How to Shadow Native English Speakers to Master Your Pronunciation
English by Jay - Sprout
0:00 Last night, my student was trying to improve
0:02 her English speaking skills by shadowing Harry Potter when Leviosa.
0:11 But no matter how much Harry she watched,
0:13 she couldn't improve because her English level was beginner.
0:17 I realized that she missed the most important thing when shadowing.
0:22 So to help her and to help you,
0:25 I have created a stepbystep learning curve to help
0:28 you move from beginner to advanced with English pronunciation,
0:33 articulation and accent.
0:42 The first thing is your mouth position.
0:45 Before jumping into any shadowing exercises,
0:49 we need to be aware of our mouth shape and position when speaking English.
0:56 This is my jaw.
1:00 If I don't move my jaw when I speak, I sound unclear.
1:06 But if I drop my jaw when I speak, I sound clear.
1:10 As English speakers, we drop our jaw a lot when we speak.
1:15 This is uncommon in a lot of other languages.
1:18 So, as a non-native speaker, you need to drop your jaw more.
1:23 Here's how.
1:28 A tongue twister is repeating similar sounds which
1:32 might twist your tongue or trip you up.
1:36 Here's an example.
1:37 Peter Piper picked a pe of pickled peppers.
1:41 Here's three tips to make tongue twisters more effective.
1:45 One, focus on opening your mouth a lot when you say them.
1:51 Two, overexaggerate all the sounds and project them forward.
1:58 And three, go very slowly.
2:04 Remember, nice and slow is the way to grow.
2:10 But what's that?
2:10 I hear you ask.
2:12 But Jay, what sound do I practice?
2:15 Well, the simplest way to do this is to take
2:18 one sound that you find difficult in your own language.
2:23 So, for example, if you're Korean, you might struggle with the L and R sounds.
2:29 So you can practice red lororry, yellow lororry.
2:33 Red lororry, yellow lororry.
2:35 Red lororry, yellow lororry.
2:37 If you're Spanish, you might struggle with the the sound.
2:41 So you could practice very berry.
2:45 Very berry.
2:47 That's very very good for your pronunciation.
2:50 And if you speak Mandarin, you might struggle with the N sound.
2:55 So you could practice a tongue twister like nine nasty nuns nick nuts.
3:02 By the way, to nick is to steal in British slang.
3:06 Now onto the next exercise.
3:17 A minimal pair is when there's a very small sound difference between two words.
3:25 For example, cap, cup, pan, and pen,
3:36 sheet, and Just like practicing tongue twisters,
3:46 minimal pairs can help you fix the specific sounds
3:50 that you struggle with or you want to improve.
3:53 If you want to reach intermediate, do more shadowing.
3:58 Shadowing is copying a native speaker directly after they have just spoken.
4:04 The intention is not to understand perfectly,
4:07 but rather it's to mimic the mouth position and the sound that you hear.
4:13 Let's put this into action.
4:15 So, I'm going to pull up spoutlanguage.com.
4:21 And Sprout Language is an English platform and app
4:25 that I've built to help you guys become fluent in English.
4:28 Before I shadow this video, I'm going to set an intention.
4:32 My intention is to only shadow short, simple sentences,
4:36 and I'm going to pause the video at regular intervals.
4:41 So, let's get into it.
4:45 Speaking of trees and bushes, this is a pine tree.
4:48 Speaking of trees and bushes, this is a pine tree.
4:53 You can tell by the needles.
4:56 You can tell by the needles.
4:59 These are pine needles.
5:02 These are pine needles.
5:04 Just like the needles that go in your skin.
5:06 Just like the needles that go in your skin when you go to the doctors.
5:11 When you go to the doctors.
5:14 Okay, you can see that I paused the video.
5:17 I only shadowed very short sentences.
5:21 This is level one of shadowing.
5:23 I was trying to copy the tone of the speaker.
5:27 I was trying to copy how high or low the voice is.
5:32 I was trying to copy the volume, how loud or how quiet they were speaking.
5:38 I'm trying to copy the facial expressions too and the gestures.
5:44 How do they move their hands?
5:46 How do they move their face?
5:47 The more you guys can get your body involved in shadowing,
5:50 the more effective that it's going to be.
5:53 It becomes an allbody exercise.
5:56 Very engaged and very effective.
5:58 Before we jump into level two of shadowing, the more advanced shadowing,
6:02 I want to quickly discuss why my student struggled to shadow Harry Potter.
6:07 She struggled to understand meticulous
6:09 restraint required for advanced transfiguration process.
6:12 Miku.
6:12 Miki.
6:13 What?
6:13 Yeah, I totally got that.
6:15 English is cheating.
6:16 This was because she was a beginner and Harry
6:20 Potter is quite an advanced level of English.
6:24 So this is why Sprout comes in super useful.
6:27 So you can see on the homepage you have a recommended video.
6:33 Now this intelligently recommends a video for you
6:36 guys based on your exact level of English.
6:39 So if you're B1, it will recommend B1 videos.
6:42 If you're B2, it will recommend B2 videos.
6:45 So, watching videos at your level and shadowing
6:48 those videos is key to improving your pronunciation.
6:52 Now, I'm going to show you guys the next
6:53 level of shadowing where I don't pause the video.
6:57 I'm just going to listen and shadow in real time.
7:01 It's a lot more challenging, but here's the idea.
7:06 You always need to trust your gut.
7:08 You always need to trust your gut.
7:10 M okay J the moment J the moment this is the final question.
7:15 This is the final question.
7:16 You have you have no lifelines left.
7:18 No lifelines left.
7:20 And if you get this question if you get this question wrong you will then go
7:24 you will then go down $32,000 $32,000 but
7:29 you do have the option you do have the option to walk away now
7:33 with 500 $500,000.
7:37 Okay.
7:37 So there I was shadowing our lovely Nikki and she has an American accent.
7:42 You can see that it was more challenging because I'm not pausing the video.
7:47 I'm trying to repeat directly after she has
7:51 spoken and I'm trying to mimic her American accent.
7:56 My voice was higher higher because she has a higher voice than me.
8:02 The idea is to play with this.
8:04 Now we've practiced our pronunciation.
8:06 We've watched the video.
8:08 We've learned new vocabulary.
8:10 But the next step is to speak about this video.
8:14 I want to speak about the vocabulary used in this video.
8:18 So, I'm going to click this button here and it will pop up Ji.
8:24 Ji is an AI version of me who you can speak with to improve your English.
8:31 Hi Jay, it's great to chat with you.
8:33 In the video, I was excited to play for $1 million.
8:37 How do you feel when you do something exciting?
8:41 When I do something exciting, I feel I feel thrilled.
8:46 For example, I love riding roller coasters.
8:50 Although it's a little bit scary,
8:52 I enjoy the feeling of butterflies in my stomach
8:56 and the excitement of being in the theme park.
9:00 That sounds like fun.
9:01 Riding roller coasters can be thrilling.
9:03 It's great that you enjoy that feeling.
9:05 What is your favorite roller coaster that you have been on?
9:09 My favorite roller coaster I've been on is the big one in Blackpool.
9:13 There is a giant drop and it's pretty scary, but I remember it very fondly.
9:22 The big one in Blackpool.
9:23 That sounds intense.
9:25 I'm glad you have fond memories of it.
9:28 It's amazing how a little bit of fear can make things exciting, isn't it?
9:32 It is indeed, Ji.
9:34 Now, tell me, what is the difference between fear and being scared?
9:42 That's a great question.
9:44 Scared is a feeling you have right now about something.
9:48 Like, if you see a spider, you might feel scared.
9:51 Fear is more like a general feeling or idea about something dangerous or bad.
9:56 is a bit more serious.
9:58 Does that make sense?
9:59 That makes perfect sense.
10:00 Okay.
10:01 Thank you, Jay.
10:02 That's all for today.
10:03 I'll chat to you tomorrow.
10:05 It was great chatting with you today, Jay.
10:07 You're making excellent progress and I'm excited to hear more from you tomorrow.
10:12 Goodbye for now.
10:13 See you.
10:15 Now, this is a wonderful way to immerse yourself in English.
10:19 You watch a video, you understand new vocabulary,
10:23 and then you speak about it to reinforce that vocabulary.
10:27 There's no stress or anxiety about talking to a real person,
10:31 and it's something that you can practice every single day,
10:34 which is the key to becoming better in English.
10:37 It's a small piece of action every single day.
10:40 I'm super excited by JI.
10:42 I think it's extremely powerful to help you guys improve your English.
10:46 Now let's move on to the advanced exercises.
10:51 Connect that speech.
10:54 Connected speech makes sentences sound smoother, faster, and more natural.
11:01 There are four main types of connected speech.
11:03 However, for simplicity today, we're going to focus on two.
11:08 They've got fancy names, but you don't have to remember the names.
11:11 The first one is called catenation.
11:14 And catenation is when two words link together.
11:19 For example, pick it up becomes pick it up.
11:24 Pick it up.
11:26 Pick it up.
11:27 Oh yes, sir.
11:32 Turn it off becomes turn it off.
11:37 Turn it off.
11:38 Turn it off.
11:40 Yes, sir.
11:42 Put it on becomes put it on.
11:47 Put it on.
11:48 Oi.
11:49 Put it on.
11:50 Oh, yes sir.
11:53 Put it on, sir.
11:55 Another fun example is my cat ate all my ice cream.
12:02 Now, that sounds unnatural if I say it like that.
12:05 So, I would say my cat ate all my ice cream.
12:08 It's a strange one.
12:09 I'm joining cat ate all.
12:11 It sounds like katl and I'm joining ice cream.
12:15 Ice cream.
12:17 My cate.
12:18 My ice cream.
12:19 So if you're an advanced level, you really want to be aware of connected speech.
12:25 It's going to help you sound a lot more native.
12:28 The second type of connected speech is called intrusion.
12:32 Intrusion is when a sound intrudes.
12:36 It's when we add a tiny extra sound in between two vowel sounds.
12:42 For example, instead of saying go out, we would say go out.
12:49 Go out.
12:50 Instead of saying I agree, we would say I agree.
12:55 I agree.
12:57 And instead of saying vanilla ice cream, we would say vanilla ice cream.
13:03 Vanilla ice cream.
13:04 And yes, it sounds like rice cream.
13:08 Vanilla ice cream.
13:09 Why do we do this?
13:10 Well, for me and all natives, it's just smoother and easier.
13:16 Here's a fun example combining catenation and intrusion.
13:20 I ate apples.
13:23 I ate eight apples.
13:25 Can you say that one?
13:26 I ate eight apples.
13:28 I ate eight apples.
13:29 If you're intermediate and you want to become a more advanced English speaker,
13:34 then being aware of connected speech when shadowing or when
13:39 having a conversation will help you to reach that level.
13:43 Besides connected speech, we also have rhythm.
13:53 In English, we don't say every word with the same force.
14:00 That sounds boring.
14:03 Instead, we stress the important words like verbs,
14:06 nouns, adjectives, and adverbs.
14:11 The less important words, like the small grammar words, we say very lightly.
14:18 This creates the natural rhythm of English.
14:24 Let's look at an example.
14:26 I want to eat some cake.
14:30 In this sentence, want, eat, and cake are the stressed words.
14:36 I say them louder and with more emphasis, with a bit more oomph.
14:41 In that sentence, it goes unstressed, stressed, unstressed, stressed.
14:47 This is a regular pattern in English.
14:49 However, when we extend the sentence, when we lengthen the sentence,
14:55 then we tend to have more unstressed syllables jammed together, what do we do?
15:02 Well, we tend to shorten them and speed them up.
15:06 Instead of saying, "Can you call your mom when you get home?" We would say,
15:14 "Can you call your mom when you get home?" That's a natural way to say it.
15:18 And notice that I said,
15:21 "Can you can you call?" Can you becomes can you can you can
15:26 you call when you get home becomes when you get when you get home.
15:32 Can you call your mom when you get home?
15:36 Can you call your mom when you get home?
15:39 Got it?
15:40 Good.
15:41 The best way to practice this and get better is to shadow.
15:46 Now, you need to shadow with intention.
15:48 You need to focus on the natural rhythm of English while you are shallowing.
15:52 This takes a little bit of fine-tuning and focus from your brain,
15:56 but it will really get you to an advanced level
15:58 of speech and have you sounding just like a native.
16:04 I want to speak like you.
16:07 I want to speak like you shadow you.
16:12 You want to speak like me, shadow me.
16:15 Now, let's do a musical exercise to practice your D rhythm.
16:25 Make a cake.
16:27 Make me a cake.
16:30 Can you make me a cake?
16:32 Can you make me a cake?
16:33 Cuz I'm hungry.
16:35 If you like this video and you want to improve your English by watching videos,
16:40 learning new vocabulary, and speaking about it with JI afterwards,
16:43 then check the link in the description for sproutlanguage.com.
16:47 Immerse yourself in English and have a beautiful day.
16:51 Peace.