Shadowy.

Shadowing practice · iPhone and iPad

Say it at the same time they do.

Shadowing is the oldest trick interpreters use: play someone talking, and speak along a half-beat behind them. Shadowy gives you the transcript, lights each word as it is spoken, and records you doing it.

Episode You

Take 3 · 0:14

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One take, three moves.

You cannot play back a take you have not recorded, so this part really is a sequence — and it is the only numbered thing on this page.

  1. 01

    Play the line

    Real videos, with a transcript prepared ahead of time. The word being spoken takes a neon outline as it goes past, so you can see the rhythm before you try to match it.

  2. 02

    Speak along

    Hit record and talk over the top, a half-beat behind. Your camera sits beside the video so you can watch your own mouth while you chase theirs.

  3. 03

    Watch it back

    Play the take against the line you were shadowing. The gap between the two is the whole exercise — where you dragged, where the vowel went flat.

Stuck on a word? Tap it.

The sheet opens the instant you tap, with everything your phone already knows: the word, what part of speech it is here, its dictionary form, and every other line in the episode that uses it. Tap a timestamp to jump there and run it again.

  • The line, not just the word

    "Play" is a noun or a verb depending on what surrounds it, so the whole line is read, not the word on its own.

  • Hear it again

    Every word can be spoken back to you a shade under full speed, because a single word at full speed gives you nothing to copy.

It stays on your device.

Not a stance we adopted for a marketing page — it is how the app is built, and it is why there is no account to make.

  • Your takes never leave

    Camera and microphone are recorded into takes stored on your device. Nothing is uploaded. If you want someone to see one, you share it yourself.

  • Meanings resolve offline

    Translation runs on your iPhone using Apple's own on-device translation. Download your language pair once and it works with no connection at all.

  • No account, no sign-in

    There is nothing to register. We do not ask for your email to use the app, and there is no profile to delete.