Lesson Transcript

Welcome to the Inner Circle.
This is the monthly No-Holds Barred newsletter, giving you tried and tested learning methods to help you reach your language goals this year.
I'm Kyejin, and I'm joined by my co-host, the founder of Innovative Language, Peter Galante.
Hi, everyone. Peter here.
Now, Kyejin, in this Inner Circle, we're talking about probably one of the best ways to practice speaking a language.
Yes, even if you are learning on your own.
Now, it's a super easy technique.
And in fact, I know Kyejin, you have, and many of our listeners have already used this technique before, but today we're gonna talk about some new ways to use it.
Yes, and with it, you'll be able to speak like native speakers.
Or come very close.
So Kyejin, shall we take a look at this technique?
Of course.
Okay.
So since today's topic is speaking, Peter, speaking is the weakest part for many language learners, right?
Why is that?
It's kind of ironic if you think about it.
Everybody wants to speak a language, but actually speaking is one of the most difficult things to do.
In fact, a few years ago, we did a survey, and what does everyone want to get good at?
Speaking, I guess.
Exactly.
But what's the hardest thing to get very good at?
Speaking.
So I think today what we can talk about is this technique that will get you in a habit of speaking.
So I think one of the reasons, according to that survey we took, is one of the toughest things to do when it comes to practice is speaking, because you don't have someone to practice with.
Ah, right.
Actually, that's a common comment that we often got on our website.
So that people often start to practice with vocabulary or grammar or a textbook or reading.
That's true.
And kind of they're passively learning, but speech and writing are the productive side of things.
You are right.
So meaning you have to pull that information out and use it.
True.
Yeah, it's very difficult to speak on your own if I don't have any language partners or if I don't live in that country, basically.
It's very difficult.
So how about you, by the way?
Did you have this problem too?
Did you struggle with speaking when you started learning for the first time?
I still struggle with speaking.
For example, Kyejin, I'm studying Korean.
Yes. Correct.
And my Korean is improving, correct?
Indeed.
But when I meet someone to say that first word in Korean to them, when I hear them people speaking or when I go to Korea, that initial words, those initial words coming out, very, very tough.
Indeed, because you need confidence.
And if you haven't used that word many, many times, it's hard to say immediately.
Yeah.
And Korea, you know, forget Korean or forget the second language.
Even in my own native language, talking to people you don't know takes confidence.
It's you have to practice to get good.
That's true.
So Peter, do you use or did you use this tactic?
So- Which tactic did you use?
Yeah, so we agree that it takes confidence to speak to someone you don't know.
Forget the language for a minute, right?
So it takes confidence.
And then to speak in another language to someone you don't know or in situations that takes confidence too.
So what builds confidence, Kyejin?
Practice, practicing a lot.
Saying the same phrases again and again until I say it naturally.
Yep.
And, you know, for every minute you're speaking, you have to put in the time, three or four minutes practicing.
So this is why this technique is so interesting.
Because any time you're learning in a passive environment, you can take that passive, meaning you're listening, you're consuming content, you can take that and turn it into an active exercise.
You're right.
You're right.
The technique is called?
Shadowing.
So Kyejin, would you like to explain or shall I explain?
Sure.
So what is shadowing, Peter?
I thought you were gonna explain.
I can do that.
So you listen to a native speaker and you repeat after them.
Is that right?
Exactly.
And it doesn't even have to be a native speaker.
You listen to the target language and you repeat back.
I never forget this story.
There's a very famous actor, Will Smith, and not the recent incident, but when he was on a very old TV show in the 90s, he would actually shadow the other actors.
So he would read his line.
Oh.
And then when the other actor was going, he would mouth their lines like this.
So he was reading both lines and he did that to really perfect his craft.
I see.
Even Will Smith.
So he was shadowing the other actor.
So he did his line and then the other actor went and he would shadow that actor.
But why he did that?
So he, okay, I'm gonna speculate here, but so he knew the timing.
So he knew he was reading the whole, he wanted to memorize the whole script.
And if you can imagine how someone's feels, then maybe you can match the energy or he's getting inside of both roles so he can improve his role.
That makes sense.
Interesting.
Pure speculation, I'm so off here.
But that's kind of what this is.
You're listening to someone produce the target language and then you're repeating it.
So I guess shadowing also helps speaking and listening for the skills.
I think the focus here is probably speaking, but yes, of course, you have to be able to listen and understand to be able to speak.
Interesting.
So it's a very, very simple, but powerful technique.
We'll have some information.
Can we do this now that we have power of editing?
We can ask our editor to give a little backstory of the person who kind of spoke about, who founded this technique or kind of put this technique together.
Okay, so let's go back to the Will Smith story for one minute.
Do you think that the other actors like this?
Maybe not.
No, they found it very annoying because they're trying to do their lines and someone's across from them moving their mouths like this or under their breath.
So I think it depends on the situation.
So if you're talking with someone,
I don't know if you want to shadow them.
However, I think it's a great technique when you're alone consuming perhaps a TV show, audio program or content on our site.
So Kyejin, what if we showed you, and I think a good use of this time would be, let's show the listeners how we're using shadowing with our content.
That's great idea.
Let's do that.
Okay, so did I answer your question though?
Yes, thank you very much.
Okay, so shall we start with tool number one?
Yes.
So Kyejin, technique number one, or tool, sorry, tool number one to apply, which we can apply the technique to.
With our website.
Correct.
So let's look at the line by line audio dialogue first.
So here's an example.
These are the dialogue on our website.
And how can we use this?
I see these icons and if I click this, you can listen to this dialogue and record yourself.
And this is quite powerful because if you're watching a TV show, it might be hard to do this technique because things are going so fast.
Right.
If you're watching on a TV show where you can control it,
you can go back 10 seconds or YouTube and loop 10 seconds, which is powerful.
But here it's nice because it's the line by line.
So first you can listen, Kyejin.
Then we can practice saying it.
Very nice, Kyejin.
Thank you.
And you know what?
We can compare the native speaker and my recording.
Acceptable.
So like this, we can practice a lot.
And actually I love this feature because long time ago, I tried to follow the TV lines, movie lines, but as a beginner, it was almost impossible to repeat after them.
It's too fast and I don't understand what they are saying.
So our dialogue is perfect for the beginners, absolute beginners, intermediate levels.
Anyone can choose their levels and practice right dialogue.
So it's very powerful.
Yeah.
So this is a very, very powerful tool.
Now shadowing, I believe, they want you to go as fast as possible.
So here there's a bit of a delay.
You listen, then you say it back.
So you can practice here.
Then you can go back and maybe the true essence of shadowing is if you hit the play button.
I record another line quickly.
We just hit this play button here, Kyejin.
We just want to hear back.
We don't want to.
So I can believe with shadowing, you want to go as fast as possible.
So as soon as you hit play, America, you want to go quite fast after it.
So, but it's okay.
First, you can use this tool to make sure that your pronunciation and your understanding what you're saying, and then you can move faster at a later point.
Interesting.
So like this, you can play each line and shadow it until you master the complete dialogue.
This is the easiest way to do shadowing with our lessons.
So after you finished listening to the lesson, practice shadowing with the line by line.
And you can also get the translation here too.
So it helps you kind of understand and gives you the full context.
That's right.
Okay, Kyejin, number two, what do we have?
We have vocab section.
So it's just below the line by line like this.
So do you see these?
There are three different icons.
You can hear the audio.
And as a beginner, sometimes it's too fast.
So this kind of breaks it down by the syllable to help you really understand the nuances of how it's pronounced.
As a beginner, this is very helpful.
And just like the previous line by line practice, you can do the same thing here.
Shushin.
Okay, so.
So these are two tools that can help you practice this technique.
Now the environment is you're kind of sitting down in front of a laptop.
You could be moving around on a mobile device, but ultimately you're kind of fixed with your eyes on the screen here.
Let's talk about another way, which kind of gets you that you can use while you're moving around.
And actually these days, this is my preferred way of learning Korean.
Okay, interesting.
What is it?
So podcasts.
I see.
So something like this.
So do you listen to podcasts on Spotify?
Correct.
So, well, two ways.
So we have the podcast, which you can get via iTunes quite easy.
There's other RSS feeds there, but my two main ways are the iTunes podcast or the podcast app, and then of course, Spotify.
Yeah, and all these lessons are also on our website, right?
Yes.
But what's nice about this is after I eat dinner, I go for a nice walk and I'm walking down the street shadowing.
Now this is, I think, the true essence of it.
I don't know how I look.
In my mind, I look very dapper doing this, but I don't know how it looks walking down the street with the headphones on and speaking Korean.
But I think it's okay.
Many people will probably think, ah, that person is talking on the phone.
That's true.
Because with shadowing, we should clarify, you're supposed to speak out loud.
Not in a low voice, but quite in a project.
Yes.
So what's nice about this is I'm listening to the lesson or sometimes I'd listen to the conversations.
There's the conversations only.
And that's when you can really, really practice this technique of shadowing.
All right.
Line after line, I repeat it back.
One after the other, after the other.
So except for podcasts, is there any other resources we can use for this shadowing practice?
There's another very important tool on the website.
Well, the medium are videos and there's two places to consume our videos.
That would be on YouTube and of course on our site.
For example.
So this is what I use recently.
Now, Kyejin, have you tried these?
Of course, of course.
Okay.
How do you use these?
For this, for example,
I just opened the Daily Korean Conversation as an example.
And this lesson includes a dialogue.
So like this, I listen to it.
Okay.
Go straight from here and turn right.
And I also mimic after each line or while listening.
Yeah, this is, and again, this is super powerful. YouTube is nice too because you can, or YouTube or videos on our site are nice too because you can see the words that you're saying and it helps you a bit.
Yes.
So the shadowing way is often you're listening and you're trying to repeat back what you listen, repeat back what you hear.
Yeah.
But here, it's quite nice because you can practice the reading and you're kind of doing it all together.
Right.
And this is definitely one of my favorite way to practice French because I didn't have many friends so I often talk myself using the shadowing or just mimicking after some random lines.
Yeah.
So the shadowing technique is extremely powerful way to get you speaking.
Yes.
Now, recommended speaking by yourself.
You can try it with your friends, but I don't know if they want you parroting over them.
So these are four techniques.
And Kyejin, can we introduce one more tool that's coming along?
Yes.
This is a new tool where you can find on our website.
So John, do you see this blue banner?
If you click this, you can see.
Where are you from?
For those of you who don't understand Japanese.
Okay, so how do we use this tool then?
So this tool was, well, it's called the dialogue role play tool.
And it's actually on every lesson, but we haven't made any big announcements about it yet because we're still testing it out.
Basically, you play the role.
You practice this line.
You see this green face is speaking.
Like, where are you from?
So I see the translation here.
I'm from the United States.
So I answered that.
I respond to this question.
America desu.
So then it gives feedback.
So now we're talking about using shadowing with AI.
And this was always the missing piece when you were studying by yourself.
It's that feedback on what you were producing.
What kind of feedback it can give us?
It can tell if your pronunciation is good enough.
It can tell if you're making a mistake with the grammar in case you didn't read it the correct way.
So this really takes shadowing or practicing by yourself to a very different level.
Right.
And it's very interesting.
Now this tool was just released and there are more iterations coming, but we wanted to share with you because it's kind of relevant to the tool we're introducing.
That's right.
The technique we're introducing.
This tool is relevant to the technique we're introducing.
Yes.
So for viewers, please try this, our beta version of AI speaking tool.
And again, the technique is shadowing.
Yes.
It's meant to improve your speaking.
Yes.
Give you confidence so that you feel ready to speak when you get the chance.
So we just introduced the technique and let's go over the five tools that the listeners should try right away.
Yes.
To improve their speaking.
Again, five tools.
You can try today to massively improve your speaking using the technique shadowing.
Number one.
Line by line.
Here, as you can see.
And number two.
Vocabulary.
And number three.
Podcasts, which you can find on Spotify or through our website.
Yes.
And of course in major podcast markets, such as the podcast app.
How do you use it with the podcast?
Well, you listen and repeat after each line.
Exactly.
That's shadowing.
Next.
Next is fourth.
So it's YouTube or of course our website.
You can find all of these videos on our websites too.
Find the video that has a lot of Japanese or whatever your target language is, and then listen.
And as you're listening, speak out loud.
Yes.
And what is the last one?
It is the new AI tool for dialogue role play.
It's playing.
You can find this with every single lesson.
On our website.
So these are the five tools you can try right now to practice the technique called shadowing.
Yes.
So please try these five tactics, five resources.
Let us know if there's another tool that you use to practice this technique shadowing.
Right.
So for our Inner Circle members, have you tried shadowing before?
Let us know.
Email us at inner.circle at innovativelanguage.com.
And stay tuned for the next Inner Circle.
Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time.
Bye-bye.

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