What if I told you there’s a language learning technique that merges all the essential skills needed to master a language into a single exercise?

This technique is called SHADOWING and if you haven’t heard of it yet, you’re missing out on something big.

Simply put, shadowing is about imitating the sounds and rhythms of a language as accurately as possible.

It’s a multidimensional approach that combines reading, listening and speaking skills in a super powerful way.

Think about it: when you read, you activate your comprehension skills, but you’re only hearing the sounds in your head. When you listen, you only activate your passive listening skills. Lastly, when you speak, you’re often so focused on keeping the conversation going that you don’t have enough CPU power to refine your pronunciation and intonation.

SHADOWING brings together the best of all three worlds, giving you the chance to become familiar with new words and sentence structures.

Getting started

So, how should you get started with shadowing? What’s involved in a shadowing session?

It’s essential to have access to a resource that offers both a written layer and a spoken layer. Ideally, it should be a human language model.

You can look for movie scripts, audiobooks, YouTube videos or podcast that offer transcripts.

In a shadowing session, there are several stages. The first stage involves working with the written resource as reading material. It’s fundamental to invest time in dissecting it before proceeding to the listening section and, ultimately, the speaking section.

Once you’ve read the transcript, analyze it considering it as any reading material. Make the most out of new vocabulary and highlight those new words.

Then, listen to the track for the first time. As you listen, pay attention to how words are grouped together. You can mark these semantic blocks to better understand the flow of the speech.

Also, pay attention to parts of the sentences where intonation rises or falls.

You’re now ready to do your own recording of the text representing the original audio aiming to replicate the original audio as closely as possible.

Best practices

These are the steps to a perfect shadowing session:

#1 choose your resource

interview, vlog, podcast + accurate transcript

things to consider:

• topic
• complexity
• accent
• male/female
• length
• speed
• context
• clarity of audio

#2 analyze it

identify new words

identify semantic blocks (groups of words that are clustered together because they share a common meaning or are related in a specific context.)

#3 listen to it

underline difficult words in terms of pronunciation

mark intonation

mark stressed words

#4 relisten

check for nuances you may have missed

#5 record yourself

make sure you are monitoring the original audio with earphones so it doesn’t get mixed with your voice

the best option is probably to monitor from your computer and record from your phone

#6 listen and compare

play the file and see if you missed something

#7 re-record yourself until you feel it’s perfect

if needed, do a second, and perhaps even a third take

Not sure where to start? Try TRAÉ ALFAJORES. You’ll have access to the free transcripts and do your first shadowing session.

I hope this article persuades you to try SHADOWING real soon.

Happy learning,

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