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Shadowing Shawn Achor

The Happy Secret to Better Work — Very fast and very funny. A challenge for advanced learners who want to keep up with real speed.

  • Level: B2–C1
  • Accent: American
  • Length: 12 min · 162 lines to practise
  • Timing: Sada measures how far behind the speaker you are on every line
Shawn Achor — The Happy Secret to Better WorkStart from the beginning

The first lines: press any line to practise it

  1. 0:15 When I was seven years old and my sister was just five years old, we were playing on top of a bunk bed.
  2. 0:21 I was two years older than my sister at the time -- I mean, I'm two years older than her now --
  3. 0:26 but at the time it meant she had to do everything that I wanted to do,
  4. 0:29 and I wanted to play war.
  5. 0:31 So we were up on top of our bunk beds.
  6. 0:33 And on one side of the bunk bed, I had put out all of my G.I. Joe soldiers and weaponry.
  7. 0:38 And on the other side were all my sister's My Little Ponies ready for a cavalry charge.
  8. 0:42 There are differing accounts of what actually happened that afternoon, but since my sister is not here with us today, let me tell you the true story --

How to practise this talk

  1. Press a line from the list; it opens in Sada ready to go.
  2. Listen once, then press Record and say it with the speaker (Shadow) or after them (Repeat).
  3. Open Compare to see every word, and go again until they are all green.
  4. Finish one minute a day, and Sada shows your first try against your latest.

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