Shadowing practice: How to Break Bad Habits - Proven Tactics from Atomic Habits Author
Listen to the line, then say it out loud
Full transcript
- So if you want to break a bad habit, there are kind of three potential paths you could take.0:00
- So the first is you can eliminate it entirely.0:05
- So elimination.0:08
- Second option is you can reduce it so you can like curtail it to the desired degree.0:08
- I don't want to never drink caffeine.0:13
- I just want to drink less of it.0:14
- And the third option is you could substitute it.0:16
- You could replace it with a different habit.0:17
- And of those three, oftentimes replacing it is actually the more effective option.0:19
- So for example, if you get your caffeine from drinking Coke or soda or something like that, then maybe you find out, hey, you know something I really love from0:24
- this experience is I actually just like drinking a carbonated beverage.0:32
- And so it's the carbonation that I like.0:35
- And maybe if I substitute it with sparkling water or something like that, I still get the carbonation sensation, but I don't have the caffeine associated with it anymore.0:37
- And so that's a way of substituting for that behavior.0:46
- And you still get something that the experience provides.0:50
English Speaking Practice with a B1 American Conversation on Breaking Habits
This clip comes from The Tim Ferriss Show, an American podcast, and it is rated B1, so an intermediate learner can follow the argument without stopping on every word. The pace is 228 words per minute, faster than 83 percent of the catalogue, so the speaker runs through an idea without slowing down for you.
What is happening: the guest lays out three ways to break a bad habit, eliminate it, reduce it, or substitute it, then walks through a caffeine example to show what substituting looks like in real life. It is spoken, explanatory American English, the register you actually meet in daily english conversation practice, not a scripted scene.
The Language in This Habit Breaking Explanation
Three lines here are worth slowing down on before you try english shadowing practice on the full clip.
- "So if you want to break a bad habit, there are kind of three potential paths you could take." The filler "kind of" softens a claim that is about to become a numbered list, listen for the small rise before "three potential paths".
- "I don't want to never drink caffeine." followed by "I just want to drink less of it." The first line stacks two negatives the way spoken English actually does, then the second line resets with "just" to soften the contrast, say them as a pair.
- "And maybe if I substitute it with sparkling water or something like that, I still get the carbonation sensation, but I don't have the caffeine associated with it anymore." One long clause with no pause until "but", good practice for holding a thought across a full breath.
How to Shadow This B1 American Habit Talk Line by Line
Work through the clip in this order rather than playing it once end to end.
- Shadow this line first on its own: "So if you want to break a bad habit, there are kind of three potential paths you could take." Repeat it until the rhythm of the list setup feels automatic.
- Take lines 2 and 3 together, "So the first is you can eliminate it entirely." and "So elimination.", the second line is the speaker restating the first in one word, practice both together to hear how he compresses it.
- Move to the contrast pair "I don't want to never drink caffeine." and "I just want to drink less of it.", say them back to back so the shift in tone between the two lands.
- Finish on the longest line, the sparkling water sentence, and split it at "but" into two halves before you try it whole, that is where most learners lose the thread on their first pass.
- Once each line is separate, replay the clip straight through and shadow it live, at 228 words per minute this is real speak english fluently territory, and repeating it daily will do more for your american accent than a single listen ever will.
