The videos you most want to learn from are often a little above your level: the interesting interview, the funny vlog, the podcast everyone talks about. You can follow the gist, but not every sentence. LingoLevel's Shadowing Practice gives you two tools for exactly this: a translation under every sentence, and a personal dictionary that keeps each new word with the sentence it came from.
Why "Slightly Too Hard" Is the Sweet Spot
Material you already understand completely teaches you little. Material far above your level is just noise. The best place to learn is just beyond what you can manage alone, where a bit of help makes everything click. The catch is that you must understand a sentence before you shadow it, otherwise you are only copying sounds. Translations and a dictionary give you that understanding quickly, so you can spend your time speaking.
A Translation Under Every Sentence
When you add a YouTube video, choose a language in the Translate menu next to the link. You can also turn translations on later from the Translation menu in the player, next to Speed. A translation then appears:
- under the current sentence, in smaller text, so meaning is always one glance away;
- under every line of the transcript, so you can read the whole video in both languages before you start.
You can switch to another language or turn translations off at any time, and LingoLevel remembers your choice for each video. Right-to-left languages such as Arabic, Persian, Hebrew and Urdu are shown right to left.
Hide the Translation While You Shadow
Translations are for understanding, not for reading while you speak. When you switch on Hide text (or press T), the current sentence and its translation are blurred together, so you shadow from sound alone. Click the blurred sentence to reveal both when you need to check.
Click a Word, Save It to Your Dictionary
Every word in the transcript is clickable. Click one to see its translation and save it to one of your dictionaries. Each entry keeps:
- the word and its translation, which you can edit;
- the sentence it came from, so you remember how it was used;
- an optional note, for example a grammar point or a synonym;
- a link back to that exact sentence in the video, so you can hear it spoken again.
Each dictionary has its own translate-into language, so you can keep one dictionary for Spanish words explained in English and another explained in your native language. When you want to review elsewhere, export a dictionary as a CSV file.
Clicking works in languages written without spaces between words too, such as Japanese, Chinese and Thai, because LingoLevel finds the word boundaries for you.
Sentence Translation or Dictionary?
| You want to… | Use |
|---|---|
| Understand what a whole sentence means | Sentence translation |
| Remember a useful word or phrase | Save it to your dictionary |
| Hear a saved word again in context | Open the dictionary entry and jump to its sentence |
| Test whether you really understood | Hide text, shadow, then click to check |
| Review words in a flashcard app | Export the dictionary as CSV |
A Simple Workflow
- Read the video in both languages. Go through the transcript with the translations on.
- Save five to ten words or phrases that you would actually like to use.
- Shadow with the text hidden. Use the method in How to Do Shadowing.
- Review the next day. Open your dictionary and jump back to each saved sentence to hear it again.
- Turn translations off for the next video once you feel ready, and use them only when you get stuck.
Avoid the Translation Trap
Translations are a ladder, not a place to live. If you read the translation every time you hear a sentence, your brain learns to wait for it. Use translations to understand a video once, then hide them and stay in the language you are learning. As your level rises, you will need them less: Shadowing by CEFR Level shows how your practice can change from A1 to C2.
Ready to try it? Add a YouTube video to Shadowing Practice and choose a translation language when you paste the link.