shadowing speech

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The Shadowing Technique: 7 Simple Steps for Successful Language Shadowing

You know what parrots are famous for: repeating what you say , for better or worse.

With a technique called language shadowing , you’ll be acting like a parrot does—repeating what you hear in a foreign language , even if you don’t fully understand it right away.

The difference is that over time you’ll actually start to learn your target language through this repetition and imitation.

In this post, we’ll show you how this unconventional learning method works and how you can start shadowing successfully in seven steps.

What Is Language Shadowing?

The link between shadowing and pronunciation, who should consider language shadowing, how to shadow successfully, 1. choose your audio resource, 2. practice in your native language first, 3. just listen and focus on the sounds, 4. listen and repeat while walking around, 5. listen and repeat while reading the english translation, 6. listen and repeat while reading the target language transcript, 7. repeat daily, start integrating shadowing into your language learning routine, how to find the right materials for your target language, knowing when to stop language shadowing, an alternate take on the shadowing technique: chorusing, and one more thing....

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Put simply, language shadowing is repeating aloud what you hear, word for word, with as little delay as possible.

Linguist and polyglot Alexander Arguelles is considered the inventor of language shadowing. He’s created a series of videos focused on teaching and demonstrating the technique .

Arguelles defines shadowing as a language learning technique where the student listens to a recording of target language audio, and simultaneously echoes what they hear. Shadowing is designed to force you to focus on the sounds of your target language and develop pronunciation that mimics a native speaker.

Ideally, you’ll eventually also start to absorb vocabulary, grammar rules and natural sentence structures.

Arguelles recommends doing three things while shadowing to improve your focus and memory:

• Walking outside swiftly
• Maintaining a good posture
• Repeating aloud in a loud, articulate manner

While Arguelles may have developed the shadowing technique into a concrete learning method, there are people who’ve been using shadowing prior to it having this name.

To understand how shadowing works, let’s first think about what pronunciation is and what it involves. Looking at it in a new way might be helpful for your learning perspective.

Consider this: Every single language has words and sounds that blend together when spoken naturally.

If you’re a native English speaker and you read that last sentence aloud in a normal voice, you’ll probably join “single language,” “blend together” and “spoken naturally” into single words, with no pause between them.

Not to mention, you’ll probably say “words ‘n sounds” instead of “words and sounds.”

Shadowing will not just help you learn a language, but it will also help you improve your accent , pronunciation and overall fluency when speaking the language. 

The shadowing technique works best for a few types of people:

• Auditory learners
• Students who learn best with structured study plans
• Polyglots (if you’ve already learned a foreign language, speaking with unfamiliar sounds isn’t as scary)

Even if you don’t fall into one of those groups, this out-of-the-box learning method can help energize your same old, same old study plan. Plus, the focused pronunciation practice is inherently valuable, especially if you don’t have lots of other opportunities for target language speaking practice.

You’ll also develop your target language intonation , the natural “melody” or pattern of your speech. Depending on the emphasis you consciously or subconsciously place on certain syllables or words while speaking, a sentence can have a slightly different meaning. Intonation develops over time and is affected by how we hear others speak.

So with language shadowing, our intonation develops as we listen and repeat, the same way it does with our native language. Both accents and intonation are crucial to achieving language fluency , so you sound much more natural when you speak, instead of like you’re reading from a textbook.

Of course, there are many different ways to approach learning a new language , and shadowing doesn’t work for everyone . Like any other method, your individual success with shadowing is dependent on how much time, effort and dedication you put into it.

Shadowing is a very successful and useful language learning method when applied correctly. 

The guide below is based on the structure laid out in  Arguelles’ video “Shadowing Step by Step.” We recommend watching this video for a more in-depth analysis of the different stages of language shadowing.

Before you choose an audio resource, there are a number of factors you should consider:

It’s important to consider your language level . If your source is too advanced or too easy, the shadowing technique may be less effective.

You’ll also want to make sure your audio resource has a text component with an English translation  (for example, an e-book version of your audiobook in both languages). You’ll see why in the steps below.

But what kind of audio should you be listening to?

Audiobooks read by a native speaker in your target language are one great option— LibriVox is a great place to find audiobooks in many different languages. For shorter, more digestible listening, try podcasts in your target language .

Videos featuring native speakers are also highly useful for shadowing because you get to see the language being used in context, which helps you remember the meanings faster.

You can also get shadowing material with a language learning program that utilizes audio components. Language websites and apps tend to present information in multiple formats, instead of just focusing on audio. This can ultimately make the shadowing experience more engaging and immersive.

Whatever resource you choose, you’ll want to make sure it’s convenient to use and plentiful in content.

To ease yourself into the method, try it with a recording of yourself in English or your native language .

Read a text aloud, slightly slower than normal, for two or three minutes. Then play back the recording and try to repeat after it. You don’t want to wait for a sentence or even a word to end before repeating it—your repetitions should be as close to simultaneous with the recording as possible.

This will get you accustomed to the slightly unusual feeling of speaking and listening at the same time. Now you’re ready to try it with a foreign language.

Listen to the dialogue in your target language with headphones or earbuds a couple of times without reading any transcript or speaking aloud. Focus on the sounds and feel the words in your mind, even if you don’t have a clue what they actually mean.

The most important part of this step is to acknowledge and focus on the target language before you move on to the next stage.

An unconventional but critical part of language shadowing is walking around while listening to and repeating your audio resource .

As a non-native speaker, early on it’s tricky to speak in a foreign language while doing something else, even the simple task of walking. This exercise is designed to get you out of your comfort zone and focusing actively on what you’re hearing. It also gives a regimented feel to your shadowing practice, making it harder for you to space out or get lazy with your pronunciation.

Walking or pacing while shadowing will seem uncomfortable at first, especially since many of us are inclined to sit down while studying. But as you keep going it’ll become easier and more natural.

Do this step several times until you feel comfortable repeating all of the sounds.

Now you can start learning what you’ve actually been saying this whole time!

Go back to the start of your audio passage and shadow while reading the English translation of your book or transcript . As Arguelles puts it, this will give you a “global” understanding of what you’re listening to and saying. You’ll start to associate meaning with the target language sounds in a natural way.

Again, repeat this stage several times. While you might want to stop pacing around for your own safety, Arguelles still recommends holding your text out in front of you rather than at your lap and keeping an upright posture.

At this stage, you’ll be reading the target language words as you speak them . If the audio is slow enough, you can actively move your eyes between the target language text and translation to compare the individual words and their meanings (Arguelles recommends you start this stage in this way).

Eventually, you should be shadowing your target language and reading your target language only, but understanding what it is you’re hearing and saying.

The essential idea here is that over time, as you shadow with more and more material, you’ll learn how to speak and understand words and phrases in your target language in a big picture, natural way. You won’t be translating one-to-one between English and your target language, which means you can achieve fluency faster.

Language shadowing requires daily effort and dedication from the learner. It might feel laborious at first, but proponents of language shadowing say that with this method, learning a language is a much quicker process overall.

Why? Along with the benefits noted above, Arguelles and his students say it’s because of the discipline required, as well as the immersive nature of this method.

By integrating language shadowing into your regular language learning routine, you’ll be able to work on and start to improve many different parts of your target language at the same time .

Shadowing has benefits beyond just pronunciation. You eventually assimilate the vocabulary and structures used in your text in a very natural way, and when you speak later you can call on those to really boost your fluency.

You also develop muscle memory and are able to have common phrases or collocations roll off your tongue automatically. When you remember vocabulary later on, it’s very likely that the words will appear in your mind in their natural context.

These are both good reasons to make shadowing part of your regular language learning routine . One easy way to do this is to use it as a warm-up . It’s a fantastic warm-up exercise for thinking in the target language. If you happen to be taking regular language classes, shadow for a couple of minutes outside before the class starts. You’ll be significantly more alert and ready to speak.

Becoming better at pronunciation and speaking fluency is also directly tied to listening—and wouldn’t you know it, listening impacts reading as well.

The better your mental model of the language, the easier it’s going to be for you to decode a stream of native speech into chunks of meaning. Shadowing improves that mental model simply through the sheer amount of listening that you work through, so stick with it!

Now that we’ve covered the steps behind using language shadowing successfully, it’s time to look at what materials you can use.

Start out with simple dialogues meant for learners. You want to find something a little bit slower than normal, but not too slow or it’ll start getting unnatural .

Single sentences or groups of phrases are too short. By the same principle, dialogues broken up by English audio translations are also no good.

You’ll also want audio with a transcript so that you can check what you’re hearing. When you’re more advanced, you won’t necessarily need a transcript, but it’s invaluable at the early stages.

Arguelles liked using Assimil courses for this, though many of their products are only available for French speakers. Really, any textbook or learning dialogue will do as long as it’s at least a couple of sentences of connected text.

Another useful resource is FluentU . This language learning program teaches your target language through video-based learning.

Different people use the shadowing technique for different amounts of time, but a good stopping point is when you can follow the recording at about the same speed and you fully understand what you’re saying .

Some people take this significantly further and end up repeating the same audio so many times that they can write the whole thing from memory.

“Stopping point” of course here means a point when it makes sense to move on to a new recording. If you can, stick to recordings by a speaker whose voice sounds really nice to you. Hearing and repeating it so much, especially at the beginner and intermediate stages of learning, will slowly shape your own voice toward that ideal.

Another extremely smart person, Dr. Olle Kjellin, developed a variant on shadowing that deserves a mention here.

Chorusing is his word for shadowing a tiny amount of text—just a few seconds at most—over and over.

Dr. Kjellin, a speech therapist and accent coach, says that students who use his method are able to lose their foreign accents entirely, even in a language like Swedish with very difficult pronunciation.

The idea is that you have this tiny fragment of native speech looping continuously in your headphones  and as you concentrate on it over and over you can’t help but repeat.

It’s an intense activity, particularly because he recommends repeating the same sentence aloud for whole minutes at a time, but it really does work.

There’s a connection that gets formed between your ears and mouth, and as you repeat more and more you can actually hear your voice shaping toward the native model, much like with tuning an instrument.

Language shadowing is a great technique to add to your language learning routine alongside other methods such as  journaling for writing practice or language apps to learn grammar and vocabulary.

By using the shadowing technique, you’ll be able to focus on sounds, pronunciation and intonation in your target language, which will help make your language sound more fluent and natural!

Give shadowing a try for a couple of days, and it just might be the key to a new study routine.

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What is Shadowing And Why Should You Use It To Improve Your English Speaking Skills?

Published on, july 10, 2020, april 24, 2023, this article may contain affiliate links.

Speaking English is hard, and it can be difficult to practice. Check out this groundbreaking technique for improving your English speaking. You can do it on your own with just 15 minutes a day.

Table of contents

Lots of our members choose to learn with Leonardo English because they want to be able to have natural conversations with native English speakers. 

Listening to podcasts is, of course, great for your listening skills . We’ve also shown how simply listening can be great for your speaking skills as well. 

The shadowing technique is another great way to improve your listening and speaking skills —but lots of people don’t know about it. It’s almost like a secret strategy, kept hidden from the world by the most effective polyglots ( okay… maybe not really though ). 

What’s so great about it is that

• You can do it on your own
• It takes only about 15 minutes
• It’s very effective
• You can do it for free

Shadowing is an amazing complement to the English Learning for Curious Minds podcast. If you already listen, shadowing can be an easy and useful way to get even more out of it. 

If you’re curious about what shadowing is and how you can use it to improve your English speaking skills, this guide is for you.

What is shadowing?

Shadowing is a language learning technique where you repeat an audio just after you hear it. You’re acting like an “ echo ” or a “shadow” ( hence the name “shadowing). You listen to the words and then say them back out loud. It looks like this:

Remember that you’re not listening to the audio, stopping it, and then repeating it. You’re repeating it as you’re listening.

Shadowing was popularised by Alexander Arguelles , who is something of a “hyperglot”. (By the way, if you’re interested in how a “hyperglot” practices a foreign language, check out his “language workout” , which he apparently does for 9 hours a day.) 

How do I use shadowing to improve my English speaking skills?

So how do you actually do it? Here’s a simple guide.

• Find an audio. English Learning for Curious Minds Podcast is a great option for audio. But you can really use any audio: audiobooks, Netflix, YouTube videos , or even radio shows. 
• Listen to the audio first. Shadowing is most effective when you understand the content before you repeat it. So give it a listen first, so you understand it. Check that you understand all the key vocabulary.
• Shadow the audio with a transcript. This is the easier version of shadowing: speaking with the audio while also reading a transcript . This helps you to see the words as you’re repeating them. If you’re a beginner or lower-intermediate English learner, this is a great option for you (Leonardo English even provides transcripts for all episodes to members ). 
• Shadow without a transcript. If you’re a bit more advanced, you can skip straight to this step and do shadowing without the transcript. The focus here is on simply listening and then mimicking what you hear. Your focus is on mimicking the sounds; it’s not so much on what is being said. 

If you’re interested in following Alexander Arguelles, he suggests that you do your shadowing while you’re walking outside. Ideally you would:

• Walk outside, swiftly  
• Maintain good posture
• Repeat what you hear in a loud, articulate manner

Walking quickly outside might seem strange, but the idea is to keep the oxygen flowing to your brain, making you more alert, and increasing your brain functionality. 

You don’t need to walk around outside, but Alexander Arguelles has used this method to learn 50 different languages , so I’d definitely take his word for it.

Here are some further tips for shadowing:

• Active learning. The best is if you actually sit down and engage actively in the activity. The more you can focus the better.
• Short duration. This sort of activity is intense; you should do it for only a short period of time. A good length is about 10 to 15 minutes .
• Repeat a few times. There is some benefit from repeating the same passage or piece of audio a few times. But not too much. Repeating between 2 and 4 times is enough. 
• Make sure you like the audio. Find content that you’re curious about or that interests you. 

While it’s best to focus on this activity, you can also do this while you’re doing other things. For example, you can do it in the car on your commute to work, while you’re out jogging, or even while you’re having a bath.

How does shadowing help?

Shadowing helps you develop all the physical aspects of fluency. These include things like pronunciation, prosody , and rhythm of English.

Improves your English pronunciation

Pronunciation is how a word is articulated. It involves things like how open your mouth is, the placement of your tongue, and so on. 

Since you use different muscles to pronounce English words than you do in other languages, part of learning to pronounce English words is to practice moving your mouth like we do when we speak English. 

Shadowing is really great for helping you practice developing muscle memory for your mouth so you can better pronounce English words .

Improves prosody and intonation

Prosody is like the “music” of a language. It’s how the pitches vary across a sentence or across a conversation. For example, in American English we often raise our pitch at the end of a sentence to signal a question. That’s an example of prosody. 

Each language and accent have different ways that they do Prosody, which is why, for example, sometimes people say that the Irish sound like they’re singing when they’re speaking.

Prosody and intonation are often neglected in teaching English. That’s partly because it’s a bit difficult to teach, but it’s also partly because English teachers tend to put more value on learning isolated words and sentences. 

Shadowing is an excellent way to practice the prosody of English because you mimic not just the words, but also the pitches. In this way you practice speaking similar to how native English-speakers speak. 

If you're curious about what kind of accent you should be listening to (and whether it really matters), I'd recommend reading our guide on American vs. British vs. Australian accents in English .

Improves your rhythm

Rhythm refers to the pacing and stress of a language. It is a product of stressing some words and not stressing others. 

While mastering the rhythm for now native English speakers' talk is not essential for being understood, it can help you sound much more natural or fluent when you’re speaking. Like prosody, rhythm tends to be undervalued when teaching English and learners who have a mother tongue that are phonemic or syllable-timed have particular difficulties with this in English. 

Again, shadowing helps teach English because you get to practice it together with audio from a native speaker. You get a sense of which words are stressed and which are not by actually stressing them or not. 

Is the shadowing technique effective?

Yes, shadowing is great for developing speaking fluency in English, especially the physical aspects of fluency like pronunciation, prosody, and rhythm.

Several studies have shown that it can be an effective way to improve speaking skills. For example, in one experiment at the National Taiwan University , researchers found that including a shadowing technique significantly improved students intonation, fluency, word pronunciation, and overall pronunciation. 

According to researchers , shadowing is effective for

• Developing listening comprehension
• Developing the ability to produce speech
• Develop the ability to learn new words, and
• Develop metacognitive monitoring skills for language

What if I feel strange doing it?

Ya, it does seem a little weird, doesn’t it? Especially if you follow the advice of Alexander Arguelles and do it outside. Shadowing may feel strange and unnatural if you’re not used to it. This can stop some people from trying it. 

But, rather than think about it as a strange activity, think about it like a language superpower. Polyglots and successful language learners swear by this method. And it’s accessible to anyone that has access to English audio. 

Give it a try even if it feels a bit weird at the beginning. Give yourself a challenge, like doing it for 15 minutes a day for 30 days. You’ll definitely notice a difference in your speaking fluency.

And remind yourself it’s not that weird. If you do it outside with your headphones, people might just think you’re talking to someone on the phone. And if you still feel weird, just do it at home in the bedroom. I won’t tell. 

Make shadowing a part of your English learning plan

Shadowing is a super useful exercise and can be used to improve your speaking skills. 

Research has shown that it can be an effective activity in a variety of teaching and learning environments. Best of all, it’s a great way to improve your English speaking when you don’t have anyone to practise with . 

So why not add it to your English learning plan ?

You’ll find it especially useful if you struggle with pronunciation , prosody, rhythm, or if you simply want to speak English more naturally. 

And if you need some inspiration, you can check out a member of Leonardo English, Kristian, shadowing the English Learning for Curious Minds podcast as he talks about why he became a member .

Hamada, Y. (2018). Shadowing for pronunciation development: Haptic-shadowing and IPA-shadowing. Journal of Asia TEFL , 15 (1), 167.

Hsieh, K. T., Dong, D. H., & Wang, L. Y. (2013). A preliminary study of applying shadowing technique to English intonation instruction. Taiwan Journal of Linguistics , 11 (2), 43-65.

Kadota, S. (2019). Shadowing as a Practice in Second Language Acquisition: Connecting Inputs and Outputs . Routledge.

Zarei, A. A., & Alipour, H. (2020). Shadowing and scaffolding techniques affecting L2 reading comprehension. Applied Research on English Language , 9 (1), 53-74.

You might also like

The Best Podcasts To Prepare For IELTS [2022]

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English with a Smile

Improve your english, grammar tips, vocabulary and get better writing., speech shadowing technique for english, improve your speaking, without a teacher.

Sometimes you hear people talk about practising your English with the Speech Shadowing Technique. What is that and how can you use it to improve your English on your own?

Shadowing technique or speech shadowing means talking at the same time or just after you hear a native speaker talk .

Basically, what you do is take an audio file of an English speaker and try to say the same things as her/him.

Does this sound easy to you? No, it’s not! Because you also need to be a very good listener.

Anyway, why will this improve your English speaking (and listening)? Because you will be forced to imitate the speech patterns the speaker is producing. Speech patterns in non-native speakers are often different from the ones native speakers use, and that is very often the cause that the two groups of speakers don’t understand each other.

What kind of speech patterns should you look for?

• Make sure you note when the voice of the speaker that you listen to goes up or down. You can hear differences in pitch (how high or low the voice is), according to the meaning of what someone is saying. When you say a question, your voice should go up. When you say a statement, your voice goes down. Also listen for other emotion that is put in the intonation of a sentence. The phrase can be threatening, excited, angry, happy, depressed, etc. Does someone’s voice go down or up when he/she is angry? Here is where things get interesting.
• Listen for stress patterns. Stress is which part of the verb is heavier. For instance in the word heavy, the stress is on the first part (syllable) of the word (hea), and the second part of the word (vy) is unstressed. This is very important for you to imitate, as this is where non-native speakers go wrong a lot, and it causes misunderstandings.
• Listen for pauses between phrases (parts of meaning in a sentence). Putting pauses in the appropriate place makes longer sentences easier to understand. You should try to do this, too, to become a better speaker.

Tip: Use a video that has a transcript (in English of course) or subtitles . You can read along while you talk and this makes it easier for you to remember what to say. Besides, it’s also good for your reading and spelling.

Okay, now that you’ve read about the advantages of speech shadowing and you’ve read some tips, here is some instruction how to get you started:

1 You’ll need some audio files.

It depends what you want to learn, but I recommend having a look at these resources:

Tip: Make sure that the video is just a little easier than you can handle . You will have more fun when you understand all the words or almost all the words than when you don’t know what you’re saying.

Easy Shadow

Here are some links to easy Podcasts with transcripts:

2 Put on the audio file and start speaking along with the speaker.

Speech shadowing is better with headphones .

Use the tips above to increase your awareness of speech patterns, in order to be able to imitate them better.

It didn’t go so well? Don’t worry, you will get better. Just put it back on from the beginning, or wait for tomorrow and try again.

Or try a different video.

Shadowing Songs

If you love singing, and more importantly, if your neighbours love your singing, you can also do shadowing with songs..

How does it work?

Same same. Sing along with the singer and try to imitate the accent and pronunciation.

I recommend that you use YouTube (or Vimeo, it doesn’t matter) with lyrics on screen. You can find songs with lyrics on screen when you search for the title of the song that you like, and typing “lyrics.”

Here is a list of songs with lyrics , in case you don’t have your own preferences.

Some songs might have some mistakes in the lyrics (including wrong words and spelling mistakes, just so you know. These videos are made by amateurs.)

Special Things to Try with Shadowing

There are some other things you can do with shadowing.

• Slow shadowing.

Especially when the regular speaking tempo of the speaker is going too fast for you and you feel you are missing out on things, try the following:

Pause the audio after one sentence or after one phrase. Then try to say what you’ve just heard. Play it back as many times as you like to check your pronunciation again. Also check for intonation and pauses (see above).

If there is a word you have difficulty with, isolate the word and say it a few times. Didn’t get it? Try again tomorrow, or divide the word into syllables and say each syllable, then speed up. Check a different speaker for this word, by looking it up in an online dictionary ( The Free Dictionar y has human voices saying the word in British and American accent).

• Slow shadowing for working on particular problems.

Suppose you want to have an English r. Choose a video/podcast with a speaker whose r you like. Pause at words that have an r in them. Repeat the word or say the word together with the speaker.

You can use this technique with all kinds of pronunciation features you’d like to work on: Th, vowel sounds (e, a, ea, the o in door or the o in no, etc.), sh as opposed to s, distinguishing between b and v, or v and w. If you don’t know what your weaknesses are, ask an English speaker to listen to you speak. They will tell you after one minute. With the speech shadowing technique, you can continue working on your “problem” on your own.

Important Tip

Do not use text-to-speech apps for your shadowing.

These apps use computer voices. You don’t want to speak like a computer , but copy the natural speech patterns of human beings. If you speak like a computer, you will have the same problem as when you speak with a heavy accent and use wrong intonation, which is that no one will understand you.

Still have questions about the subject of this post? Let other learners know in a comment.

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2 thoughts on “ Speech Shadowing Technique for English ”

Hi! Hello! This is Sarwar from Green Bangladesh. Nice to meet you. Could you please let me know How improve my ENGLISH Speaking power ?

Best wishes,

Yes, I’ve given you lots of tips before.

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How to get fluent, with Dr Popkins

How to learn a foreign language. Methods, matrials and stories to help you maximise your effectiveness on the road to fluency

In-depth explorations, actionable tips and inspiring conversations for language learners who REALLY want to get fluent…..plus a little bit of fun along the way.

Shadowing for language learning: what and how?

By Dr Popkins Leave a Comment

Shadowing is a deceptively simple, little-known language learning technique. You take a native audio recording , with a transcript and you speak along at as close to the same time as you can. That’s it.  Shadowing is sometimes recommended to trainee conference interpreters, which suggests that it’s a well-serious method, worth closer investigation. In this article we’ll look at the benefits claimed for shadowing and different ways to do it. I’ll give you some practical tips and point out one pitfall you need to be aware of.

What are the benefits of shadowing for language learning?

I haven’t yet found any scientific research on the effectiveness of shadowing but its proponents in the interpreter and language learning communities stress several benefits.

First , it’s said that shadowing helps you practise the pronunciation of individual words and phrases .  Shadowing gets your mouth muscles moving as you train on language that you know is correct.

The pronunciation practice aspect includes connected speech . That’s how – in the flow of real speech – individual words are compressed or merge into words that come before or after.

Second , shadowing is said to help with the melody of phrases . If you shadow well, you’re not only pronouncing the words correctly. You’re also using native intonation to freight your speech with the correct emotional load.

This is important because intonation patterns differ between languages. It’s not just what you say, but the music with which you say that makes for (mis)communication in your target langauge.

As a secondary benefit, shadowing could also help you reinforce vocabulary, collocations and structures that you already know, when used as part of a wider study routine.

True, shadowing may not be as effective for imprinting the language into your long-term memory as independent production and recall in a language are.

Even so, any form of repetition is going to help you to some extent and shadowing is a lot more than blind repetition.

It also has the potential to help you learn new stuff , as it’ll flag up new words, phrases or structures that you don’t yet know.

A warning and tips before you start

Here’s the pitfall: if you’re not careful, especially if you’re a beginner in a language, shadowing could ingrain pronunciation mistakes .  The risk is that you mishear sounds and reproduce the nearest familiar sound from your own language.

When shadowing, you’ll usually be working with a text as well as audio. So, if your target language is written in the Latin alphabet, you could, double up the mistake by imposing the sound value English gives to a letter to that letter in your target language.

Remember, then, that shadowing is a supplement to more fundamental work on pronunciation and accent.

When you’re beginning with a language, you need to focus on individual sounds, syllables and words, without the pressure of pace that shadowing involves.

Ideally, you’ll be getting corrective feedback from a native speaker and checks at various stages of your language learning journey to work on sounds that you’re still not getting right.

As long as you really are getting the right sound, shadowing gives you an opportunity to practise the physical feel of articulating your target language. It can help you training up the new moves your mouth needs.

Learning to shadow

Though shadowing is a simple technique in theory, you may need a little while to get the hang of it.

Even once you know how to shadow, it can get tiring. After all, you are reading, listening and speaking at the same time and so need a high levels of focus.

It gets easier with practice, though.

When you’re staring out, work with a short audio recording of a minute or two (and the same content transcribe, about an A4 page of double-spaced text , maximum).

You can work with the text several times or alternate texts. Maybe aim for sessions of ten or fifteen minutes shadowing a time.

For your first time ever, you could start with run through of the method with recording and transcript in English or your mother tongue (if different).

Armed with target language audio recording and transcript, you may not want to throw yourself straight in at the deep end with a whole text, non-stop in your target language.

No worries. You can train yourself up in stages .

Take your recording and listen to the whole thing a few times without straining , to get a feel for the soundscape and content.

If there are things you don’t understand, use the transcript to help you identify the words or phrases and look up the vocab or grammar , if you need to.

Now you know what’s there, you can return to the audio and start to listen to a phrase, pause the audio and repeat the phrase.

Work phrase by phrase . Whether you have the text in front of you or not is up to you. It’s obviously easier if you do, though.

While delayed phrase-by-phrase repeating is useful, isn’t shadowing proper, because you’re not speaking simultaneously .

Once you’re ready, you can do some real shadowing: speaking along with the recording as closely to simultaneously as possible.

Let the audio dominate your senses, really “lock on” to the native voice(s), even though you’re also following the text in written form as you go

If you come across a particularly difficult phrase, you can still use that pause button. When you resume, though, stay simultaneous.

The hardest version is to shadow without the transcript .

If the text is new, this is obviously only going to work with a slightly longer delay of a second or two (and, unless the text is a good way below your level, probably only after a few listens through and checking of words).

If the material is very familiar to you, with experience you may be able to achieve approximate to the same level of synchronisation that you achieve when the text is open in front of you.

Get moving!

Shadowing is a physical thing .  It’s not only your mouth that should be put through its paces.

Professor Alexander Aguelles, whose YouTube videos have helped make the method better known in the language self-study online community, likes to shadow not just standing up , but moving about .

He illustrated shadowing in this video on his YouTube channel.

It’s not significant that he’s going backwards and forward across a small footbridge. That’s just so that he stays within range of his camera.

You’ll see that for some of the time he’s repeating without the text (he’s wearing audio earbuds).  For some of the time he uses the text.

Don’t mumble. Try to  articulate loudly and clearly (while also trying to reproduce the music of the text). This will help shape your mouth.

A bit of theatricality won’t go amiss. You’re playing a part, after all.

Ways to use shadowing in your language learning

As we’ve seen, while shadowing can help with understanding and memorising words and phrases, it’s mainly about accent, intonation, remembering.

So, if you’re using shadowing to work on accent and intonation, work with material   at or slightly below your current level . Take the reinforcement effects of focussed repetition of the vocab and grammar as a useful side benefit to help you with the “ over learning” that we all need to do.

If you’re learning new stuff , one way of using shadowing would be as your first approach to a new text. Be comfortable with your lack of comprehension. Look at shadowing as a way to get you intrigued, primed before you start working.

More effective, though, could be to finish off with some shadowing , after you’ve pulled a text apart and studied unknown grammar and new words and phrases.

Which texts to use for shadowing?

If your textbook has audio to go with some of the texts, this would be an obvious place to start. You’ll be sure that the material is at the appropriate level.

Good textbooks usually have a lot of dialogues . They offer you the sort of two-way exchanges with natural breaks that could work well for shadowing.  These sort of conversations are probably how you’ll want to use language in real life (well, minus the ums and ahs, false starts, stumbling and repetition of real life speech).

Another source of good conversations is podcasts with transcripts , either for learners or – once you get to upper intermediate and beyond – podcasts aimed at native speakers.

An alternative if to get an audio book plus a copy of the physical book itself.

You might find a recording of a play or film online and get hold of the script.

Whose voice?

To develop good listening skills, you need to be familiar with a wide range of accents.

Remember, though, that shadowing isn’t about listening skills .

For shadowing, you’re practising the  physical feel of how you want to speak, so shadow people who sound more or less how you want to sound .

With a textbook, you can be sure that the voice actors will be relatively neutral.

If you’re straying further afield in your choice of source material, you may find it better to stick to accents that are similar to the one you’ve decide to adopt in your target language.

Don’t pick the audio of a play set in deepest Bavaria, for example, unless that’s the kind of German you want to speak.

Making your own materials for language shadowing

If you have the text but no audio you could ask a friend to record it for you or pay a native speaker to do so.

In the same way, if you have a recording but no transcript, you could enlist somebody to help you make one.

Better still, first of all try to make your own by doing an impromptu dictation exercise with the audio and have it checked.

Where can you find help with the audio/transcribing for you?

You could ask a native speaker friend.

Alternatively you could ask your teacher to help you with this during lesson time or do the extra work for you at a different time.  If your teacher isn’t able to help, try approach an additional teacher on italki.com .

Another option (especially for the more common languages, is to check out a site like upwork.com where you can find many freelance wordsmiths who do transcribing).

Give shadowing for language learning a go!

Remember, shadowing is intended as a supplement to other techniques.

There are no magic bullets in language learning.  Shadowing won’t help directly to turn you into a spontaneous, fluent speaker.

What it can help with is accent and intonation. As part of a wider study routine it can also help with grammar and vocabulary learning, more particularly, with consolidation.

Maybe give it a try for a couple of months and let me know in the comments below how it goes.

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Shadowing: A Language Learning Method

Ever heard of shadowing? This is a language learning technique used to improve pronunciation and to help you remember the words you are repeating. If you don’t have time to train yourself in pronunciation, I suggest trying this technique.

Shadowing In Short

Shadowing involves exact copying (like following a shadow), of someone’s speech, trying to correct your own mistakes as much as possible along the way. This method was developed by Professor Alexander Arguelles in Germany, and then in South Korea. On YouTube you can find a selection of shadowing videos you can use.

Shadowing In Three Steps

• Listen to the audio without reading the text. Try to understand what is being said. If you need to, listen to it several times. Make sure you understand the general sense of what is being said.
• Repeat the speaker’s words (giving yourself extra help with the text when you need it), maintaining a slight delay of about five seconds over the audio. Try to match the speech, the sounds, the pauses and the pitch exactly. Do this exercise multiple times to become more familiar with the sounds of the language. If it is too fast, you can decrease the speed or choose a simpler audio file. Finally, check any words you do not understand using a dictionary.
• Repeat as above, but without reading the text.

You can change these steps and add new or intermediate steps. It all depends on your level. The important thing is to try to repeat the sounds as closely as possible to those you are listening to.

A lot of people have their own method of shadowing. Some people like to repeat short phrases because they forget longer sentences. You can also do an exercise by looking at the text occasionally, but refrain from trying to read as much as possible so you can concentrate on the pronunciation.

Sources Of Material For Shadowing

Anything with an audio recording and scripts is good practice: a movie, video, audiobook, audio children’s story, grammar book with a CD, and so on — but it must use a native speaker’s voice. There are lots of free sources online, as well as plenty of books you can use for this purpose. But shadowing is easier if you use movies, cartoons or a TV series, as each syllable is usually pronounced clearly and slowly.

Watch movies and cartoons. Get hold of some DVDs (with subtitles) or watch cartoons online. These are easy and fun ways to get an idea of the sound and structure of your target language. If you feel particularly active, try to pause a video after a simple sentence and repeat it.

You can also listen to music and radio. Listening to music and/or the radio is another way to immerse yourself in your chosen language. Even if you cannot understand everything, you can try to grab the keywords which will help you understand the meaning of what is being said.

If you can practice 10-30 minutes per day, you’ll quickly improve speaking in your target language. You can improve your pronunciation and also recognize the patterns that make up the sentences you are listening to. This means it will become easier to create your own correct sentences in future. Shadowing is a good way to start speaking in a foreign language from your first day of learning.

Of course, this alone is not enough to improve your language skills. You also need to study grammar to speak the language properly. You cannot avoid it and if you know your native grammar well, then you will better understand a foreign one. There will often be many significant differences between the grammar of your native language and the language you’re learning. For example:

• The word order (subject – verb – object complement in English) is not the same in every language.
• Some languages omit the subject of a sentence when the person to whom it refers is known to both the sender and the recipient.

Shadowing is also a good method for learning the alphabet properly. One of the most common mistakes among students is failing to learn the foreign language’s alphabet. Beginners must learn the correct pronunciation of the alphabet right from the start, or they will have problems later.

Thanks to shadowing, your pronunciation should improve quickly. Pronunciation is very different from language to language, and it can take a long time to be able to pronounce words correctly. So don’t feel disheartened if it takes a lot of practice to get this right. Keep going, and you’ll be surprised by the amount of progress you make!

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• Shadowing: A New Way to Improve Fluency at C2 Level

• Posted on 09/05/2018
• Categories: Blog
• Tags: Fluency , Learn English , Proficiency , Speaking

Speech shadowing is an advanced language learning technique. The idea is simple: you listen to someone speaking and you repeat what they say in real time , with as little delay as possible.

If you’re preparing for the C2 Proficiency certificate (formerly CPE), this is an important tool. It’s something you can practise anywhere, anytime. And, once you’ve mastered the skill of shadowing, not only will your spoken fluency improve, but you’ll also pick up more natural pronunciation and intonation.

But, before we show how to become a master-shadower, let’s think about what it means to speak a foreign language fluently and accurately.

Why is speaking a foreign language such a challenge?

Students are often better at listening and reading than they are at speaking.

To start with, these are very different skills. Listening and reading are what we call receptive skills, whereas speaking (and writing) are productive. Your receptive skills are used to process and comprehend language that is presented to you. But, with speaking, there’s a lot more going on .

In fact, speaking isn’t really a single skill; it’s a whole system of processes. Here’s a diagram to give you an idea of what happens in our brains every time we speak.

Don’t worry, (fortunately) it’s not necessary to understand all these processes to be able to speak. However, it does explain why we occasionally make mistakes when speaking a foreign language. When you think how complex speech is, it’s impressive that we don’t slip up more often!

What makes shadowing such a handy tool?

When it comes to speaking fluently and accurately, practice makes perfect . Think about your native language. How old were you when you started to speak? How many hours do you spend a week speaking this language? Your articulators (e.g. tongue, lips, teeth) have had thousands of hours of practice, moving around and making the specific sounds of your native language.

Typically, in formal school settings – with many students in a class and limited hours per week – not much time is dedicated to speaking. This is one reason why a learner may not have very clear pronunciation, nor a good level of spoken fluency. When preparing for language certificate, you mustn’t overlook these aspects of your language.

So what can you do? It’s true that there are plenty of opportunities to practise your English in Barcelona , but there are also some possible barriers. Maybe you live somewhere very remote, maybe your schedule doesn’t allow you to go along to language exchanges or maybe you just don’t feel comfortable starting up a conversation with a complete stranger.

With shadowing , you have none of these issues. You can do it at home, in the office, even on the beach! You can do it on your own – all you need is your mobile and some earphones .

Step by step guide to shadowing

If you imagine you’re a tennis player and that the act of speaking is tennis match, then shadowing is a workout session in the gym.

Shadowing allows you to train your articulators to produce sounds more accurately . In a real conversation, you have to organise your ideas, find the right words and formulate phrases. But by imitating someone else’s speech, you can just focus on the sounds of the language.

That’s the theory, now it’s time to put it into practice:

1. Select a piece of audio

• Find a short piece of audio (max. 5 minutes) with just one person speaking.
• It doesn’t have to be a native speaker, but they should be proficient.
• The Your Audio Selfie playlist is a good place to start.
• Before you start shadowing, listen to the audio at least once to get used to the speaker’s accent, rhythm and intonation. Don’t worry if you don’t understand every word, but if it’s too fast or complex, look for an alternative.

3. Practise shadowing

• It can be challenging to begin with, but try to repeat what the speaker says as quickly and as accurately as possible.
• Start by doing 20-30 seconds and if you get stuck, just stop the audio and start again.
• Remember, we’re not really concerned with meaning, you’re just trying mimic speaker’s voice.

4. Record yourself

• Once you’ve practised and you feel more confident, try recording yourself.
• Listen to the audio through your headphones and record your voice using your computer or smartphone.

5. Listen back

• Listen to your recording and compare your speech to the original audio.

So, give it a go and let us know how you get on!

Read more about our Cambridge exam courses and how we can help you prepare.

Glossary for Language Learners

Find the following words in the article and then write down any new ones you didn’t know.

In real time (exp): the actual time during which a process or event occurs.

To pick something up (pv): to obtain, acquire, or learn something in an informal way.

To go on (pv) : to happen.

To slip up (pv): to make a mistake.

Handy (adj): convenient.

Articulators (n): your vocal organs (e.g. tongue, lips, teeth).

Workout (n): a training session.

exp = expression

pv = phrasal verb

adj = adjective

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• By: oxfordadmin
• Posted on 02/05/2018

10 Reasons to Study English at Oxford House

• Posted on 22/05/2018

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The Shadowing Technique Improve your Pronunciation

What's the shadowing technique in language learning and how do you use it effectively? Let's learn all about shadowing, accent-correction & improving your pronunciation.

Hey there 👋

The Shadowing Technique is a language learning technique that intends to improve your flow, pronunciation & accent of a language. While we do believe that accents should be embraced, wanting to work on one's pronunciation and speaking rhythm is also a totally valid goal.

In this article, we're going to explain to you what the shadowing technique is, how it's used and where you can find the best language learning resources for shadowing.

I. What's the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a technique in language learning where you listen to an audio recording (of a native speaker) and try to repeat the words and phrases as closely as possible in terms of pronunciation, intonation, and stress.

It's typically done in real-time, with the learner trying to match the speed and rhythm of the speaker. If done right, your voice will almost sound like an echo of the native speaker - or, if you will, like a shadow .

Shadowing can improve pronunciation and overall fluency: By mimicking the speech of a native speaker, you'll be able to internalize the sounds and rhythm of your target language and build your muscle memory.

Additionally, shadowing can also help you to develop your listening skills and improve your ability to comprehend spoken language. Lastly, another great thing about shadowing is that it can also be done at any time, and it doesn't require a teacher or a language partner.

II. How to shadow

A. resources.

First, you will need some resources. You can find shadowing material by searching for audio and video resources such as podcasts, audiobooks or news broadcasts.

However, there is one thing to keep in mind here: Whichever resource you pick, it will have an impact on the way you sound in your target language (which, of course, is kind of the point).

But this also means that you should choose your shadowing material wisely: If you are a 25 year old male from London, maybe don't pick a 65 year old grandma as your go-to shadowing person.

This is also why you have to be careful when using sitcoms or news broadcasts: A you aspiring a career as a news presenter on German television? If so, then by all means, go for it. But if you want to sound natural in everyday life, shadowing Die Tagesschau might lead to some unwanted results.

B. Setting Goals

Setting goals for shadowing can help you to stay motivated and track your progress. For example, you can set a goal to shadow a certain number of minutes or a specific number of times per day or week. You can also set a goal to shadow a particular phrase or sentence that you find difficult to say correctly.

C. Following along

Following along with the audio or video while repeating the words and phrases is the core of the shadowing technique. Try to match the speed and rhythm of the speaker as closely as possible. It's important to pay attention to the intonation and stress patterns of the words as well as the pronunciation.

D. Focusing on correct pronunciation and intonation

Focusing on correct pronunciation and intonation is crucial for improving your speaking skills. Listen carefully to the sounds and rhythms of the target language, and try to imitate them as closely as possible. You can also use tools such as a pronunciation guide or a language learning app to help you with this.

E. Incorporating shadowing into your daily routine

Incorporating shadowing into your daily routine is key for making progress with this technique. Set aside a specific time each day for shadowing, and make it a regular part of your language learning practice. You can shadow while you're commuting, cooking, or doing other activities. Incorporating it into your daily routine will help to make it a habit and increase the chances of retaining what you've learned.

III. Advanced Shadowing Techniques

In the pursuit of language fluency, shadowing has proven to be an effective technique for improving pronunciation, rhythm, and overall language comprehension. In this section, we will explore advanced shadowing techniques that can take your language learning to the next level.

A. Varying the Speed of the Audio/Video

One way to enhance your shadowing practice is by varying the speed of the audio or video you are shadowing. Start with slower recordings to focus on pronunciation and intonation, gradually increasing the speed as you become more comfortable. This technique challenges your ability to keep up with natural speech patterns, boosting your overall language processing skills.

B. Using Shadowing in Conjunction with Other Techniques

To maximize the benefits of shadowing, combine it with other language learning techniques. For example, you can create flashcards with sentences or phrases from the shadowing material, reinforcing vocabulary and grammar while practicing pronunciation. Additionally, incorporating grammar exercises that align with the shadowing content helps solidify your understanding of sentence structure and syntax.

C. Creating Your Own Shadowing Materials

Take your shadowing practice to the next level by creating your own shadowing materials. You can transcribe dialogues from movies, podcasts, or other audio sources, and then use these scripts for shadowing. This allows you to tailor the content to your specific language learning goals and preferences, ensuring you focus on areas that require improvement.

D. Shadowing for Real-Life Situations

Shadowing is not limited to scripted materials. You can also apply this technique to real-life situations by shadowing conversations. Find authentic audio or video recordings of natural conversations, and mimic the speakers' intonation, rhythm, and pronunciation. This immersive approach prepares you for real-life interactions and enhances your ability to understand and respond in spontaneous dialogues.

IV. Common Challenges

A. feeling self-conscious while shadowing.

Many language learners experience self-consciousness while shadowing, especially when practicing in public or around others. Remember that shadowing is a valuable learning tool, and everyone goes through the same process to improve their language skills. Embrace the practice with confidence and focus on your own progress, regardless of external factors.

B. Difficulty Understanding the Audio/Video

At times, you may encounter audio or video content that is challenging to understand. This can be due to the speed of speech, unfamiliar vocabulary, or regional accents. If you struggle to comprehend the content, listen to the audio or watch the video multiple times before attempting shadowing. This repetition helps familiarize your ear with the language patterns and facilitates smoother shadowing sessions.

C. Difficulty Matching the Native Speaker's Pronunciation

Matching the pronunciation of native speakers can be a common challenge. To overcome this, focus on imitating the rhythm, intonation, and stress patterns rather than aiming for perfect replication. Gradually refine your pronunciation over time by continuously practicing shadowing and seeking feedback from native speakers or language tutors.

D. Tips for Overcoming These Challenges

• Start in a Comfortable Environment: Begin your shadowing practice in a comfortable and private setting to alleviate self-consciousness and build confidence.
• Break Down Difficult Content: If you encounter challenging audio or video material, break it down into smaller segments and practice each section individually before attempting the full shadowing exercise.
• Use Visual Cues: Watch the speaker's mouth movements and facial expressions to enhance your understanding and aid in mimicking their pronunciation accurately.
• Seek Feedback: Record your shadowing sessions and compare them to the original audio or video. Listen for areas that need improvement and seek feedback from native speakers or language teachers.

V. Conclusion

Incorporating advanced shadowing techniques into your language learning routine can significantly enhance your pronunciation, listening skills, and overall language proficiency. By varying the speed of the audio or video, combining shadowing with other techniques, creating custom shadowing materials, and practicing real-life conversations, you'll accelerate your language learning journey.

Embrace the challenges that arise during shadowing and make it a consistent part of your language learning routine. Celebrate your progress along the way, as every step forward brings you closer to fluency. Expand your knowledge further by exploring additional resources, such as language learning communities, online courses, and language exchange programs, to continue your growth and mastery of the language.

Happy shadowing and language learning!

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How to Improve Your Pronunciation: Shadowing

Download Audio Before we talk about improving your pronunciation, I have a question for you. What did English sound like before you learned English? Did it sound completely alien? Did it sound like nonsense? Maybe this video will help you remember. When you finish watching, play the next recording and let’s talk about improving your pronunciation.

Download Audio Did you understand the song? Don’t worry, I didn’t understand it either. It’s not English. He’s singing nonsense that sounds like English. Even for me, a native English speaker, it sounds like English. It’s nonsense but the tones and rhythm are close to English tones and rhythms. This guy has a natural talent for getting the pronunciation, sounds, tones and rhythms of English, without actually speaking real English. At Deep English, we believe that meaningful English is the best way to improve, but sometimes it’s good practice to try something completely different. Try stepping away from the meaning and just experience the language in a musical way. Just like music, each language has a rhythm and a melody. The speed and stress make the rhythm and the intonation makes the melody. A technique called shadowing is a good way to work on your pronunciation, rhythm, and intonation. Shadowing is a technique where you practice repeating after the speaker as soon as possible. This is different than a normal listen and repeat technique. Don’t wait and listen to the whole sentence and then repeat. You want to repeat as soon as possible almost at the same time as the speaker. Watch this video to see an example:

Download Audio OK, now you know the technique. You can use any English content. Try it with one of the downloads you received in our free one-week course . Remember, don’t read along. This is a listening and speaking activity. Also, YOU WILL MAKE MISTAKES! This is normal. Don’t stop the recording and try to get it perfect. Just continue. Worry will only slow you down. Using the shadowing technique, you don’t worry about the pronunciation or understanding the meaning. If the content you choose is too fast, try using the slow speed sample we gave you in the free one week course. Shadowing works with any kind of English content, but the best choice is meaningful and interesting English. Check out our True Stories English Fluency Course to get the best in meaningful English learning content.

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Shadowing (Psychology): Definition and Examples

Shadowing in psychology is a method to study a person’s attention skills. It provides insight into a participant’s selective attention , divided attention , intentional blindness , auditory processing speed, and working memory.

It involves exposing a participant to several several stimuli simultaneously in order to track and measure their ability to pay attention to one stimulus and process it, to the exclusion of others.

Generally, it will involve asking the participant to repeating information immediately, such as asking an interpreter to interpret someone’s speech into another language at real-life speed. At other times, it will involve asking someone to attempt to do two tasks at once (like texting and driving on a controlled track) to study the effects on road safety.

Another common example of shadowing is testing a person’s cognitive and attentional skills by asking them to repeat a message word-for-word in real-time while other stimuli (such as music or background speech) are vying for the participant’s attention.

Shadowing Definition

The original shadowing task involved paced audio tracking. Lambert (1992) defined it as:

“…a paced, auditory tracking task which involves the immediate vocalization of auditorily presented stimuli” (p. 266).

In later studies, the method was altered slightly to include performing other tasks simultaneously.

The original shadowing experimental procedure and similar methodologies have been used to study a wide range of cognitive phenomena.

In particular, the shadowing procedure has been used to examine how mobile phone use affects driving (Kaplan, et al., 2015), to train language translators (Lambert, 1992), and in second language instruction (Martinsen et al., 2017).

A modified version of the shadowing procedure has been used to study selective attention. This includes examining how mobile phone use effects learning outcomes (Kuznekoff & Titsworth, 2013), or pedestrian behavior such as crossing the street (Hatfield & Murphy, 2007).

Origins of Shadowing

The shadowing technique was designed to study speech perception and speech production processes in the late 1950s (Pickett, 1985).

The research was conducted by the Leningrad School of Phonology, founded by Ludmilla Chistovich and her husband Valerij Kozhevnikov.

The research involved placing an artificial palate in the research participant’s mouth. When the participant initiates speech production, the tongue makes contact with the palate, which then serves as a measure of reaction time between hearing speech and producing speech.

Shadowing vs. Dichotic Listening Task

The shadowing procedure and dichotic listening task are very similar. They both involve the presentation of an auditory stimulus while being tasked with a secondary requirement.

For example, a common use of shadowing is in the study of mobile phone use and driving. Participants are asked to repeat or listen to the content of a message while performing a task such as driving in a simulator.

In this context, shadowing is used to study divided attention. In divided attention, the individual must juggle their cognitive resources between two or more tasks.

In dichotic listening paradigms , sometimes the research goal is to examine selective attention. Although there is a lot of auditory and visual stimuli occurring simultaneously in the environment, human beings are able to ignore a majority of that stimuli and only focus on specific features (i.e., selective attention).

Participants are instructed to attend to one message while ignoring other stimuli being presented simultaneously. 

At the end of the procedure, participants are queried regarding aspects of both messages.

The most famous example of this procedure in studying selective attention comes from Cherry (1953), in which the term “cocktail party effect” originated.

“How do we recognize what one person is saying when others are speaking at the same time (the “cocktail party problem”)?” (pp. 975-976).

The dichotic listening task has also been used to study language processing in dyslexic children and auditory hallucinations in schizophrenia (Hugdahl, 2009), as well as cerebral language lateralization in monolingual and bilingual adults (Hull & Vaid, 2006).

Shadowing Examples

• In the Study of Driving: Researchers use a driving simulator to examine the effects of divided attention. The participant drives through a simulated course while listening to auditory stimuli. The simulator presents various obstacles and dangers and the researchers gauge the effects of distraction on driving behavior.
• In the Study of Speech Mechanisms: Research participants are instructed to perform a shadowing exercise while scientists scan their brain for neural activity. This allows the researchers to identify key areas of the brain involved in speech processing and production.
• To Teach L2 Phrases and Sentences: Students studying a foreign language are asked to listen and repeat what the teacher says. This helps students memorize key phrases and sentences as a group and makes instruction efficient.
• In Training Translators: Aspiring interpreters practice their skills by listening to a speech in one language and simultaneously translating what is being said to a second language.
• In the Study of Selective Attention: Researchers use speech shadowing to examine the cognitive capacity of a listener and their ability to filter out one message while paying exclusive attention to another message.   
• To Improve Intonation of L2 Learners: Speech shadowing can be used to help second language learners improve their intonation. By repeating the pitch and rhythm of recorded messages by a native speaker, non-native speakers can learn to mimic the speech patterns of native speakers.
• Effect on Learning: The cognitive demands of shadowing is analogous to students paying attention to their mobile phones during classroom instruction. The divided attention can disrupt lecture comprehension and prevent deep processing of content .
• Affect on Crossing the Street: Results of shadowing research and selective attention indicate that smartphone use affects pedestrian crossing behavior. Use reduces situation awareness and increases unsafe behavior.
• Multi-tasking: Performing numerous tasks simultaneously involve similar cognitive processes that are engaged in shadowing while performing a secondary task. For example, talking on the phone with a client while checking and responding to emails at the same time. 
• In Real-Life Driving: When a parent has to transport a small group of noisy children to soccer practice, music lessons, and a friend’s birthday party, while at the same time fielding a call from their spouse, the cognitive demands can be overwhelming.  

Applications of Shadowing

1. in language instruction.

Learning a second language as an adult is difficult and time-consuming. There are hundreds of techniques available for use by instructors, one of them involving shadowing.

Hsieh et al. (2013) used shadowing to help Taiwanese students improve their pronunciation, fluency, and intonation of English:

“…the shadowing technique contributed to better overall pronunciation performance than the repetition technique” (p. 58).

Salim et al. (2020) also demonstrated improved pronunciation of seventh grade Indonesian students.

Shadowing has also been applied to improve listening comprehension skills in Japanese (Kato, 2009; Tamai, 1997) and Taiwanese students (Lin, 2009, as reported in Hamada, 2019).     

Algerian, Filipino, Indonesian and South American students have also benefited from shadowing (Manseur, 2015; Hamzar, 2014; Ginting, 2019).

Hamada (2019) concludes that the accumulated research suggests that “beginner level learners should start from standard shadowing for listening. Once learners achieve the upper-intermediate or advanced level, they are ready for shadowing for speaking” (p. 391).

2. In the Study of Psycholinguistics

Shadowing has also been used in the study of psycholinguistics and identify specific neural mechanisms involved in speech processing and production (Marslen-Wilson, 1985).

In a typical procedure, a research participant is tasked with repeating the words of a recorded message.

The lag between hearing the words presented and repeating them is measured and used as an index of how long it takes for the brain to process and produce speech.

Research conducted by Peschke et al. (2009) and Hickok and Poeppel (2004), using fMRI neuroimaging, demonstrated that shadowing occurs in an area of the brain that links the auditory and motor regions with Broca’s area.

3. In the Study of Distracted Driving

Shadowing has also been used to study dual-task costs associated with driving while using a mobile phone, using both driving simulators and real-world driving (Alm & Nilsson, 1995; McKnight & McKnight, 1993).

Redelmeier and Tibshirani (1997) conducted an epidemiological study demonstrating that using a mobile phone resulted in a fourfold risk of an accident, which is a level of risk similar to driving while legally intoxicated (Vinson et al., 1995).

Moreover, Spence and Read found that driving is less effected when auditory and visual stimuli emanate from similar spatial locations.

This means that listening to speech coming from behind the driver, while attending to visual cues on the road (which are in front), can pose greater risk.

Strayer and Johnston (2001), using driver simulation, found that being engaged in a cell-phone conversation resulted in missing “twice as many simulated traffic signals as when they were not talking on the cell phone” (p. 465).

Moreover, errors “increased when participants used the cell phone to perform an active, attention-demanding word-generation task” (p. 465).  

In summary, detailed examination of the effects of driving and mobile phone use have suggested that attentional demands and limited cognitive capacity are the underlying factors that impair driving (Spence & Read, 2003).

Shadowing is a research technique that was originally designed to study speech processing and production. It has also been used to study selective attention and the effects of divided attention on task performance.

The procedure involves asking a research participant to reproduce the speech heard in a recorded message.

Researchers have employed this methodology to delineate areas of the brain involved in the processing and production of speech, examine the effects of mobile phone use on driving, and improve the listening skills and pronunciation of L2 learners.

Findings of these lines of research also have implications for student performance in the classroom and pedestrian behavior.

Alm, H., & Nilsson, L. (1995). The effects of a mobile telephone task on driver behaviour in a car following situation. Accident Analysis and Prevention, 27 , 707–715.

Cherry, C. (1953). Some experiments on the recognition of speech, with one and with two ears. Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 25 (5): 975–79.

Chistovich, L. A., Pickett, J. M., & Porter, R. J. (1998). Speech research at the IP Pavlov Institute in Leningrad/St. Petersburg. The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America , 103 (5_Supplement), 3024-3024.

Ginting, S. A. (2019). Shadowing technique; Teaching listening skill to ESOL learners in university. Southeast Asia Language Teaching and Learning , 2 (2), 83-87.

Hatfield, J., & Murphy, S. (2007). The effects of mobile phone use on pedestrian crossing behaviour at signalised and unsignalised intersections. Accident analysis & prevention , 39 (1), 197-205.

Hamada, Y. (2019). Shadowing: What is it? How to use it. Where will it go? RELC Journal, 50 (3), 386–393. https://doi.org/10.1177/0033688218771380

Hamzar, H. (2014). The Implementation of Shadowing Technique to Improve Students’ Speaking Performance. Universitas Negeri Makassar (Eng. State University of Makassar in Indonesia). (Master Degree thesis).

Hickok, G., & Poeppel, D. (2004). Dorsal and ventral streams: A framework for understanding aspects of the functional anatomy of language. Cognition, 92(1–2), 67–99.

Hsieh, K. T., Dong, D. H., & Wang, L. Y. (2013). A Preliminary Study of Applying Shadowing Technique to English Intonation Instruction. Taiwan Journal of Linguistics , 11 (2).

Hugdahl, K. (2009). Dichotic listening studies of brain asymmetry. Larry R. Squire, (Ed.). Encyclopedia of Neuroscience , Academic Press, 517-522.

Hugdahl, K. (2015). Dichotic listening and language: Overview. International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences, Elsevier, pp. 357–367.

Hull, R., & Vaid, J. (2006). Laterality and language experience. Laterality , 11 (5), 436-464.

Kato, S. (2009). Listening activities for the acquisition of Aviation English proficiency test. Bulletin of Chiba University Language and Culture, 3 , 47–59

Kaplan, S., Guvensan, M. A., Yavuz, A. G., & Karalurt, Y. (2015). Driver behavior analysis for safe driving: A survey. IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems , 16 (6), 3017-3032.

Kuznekoff, J. H., & Titsworth, S. (2013). The impact of mobile phone usage on student learning. Communication Education , 62 (3), 233-252.

Lambert, S. (1992) Shadowing. Meta 37(2): 263–73.

Lin, L. (2009) A study of using ‘shadowing’ as a task in junior high EFL program in Taiwan. Unpublished Master’s thesis, National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, Taiwan.

Manseur, R. (2015). Exploring the Role of Shadowing in the Development of EFL Learners’ Speaking Skill: A Case Study of Third Year Students of English at Mohamed Kheider University of Biskra. Mohamed Kheider University of Biskra Department of Foreign Languages. (Master Degree thesis).

Marslen-Wilson, W. D. (1985). Speech shadowing and speech comprehension. Speech Communication , 4 (1-3), 55-73.

Martinsen, R., Montgomery, C., & Willardson, V. (2017). The effectiveness of video‐based shadowing and tracking pronunciation exercises for foreign language learners. Foreign Language Annals , 50 (4), 661-680.

Keeping drivers’ eyes on the road. (2001). UMTRI Research Review, 32, 1–4.

McKnight, A.J., & McKnight, A.S. (1993). The effect of cellular phone use upon driver attention. Accident Analysis and Prevention, 25 , 259–265.

Peschke, C., Ziegler, W., Kappes, J., & Baumgaertner, A. (2009). Auditory–motor integration during fast repetition: The neuronal correlates of shadowing. NeuroImage, 47(1), 392–402.

Pickett, J. M. (1985). Shadows, echoes and auditory analysis of speech. Speech Communication , 4 (1-3), 19-30.

Redelmeier, D., Tibshirani, R. (1997). Association Between Cellular-Telephone Calls and Motor Vehicle Collisions. The New England Journal of Medicine, 336, 453-8. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJM199702133360701

Salim, A., Terasne, T., & Narasima, L. (2020). Enhancing the students’ pronunciation using shadowing technique at senior high school students. Journal of Languages and Language Teaching , 8 (1), 20-28.

Saltuklaroglu, T., Kalinowski, J., Dayalu, V. N., Stuart, A., & Rastatter, M. P. (2004). Voluntary stuttering suppresses true stuttering: A window on the speech perception-production link. Perception & Psychophysics , 66 , 249-254.

Saltuklaroglu, T., & Kalinowski, J. (2011). The inhibition of stuttering via the perceptions and production of syllable repetitions. International Journal of Neuroscience, 121(1), 44–49.

Spence, C., & Read, L. (2003). Speech shadowing while driving: On the difficulty of splitting attention between eye and ear. Psychological Science , 14 (3), 251-256.

Strayer, D. L., & Johnston, W. A. (2001). Driven to distraction: Dual-task studies of simulated driving and conversing on a cellular telephone. Psychological science , 12 (6), 462-466.

Vinson, D., Mabe, N., Leonard, L., Alexander, J., Becker, J., Boyer, J., & Moll, J. (1995). Alcohol and injury. A case-crossover study. Archives of Family Medicine, 4 , 505-11.

Wikman, P., Ylinen, A., Leminen, M., & Alho, K. (2022). Brain activity during shadowing of audiovisual cocktail party speech, contributions of auditory–motor integration and selective attention. Scientific Reports , 12 (1), 18789.

Young, M. S. (2010). “Human Factors of Visual and Cognitive Performance in Driving” . Ergonomics, 53(3), 444–445. Zajdler, E. (2020). Speech shadowing as a teaching technique in the CFL classroom. Lingua Posnaniensis , 62 (1), 77-88.

Dave Cornell (PhD)

Dr. Cornell has worked in education for more than 20 years. His work has involved designing teacher certification for Trinity College in London and in-service training for state governments in the United States. He has trained kindergarten teachers in 8 countries and helped businessmen and women open baby centers and kindergartens in 3 countries.

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• Dave Cornell (PhD) https://helpfulprofessor.com/author/dave-cornell-phd/ Perception Checking: 15 Examples and Definition

Chris Drew (PhD)

This article was peer-reviewed and edited by Chris Drew (PhD). The review process on Helpful Professor involves having a PhD level expert fact check, edit, and contribute to articles. Reviewers ensure all content reflects expert academic consensus and is backed up with reference to academic studies. Dr. Drew has published over 20 academic articles in scholarly journals. He is the former editor of the Journal of Learning Development in Higher Education and holds a PhD in Education from ACU.

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5 Reasons to Use the Speech Shadowing Technique

In the quest of learning a new language, you must have unknowingly applied the speech shadowing technique.

Did you listen to a text in the foreign language and spoke it aloud at the same time? If yes, then you have just used the speech shadowing technique.

The speech shadowing technique is an experimental technique of repeating the text immediately after listening it. The reaction time can be as small as 150 milliseconds. It is an extremely popular speech learning tool. It is a learning tool that we

How to use the speech shadowing technique?

To start with, you will require the following things-

• Audio player (mp3, mp4, or any music player can be fine)
• Audio recording in your target language
• A place where you can rehearse

Step 1: Listen to the text

Step 2: Replay the text and Repeat in your voice. Be louder and try to match the accent of your target language.

Step 3: Repeat the same text again and again, until you are confident and you speak with the same speed as the audio.

Step 4: You can use transcripts to ease your task of speaking.

Step 5: Once you are confident with the text you are practicing and understood its meaning, you can move on to the next text.

We are sure, the next text you will be repeating would be lot easier than the previous one. So this is how the speech shadowing works. Following is also a technique, people commonly use-

Speech shadowing using podcasts

You can use podcasts for the topics of your interest.

We understand it becomes difficult to motivate oneself, when one is unable to understand a large part of it. So, we suggest, if you think you went far and lost your repeating speech, then backtrack. It is not necessary that one can understand every part of it, especially when one has just began to learn, still much can be understood through the context.

Yet another alternate source of speech shadowing is watching cartoons. The cartoons have slower audio speed and easier wordings so that the child understands. You can also switch to the movies in foreign languages, once you feel you are getting hold over the target language.

Quick tips to make learning through speech shadowing effective

• Walk when you talk. This can also keep you physically fit. But more, it is natural to keep your mind focused through walking.
• Step Out. Interacting with locals will boost your interest to learn the language.
• Speak aloud . You will be more confident by hearing your own voice in the target language.

How effective is the shadowing technique to learn new languages?

We will tell you 5 reasons why the speech shadowing technique is effective to learn new languages-

#1 Speech shadowing helps in better pronunciation

With speech shadowing, you listen to the language rather than only reading it. You can understand the pronunciation better when you have actually heard it. Also, you can grasp the accent of the target language or the language you wish to learn.

#2 Improves vocabulary of the target language

As they say, one believes in what their ears listen. And what you believe in, retains. Similarly, you can add up more words of the foreign language when you listen to it.

#3 You can gain fluency of the language by using speech shadowing

Since we know that one can radically improve his vocabulary with the speech shadowing technique, once can anticipate the fluency over the language both in speaking and understanding.

#4 Creates an impression of the sentence structures in mind

When we are repeatedly exposed to listening something, our mind starts processing the information in the same pattern. So, involuntarily we start framing the sentences in the same pattern. This is similar to a child who first starts to speak and creates his own sentences according to how his parents speak.

#5 Imparts targeted learning

In speech shadowing, we try to match with the audio. So we have a target to achieve. When we have set target for ourselves, the potential to perform becomes higher. So is with the speech shadowing technique.

An important thing to remember while using speech shadowing is that, you should not look up to the grammar or meaning until you repeat the text several times. It is not necessary that you understand the whole of the text, but comprehending a part of it is just fine. You will be able to develop a better understanding over the time.

Check out these articles on methods to learn a new language:

10 Language Learning Podcasts You Should Listen To

The 8 Practical Steps to Learn Grammar Easily

Fun, Easy Ways to Learn English with Songs

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What You Should Know Before Shadowing a Speech-Language Pathologist

Over the years I’ve shadowed at many different places. In order to start graduate school for speech pathology, you need at least 25 observation hours (I’m sure your professors or program directors have already told you this). Shadowing can be scary, I’ll totally admit it. You want to be sure you make a good impression and you know you’re representing not only yourself, but your undergraduate program as well. I’ve learned quite a few things about how to handle these observation/shadowing sessions (mostly through my own experiences and the experiences of my friends) so I figured I should share them all here in a blog post!

As always, feel free to email me with questions or leave a comment down below.

But wait… how do I find SLPs to shadow?

Good question. Your clinic director, professors, and program directors probably have some connections. Ask them. When in doubt, try Google. Call and email places that look interesting to you. Always ASK if they allow student observers, never assume!

Places you can contact to shadow:

• Easter Seals
• Private practice
• Skilled Nursing Facilities

Wear appropriate attire.

No jeans or loose/poor fitting clothes. You might possibly have to move around and/or sit on the floor, bend over, etc. Think about how your clothes are moving with you! Closed toe shoes are required at most facilities. Wear a cardigan if your top leaves your shoulders exposed.

Take notes/don’t use your phone.

Take notes when you can! You’re getting a one-of-a-kind experience… document it! Write down questions and observations as you watch the session and talk to the SLP about it afterwards. You get so much more out of the sessions if you actually engage the SLP in conversation. Also, don’t use your phone. This should go without saying.

Bring questions!

Chances are, the only other SLPs you’ve been exposed to have been your teachers. I’m sure you have lots of questions stockpiled up in your head. You might want to use this opportunity to ask the SLP about her career choice! What does she like about being an SLP? What does she like or dislike about the current population she’s working with? What advice does she have for you/what is something she wishes she knew when she was an undergrad? What other settings has she worked in and with what populations? One of the coolest things about speech pathology is that you’re not locked into one setting or one client population forever. Find out how the clinician got to where she is today!

Stay a silent observer.

This was something I had to learn through experience. Oftentimes I was so excited to be there I really wanted to get in on the action. You have to remember that the session’s goal is to get the client to work on their own speech/language/communication. Unless you’re invited to participate by the clinician, keep your lips sealed!

Always, always, always bring your clearances.

Even if they don’t explicitly ask for them, make sure you have them! Your clearances will include:

• Your state’s Child Abuse History Certificate
• Your state’s Criminal History Record
• FBI Criminal History Record (FBI Fingerprinting)

Make a few copies and keep them in your observation folder!

Shadow at different places.

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I really think using this time to see many different settings and client populations is beneficial. I went into grad school seeing many sessions in the university clinic, but I also observed in a school, a private practice, and an outpatient rehab center. Get out of your comfort zone! Find a new place and a new population to observe, you never know what you might like! In grad school, you’re going to be exposed to almost everything. Might as well get used to it now!

Always remember who you’re representing.

You’re representing yourself, your school, your professors, and really the entire SLP student population. Always be professional and do your best!

You may also enjoy:

Slp grad school: deciding where to apply, slp grad school must-haves, what i’m buying for grad school, taking the gre: study essentials, 32 comments.

These are very useful tips while shadowing anyone to improve your skills.

Thanks Nishita!

I loveee this! We always have to be conscious of the etiquette when we job shadow- especially when it comes to something like speech therapy!

Thanks Rachel!

I’m sure with your positive and professional attitude, you’re making wonderful impressions on the SLPs you are shadowing. And I quite agree with you about observing different therapists at different facilities. Every institution has its own feel and approach and, as you mentioned, a unique clientele. If you want to get a sense of all the possibilities for your future career, it’s important to put yourself out there and try a lot of different experiences.

Thank you so much Kyla! Yes, it’s so important to try everything especially when you’re just starting out.

Job shadowing can be SO intimidating. These tips are great!

Thanks Hannah!

What helpful tips for someone pursuing the field!! I think job shadowing is important in whatever career you want to pursue! 🙂 I did some in college and found it very beneficial.

xoxo A http://www.southernbelleintraining.com

I recommend job shadowing to anyone doing anything! I shadowed for the first time in high school when I was trying to figure out if SLP was the right career path for me. I’m so glad I did it!

These are such helpful tips!!! Thanks for sharing these.

Such wonderful tips! Thanks for sharing!

This is really interesting! My nephew had to go to a speech pathologist before and I never thought about what was involved. These are really great tips for anyone who is pursuing a career in the medical field. I always found shadowing awkward!

It definitely can be! Thanks Kuleigh!

Great tips! Look professional is always important.

Agreed! Thanks Melissa!

Great tips! You’re right, it is important to observe so you get the most out of the experience.

I think these are great tips for shadowing any position! I especially think the questions and the keeping notes is important.

Great advice!! I think that these are greats tips when shadowing any position!! Getting the most of of these experiences is key!

xo Courtney Drew

Such a great guide! I had a shadowing student that did nothing but stay on her phone. #NotCool.

This post was SO interesting. I never knew much about this career field so it was really intriguing to read about it from this perspective! Thanks.

This is filled with so many great tips! I agree that getting a variety of experiences can help, no matter what field you’re going into!

My grandmother had a stroke 2.5 years ago and it was so important to have a speech pathologist come and help her. I was staying with her to help out when my grandaddy had to go to work, so I actually was able to “shadow” her therapy sessions”. I think I did fine overall, but I wish I had had this list then, just to double check!

One of my best friends is a speech pathologist so this is fascinating – y’all have had similar journeys!

Oh interesting – I have a few speech path friends and never knew any of this!

Hey! This is a more specific question but I thought I’d check and see if you know the answer. I am currently living in Spain but I hope to go to grad school for SLP in the near future. Do you know if shadowing an SLP at a public school internationally would count toward the required observation hours? I would love to get started on them while I am here, and I want to do a bilingual SLP certificate program so I would think it would look good to have experience with SLPs in Spanish. Just thought I’d get your thoughts on that! 🙂

Definitely would look awesome to start observing and have some exposure to sessions in Spanish. The tricky thing about shadowing internationally is that the SLP will have to have an ASHA number in order for it to “count” toward your 25 hours. I would TOTALLY take advantage of the opportunity but just know that unless she has her ASHA CCC’s you won’t be able to count it. Hopefully that makes sense!

I have a question. Is it possible to shadow at a VA? The lady on the phone couldn’t help me so I was wondering if I could get help here. Any help is much appreciated thank you!

I haven’t personally done this but I feel like it is possible! Maybe try calling/emailing multiple places and ask your teachers if they have any connections! Sorry I can’t be of more help.

I graduated with a BA in Linguistics. Been toying with the idea of pursuing a Master’s in Speech Path. I want to job shadow this field before I go into more debt. Will places allow me to do this even though I’m not doing it as part of a requirement?

I think if you explain your situation, they could be wiling to allow you to observe!

When I was a little girl I was told “ that no question is a stupid question “ so here it goes! I’m 73 yrs old and looking to become a SLP. I have a BS degree in Child and Adolescent Development. I plan on going to Postgraduate school for a MS-SLP degree. Do you have any advice for a late starter?

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BBC Studios, a TV production arm of the BBC, has confirmed that it filmed the video of Catherine’s message last week at Windsor Castle, and Kensington Palace told The Washington Post that accusations of AI tampering are “factually inaccurate.” Multiple deepfake forensics experts agreed, saying they examined the video and found no signs of AI manipulation.

“All of these armchair forensic analysts out there that are claiming that they find evidence of AI manipulation, it’s a spectacular combination of ignorance and arrogance,” said Hany Farid, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley who specializes in analyzing digital images. Farid said he reviewed the video and found “absolutely zero evidence” that AI was involved.

Earlier this week, TikTok appeared to be funneling users away from searches related to such allegations. A search for “Kate Middleton cancer ai” instead showed results for “Kate Middleton cancer.” The user then had the option to proceed to results for the original search. TikTok declined to comment.

The episode highlights the growing difficulty of figuring out what’s real and what’s not in the age of AI. Already, former president Donald Trump has falsely accused an unflattering political ad of using AI-generated content, and actual fake images of politicians on both sides of the aisle have circulated widely on social media, destabilizing the concept of truth in the 2024 elections.

“AI casts a pretty big shadow,” Farid said. Major online moments are “immediately suspect,” fueling the culture of conspiracy.

Social media speculation about Catherine erupted after a series of puzzling events that left the public grasping for more information about the princess’s health and happiness. In January, Kensington Palace issued a statement that Catherine underwent “successful” abdominal surgery . Weeks passed without a public appearance by the princess. Then in early March, the palace released a cheerful photo of Catherine and her three young children, which — as it later admitted — had been edited. As major news organizations retracted the photo’s publication, the incident raised more questions and supercharged the conspiracy theories.

Then came Friday’s video, in which a wan-looking Catherine sits alone on a bench before a garden of spring blossoms. After sharing news of her illness, she describes a heartbreaking effort “to explain everything to George, Charlotte and Louis in a way that is appropriate for them and to reassure them that I will be okay.” And she asks the world to let her tend to her young family in peace.

The revelation of her cancer diagnosis stunned viewers and drew an outpouring of affection for the princess. Some online conspiracists apologized for fueling gossip about her long absence from the public stage. But fresh doubt quickly emerged as well: “Can anyone explain how nothing at all moved in the backdrop, flowers, grass, etc.” posited one user on X (who was quickly excoriated as “a moron” by a prominent British TV personality).

Wael Abd-Almageed, a professor of AI at Clemson University who develops deepfake detection software, said he and a student ran the video through their detector and found no indications of AI content. Abd-Almageed slowed the video down to examine it manually, again finding no evidence of AI tampering. If details such as her ring appear fuzzy, he said, it’s because of motion blur and the video’s compression.

Another expert, Hao Li, CEO and co-founder of generative AI video-effects company Pinscreen, agreed that the video appears to be authentic, noting the bugs that fly in front of Catherine’s face and the subtle swaying of yellow flowers in the background.

Only one AI expert contacted by The Post offered support for the suspicions: Deepfake detection start-up Deep Media, which has contracts with the Pentagon, said it found a “high likelihood” that Catherine’s voice and face were manipulated with AI.

But other experts — including Farid, Abd-Almageed and Claire Wardle, co-founder and co-director of the Information Futures Lab at Brown University — reviewed Deep Media’s findings at The Post’s request and said they found the results unconvincing.

Given that even disinformation experts now find it challenging to assess the authenticity of online content, Brown’s Wardle urged institutions such as Kensington Palace and the BBC to do more to publicly validate the images they share before online conspiracies gain traction.

The continuing conjecture around Catherine underscores the difficulty of assessing what’s real in an AI-enabled media landscape, she said — as well as the risks of relying on deepfake detectors to separate fact from fiction.

“Most people don’t have access to tools that do this kind of analysis,” Wardle said. “And even people who are saying they have these tools, they’re absolutely not 100 percent certain by any means.”

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For the birds? Far from it. At last Rachel Reeves has given Britain a plan for economic liftoff

Despite being called continuity Hunt, the shadow chancellor has set out a proposal for meaningful change

C hancellor Jeremy Hunt likes to tell business leaders not to worry about political instability and more policy upset. He claims to be carefully building policy that will survive – win or lose the next election. If the shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, succeeds him, accepting nearly all his proposals, be reassured, he says, there will be continuity rather than change. In the run-up to her important Mais lecture last week , the pre-briefings seemed to warrant his judgment.

She would reaffirm her iron attachment to fiscal rules and budgetary discipline, we were told. After all, she had beaten a wholesale retreat from Labour’s cornerstone £28bn green spending commitment . In successive fiscal “events”, she has accepted all the proposed tax cuts, not even reinstating the cap on bank bonuses. There was chatter describing her as “continuity Hunt”. Even Margaret Thatcher, we read, would be invoked as a change agent she admired. Unite sharpened its claws, writing off the lecture even as Reeves spoke as “for the birds”. Only a “sustained rise in public investment in infrastructure”, declared general secretary Sharon Graham, “can turn the tide on decline”. Two days later, columnist Owen Jones resigned from the Labour party , citing the refusal to challenge catastrophic Tory policies in “a race to the bottom”.

In the event, Reeves confounded all of them to an extent I found astonishing. Far from admiring the free market economics of Thatcher and Nigel Lawson, she tore into it. It had not produced lasting productivity gains: in the long run, productivity had steadily fallen away as inequality had deepened, productive capacity shrivelled and economic resilience had been whittled away. The famous economist and sociologist Karl Polanyi, back in 1944, had argued in The Great Transformation that it had been attempts to impose the rule of markets on society – the imposition of the Gold Standard, running balanced government budgets, enforcing wage flexibility and minimal welfare provision – that had produced a powerful backlash in the form of both communism and fascism. Reeves thought Polanyi’s views “prescient”, tracing the rise of today’s destructive rightwing populism to the revival of free market economics that “[writes] swathes of Britain … out of our national story” and allows “hope for the future to wither”.

She damned the austerity of the 2010s – not borrowing for investment when interest rates were low – as an act of “historic negligence” and recognised that New Labour had been wrong, through its commitment to light-touch financial regulation, to indulge the rapid credit growth that inevitably culminated in the financial crash. She even recognised that Brexit was an ongoing economic policy debacle: she backed the Office for Budget Responsibility’s (OBR) estimates that it was lowering GDP by 4% . She singled out Thatcher’s election in 1979 not to admire it, but to acknowledge that, although intellectually, economically and socially wrong, it had represented an inflection moment in a period of economic and social upheaval, when one set of ideas – postwar Keynesianism – was exhausted and gave way to another. Now was a similar inflexion moment. A new “productivist” economic paradigm was surfacing in a parallel time of upheaval, but one that stressed the role of an agile state in promoting vital economic growth and social cohesion through higher public investment, an active industrial policy and quality public services. More economic resilience, institutional stability and social inclusiveness were all part of the alchemy.

Far from sticking to Hunt’s fiscal rules, she would change them to promote a surge in public investment. Rather than aim to balance all public spending and revenues year by year, she would strip public investment out of the equation and only aim to balance “day to day” spending and revenues over the economic cycle. Public investment would be further boosted by a new fiscal rule that would require the OBR to regularly monitor the quality and improvement of the overall government balance sheet as public investment was lifted by higher public borrowing. The only rule she would retain is that the national debt should fall five years after every annual fiscal event, but it could rise in years one, two, three and four. Given that the OBR is legally obliged to base its five-year forecasts on announced future spending plans, this is a rule that can always safely be met.

A new British infrastructure council would direct public investment to where need and paybacks were higher, with the central commitment to achieving net zero by 2050. It would work in tandem with an industrial strategy council – both on a statutory footing – to crowd in private investment to areas where Britain had a potential strategic advantage, especially in green technologies. The aim would be to promote new centres of industrial and business agglomeration across the Midlands and north, with wholesale reform of planning to fast forward the building of houses, an expanded electricity grid and new roads. Exploitative work practices would be removed via Labour’s “new deal for working people” . Spending on R&D would be fixed over 10 years, rather than being constantly chopped and changed. Plans to create bigger pension funds capable of spreading risk and thus investing in British enterprise would be turbocharged. Devolution of decision-making would be accelerated. And there would be “an urgent resource injection into our public services: to cut NHS waiting lists, tackle the crisis in dentistry, transform mental health services, recruit and retain teachers, and provide breakfast clubs in every school”.

Altogether, this was neither all for birds, a race to the bottom nor continuity Hunt, even if there were omissions. More fundamental change to our savings and investment system, and more promotion of fast-growing small- and medium-sized firms are needed. Companies themselves need to think more in terms of achieving a great intrinsic purpose, rather than short-term profit maximisation. Education and training are an underfunded mess. Universities face an impending financial crisis. One in five local authorities is in danger of going bust over the next two years . The sheer scale of poverty in the UK is mind-boggling.

But Keir Starmer and Reeves face an unremittingly hostile rightwing media and they dare not risk a Truss-style run on the pound. Their retreat after retreat, watering down after watering down, has been disheartening. Yet I left the Bayes Business School after Reeves’s lecture upbeat and encouraged. Labour could get elected, as long as its coalition of support holds – and it might, just might, be the government that feasibly and practically triggers the much-needed investment revolution, lowers inequality and revives the green agenda. Reeves does get it, only is careful and subtle about her response. The Mais lecture is an important moment.

• Rachel Reeves
• Jeremy Hunt
• Economic policy

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