Shadowing practice: Shadowing English with Mark Kulek ESL (Give Up)

This is an english speaking practice video built entirely around one phrasal verb: give up. Mark, teaching in an american accent, explains what the phrase means, gives everyday examples like stop drinking beer or stop drinking coffee, then drills ten full sentences with you before checking your answers against his own.

The level is A2, and the pace runs at 120 words per minute, faster than 5 percent of the catalogue, so this sits among the slower recordings in the collection. There is no second speaker and no dialogue to follow. It is one teacher, one camera, and a tight loop: say the sentence, hear it said again, then check it against the answer on screen. That slow, repeated loop is what makes it a workable clip for american accent training at a true beginner level.

Three moments in this clip are worth slowing down for before you shadow this line for real.

• "I can't I can't do it I'm gonna stop trying to learn the guitar." The stumble at the start, saying I can't twice before the sentence lands, is a real false start, not a script. Gonna is the one reduced form in this clip, and it carries the whole sentence forward at speed.
• "He gave up caffeine to improve his sleep" is said three times back to back in the drill section. That triple repeat is the video doing your repeat drill for you: say it, hear it again immediately, say it again.
• "I won't give up despite the setbacks" pairs the contraction won't with the rare word setbacks. Say the contraction fast and let setbacks land slower, which is closer to how Mark actually stresses it.
• "Do your sentences match my sentences?" is a genuine question, spoken with rising intonation, right before the video checks each answer aloud. It is worth answering out loud yourself before Mark gives the answer away.

Treat this less like a video to watch once and more like ten sentences to practise english speaking with, one at a time.

• Start at line 3, where Mark defines give up with stop drinking beer or stop drinking coffee. Repeat his examples out loud before the drill even begins, so the meaning is set before the speed picks up.
• At line 11, say the full stumble: "I can't I can't do it I'm gonna stop trying to learn the guitar." Match the hesitation, not just the words. A flat, even delivery misses what is actually happening in that line.
• From line 14 through line 19, take one drilled sentence at a time, such as "He gave up caffeine to improve his sleep" or "We gave up trying to fix the old laptop." Each is said three times in the recording, so shadow the first pass, check yourself on the second, and aim for a clean match on the third.
• At line 20, where Mark says "Okay, that was shadowing," pause the video and repeat the full set of ten sentences from memory before moving on.
• From line 27 onward, use the numbered check as your own answer key: say your sentence first, then compare it to his, the same as he asks at line 24, "Do your sentences match my sentences?" This is a fast way to catch where your english speaking practice is drifting from the recording, and repeating it daily builds the kind of everyday english you can produce, not just recognise.