Shadowing practice: Banking idioms → Learn English with Mark Kulek ESL

This clip is english speaking practice built around ten banking idioms, from Mark Kulek's daily conversations series. It is rated A2, and the pace is 128 words per minute, faster than 6 percent of the clips in this catalogue, so the level is easy but the delivery does not slow down for you. That combination is exactly what makes it useful: simple vocabulary said at a real conversational speed, in an american accent, is closer to what you will actually hear outside a classroom.

The recording runs 42 lines and follows one pattern all the way through. Mark names an idiom, gives a one line definition, then two speakers use it inside a short question and answer about a bank account, a loan or a bill: break the bank, in the black, nest egg, money to burn, penny pincher, cash in on, on the money, pay off. Repeating that pattern ten times is good american accent training, because the sentence shapes barely change while the vocabulary does.

Three lines are worth isolating before you shadow the rest of this A2 conversation. "The loan won't break the bank, right?" pairs an idiom with a rising tag question. "Is my account finally in the black?" is a full question inversion with the stress falling on "finally" and "black". "Yes, you're right on the money." turns the idiom itself into the answer, said with the contraction "you're". Each one is short enough to hold in memory and real enough to reuse in your own daily english conversation practice.

• "The loan won't break the bank, right?": the tag question right invites a quick confirming answer, practice the rising pitch on that final word.
• "Is my account finally in the black?": stress lands on finally and black, not on the smaller words around them.
• "Yes, you're right on the money.": the idiom answers the question directly, said with a contraction rather than two full words.

Work idiom by idiom rather than start to finish, since each pair of lines stands alone.

• Listen once to lines 1 to 5 without repeating, just to hear how the idiom sits inside a full sentence.
• Shadow this line, "Something is too expensive.", on its own until the rhythm feels automatic, before adding the idiom built around it.
• Pair "Is my account finally in the black?" with "In the red, oh money or are in debt." to practice both sides of the same idiom.
• Say your own answer to "Is this a good account to grow my nest egg?" out loud before playing Mark's answer, then compare the two.
• Finish on "Yes, it will pay off over time." and "More practice.", then run the full clip again at speed for english shadowing for beginners.