I built a shadowing player for English that waits until you finish speaking

I made Practice Shadowing on my own and launched it in October 2026. This post is about what it does and what I learned building it.

What it does
Shadowing is repeating what a speaker says straight after them. Practice Shadowing plays one sentence, then waits until you have finished speaking before it goes on. While you speak, the words you say light up. Afterwards you can play your attempt next to the speaker's and see your rhythm.

There are sample clips at three levels (among them VOA Learning English lessons, TED talks, 6 Minute English, public domain stories and speeches), each with a lesson page of its sentences. With a free account you can also ask for a check of which words came through, and use your own audio files, podcast episodes and YouTube videos with captions. It runs in the browser on phones and computers and can be added to the home screen.

You can try the samples without an account at https://practiceshadowing.com. It is free during the launch.