Shadowing practice: Inde Navarrette on Her New Hit Movie Obsession, Being a Daredevil & She Makes a Wish with Jimmy

This clip is a talk show interview, the kind of unscripted back and forth you get on American late night television. The accent is American, the level is B1, and the pace comes in at 238 words per minute, faster than 89% of the catalogue. That speed is exactly why it is useful for english speaking practice: real hosts do not slow down for guests, and Jimmy Kimmel does not slow down here either.

The scene itself is simple to follow. Kimmel introduces the movie Obsession, then brings out Inde Navarrette and asks how fame feels, whether people are scared of her now, and whether she is really a huge Jackass fan. She tells him her family used to watch Jackass together during Thanksgiving, that she met Johnny Knoxville and blacked out mid sentence, and that she once hoped to talk her way into a Jackass movie. It is casual, quick, and full of short answers, which makes it a good fit for daily english conversation practice.

Three lines here reward a close listen. Each one is short, but the timing inside it is the whole joke, and getting that timing right is most of what shadowing a line teaches you.

• "I said hi, and then I blacked out." Two clauses joined by "and then" with no pause before the punchline. Say it fast and flat, the way she does, and the joke lands on "blacked out" instead of anywhere earlier.
• "We watched it while we eat." A short present tense sentence describing a habit, not a one time event. The verb stays present tense where past tense would be expected, a small grammar slip caught live that shows the family still does this.
• "Football wasn't violent enough for your family." Kimmel's contraction "wasn't" runs together in speech, and the stress falls on "violent", which is what makes the tease work. Practice this one to hear how American speakers compress a contraction under stress.

Work through this recording in the order the lines actually appear, not randomly. Each step below points at a specific line from the transcript.

• Start with line 24, "Obsession is in theaters now." It is short and neutral, good for warming up your mouth to the pace before anything harder arrives.
• Shadow line 33, "Is this a strange experience for you now?" and copy the rising question intonation, not just the words.
• Slow line 67 down first, "I said hi, and then I blacked out.", then bring it back up to full speed once the two clauses feel natural back to back.
• Take line 57, "We watched it while we eat.", and repeat it until the short vowels stop feeling rushed. This is where a beginner shadowing pass earns its keep.
• Finish on line 52, "Football wasn't violent enough for your family.", aiming your stress at "violent" the way Kimmel does, to improve your english accent on sarcastic delivery specifically.