Shadowing Practice: Why is it so Easy to be Thin in Japan? - Learn English Speaking with Video
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If you've ever been to Japan, you may have noticed that it's really hard to find an obese Japanese person.
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In the United States, it's quite a different story.
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The rate of obesity among adults in America is on average around 30%, whereas the Japan obesity rate is only 3 .5%.
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But what makes the weight of people in these two countries so different?
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Why Japanese people?
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At first, I was thinking about things like Japanese people drink a lot of green tea,
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and they get a decent amount of fermented foods like kimchi or natto, which is great for the gut microbiome.
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But in this video, I want to focus on a very simple yet key point about Japan.
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The food environment is drastically different from the U .S.
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As of 2017, there's over 243 ,000 fast food establishments in America.
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There's only 6 ,169 establishments in Japan, meaning per person, there's about 15 times more fast food restaurants in America.
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Then again, in Japan, fast food, fried food, chips, chocolate, candy, soda, and not -so -healthy things are still available wherever you go.
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But there's a huge variety of equally convenient, reasonably healthy food.
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Let's say I'm the average busy person in the States who would like to be healthy, but doesn't have time to cook at home.
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What's for breakfast?
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Most people's options are limited to things like a McGriddle with hash browns and coffee,
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or maybe an egg and processed cheese sandwich with tater tots at Dunkin' Donuts, or some pancakes at Denny's if you have more time.
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Surely some people will have healthier options than that, but I'm trying to think of what most people are going to have access to.
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So what's a quick breakfast in Japan?
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While there's more than 6 ,000 fast food establishments in Japan, there's also 5 ,000 rice bowl establishments.
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The big ones are Yoshinoya, Sukiya, and Matsuya.
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And for $4 at Sukiya, for breakfast you can get plain rice, miso soup with seaweed, an egg,
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baked fish, and a small potato salad comes with it.
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If I'm extra hungry, maybe I'll add some kimchi, fermented soybeans, and stewed beef for $4.
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Or you can put together a reasonably healthy meal from a convenience store.
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At a Japanese convenience store, I can get a rice ball, which is just rice, salmon, and salt, a small salad, or a package of sushi,
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or a thing of fish with miso, or some soup.
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I was pretty impressed with how little junk is in this.
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It's basically just vegetables, pork, and fish broth.
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And there's a bunch of foods like this.
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Here's what I can get for under $10 USD.
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Compare this to what's available in American convenience stores.
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They're usually limited to fried foods sitting under heat lamps, or foods loaded with trans fats, sugar, preservatives, and unhealthy additives.
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If you're lucky, you might be able to get a package of plain nuts with nothing added.
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So the items in Japanese convenience stores are not top quality health foods, but they're not bad.
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This is big because practically everyone has access to these places.
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Convenience stores like these are everywhere.
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Japan has about 55 ,000 convenience stores, meaning there's about 10 times more convenience stores per square kilometer better in Japan compared to America.
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For most, these places are in walking distance.
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I understand that of course there are healthy restaurants here
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and there in America and you can make a really healthy meal with ingredients from the supermarket.
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But when it comes to cheap, convenient and quick food, it's almost always quite unhealthy.
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In Japan, for a quick lunch I can go to Burger King or right next door I can get some sushi.
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I can get a hamburger and some popcorn at Vandalism Cafe,
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or I can go next door to Matsuya and get a bowl of spicy tofu soup with a bit of beef,
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green onion and cabbage, some pork, a soft boiled egg, some mustard spinach, rice, and there's free pickled ginger to go with it.
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And of course, there are many healthier non -chain places that offer many different types of cuisine.
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And this variety is important.
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It's going to be much easier to stick to healthier options
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if you aren't getting bored of having to eat the same things at the same places over and over.
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Even if you're going out to drink with friends at dinner time, there's still a variety of good food choices.
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The standard place to drink at is an izakaya.
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At 10 ,000 establishments, there's almost twice as many izakayas as there are fast food places in Japan.
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Replacing fast food for alcohol is not a good strategy, but let's see what the common izakaya chains have to offer in the way of food.
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Let me point out one more time that there's of course much better quality food than what you get at convenience stores,
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rice bowl chains, or izakayas, and this is not what most Japanese people eat on a daily basis.
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I'm not really recommending these places either, most Japanese people wouldn't think of these places as healthy.
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But This isn't about optimal health, I just mean to point out
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that even someone who puts minimal effort into being healthy can get some reasonable quality meals out of these very convenient places.
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By the way, what's everyone drinking with and between meals?
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In America, more often than not, it's soda, considering a survey of 80 countries found
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that America comes in at rank number 1 for soda consumption at 170 liters purchased per person in 2011.
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7 -Eleven Japan came in at rank 56, at 32 liters per person.
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In Japan, most places serve tea with your meal for free, and in general it's harder to purchase massive quantities of soda.
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There's no comically large big gulps at 7 -Eleven, I haven't seen these packs of soda here,
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and Japan has the smallest large cup size at McDonald's.
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An American medium -sized drink is bigger than a Japanese large charge.
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Another factor to thank for keeping people's soda intake low is again, variety.
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What's interesting is despite
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Japan drinking 5 times less soda than America, soda is available in vending machines everywhere in Japan.
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There's 5 .52 million vending machines, meaning there's a vending machine for every 23 people in Japan.
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That's the highest vending machine per capita on the planet.
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So what's in these vending machines?
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Why don't we take a look at this vending machine
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I came across on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere in Hakone.
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Among other things, they have black coffee, six different types of unsweetened tea, and water.
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A typical American vending machine offers 13 varieties of drink, the only non -sweet one being water.
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So, convenience and variety.
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Simple, but it makes a difference.
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It's easier to pick the healthy choices when they are just as easy and convenient as the unhealthier choices.
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Now, this is by no means the full story on Japan and health, but I think these are two key factors.
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I'll be doing another video on some of the many other things that contribute to health in Japan,
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so if there's a particular point you want to hear discussed, leave a comment below.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “Why is it so Easy to be Thin in Japan?”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: Japan, healthy, convenience, soda, Japanese. This video has 59 sentences and 1188 words to shadow. The speech runs for 6:55. The speaker talks at a natural 172 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. Only 80% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| convenience noun | /kənˈvinjəns/ | The quality of being convenient. |
| soda noun | /ˈsoʊdə/ | Sodium bicarbonate. |
| meal noun | /ˈmiːl/ | Food that is prepared and eaten, usually at a specific time, and usually in a comparatively large quantity. |
| establishment noun | /ɪˈstæb.lɪʃ.mənt/ | The act or process of establishing; a ratifying or ordaining; settlement; confirmation. |
| convenient adjective | /kənˈviː.niənt/ | Serving to reduce a difficulty, or accessible with minimum difficulty; expedient. |
| soup noun | /sup/ | Any of various dishes commonly made by combining liquids, such as water or stock, with other ingredients, such as meat and vegetables, that contribute the food… |
| unhealthy adjective | /ʌnˈhɛl.θi/ | Characterized by, or conducive to poor health. |
| package noun | /ˈpæk.ɪd͡ʒ/ | Something which is packed, a parcel, a box, an envelope. |
| compare verb | /kəmˈpɛɚ/ | To assess the similarities and differences between two or more things [“to compare X with Y”]. Having made the comparison of X with Y, one might have found it… |
| rank noun | /ˈɹæŋk/ | A row of people or things organized in a grid pattern, often soldiers. |
| plain noun | /pleɪn/ | An expanse of land with relatively low relief and few trees, especially a grassy expanse. |
| beef noun | /bif/ | The meat from cattle or other bovines; especially, that from adults. |
| salad noun | /ˈsæl.əd/ | A food consisting principally of raw vegetables (especially greens, e.g. lettuce), other savoury ingredients (typically cooked), fruit, or confectionary; often… |
| reasonably adverb | /ˈɹiː.zən.ə.bli/ | In accordance with reason. |
| fry verb | /fɹaɪ/ | To cook (something) in hot fat. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| point out verb | To identify among a group of similar subjects, or in a scene where the subject might not be readily seen or noticed, with a gesture of the body. |
| come across verb | To change sides; to cross over to work for the opposition. |
| put together verb | To assemble, construct, build, or formulate. |
| sit under verb | To be in the habit of hearing the preaching or teaching of (someone). |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | natto, which is · ball, which is · someone who puts |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | you've ever been · haven't seen |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 17 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, I'll, they're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: unhealthy /ʌnˈhɛl.θi/, broth /bɹɔθ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: establishment /ɪˈstæb.lɪʃ.mənt/, sushi /ˈsuːʃi/, translation /tɹænzˈleɪʃən/, consumption /kənˈsʌmp.ʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: establishment /ɪˈstæb.lɪʃ.mənt/, reasonably /ˈɹiː.zən.ə.bli/, obesity /ə(ʊ)ˈbiːsɪti/, practically /ˈpɹæk.tɪ.k(ə.)li/, supermarket /ˌsupɚˈmɑɹkət/
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 convenience, soda, meal.
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.