Shadowing Practice: This Cat Eye Nail Art Looks Complicated—But It’s So Easy! - Learn English Speaking with Video

What a beautiful photo, right?

And you clicked because is that easy?

I'm telling you, we all love cat eye, but this is easy.

Bear with me, let me show you.

The hardest part about this design is trying to decide which colors you put together.

Now, I did all four before I do the thumb to show you in the demo.

What I learned, I was trying to do these kind of ways, like to do it this way and then to do it this way.

And I like that.

But my favorite, I think, is the progression from the dark to the lighter one.

I think that's what I established.

So all you have to do is make sure that your nail is built.

Now, this is freshly filled.

The white is grown out, but it's filled with a clear or a nude pink kind of thing, and I did fill it So it's fresh and ready to go It's just looks too different.

It looks like it's grown out, but it's not so this is just a finish now I'm gonna buff that finish now now

The only problems that can really arise with this kind of thing is

if you experience some sort of chipping with your gel polish

So you want to make sure

that you use a good enough grit to be able to hold on onto that gel colour, onto whatever nail you built.

If you've got a tip on there, buff the tip.

If you've got acrylic on there, you've got to buff it.

If you've got gel on there, buff it, because gel likes to stick to a buffed or a sticky gel nail.

Okay, so make sure you've got your shape down and you're happy with all of that.

And then give it a bit to the buff just to get rid of it, or wipe it with alcohol.

If you wipe it with alcohol, make sure it's completely dry before you put the product on again.

So the colors.

I picked these colors because I really wanted it vibrant.

You could do it with any softer, any type of gel cat I want.

But I picked this one because these colors are very, very vibrant and they have very strong pigment

and very magnetic bits in it and lots of them to get that real look.

So all I'm going to do is just I'm going to dump all the colors right on my table

so I can work quite efficiently and it's gel, so it's not gonna dry.

Okay, oh, one thing I wanna do before.

I don't generally do this because I don't really have a problem with lifting

because I buff it with a strong enough grit.

If you're using a 240, good chance it's gonna chip.

Don't use a 240, use a 180.

And if you're using it on product, at least a 180, right?

But if you have any problem with lifting, use an adhesion of sort.

And that's what I'm gonna do now.

I have buffed this nail and now I'm gonna put the adhesion on.

You apply it by putting it on kind of like in a little circular motion.

It's just getting into all the grooves and nooks and crannies of making it adhesive.

Giving it an adhesion to actually make the product stick.

The only reason why I'm mentioning this to you is because I had somebody message me.

I think it was on Facebook.

And they were having, oh, nuke it for 60 seconds.

they were having some really big problems about their polished chipping and this was

they have a clientele and only just maybe 10 out of all their clients were doing this

so we were troubleshooting back

and forth trying to get down to the bottom of what's happening

and she's very frustrated I felt so bad for her

because she was so frustrated

and she was thinking about giving it up all for just a few clients when everything else was she's doing great

so she sent me photos fantastic job beautiful work

and you could see that she was

and she gave me the list of what she was doing

and no problems whatsoever she's doing everything right

so the only thing she wasn't doing was an ad maybe adhesion

or a strong enough buffer so she's going to try that and see

if it works some clients don't need it that's that's what

can be confusing about this industry some clients need it some clients don't

so then there's a battle of no you don't need it well some clients do

so it can be kind of confusing so

if you have any trouble with lifting just try an adhesion between your natural nail the gel polish

or the fake nail

and the gel polish just try an extra adhesion i did

notice one of these colors can stain a little bit even on this silicone

so i'm gonna just put

that color specifically on this clear layer i'm laying down just

to protect this pad i mean that's getting really big you don't have to do that but And you know what?

I think I might just Almost like a little shield because I can peel this right off.

It just peels right off the thing, but it That one color is such a strong pigment.

It actually did a little tiny stain on my Little mat here, so I kind of just try to keep it nice and clean.

I mean it's getting picky.

It's a work area Okay, so my first color is called Ulti No Shade Love this color

And it's just one nail so you don't really need too much much.

Back rolls.

I think tongue pop is the one that can really cause a stain.

And then there's kitty girl.

And not today Satan.

Actually this could be the staining one.

Actually I think this is it.

And then good God get a grip.

Okay now Now you just need yourself a nice long, oh I got a short one just for the little tight corners.

That's a 7mm brush and I'm also going to have my 25mm brush and I also have my 15mm brush.

Now sometimes you might not use them all but you just have them all ready just in case.

Then I'm going to have an alcohol soaked pad right nearby so that I can just rub my brushes on it.

Sometimes I'll fold them like that so that I can press it

and then get rid of all the stuff inside of it.

Okay.

Now you're ready to go.

Once you've got everything set up, believe me, when I did this hand, this table didn't look as neat and tidy as this.

I cleaned it all up for you guys.

So I've got my adhesive on there.

Now don't worry about those dry looking messy cuticles.

That'll all be fixed once I put the oil on them.

Okay.

Now the big question is, which color do I start with?

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The middle color seems to be the orange and the green

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and that is always seems to be where I start and I think that's because

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starting on the edge in the center at least I can move out.

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I think that's why I do that.

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Okay, so green seems to be sort of the middle bottom.

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So let's start with that.

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Now one great thing about gel when you're working with gel is If you don't like it,

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you can simply take it off.

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And when you do it, pull it right down over the side.

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I'm going to move it up over here.

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Sort of like a swirl this way down the nail.

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I hope that looks good.

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Making it kind of thinner in the center.

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Now I'm gonna just flare this out.

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Okay, I'm just, yeah, I think I like that.

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Okay, this is where you want to get your magnet.

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See what effect you want to create played with cat eye before you know what it can do for you

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so you're just gonna play around

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and see what kind of effect you can get on it

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and then move it a little and see if it does the shifting

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that you're looking for I think that's pretty effective I like that let me just sharpen it a bit

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See how it's really moving and really shifting?

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See that?

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You can really just sort of select what you want.

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I want it a little sharper.

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A little sharper.

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Oh, I could play all day.

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Okay.

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I just want to give it a flash gear because I'm going to do it all at once at the end.

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I just want to hold it in place so it doesn't move.

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Or if I bump into it with another color, it doesn't bleed into each other okay

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so now I'm going to clean my little pen we're going to get this little alcohol pad here

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because it needs a little bit of pressure if you go like

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that it doesn't really get rid of all of it

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so I usually fold it over press a little

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and then pull it out so the next color I did is called Kitty girl, it's the purple.

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And you're going to put it right beside.

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Oh, a little tiny hair.

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Oh, you know, I really didn't leave enough room.

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Okay, so I kind of think that maybe I made the...

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This is just a personal flair, but it gets you a chance to show you if you made a mistake.

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So I think it's maybe just a little bit too wide there, so I'm just going to eliminate that a little bit.

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so yeah you can see that if you do something you don't like and maybe it's a little too

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yeah I think that I prefer that look so I just made it a little bit narrower in the center

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and flaring out this way on the end.

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I might have made the green too wide, overestimating the width of the finger.

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So now I'm going to just sharpen up the cat eye effect.

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I love that.

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It gives like two different shades.

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So yeah, you're working with one color, but you've got like, it looks like two different colors on there

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because it gives the darker side of the color and the shimmery magnetic side.

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Okay, now if I'm just moving it a little, I can see that shimmer.

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That's pretty effective.

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I like that.

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Let me just see if I can knock this back a little.

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Make that a little, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Now I don't want to touch that end, but I just want to affect that a little.

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That's pretty good.

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Maybe just a little dab in the center, make it a little bit more sharp.

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Yep.

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Okay.

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I'm going to give that maybe three or four seconds.

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I just want to hold it.

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Okay.

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Now I'm going to clean off that poipel.

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And now I'm going to go in for some good God, get a grip.

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It's this beautiful, rich blue color.

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So when you're putting it on, make sure that you put the gel polish right up to the previous color.

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Make it real crisp and strong in there.

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That's lovely.

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So then I'm going to take my little...

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You can see why.

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If you don't nuke in between, they can bleed between the colors.

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And also, it'll shape-shift your.. like the magnetic will get affected.

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So you have to freeze your magnetic color or you don't get that look, right?

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Let me just try another shape See, that's interesting, we could cause that like,

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but I find that really boring I don't really like the line I like this where it kinda

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Causes that when you move your nail You see it kinda shifting on both sides

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I'm gonna cause it really blue down there and see if I can See how blue that is?

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No shimmer almost And then just pick the shimmer up on this side and see what that does.

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Okay, let's go in for just a few seconds.

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And let's squeeze another color over here.

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I'm going to go for this sort of a deeper pink.

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It's called Tung Pum.

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And now, it's not much.

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You're not going to see much with this, but I can see it a little bit.

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Did you see that move?

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Just that little tiny spot.

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It definitely moved a little bit.

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And yes, I am going to give that just a couple seconds nuke.

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Okay, and then I'm going to clean my brush.

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Okay, so now I'm going to go in with this orange color and the green together.

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It's called Back Rolls, this orange.

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So I'm going to put the orange right next to this.

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I got a little bit on my skin, I just noticed.

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You get a little bit of product on your skin.

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Just take some alcohol on a pad.

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Let's get back to me orange.

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And I think I'm just going to make the orange just a little bit skinnier up in here.

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and I'm gonna just magnetic up that cat eye effect on the orange.

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I like to get it kind of sharp.

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Does that work?

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Yeah, that's what you want it to do.

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You want it to have a good shift.

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Okay, then I think we can only really fit one more color on there.

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And that's gonna be not today Satan.

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This nice really intent.

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This is the staining pink that I was talking about.

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that it might stain your matte.

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Oh, I love this color.

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So I finally didn't really need the other brushes, did I?

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Because this is a bigger finger, but the smaller brush that I had ready, I had them ready just in case.

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You never know.

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Okay.

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Now I can give the whole thing an oops.

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So I gotta change that.

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Let's give it a 60 second complete full nuke so all the layers will cure properly.

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Now I will put the reveal on there to protect and bring out all the colors.

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Okay, and now I'm gonna give it a full 60 second cure for that top coat.

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When you're doing it with a customer you want to make sure

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that you paint every green color on one hand completely Do

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two hands separately then do all the purple then do all the pink

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So you're not cleaning the brush in between because

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when you clean in between it really does suck up time

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But it goes much faster if you do one color on the whole hand Okay, let's take oh hang on.

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I just about forgot.

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Oh, oh here it is.

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I almost forgot it Look at this.

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I made a little ring to go with it it.

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So when I'm doing the photographs, it's on the ring too.

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Okay, now let's check out the photographs.

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Like I say, when I did this, it was a mess.

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When I do the YouTube channel and my customers, I make sure that it's all nice and clean because a mess can be very chaotic.

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But I'm just going to get back to this and now see if this will peel up.

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Okay so I'm just going to pick up a corner here because it won't.

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Oh look at that.

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Oh my goodness.

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I'm brilliant.

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That worked really good.

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Look.

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Look at that.

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Okay just fold it and toss it away.

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That worked awesome.

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That was really cool.

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Okay one thing I did want to mention, I think looking at the patterns, I don't like the thumb as much.

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It's okay.

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It's pretty.

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What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing Practice: This Cat Eye Nail Art Looks Complicated—But It’s So Easy! - Learn English Speaking with Video

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What is the Shadowing Technique?