Free resource
Shadowing (via Chorusing)
My notes
Shadowing works differently from chorusing — you're tracking and mimicking in real time rather than repeating after a pause — and the two complement each other. I used SyS Mandarin on YouTube as one source for this. The goal isn't to sound identical to the speaker; it's to train your mouth to keep up with your brain.
Shadowing is harder than chorusing because there's no gap between hearing and producing — you're speaking at the same time as the input, which trains fluency rather than accuracy. I found it most useful for improving my rate of speech rather than my pronunciation, since the pressure of keeping up forces you to drop the inter-word pauses that make L2 speech sound halting. I used SyS Mandarin clips specifically because the speaker's pace was fast enough to push me but consistent enough not to lose me entirely. Chorusing and shadowing are complements, not substitutes — I used both.