Shadowing Practice: Why your best work happens when you stop taking it too seriously - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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This video is brought to you by MUBI.
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Lately, I've been watching an embarrassing amount of...pizza videos.
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Sourdough pizza, New Haven style pizza, people talking about ovens, chefs explaining dough.
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I just kept watching it.
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And if you asked me why, I'd probably answer like Forrest Gump.
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I kept on going until the algorithm gave me this: The doctor tells him, "If you don't wanna die,
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you gotta stop making pizza." I saw this trailer for Chef's Table and I was like, come on, so much drama, you're just making pizza.
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But for some reason I watched the episode and by the end I wasn't laughing anymore.
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Because it didn't feel like a story about pizza.
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It weirdly felt like it was describing something that had been happening to my own work.
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But to understand why, we need to back up.
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Something strange had been happening with my own work.
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I started this channel as a passion project, something I did for fun after my regular job.
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But the more the channel grew, the heavier it became.
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I think every creative person experiences this at some point.
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You begin by doing something you genuinely love, but as time goes on, it starts to carry expectations,
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pressure, and a certain seriousness.
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What once felt effortless and fun gradually begins to feel like work.
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I couldn't understand why the thing I loved doing was becoming heavier right when it started working.
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So I did what I usually do when my own creative process stops making sense.
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I went back to a movie about someone whose creative process makes even less sense.
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Adaptation, a film written by Charlie Kaufman about, well, about himself.
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Charlie is supposed to adapt a best -selling book, The Orchid Thief, into a screenplay, but he's facing an extreme writer's block overthinking everything, unable to write.
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So throughout the movie, we watch his inner insecurities play out, as he struggles with his creative process.
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But watching the movie this time around, I paid attention to something else.
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There was an interesting contradiction.
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In the movie, Charlie is already a successful screenwriter.
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He's already written a great screenplay, being John Malkovich.
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People know his name.
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Producers want to work with him.
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So you would think he has achieved what you can call success.
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But why then this is happening to him?
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I'm sweating.
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I've got to stop sweating.
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Can't you see it tripping down my forehead?
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Oh, she looked at my hairline.
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"She thinks I'm bald." "We think you're great." "Oh, wow.
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Thanks.
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That's nice to hear." "We all just love the Malkovich script." "Thanks." "Such a unique voice." In this early scene,
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the producer is basically telling him everything a writer wants to hear.
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But inside, he's still hearing...
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Do I have an original thought in my head?
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My bald head?
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Maybe if I were happier my hair wouldn't be falling out.
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I should start jogging again.
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Five miles a day.
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Really do it this time.
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I need to turn my life around.
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What do I need to do?
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I need to read more and prove myself.
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Watching Charlie, I realized his problem isn't just that he can't write.
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It's that he's waiting for the writing to give him something.
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the obvious Hollywood version, maybe he'll feel pure.
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Thank you.
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But once the work has to do that much, even starting becomes painful.
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And strangely, Charlie's problems started looking a lot similar to the drama of this guy that I thought was ridiculous.
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Sorry, got carried away.
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Back to the story.
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At first, I thought I knew what kind of story it was: a man destroying himself for perfection.
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And I still think the episode is a little overdramatic.
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It does that chef's table thing, where making food becomes this religious sacrifice.
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But there was one thing in it I couldn't ignore.
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Chris Bianco had built a restaurant where he had to stay in the middle of everything.
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The more success I had, the more that I feared disappointing people.
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Anything that was good said about me, it just made me keep my head down lower.
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Work harder And never leave the kitchen Long story short, he was trying to control every aspect of his restaurant,
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and we all know where that leads.
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But that's not the important point here.
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What is more important is that how seriously he's taking his job.
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For me, when I look at so much drama over making pizza, it looks ridiculous.
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But for him, Everything is on the line.
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That made me realize something.
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What if stressing over my work looks just as ridiculous for someone else from the outside?
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Say, if a doctor who works 12 -hour shifts in the emergency room looked at me from the outside, Wouldn't she say, "Oh my god,
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so much fuss over making silly YouTube videos." And...
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Maybe that's it.
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Maybe the problem Is that we take ourselves and our work too seriously?
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After realizing this, I started seeing Charlie's problem a little differently too.
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Charlie wasn't just writing anymore.
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He was trying to control the work tightly.
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trying to keep it from becoming the wrong kind of screenplay.
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You know, I just don't want to ruin it by making a Hollywood thing, you know, like, like, like an Orchid Heist movie or, or something, you know, or, Why can't there be a movie simply about flowers?
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And I get that.
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Charlie has taste, he has standards.
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But at some point, he isn't writing the movie.
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He's managing everything the movie is not allowed to become.
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Every direction feels wrong before he even tries it.
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But then there was another character.
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Donald, Charlie's twin brother, who suddenly decides he's going to write a screenplay.
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At first, Donald looks like the joke.
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Charles, I pitched my screenplay to mom.
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Don't say pitch.
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He says things that make Charlie cringe.
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Charlie looks at him like he represents everything embarrassing about writing.
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Here's the twist: we find out that the killer really suffers from multiple personality disorder.
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Right?
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See?
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He's actually really the cop and the girl.
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But this time, Donald started looking different to me.
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Donald wants things too.
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He wants to write.
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He wants his script to work.
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He wants people to like it. And...
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he starts.
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That's the whole thing.
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"Hey, my script's going amazing." he makes the obvious version.
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But he writes, he pitches.
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"Don't say pitch." He tries, he keeps moving.
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And in the movie, that starts to matter.
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"What do you want?" I've finished my script.
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I'm done.
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Because Charlie is trying to make the right version before he has a version, Donald is willing to make a version.
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The three?
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It's just amazing.
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I don't know what that is.
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Donald, script!
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Smart, edgy thriller.
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It's the best script I've read all year.
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Oh.
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Thank you.
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Good.
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Yeah, I'm gonna sell it for a shitload.
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Two fucking talented guys in one family.
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That doesn't mean Donald is the better artist, but Donald has something Charlie doesn't have in that moment.
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He can begin before the work becomes perfect in his head.
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"Is the work good?" "It's a disaster.
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I don't know what I'm doing." And that reminded me of this interview clip of the Daniels.
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It's an interview about the process and struggles of making their earlier film, Swiss Army Man, which they made before Everything Everywhere All at Once.
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"After Swiss Army Man we had this big debate about how
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much suffering is it worth it to go through to make good art.
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But I was like, I don't want to make more movies if it's that hard, if it's that unpleasant.
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I don't want to do it.
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This time we tried to enjoy the process more and be nicer and not torture ourselves or the crew.
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And it paid off.
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It made the movie better.
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So many people when they talk about the process of filmmaking, they use military and war metaphors.
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It's like, "Oh, we're in the trenches.
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Oh, there's a hierarchy and you have to do whatever everyone else tells you to do.
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Otherwise, the whole thing falls apart." If you think about it,
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the movie that they treated with so much seriousness and control turned out kind of okay -ish.
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But the movie that they treated like summer camp won the Oscar for the best picture? And maybe that's it.
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Maybe the key to making great work is to stop treating it like this heavy, stressful, controlled thing.
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and try to have a little more fun with it.
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Speaking of fun, in between pizza review videos and binge watching movies about writers, I also recently watched Reprise on MUBI.
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I'd wanted to see it for a while, ever since I saw Robert McKee call it one of the best films about writing.
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It's Joelking Trier's debut film, about two friends in Oslo who both want to become writers.
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Trier has since gone on to make major international hits like The Worst Person in the World and Sentimental Value.
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Reprise is very different from adaptation, but it circles a similar feeling: the pressure, ambition, and confusion that come with wanting to make good art.
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Reprise is currently available to stream on MUBI, my sponsor for this video.
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MUBI is a global streaming service dedicated to elevating great cinema, where every film is handpicked by a curator rather than an algorithm.
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It's a place to find films that are harder to find elsewhere, and a great way to expand your taste in cinema.
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You can try MUBI free for 30 days at MUBI .com /loficinema.
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That's MUBI .com /loficinema for a whole month of great cinema for free.
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What You'll Learn
This video is a goldmine for building conversational fluency and natural storytelling skills—key for IELTS speaking practice. You’ll learn to weave personal anecdotes with broader insights, a technique that impresses examiners. Plus, it trains you to use casual asides (like "I get that Charlie has taste") to sound relatable, a must for everyday and test-day communication.
Listen For These Sounds
Notice how connected speech makes phrases flow: "I've been watching" becomes "Ivebin watchin" (linking "ve" and "bin"), and "a lot of" shortens to "alotta" (reduction). Also, listen for the softening of "t" in "wanted to" ("wanna") and "got to" ("gotta")—common in native speech. These patterns are perfect for practicing the shadowing technique, where you repeat phrases aloud immediately after hearing them to mimic rhythm.
Say It Like a Native
To mirror the speaker’s tone, focus on stress and pauses. Emphasize key words like "passion project," "pressure," and "fun" to highlight contrasts. Pause before big ideas ("But here’s the twist…") to build anticipation—this makes your speech dynamic. Try shadowing short sections: repeat "the more the channel grew, the heavier it became" with the same rising intonation on "grew" and falling on "heavier." For IELTS prep, practice explaining the video’s message using these techniques—you’ll sound confident and natural, just like a native. Remember, even "silly" mistakes (like Donald’s) are part of learning—start, keep moving, and your skills will shine!
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result | if you asked me why, I'd probably · if I were happier my hair wouldn't be |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | has achieved · I've finished · I've read |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | is brought · is not allowed · is handpicked |
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.