How to Shadow Native English Speakers to Master Your Pronunciation

0:00 Last night, my student was trying to improve

0:02 her English speaking skills by shadowing Harry Potter.

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 step-by-step 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 peck 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.

1:50 Two, over exaggerate all the sounds and project them forward.

1:57 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 lorry, yellow lorry.

2:33 Red lorry, yellow lorry.

2:35 Red lorry, yellow lorry.

2:37 If you're Spanish, you might struggle with the V sound.

2:41 So, you could practice very berry, very berry.

2:47 That's very berry 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, on to 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 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.

3:57 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 sproutlanguage .com.

4:21 And Sprout Language is an English platform and app

4:24 that I built to help you guys become fluent in English.

4:28 Before I shadow this video, I'm going to set an intention.

4:31 My intention is to only shadow short, simple sentences.

4:36 And I'm going to pause the video at regular intervals.

4:40 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.

4:52 You can tell by the needles.

4:56 You can tell by the needles.

4:59 These are pine needles.

5:01 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 doctor's.

5:11 When you go to the doctor's.

5:13 Okay.

5:14 You can see that I paused the video.

5:17 I only shadowed very short sentences.

5:20 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.

5:42 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 all body 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.

6:08 Meticulous restraint required for advanced transfiguration process.

6:12 Meticu- meticu- what?

6:13 Yeah, I totally got that.

6:15 English is cheating.

6:16 This was because she was a beginner,

6:19 and Harry Potter is quite an advanced level of English.

6:23 So, this is why Sprout comes in super useful.

6:27 So, you can see on the homepage, you have a recommended video.

6:32 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 level of shadowing,

6:55 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.

7:12 Okay.

7:12 Okay, J.

7:13 The moment.

7:13 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 wrong, you will then go down to $32,000.

7:23 you will then go then go down to $32,000.

7:28 But But have the You do have the option away now to walk away now with with

7:35 $500,000.

7:37 $500,000.

7:37 Okay, 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.

7:46 I'm trying to repeat directly after she has

7:50 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, 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.

8:17 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 JI.

8:32 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.

8:59 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 It's a bit more serious.

9:58 Does that make sense?

9:59 That makes perfect sense.

10:00 Okay, 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

10:30 person and it's something that you can practice every single day,

10:34 which is the key to becoming better in English.

10:36 It's a small piece of action every single day.

10:40 I'm super excited by Jay AI.

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.

11:51 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 cat ate all.

12:13 And I'm joining ice cream.

12:15 Ice cream.

12:17 My cat ate all my ice cream.

12:19 So, if you're an advanced level,

12:21 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.

13:07 Vanilla ice cream.

13:09 Why do we do this?

13:10 Well, for me and all natives, it's just smoother and easier.

13:15 Here's a fun example combining catenation and intrusion.

13:20 I ate eight 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.

15:00 What do we do?

15:01 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, "Can you?" "Can you call?

15:23 Can you becomes can you.

15:25 Can you.

15:26 Can you call when you get home becomes when you get When you get home.

15:31 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 shadowing.

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.

16:02 Do me do.

16:04 I want to speak like you.

16:07 I want to speak like you.

16:08 Shadow you too.

16:12 Want to speak like me?

16:13 Shadow me.

16:15 Now let's do a musical exercise to practice your do do do do do rhythm.

16:24 Make a cake.

16:27 Make me a cake.

16:29 Can you make me a cake?

16:32 Can you make me a cake 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 J I afterwards,

16:43 then check the link in the description for sproutlanguage.com

16:46 and immerse yourself in English and have a beautiful day.

16:51 Peace.