected |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | teachers who teach · students who are · someone who trains |
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.