How to Use Shadowing Mode: Read Along with Native Speakers and Get Scored by AI
Many people get stuck on the same thing when practicing speaking: after reading a sentence, they feel unsure—is it actually accurate? With no one around to listen or correct you, you can only rely on your gut feeling, and feelings often deceive us. You might think you sounded great, but listening to the recording tells a completely different story.
The root of the problem is that "accuracy" is too vague. It actually involves several things: whether you pronounced the sounds correctly, whether the sentence's intonation rises and falls properly, and whether the whole sentence flows smoothly. By looking at these aspects separately, you will know exactly what to improve next time.
Why It's Hard to Progress When "Practicing on Your Own"
When practicing speaking alone, feedback is vague. At best, you only know "it sounds a bit off," but you can't point out exactly where it's weird. As a result, you repeat the same mistakes every time because you can't see which specific word or sound has the issue.
The key mindset: If you can see it, you can change it. By quantifying speaking performance into specific scores and concrete suggestions, practicing shifts from "relying on your gut" to "making targeted adjustments."
Loopy's Shadowing Mode does exactly this. The AI breaks down your single recording into three dimensions, scoring each from 0 to 100:
- [Pronunciation](/blog?tag=%E7%99%BC%E9%9F%B3): Whether every sound and word is pronounced accurately.
- [Intonation](/blog?tag=%E8%AA%9E%E8%AA%BF): Whether the rise and fall of the sentence and the stress placement are correct.
- Fluency: Whether the whole sentence reads smoothly, without hesitations or dragging.
How to Practice on Loopy: Shadowing Mode
Open a sentence in any lesson, and you will first see the English sentence with a native speaker's model audio next to it. Once you listen closely to the rhythm and intonation of the model audio, you can start practicing in three steps.
The Three Steps:
- Record: Press the record button and read along with the model audio. Once you finish, the system will immediately send your recording for grading—no waiting required.
- Check the Three-Dimensional Scores: After a few seconds, your scores in the three dimensions will appear. The Loopy duck (LoopyVerdict) will give you instant feedback in a single sentence, telling you how well you did and whether you passed.
- Re-record Based on Coaching Suggestions: Below the scores, there is a coaching suggestion panel that will specifically point out which words were mispronounced and how to fix them—for example, if a vowel was too short or a word ending wasn't properly released. After reviewing the suggestions, press the record button again and re-read it.
This mini-loop of "Record → Check Scores → Re-record with Suggestions" is where Shadowing Mode shines. Every time you re-record, you can see if your score goes up, making your progress visible. By practicing the same sentence a few times, muscle memory will gradually develop.
From "Relying on Gut Feeling" to "Refining with Scores"
The point of Shadowing Mode is to turn speaking practice from a lonely guessing game into a loop with real-time feedback. You will find that among the three scores of pronunciation, intonation, and fluency, there is usually one where you consistently lose points—and that is exactly where you should focus your efforts.
You don't need to aim for a perfect score on your first try. Pick a sentence from the lesson that you want to master, record it once, see what the Loopy duck says, and re-record it based on the suggestions. After practicing a few sentences, you will start to trust your own ears and mouth.