Shadowing Practice: Why Your English Still Doesn't Sound Natural... - Learn English Speaking with Video
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If you fix these five things, your English will instantly sound more natural.
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And I'm not talking about more vocabulary or more grammar rules.
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I'm talking about tiny small changes, small habits that native speakers do without even thinking about.
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And once you start doing them too, your English will sound so much more natural.
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Because here's the thing, most learners really a point where their English is good, their grammar is good, their vocabulary is good,
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but something still sounds a bit off.
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A bit like a textbook.
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And it's almost never because of a missing rule, it's because of one of these things I'll tell you about today.
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These little habits that English speakers have that no one really teaches you explicitly until now.
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So today I will take you them.
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I will show you examples, talk you through them.
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So by the end of this video, you will have concrete changes that you can make to your English speaking that will have a transformative effect.
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Let's start with the first one, and actually it's probably the easiest fix of them all.
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Contractions.
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You have probably heard of these.
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This is where we squish two words together.
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So, I am, I'm.
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Do not, don't.
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You are becomes your.
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It is, it's.
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Sometimes it has, it's.
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I would have becomes out of.
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Yes, that one really exists.
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"Hannah, I know about contractions.
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I've learned about them." That might be true, but honestly, most learners don't actually use them when they speak.
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Or they don't use them enough when they speak.
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And honestly, it makes a huge difference.
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Listen to the difference between these sentences.
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I will do the full version and then the contracted version.
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It has been wonderful.
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It's been wonderful.
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"I am going to the shop
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because I have not got any milk." "I'm going to the shop
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because I haven't got any milk." Can you hear the difference?
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The second one sounds like an actual person using everyday speech in real life.
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The first one sounded like a textbook.
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So, the fix is
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easy just start using them consciously i'm your we're there don't i'd he'd won't you've i've i could go on
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because there are
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so many in your speech try not to use the full
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forms yes try not to use the full forms use contractions where you can
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because as i've said many learners know about So that is the first simple fix.
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Number two is the use of fillers.
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And this one might surprise you because perhaps in school, you were taught that fillers were bad.
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You were taught not to use them, to never say mm or uh.
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But in reality, native speakers use them all the time.
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We use fillers to give ourselves a second to think, to soften what we're saying, to ease ourselves into a sentence.
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English.
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Um and uh.
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Yes, um and uh you can use.
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Obviously don't make them every other sentence, but you definitely can use them to buy yourself time to think.
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And other actual words you can use, I mean, you know, well, kind of, sort of, to be honest,
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actually, basically, all of those are Listen to the difference between these two sentences.
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Tell me which one sounds more natural.
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Yesterday I went to the cinema and it was good.
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So, um, yesterday I went to the cinema and yeah, it was actually really good.
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Again, the second one sounds more realistic, like a real person telling you about their evening.
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But the sentence without fillers sounds more like something you would say in an exam.
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Now, a word of caution.
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Don't overuse them.
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Fillers should be spread out and not concentrated.
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For example, a very annoying tick for native speakers is to make every other word like.
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That's not what I mean.
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Or every other word you know.
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They should be used in a measured way and spread out so they're not really concentrated in one place.
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If you overuse them, it runs the risk of sounding like you don't know what you're talking about.
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But if you sprinkle them in naturally, that makes you sound fluent, relaxed, and confident.
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As strange as it sounds,
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"relinking" and this is a big one.
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It's something I think that really separates English learners from native speakers.
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When a native speaker speaks English, we don't say every word separately.
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Neat little blocks.
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We link them all together.
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The end of one word flows into the next.
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Let's A native speaker would say an apple.
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An apple.
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The N would flow seamlessly into the A.
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an apple.
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Or this, we wouldn't say "pick it up", we would say "pick it up", pick it up.
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The consonant would get pushed forwards.
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I actually go into a lot more detail about this in this video where I talk about the different types of linking, so if you want more detail on this, have a look at that.
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And sometimes it links and condenses even more than you think.
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So, "what are you doing?" Separate, really shortened and linked.
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What are you doing?
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What are you doing?
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What are you doing?
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Obviously that third one is much less formal and only to be used in very casual circumstances.
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But even that second one, "What are you doing?" We would say that, not "What are you doing?" Now,
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I'm not saying you need to learn all of the technical rules when it comes to linking,
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but I am saying you need to be aware that native speakers don't speak word by word.
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We speak in phrases, and often those phrases become one whole shape.
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So, when you're practicing your English, try and let your words flow into each other instead of carefully separating them.
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sound so much more natural.
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Well done, three down, two to go, you're doing brilliantly.
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There is a free PDF accompaniment to go with this video where I summarise the content of today's lesson.
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It's completely free and linked below.
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Number four is sentence stress.
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Again, this is a big one and one that learners often miss.
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In English, we don't give every syllable or syllables are stressed.
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So they are louder, stronger, clearer in a sentence.
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But other words or syllables are squashed.
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They get swallowed.
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Usually we stress the main content words of a sentence.
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The main words that are giving the information.
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For example, the nouns or the verbs for all of those,
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the function words, as we call them, the function words get squashed.
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Again, compare these two sentences.
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I am going to the shops to get some bread.
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I'm going to the shops to get some bread.
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The stressed words are going shops get bread, but all the other words and syllables get reduced.
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If you stress every word equally,
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I am going to the shops to robotic and actually more effort to listen to,
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more effort to discern what the real meaning is.
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Because really the meaning words should stand out, they should be stressed and the other words should get out of the way.
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I'm going to the shops to get some bread.
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So the fix here, when you're speaking, pick out the most important words in your sentence and lean into those.
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Let everything else go softer because that rhythm of up and down, that is the rhythm of English.
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It is not equally weighted.
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Some words or syllables are stronger than others.
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It's a stress -timed language, so think which are the important words that you need to stress.
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and reduce the others.
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Number five is typically British, and that is tone softening.
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As I've spoken about before, British people don't like to come across as too direct, so we soften almost everything we say.
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And the way we do that is with these little softening phrases that take the edge off what we are saying.
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So, for example, instead of saying "I don't like it," we'll say "I'm not sure about it,
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not sure about it, to be honest.
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Instead of "you're wrong" we'd say I'm not sure that's quite right.
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Instead of "can you read this now?" "Would you mind looking at this when you get a chance?" Softeners, which I've talked about before, words like "just", "a bit",
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"quite", "I think", "maybe", "to be honest", "if you don't mind", "would you mind", we use all of these constantly.
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I didn't actually realise how often I used the word "just" until my daughter started She'd say things like,
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"I'm just coming," or, "I'm just tidying up." And then I realised she was copying me.
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I say just all the time.
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And it's not because we are being unclear.
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It's because we are softening.
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We're being more polite, less direct.
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And as I've said, politeness and indirectness is important in our culture. to British people.
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You will instantly sound more natural and more polite.
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So a double benefit there.
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It's just a small fix, but it makes a huge difference.
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So those are the five.
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Contractions, fillers, linking, sentence stress, and tone softening.
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And none of those are about learning more.
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They're about making what you've already learned more natural.
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Focus on these five things next week or two and I promise you, you will sound noticeably more natural.
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Let me know in the comments how it goes because I love to hear about progress.
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And don't forget your free PDF outlining the content of today's lesson so that you don't forget it.
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It is linked below and completely free.
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If you found this video helpful, please like and subscribe.
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Although no pressure, just your being here is enough.
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Have a wonderful rest of your day and hopefully I will see you in the next one.
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Bye.
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Speak Like a Native: Key Milestones to Sound Natural
Ever felt your English is "good" but still sounds like a textbook? This video targets that exact fluency gap, focusing on tiny habits native speakers use without thinking. By mastering these, you’ll move from "correct" to "conversational"—a crucial milestone for IELTS speaking practice and real-life communication.
Phrase Bank: Reusable Expressions for Everyday Speech
- "It's been wonderful" (instead of "It has been wonderful")
- "I'm going to the shop because I haven't got any milk" (contracted form)
- Fillers like "um" and "uh" (to soften speech and think)
Fix Your Weak Spots: Contractions and Fillers
Two simple fixes can transform your speech. First, contractions. You might know them, but using them consistently is key. Compare "I am going to the shop because I have not got any milk" with "I'm going to the shop because I haven't got any milk"—the second sounds natural, not robotic. Practice using "I'm," "you're," "don't," and "it's" in your daily speech. For extra practice, try a shadowing app or shadowing site; repeating native speakers’ contracted phrases helps build muscle memory.
Second, fillers. Schools often teach you to avoid "um" or "uh," but native speakers use them to pause and soften. Instead of freezing when you need to think, try "um"—it makes you sound more human. Use a shadowing app like ShadowSpeak or Shadowspeaks to mimic how natives weave fillers into conversations. These tools are great for IELTS speaking practice too, as they help you sound less rehearsed.
Small changes, big results. Start with contractions and fillers, and watch your English sound more natural in no time.
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 | have probably heard · I've learned · has been |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | were taught · should be spread · should be used |
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.