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Listening + Speaking: The 2 pieces you're Missing

English shadowing practice · 327 sentences · 13:41 long · 1479 words

Listening + Speaking: The 2 pieces you're Missing

About this practice session

This page turns the YouTube video “Listening + Speaking: The 2 pieces you're Missing” into an English shadowing exercise. The recording is split into 327 short sentences that you can play one at a time, repeat after the speaker and record your own version for automatic pronunciation scoring.

The speaker talks at about 122 words per minute, a moderate pace, with an average of 4.5 words per sentence. That makes it suitable for intermediate learners who want natural, everyday speech.

How to practise with this video

  1. Play the first sentence and listen while reading the transcript. Notice the stress, the pauses and where the intonation rises or falls.
  2. Replay it and speak along with the speaker, copying the rhythm rather than reading word by word.
  3. Record yourself straight after the original. ShadowEcho scores each word for accuracy, fluency and completeness.
  4. Compare your recording with the original, retry the words marked in red, then move on to the next sentence.
  5. Practise 10–15 minutes a day. Coming back to the same video after a few days is an easy way to measure progress.

Transcript (English)

  1. This is
  2. a jigsaw piece.
  3. These
  4. are jigsaw pieces.
  5. And I think that learning English is
  6. like doing jigsaw puzzle.
  7. In school,
  8. we learn to solve lots of English
  9. puzzles.
  10. Like vocab,
  11. grammar,
  12. and reading.
  13. But somehow, [music]
  14. not listening and speaking.
  15. In this video,
  16. >> [music]
  17. >> I'm looking for these two secret pieces
  18. that will make the complex puzzle of
  19. learning English simple.
  20. Guys,
  21. I have just made this super delicious,
  22. highly nutritious, brain-boosting
  23. smoothie
  24. for my brekkie.
  25. And brekkie
  26. is a British term for breakfast. There's
  27. about a million of my five a day in this
  28. bowl.
  29. Now, before I talk to you about the
  30. listening puzzle piece, I want to share
  31. a little idea in a book that I've been
  32. reading recently, which is this book
  33. here.
  34. How to eat by Thich Nhat Hanh.
  35. A grain of rice contains the universe.
  36. When we look at a grain of rice,
  37. 1 second of mindfulness and
  38. concentration allows us to see that this
  39. grain contains the whole world.
  40. It's a beautiful book by a beautiful
  41. man.
  42. Now, let's pay attention to the
  43. ingredients in this smoothie bowl, so we
  44. can use it as an opportunity to learn
  45. some new English and discover the story
  46. behind these ingredients.
  47. First,
  48. we have blueberries
  49. and spinach.
  50. They start their humble journey on a
  51. farm
  52. where the farmer plants them,
  53. waters them,
  54. >> [music]
  55. >> and harvests them.
  56. Then,
  57. they meet with the truck driver
  58. >> [music]
  59. >> who drives them straight to the farmers'
  60. market.
  61. Blueberries and spinach both made the
  62. same trip
  63. >> [music]
  64. >> into this bowl.
  65. But, what about the yogurt?
  66. This yogurt contains sunlight inside it.
  67. The sun's energy grows the grass.
  68. The grass feeds the cow,
  69. and the cow
  70. creates milk.
  71. Someone milked her,
  72. and they let that milk sit
  73. and ferment
  74. into yogurt.
  75. Ferment means it uses good bacteria to
  76. change or preserve the food.
  77. People usually ferment things with sugar
  78. or salt.
  79. And they taste really good.
  80. And apparently, they're very good for
  81. our guts.
  82. Our gut is all the organs inside our
  83. tummy.
  84. But, how about
  85. this bowl?
  86. This bowl started its journey as clay
  87. dug up from the earth.
  88. A potter shaped it with their hands.
  89. It was fired in a kiln.
  90. A kiln is a clay oven.
  91. And that kiln was hot enough to turn
  92. clay
  93. into this ceramic bowl.
  94. Apparently, the whole universe is in
  95. this ball.
  96. The English language
  97. is no different.
  98. Idioms don't appear from thin air.
  99. We humans shape the language through our
  100. culture
  101. and our habits.
  102. So, let's look at an idiom,
  103. to spill the beans.
  104. Spill the beans means to reveal a secret
  105. or hidden information
  106. that you probably shouldn't.
  107. And this idiom comes from ancient
  108. Greece, where when they used to vote
  109. with black and white beans in a jar,
  110. if somebody knocked that jar over and
  111. the beans spilled out, then the secrets
  112. would be revealed.
  113. The voters would know who is getting
  114. voted in.
  115. Speaking of secrets,
  116. now it's time to reveal the first secret
  117. puzzle piece,
  118. which is to listen with attention.
  119. Just like eating with attention,
  120. you slow down
  121. and you focus on only what's in front of
  122. you.
  123. So, instead of watching video after
  124. video, you can choose one video that's
  125. slightly above your level
  126. and then watch it twice. The first time
  127. with subtitles.
  128. Slow down and try to follow the story,
  129. not every word.
  130. The second time, you'll watch it without
  131. the subtitles.
  132. Really try to hear
  133. and listen to the rhythm of English, the
  134. sound of the speakers. You're training
  135. your ears here.
  136. When you have a conversation, you don't
  137. have subtitles.
  138. We listen to English, not like a task or
  139. a chore.
  140. But we listen
  141. to immerse ourselves in the language.
  142. Treat it like something that you're
  143. curious about. And something that you
  144. enjoy doing.
  145. If you want content that matches your
  146. level, you can watch it on
  147. sproutlanguage.com.
  148. Now, listening with attention is just
  149. the first piece of the puzzle.
  150. There's a more important piece.
  151. One that's harder to fit in.
  152. But before I talk about that, I want to
  153. go to a new cafe that I've heard about.
  154. So,
  155. let's go.
  156. >> [music]
  157. >> Hello.
  158. Can we have the lemon espresso?
  159. >> Lemon espresso?
  160. >> Yeah, one lemon espresso.
  161. All right, guys. We've just arrived
  162. [music] at
  163. a cafe called I Hate Mondays.
  164. And
  165. it's pretty cool in here.
  166. It's our first time here. And it's
  167. actually just started pouring down with
  168. rain outside. We are sitting by the
  169. window. It's light, bright, and the view
  170. is just right.
  171. Feeling good. We've just ordered a lemon
  172. espresso tonic.
  173. And that's a beautiful [snorts] thing.
  174. It's in a wine glass with
  175. a sprig
  176. of rosemary.
  177. And
  178. a wedge of lemon.
  179. Which you
  180. squeeze
  181. inside.
  182. Sour.
  183. After we eat, I've got some work to do
  184. on my laptop.
  185. But before that, I want to look around
  186. the environment and see if we can
  187. immerse ourselves into my niche.
  188. >> [music]
  189. >> On the left hand side of the picture, we
  190. have a small plant in a blue vase.
  191. >> [music]
  192. >> On the right hand side, we have a yellow
  193. lamp
  194. with the light bulb inside.
  195. You can see the reflection [music]
  196. of the yellow lamp shade in the window.
  197. The chefs are in the kitchen cooking
  198. food. [music]
  199. This is a ceiling fan
  200. keeping the cafe customers cool.

Showing the first 200 of 327 sentences. Open the practice tool to go through all of them.

The original video belongs to its creator: watch it on YouTube.

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