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Get Fluent English without leaving your country

English shadowing practice · 347 sentences · 19:33 long · 2154 words

About this practice session

This page turns the YouTube video “Get Fluent English without leaving your country” into an English shadowing exercise. The recording is split into 347 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 124 words per minute, a moderate pace, with an average of 6.2 words per sentence. That makes it suitable for intermediate learners who want natural, everyday speech.

How to practise with this video

Play the first sentence and listen while reading the transcript. Notice the stress, the pauses and where the intonation rises or falls.
Replay it and speak along with the speaker, copying the rhythm rather than reading word by word.
Record yourself straight after the original. ShadowEcho scores each word for accuracy, fluency and completeness.
Compare your recording with the original, retry the words marked in red, then move on to the next sentence.
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)

0:00 Do you think you need to live in an
0:02 English-speaking country to get fluent?
0:07 >> No. I have a friend who lives in England
0:09 and she's still not fluent.
0:12 >> H Why is that? Before I answer, I have a
0:16 challenge for you. There's a secret word
0:19 on this card. Can you try to figure out
0:22 what it is before the end of the video?
0:25 If you can, you will understand one of
0:27 the most important ideas for becoming
0:29 fluent in English. So shall we explore
0:34 Koala Lumpur?
0:42 Everything around you is English if
0:47 you choose to see it that way. And the
0:49 way I do it is simple. Name it. Describe
0:53 it.
0:54 two questions. What is it and how would
0:58 I describe it in one sentence?
1:01 For example, instead of just remembering
1:05 vocabulary like digital billboard, you
1:09 would name it and describe it. So, this
1:13 is a digital billboard and it's showing
1:17 an advert for Malaysia. The advert is
1:21 showing fish underwater.
1:25 I actually have a little rule. A word
1:27 isn't really yours until you can use it.
1:32 So, let's do some more examples
1:35 together. Now,
1:39 up there is a skyscraper
1:43 and it's enormous.
1:47 At the top of the skyscraper,
1:50 there are twinkling [music] lights.
1:55 This is a traffic jam.
2:00 It's a busy Saturday night in Koala
2:02 Lumpur and there are many cars on the
2:04 roads which is causing a traffic jam.
2:10 This is a fountain.
2:14 Water is spurting out every side of the
2:18 fountain.
2:22 These are mannequins. The mannequins are
2:25 standing in the shop window staring into
2:28 space.
2:30 I wonder what they're thinking.
2:35 So now guys, we are walking down the
2:38 row, an area in Koala Lumpur, famous for
2:42 its beautiful streets, beautiful
2:45 restaurants, and apparently a very nice
2:47 view of the Petronis Twin Towers, which
2:50 we're going to look for. But first, look
2:52 at this.
2:55 There is a cat asleep. The cat is
2:59 sleeping on the floor.
3:01 It looks dead.
3:04 That's one way of describing it. Another
3:07 way of describing it could be the cat
3:10 has a spotty brown back.
3:14 One more way of describing this could be
3:17 I love cats because they remind me of my
3:20 four black cats [music] when I grew up
3:22 as a kid. So there I described the cat
3:26 in three ways, three different simple
3:29 sentences. The first way was slightly
3:32 humorous. I compared the cat being
3:34 asleep to being dead. The second way was
3:37 describing its physical characteristics,
3:40 the brown spots on its back. And the
3:43 third way that I described a cat was
3:45 linking it to how I feel about cats and
3:48 what I think about cats. And that's a
3:51 wonderful tip for any of you guys out
3:53 there, linking your English sentences to
3:58 your thoughts and your feelings.
4:02 When you can do that, then you can share
4:04 your ideas. When you can share your
4:06 ideas, then you're one step closer to
4:09 fluency.
4:10 So this is a shop
4:14 and the shop is called Vitra.
4:17 If I were to describe this scene in one
4:19 simple sentence, I would say, "There are
4:22 many colorful lamps on display in the
4:25 shop window."
4:28 I could also say, "I want to buy that
4:31 orange lamp because I think that would
4:33 look wonderful in my home."
4:38 All right, let's keep going. Hey, look
4:41 at that, Chang. We found it. What have
4:44 we found? We have found the Petronis
4:48 Twin Towers.
4:51 >> These famous towers are one of the most
4:53 popular landmarks in Malaysia.
5:01 And Chang is getting a photo of me. No,
5:05 she's not. Yes, she is. This is for next
5:07 week's video, guys. I'm waving,
5:11 posing for a photo.
5:13 She's taking a picture of my ugly mug.
5:29 We've just left the busy area to come
5:33 chill at this cafe to rest our little
5:36 legs and get a drink.
5:40 I hope by now that you have internalized
5:43 this simple exercise of name it,
5:46 describe it and I would encourage you to
5:48 use it. That's actually the idea behind
5:51 the vocabulary feature on sprouts. You
5:54 are given a word and then you are
5:57 encouraged to use it in a sentence. That
6:00 is how a word becomes part of the way
6:04 you speak.
6:06 Now it's getting late. So, after we have
6:09 these drinks, we're going to head back
6:11 to the hotel because tomorrow it's an
6:14 exciting day. We're going to go to the
6:16 bookshop. And there's something I want
6:19 to show you.
6:26 I love mornings like this. They slow
6:29 [music] everything down.
6:31 They remind us that big changes are
6:34 built slowly from small habits we make
6:37 every day.
6:39 Learning English is the same.
6:42 One of the biggest myths is that you
6:44 have to move abroad to become fluent.
6:48 But I don't believe that's true. The
6:50 secret is much simpler than that.
6:53 [music]
7:03 Well guys, we've arrived in the largest
7:08 bookshop in Southeast Asia. There are
7:11 over 1 million books in this bookshop.
7:16 That's a lot of books.
7:20 Now, let's break down the anatomy of a
7:24 book. So, just like the anatomy of the
7:27 human body, a book has a spine. Just
7:30 like the spine that we saw on the whale
7:32 on the way into this bookshop. This part
7:36 here is the spine. It has a front cover
7:39 with an illustration on
7:42 a back cover. On the back cover, we have
7:46 writing, and that's called a blurb. The
7:49 blurb is a small piece of writing that
7:51 tells you about the book.
7:54 >> [laughter]
7:55 >> So if you love to read, you really like
7:58 reading, you can say, "I'm a bookworm."
8:02 But not many people know the alternative
8:04 to that, which is an avid reader. An
8:09 avid reader is also somebody who loves
8:11 books, but it's a lot more common in the
8:16 UK. Are you an avid reader?
8:24 So right now I am browsing these books
8:27 which means I'm looking at them and I'm
8:31 trying to find one to buy.
8:34 Now I am browsing in the non-fiction
8:37 section and non-fiction is books about
8:41 facts and information unlike fiction
8:44 which is story and imagination.
8:48 Now within fiction and non-fiction you
8:51 have different genres.
8:54 This comes from the French genre and in
8:57 non-fiction you have genres such as
8:59 business and economics. You have
9:02 psychology, biographies and a personal
9:07 favorite, selfhelp.
9:09 In fiction, you have genres such as
9:12 science fiction and fantasy or crime,
9:16 thriller, and mystery. For me, I prefer
9:19 the non-fiction genre.
9:23 Ah, nice.
9:26 This is a book on curiosity,
9:29 and I'm a very curious person. I like to
9:32 ask questions both to myself and to
9:36 other people. Speaking of asking
9:38 questions, a wonderful small talk
9:40 question that you can use with other
9:43 people to have engaging conversations is
9:46 ask them, "What is your favorite genre?"
9:50 Now, you can use this for books, films,
9:54 or music. What's your favorite genre of
9:57 book? What's your favorite genre of
10:00 movie? What's your favorite genre of
10:03 music?
10:06 I think I'll get this.
10:13 >> One thing that you might not know about
10:16 me is that I love to write and [music]
10:19 illustrate picture books. So, it's my
10:22 dream in the future to publish my very
10:25 own children's books.
10:28 What is your dream?
10:31 Being in a place like this always makes
10:33 me think about what to read. And people
10:36 ask me that a lot. What should I read in
10:39 English? My answer is always the same.
10:43 Read because you enjoy the topic, not
10:47 because you're learning English.
10:55 I love self-improvement books because
10:59 they challenge the way that I see
11:02 myself.
11:03 One book that really changed my life was
11:06 the book called Breaking the Habits of
11:09 Being Yourself by Jod Des.
11:12 And I read that book when I was living

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Get Fluent English without leaving your country

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Transcript (English)

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