Shadowing practice: Encanto (2021)The House (Casita) is Destroyed | Movie Clip

This clip comes from Encanto, an American animated film, so the accent is American throughout. It sits at B2, and the recording runs at 167 words per minute, faster than 32 percent of the clips in this catalogue. Across 71 lines, Mirabel and Abuela accuse each other while the house falls apart around them, so the pace speeds up and slows down with the argument instead of staying flat.

It works well for daily english conversation practice because it is not narration, it is two people talking over each other, cutting each other off, repeating a single word for emphasis. Short bursts like "Isabel!" and "Mirabel!" sit right next to longer accusations, so a shadowing pass on this clip trains both a quick reaction and a full sentence in the same minute.

Listen closely to line 4, "We're gonna save the miracle!" The gonna reduction lands before the stressed word, save, so the swallowed going to speeds the line up rather than slowing it down. Line 46, "We gotta get out of here," does the same job under more pressure: gotta compresses two words into one beat so the line matches the panic of the scene. Line 20, "The crack started with you," and line 21, "Bruno left because of you," both end on you, and Abuela hits that word harder each time she repeats the pattern, which is a small but real lesson in american accent training on stress rather than on individual sounds.

• Line 4, "We're gonna save the miracle!": the gonna reduction, stress on save, not on gonna.
• Line 46, "We gotta get out of here.": gotta compressed under time pressure, said fast.
• Lines 20 and 21, "The crack started with you." and "Bruno left because of you.": repeated you, stressed harder on the second line.

Do not start at line 1. This scene builds, so working it in order teaches you how English speeds up under stress, not just what the words mean.

• Play lines 1 to 9 once through without repeating, just to hear the shouting and the interruptions land.
• Isolate line 4, "We're gonna save the miracle!", and shadow it five times until gonna stops sounding like two words.
• Move to lines 20 to 23, the four short accusations that all end on you, and copy the stress pattern, not just the words.
• Shadow line 26, "I will never be good enough for you.", slowly first, then at the clip's own pace.
• Take line 46, "We gotta get out of here.", on its own and say it as one breath, the way panic actually sounds.
• Finish on the run of Mirabel! calls near the end and try matching the rising pitch on each repeat, not just the volume.