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Shadowing practice: Real English® 57 - Present Perfect & Present Perfect Continuous, plus Verb Review

Listen to the line, then say it out loud
Line 1

Full transcript

  1. Real English!0:00
  2. Hi, what are you doing?0:04
  3. I'm juggling.0:06
  4. How long have you been juggling today?0:10
  5. About 10 minutes.0:13
  6. Do you always juggle here?0:16
  7. No, I very rarely juggle here.0:18
  8. And have you ever traveled abroad?0:30
  9. Where have you been?0:36
  10. We've been to England, France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Switzerland.0:38
  11. And what was your favorite place in Europe?0:54
  12. The most comfortable place for us to visit was England because there's no language barrier.0:58
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  1. What is your name?1:05
  2. Mindalake.1:07
  3. Would you spell that for me?1:08
  4. Yes, it's M -I -N -D -A -L -A -K -E.1:09
  5. And what are you doing right now?1:12
  6. I am on my way back to work from lunch.1:13
  7. Where do you live?1:18
  8. I live in Bayside, Queens.1:19
  9. And where do you work?1:21
  10. I work right here at 114 West 47th Street in New York.1:23
  11. How long does it take you to get to work?1:27
  12. It takes me about one hour.1:30
  13. And how do you get to work?1:33
  14. I take an express bus to work.1:34
  15. When were you born?1:36
  16. I was born on November 22nd, 1956.1:38
  17. And what have you been doing in the city today?1:42
  18. I have been working for most of the day.1:45
  19. I just had lunch with some of my coworkers and we ate pizza.1:47
  20. Very nice.1:51
  21. Have you been to Europe?1:52
  22. Yes, I have.1:53
  23. What are you going to do tonight?1:56
  24. Tonight?1:58
  25. I'm doing laundry.2:00
  26. That's good.2:03
  27. And helping my husband put up the track lighting in our new apartment.2:04
  28. What are you going to do on your next holiday?2:09
  29. Hopefully go back to France because we loved it so much the first time.2:14
  30. Wonderful.2:17
  31. We're going to love to hear that on French.2:18
  32. What do you like to do for fun?2:20
  33. I like to go to movies, concerts, out to dinner, socialize with friends and family.2:22
  34. Can you play any musical instruments?2:30
  35. I can play the piano.2:32
  36. Very nice.2:34
  37. What time is it?2:35
  38. What time is it?2:36
  39. It is almost two o 'clock in the afternoon.2:39
  40. And what's the weather like today?2:43
  41. The weather is beautiful today.2:44
  42. It's a little cool, it's dry, and it's a little breezy and sunny.2:45
  43. Thank you very much for your time.2:49
  44. That was excellent.2:51
  45. You were wonderful.2:52
  46. Thank you very much.2:53
  47. Bye -bye.2:54
  48. Thank you.3:19

Daily english conversation practice, A2 level, American accent

This clip is good english speaking practice for daily use. An interviewer walks up to a stranger on a New York street and asks about her day: juggling, a lunch with coworkers, her commute, her plans for the evening. The accent is American, the level is A2, and the pace runs at 198 words per minute, faster than 60 percent of the catalogue, so the lines move quickly even though each one is short.

There are 60 lines total and almost none of them run past a sentence. That matters for a beginner clip: you are never stuck untangling a long paragraph, you are answering one question at a time, the way you would in a real conversation. The questions cover the kind of ground you actually get asked: where you live, what you do for work, what you did for lunch, what you are doing tonight.

The grammar hiding inside an ordinary conversation

Shadow this line for the grammar as much as the sound. The interview is built around present perfect and present perfect continuous, and you can hear the difference in real answers instead of a textbook table.

  • "How long have you been juggling today?" puts the continuous form on a question you would never think to ask yourself, which is exactly why it is worth repeating out loud until the shape feels normal.
  • "We've been to England, France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Switzerland." is a list answer, six place names in one breath after a contraction. Say the contraction fast, then slow down for the list, the way the speaker does.
  • "I have been working for most of the day." and "I just had lunch with some of my coworkers and we ate pizza." sit back to back in the clip, one continuous and one simple past, so you get to hear the two forms answering two different questions about the same afternoon.
  • "It's a little cool, it's dry, and it's a little breezy and sunny." strings four short clauses together with the same subject dropped each time, a pattern worth noticing for your own small talk about weather.

How to work this A2 interview clip line by line

A2 shadowing english practice works best when you separate the questions from the answers before you try to sound natural. This clip gives you a clean way to do that.

  • First pass: shadow only the interviewer's questions, lines 4, 8, 11, 19, 21, 23, 25, 27, 40 and 44. They are short and they repeat a pattern, so they are the fastest way in.
  • Second pass: shadow the traveler's answer on its own, "We've been to England, France, Italy, Germany, Austria, Switzerland," then "The most comfortable place for us to visit was England because there's no language barrier," until the list and the reason connect without a pause.
  • Third pass: take the lunch pair, "I have been working for most of the day" and "I just had lunch with some of my coworkers and we ate pizza," and say them one after the other to feel the tense switch in your own mouth.
  • Fourth pass: close with the weather line, "It's a little cool, it's dry, and it's a little breezy and sunny," out loud three times, aiming for the same speed the speaker uses rather than slowing it down.
  • Once those four passes feel steady, play the whole clip through once without stopping. That is where you improve your english speaking rhythm, not on the individual lines.
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