Other things I forgot to mention:
-Before you have reached Stage 3 (AKA, before you have a foundation in understanding the language), shadowing is a complete waste of time.
-If you choose a YouTuber as a parent, make sure that they don’t use jump cuts in their videos. You want raw, unedited segments of them talking. It’s important to be able to hear how they stall and use filler words. “みずにゃん” is an example of an ideal YouTube parent.
-Make sure your parent speaks the same dialect that you want to speak. This can be an issue in Japanese.
-The main purpose of shadowing is to improve the accuracy of your pronunciation, as well as reduce the amount of effort it takes to properly pronounce the language. Because you don’t have to use any brain power formulating your own sentences when shadowing, you can fully focus on pronunciation. This is what makes shadowing the perfect way to practice pronunciation.
-Once you find shadowing audiobooks relatively easy, THEN start shadowing your parent.
-Shadowing alone isn’t…