Shadowing Practice: Why I hate being Japanese - Learn English Speaking with Video

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That's too late!

you see it in everything they do like for example japan's two main exports video games and anime

and in both of those you see it super mario is italian luigi princess peach they're all white

and it turns out that in

that world the mario world there are some japanese people you know who they are it's toadstool

that toad with the the mushroom head those little red spots those are japanese flags i didn't know

that um he actually has a japanese name too but

that meek wimpy mute silent mushroom that guy's japanese that's the character

that japan said oh yeah i guess we can have a japanese character in here let's make it

that meek mushroom guy the other character in the series that's japanese is yoshi the dinosaur bro the dinosaur

that the white guy rides on the beast of burden he's japanese he can't even speak bro

and so in the game that was created by japan those are the two characters

that are japanese

and it's like every other game too right in the legend

of zelda link is white obviously zelda's white in the game

metroid you know metroid is is actually a girl samus who's wearing like armor

and the girl's this blonde girl i think she's german

so okay i mean we can't even see the character it could have been a japanese girl

but no it's this blonde girl um obviously ness from earthbound

is white even the animal characters like star fox you know fox mcleod mcleod obviously he's white

so the the cool fox is white of course he's white

it's just it's just embarrassing dude like like Like your most popular video game, Super Mario, your main characters are Italian.

Like, can you imagine if the Italians made a video game?

If they made the characters Japanese, what the Italian people would say?

They'd be like, why are the characters Japanese?

What does Japan have to do with this?

We're Italian.

That's what they would say.

And that would be a totally rational thing for them to say.

And it's only the Japanese, where the default main character isn't Japanese.

It's white.

now let's talk about their other main export anime every single protagonist in anime is white too

so naruto is white sakura is white sasuke is actually japanese

and you can confirm this kishimoto the creator of naruto you can look this up they asked him oh

if you ever had like a live action naruto like are these what race are these characters

and he openly said oh naruto and sakura are white and Sasuke is Japanese.

So in your anime, your main characters are white.

In your country's anime, you're Japanese and you're in Japan.

Your main characters are white and then the sidekick is Japanese.

Like, that's crazy, dude.

Can you imagine like an American film being made where the main character is randomly japanese

and then his sidekick is a white dude you will never see

that even in asian american films

that are meant to promote asianness like crazy rich asians

which was this big cultural thing like oh it's an asian

film the main character the main guy henry golding is half

white even in the asian film they couldn't get a full

asian main character yeah even bruce lee is a quarter white it's pathetic

so yeah i mean that's naruto

but every single one right bleach the main guy in bleach is white attack on titan

that takes place in germany right that's why everyone has german names

or it's like a it's like an artificial world

but they're basically in germany it's based on germany

and then obviously there's dragon ball z you know i talked about this in another video but

Goku is a Japanese monkey in the beginning.

He has a tail.

And then as he evolves and levels up and gets stronger, he loses his tail, showing that he's evolving out of his, like, primitive ways.

And he evolves into a blonde-haired, green-eyed white dude.

Like, it's not even subliminal.

Like, if you ask Japanese people, they'll tell you, yeah, that's the message.

He evolved out of being Japanese to being a superior white guy.

That's the message dude it's so cringe

and embarrassing for those of you who say well no dude

like the main character of bleach he's actually japanese he just

dyes his hair well that's still pathetic you know like why are you dyeing your hair blonde

and brown and you know making it wavy

and getting a perm like why why can't you be proud of your features

that the chinese and koreans they don't do

that i've seen like aerial shots of japan the the shibuya crosswalk

and it's like 70 of the heads are just like blonde

or brown and like wavy and they're just japanese people or if you see like the uh

the japanese world cup team for example there was like one year where like 50 or more of the

soccer players had their hair dyed and

and you know they were playing like south korea or something

and the you know other asian team didn't have their hair dyed

so it was like really easy to see who was the japanese player oh

that guy with the blonde hair and i don't know what other people thought of that but

but as a japanese person i felt ashamed i felt embarrassed

like why what bro you're you're asian like why are you trying to be white it's embarrassing it's cringe

like your your natural hair color is fine it's cool it's cool to have dark hair man it's tall dark

and handsome right it's not tall blonde and handsome

and the dark is not like dark skin in case you

guys are curious it's it's dark hair right what the japanese

need to do is they need to learn from the african-american community you see a hundred years ago

and and i don't condone this at all but a hundred years ago people thought that african-american features were unattractive

and today people think Denzel and Will Smith are hot

so how did

that happen well they refused to conform to Eurocentric beauty standards

they basically pushed back on it they said I don't care

whether you think that's hot I think my features are hot

and they just pushed back on the culture

and the culture thought about it and was like okay that sure if you say so and And the thing about beauty,

and this sounds corny, you know, the whole beauty is in the eye of the beholder you

know it sounds like a cope right like okay sure that's what your mom says to you

when you know you look like quasimodo no not necessarily there's there's a science

and like a math to it beauty is the average of all features the proportions

and symmetry are the average of all features not to be

confused with the average features those are two separate things right

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being average looking doesn't mean your features are the average of all people

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so if you have the most balanced features you're symmetric

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and the size of all the things on your face are

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the most average of all the people you see in

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that region it's an indicator that you're healthy because

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if anything is weird like your nose is really big

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or your ears are really big

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or something it could mean you have some kind of infection

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or there's something wrong something wrong with you it could be

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a sign of a a health defect what you're doing

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when you say well no these are the features i find attractive

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so take that into consideration you're adding that into the average of the pool

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and and the more exposure people get to your features the more they get used to it

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and think actually i can see how that's attractive that's how that's how it works the japanese rather than

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saying well no you should embrace our features this is just how we look

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so this is good this is beautiful in its own way rather than pushing for

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that they folded to the eurocentric beauty standard and conformed to it

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and since asians are so different looking from europeans by default all asians

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or almost all asians are going to be attractive

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when you choose to go that way so the african americans didn't go

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that way they didn't say oh well since the eurocentric beauty

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standard is the only standard we're all unattractive then they said well no we think this is beautiful

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so you just have it wrong and they pushed back on it

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and then they won and

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so now people think oh actually i don't know what they were thinking 100 years ago they're just racist denzel

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and will smith are clearly handsome men and

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and i think they are too but

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but it's an example of how you can push back on beauty standards

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and you know things like thicker lips and curvy bodies those are things

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that in the 90s people thought were unattractive like cindy crawford

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was the pinnacle of beauty in the 90s i remember that

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and that's not the case anymore right it's mostly it's way more the kim kardashian beauty standard the thick lips

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and then the the curvy body and a lot of

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that is from african-american influence you know they said well no

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that's not what's beautiful this is what we think is beautiful

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and they push the culture they they influence the culture and

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so in many ways beauty is in the eye of the beholder

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and yeah i just wish japan had the courage to say

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well no we think this is beautiful except our beauty standards

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because different countries have different beauty standards like the chinese think having a small mouth on a woman is beautiful

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so they think julia roberts with her big mouth is like like ew you know

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and it's so arbitrary right it's like i can see both ways you know

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but i've been told by the eurocentric beauty standards that

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julia roberts and her big mouth are expressive and beautiful

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so i just decided oh no that's beautiful like

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so much of our beauty standards are subconscious and at

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that subconscious layer there's a lot of wiggle room to push for your own your own features

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and say well no these features are beautiful

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and i just wish japan had the courage to do

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that kind of like a ouija board you have to kind

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of push it the way you want it to go

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if you want to fight for your own people culturally right the Japanese just aren't doing

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that all their their most beautiful models are half half white

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the Japanese can also learn from the Han Chinese the Han Chinese are very proud people

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and they should be proud they have the longest continuous civilization

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they've been around for over 5,000 years they're just such an accomplished people

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and they don't want to conform to Eurocentric beauty standards they have their own idea of what should be beautiful

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and they stick to it so you don't see them dying their hair

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and running around with blonde hair like the Japanese do and the Koreans as well.

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One thing that really annoys me about the Japanese is

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that they have this obsession with big eyes

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because white people have big eyes and they want

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so badly to be white and so every single actor on any film

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or TV show in Japan has huge eyes if they're the cool character

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if they're supposed to be the good looking character

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and then they'll be like a side character that's supposed to be uncool

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or ugly who has small eyes and it's like

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that with their comics too the only people with small eyes

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that come out on their show are like the comedians

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or people who you're supposed to laugh at

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and then the cool characters you're supposed to be like well

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that guy's cool always has big eyes with double eyelids

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and the thing is in japan about 60 percent of the population has single eyelids

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and small eyes and so by pushing a culture like

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that they're making more than half of their population feel bad about themselves

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and it's just not a very inclusive or thoughtful cultural strategy

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and it's also it just makes them look foolish

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because their own royal family has small eyes and

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if you look at all their politicians they all they all have small eyes too

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so all these actors

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that they they push forth to the world like they're not

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fooling anyone into thinking oh the japanese they have this latin

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american look they all have big huge eyes like no they don't dude

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and it's just a bad strategy and it's just very self-hating

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so if you compare that with the koreans right

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and you watch k-dramas and k-films you'll notice

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that they'll mix it up some of the characters

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that are supposed to be cool will have big eyes

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and some of them will have small eyes

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and that's the right strategy that's a more thoughtful strategy that's that's the kind of culture you want to push

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because like japan the south koreans there are some south koreans with big eyes

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and some with smaller eyes and they don't want to make half the population

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that have small eyes they don't want to make them feel bad about themselves it's subjective to an extent right

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so they'll have these k-pop guys who are supposed to be cool

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that have small eyes and by pushing

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that out there the the consumer thinks yeah i can see

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that he's kind of badass with his small eyes he looks like mysterious yeah i can see

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that i can see how he's hot

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and that's that's the way you should do

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that you should stand up for your people you should stand up for the way they look

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and try to fight the culture to embrace your beauty standards yeah

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that would be my advice to the rulers of japanese culture

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it's be more thoughtful about how you shape your culture

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and learn from the african americans the chinese

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and south koreans on how you should push for your own people

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and push for beauty standards

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that are best for the largest number of people in your

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population that's how you promote your people right anyways that's all i got let me know in the comments

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if you disagree Take care.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Why I hate being Japanese”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: japanese, character, eye, beauty, features. This video has 208 sentences and 2473 words to shadow. The speech runs for 14:03. The speaker talks at a natural 176 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 87% 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
blond adjective	/blɑnd/	Of a bleached or pale golden (light yellowish) colour.
naruto noun		A type of kamaboko.
evolve verb	/ɪˈvɑlv/	To move (something) in regular procession through a system.
dye noun	/daɪ/	A colorant, especially one that has an affinity to the substrate to which it is applied.
embarrass verb	/ɪmˈbæɹəs/	To disrupt someone's composure or comfort with acting publicly or freely.
unattractive adjective		Not handsome or beautiful or appealing.
bleach noun	/bliːt͡ʃ/	A chemical, such as sodium hypochlorite or hydrogen peroxide, or a preparation of such a chemical, used for disinfecting or whitening.
conform verb	/kənˈfɔɹm/	To adapt to something by more closely matching it, especially something normative.
mushroom noun	/ˈmʌʃˌɹuːm/	Any of the fleshy fruiting bodies of fungi typically produced above ground on soil or on their food sources (such as decaying wood).
thoughtful adjective	/ˈθɔːtfəl/	Demonstrating thought or careful consideration.
beholder noun	/bɪˈhoʊldɚ/	Someone who observes or beholds; an observer or spectator.
curvy adjective	/ˈkɚ.vi/	Having curves.
eyelid noun	/ˈaɪ.lɪd/	A thin skin membrane that covers and moves over an eye.
meek adjective	/mik/	Humble, non-boastful, modest, meager, or self-effacing.
sakura noun	/ˈsækʊɹə/	cherry tree

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Meaning
stand up for verb	To speak or act in support or defense of (a person, a cause, a belief, or the like).
run around with verb	To spend a lot of time with a person or group of people. Often implies disapproval on the part of the speaker.
turn out verb	To end up; to result.

Grammar in this video

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

Structure	In the video
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	was created · being made · are meant
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	i've seen · i've been told · they've been
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	people who you · guys who are

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 51 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, you're, they're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: thoughtful /ˈθɔːtfəl/, pathetic /pəˈθɛtɪk/, earthbound /ˈɝθbaʊnd/, mathematics /mæθ(.ə)ˈmæt.ɪks/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: mushroom /ˈmʌʃˌɹuːm/, subconscious /sʌbˈkɑn.ʃəs/, foolish /ˈfuː.lɪʃ/, obsession /əbˈsɛʃən/, civilization /ˌsɪv.ɪ.laɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/
Long words — get the stress right: subliminal /səˈblɪm.ɪ.nəl/, protagonist /pɹəˈtæɡ.ə.nɪst/, arbitrary /ˈɑː.bɪ.tɹə.ɹi/, indicator /ˈɪn.dɪˌkeɪ.tə(ɹ)/, comedian /kəˈmiː.di.ən/

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 blond, naruto, evolve.

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: Why I hate being Japanese - 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

Grammar in this video

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?