Shadowing Practice: Why trying to make the “best” choice can make you less happy - Learn English Speaking with Video
Elige un modo de práctica
Cada modo abre una sala de práctica a pantalla completa.
382 oraciones
Si las oraciones son demasiado cortas o largas, haz clic en Editar para ajustarlas.
1
If you're anything like me, and you often struggle with trying to make the right choice, this episode of immersion could possibly change your life.
2
Doing research for this episode with the book,
3
The Paradox of Choice has honestly been one of the first episodes in a long time where I know
4
that I'm going to be living differently after this research.
5
So let's start this out with a brief question for you regarding making the right choice or being happy with your choice,
6
because those don't always go hand in hand.
7
For example, would you rather go on a vacation that is about 70 % perfect or ideal, but you love it, you have a great time?
8
Or would you rather go on a vacation that is 95 % ideal or close to perfect,
9
but you end up not being able to enjoy it as much?
10
I think most of us, given those two choices, would choose option A.
11
We'd rather be happy with the vacation option
12
but due to this really interesting way of living called maximizing
13
which we're going to get into many of us end up living closer to that option B.
14
Today we're going to be unpacking the difference between satisficing
15
or choosing an option that is good enough and learning to see the good in it and appreciating it.
16
I know it sounds a bit trite but stay with me.
17
Or maximizing where we try to make the best optimal choice,
18
but then we often get plagued with regret or social comparison or wondering if it was the right choice later.
19
And it really is not an enjoyable way to live.
20
So today we're going to unpack what these terms are, some interesting nuance in the research, and then we're going to talk about practical steps for
21
when we might choose to satisfy how to do it a bit more often
22
so that we can be happier with the decisions we make and thus the lives that we're living.
23
And don't worry, this doesn't mean just settle
24
and just choose to only see the good in things
25
because actually this can open up more bandwidth or energy for the things
26
that are important for us to focus a bit more on.
27
Welcome to Immersion, 30
28
Minutes Beneath the Surface.
29
I'm your host, Pamela, and here we focus on psychology and philosophy topics to find meaning in the modern world.
30
Let's dive in.
31
So where do these terms come from?
32
Herbert Simon introduced the term satisficing in the 1950s as a model of bounded rationality,
33
discussing the idea that humans will often choose a good enough option rather than exhausting every single option.
34
And we know this is true.
35
When you're dating, especially if you live in a place like
36
New York City.
37
You're not going to date every possible person that could be a viable prospect in the dating market.
38
You're going to date a few people and then choose someone or choose to be single.
39
You won't try to meet every single person.
40
So we know that this is how we make any sort of choice.
41
At some point, something has to be good enough.
42
We cannot look at every single pair of jeans in your town before choosing a pair of jeans.
43
And this idea of satisficing was popularized in Barry Schwartz's book, The Paradox of Choice, which we're discussing in this series.
44
And he came up with the term maximizing to describe the opposite.
45
When people try to get as much information as possible, to compare as many options as possible, to try to make the best choice,
46
as opposed to satisficing, which is making a good enough choice.
47
And just hearing about these two modes of living, you're probably already coming up with the pros and cons for maximizing and and satisficing.
48
But before we get into some of those, let's do a really brief quiz.
49
This is adapted from the quiz that is in Barry Schwartz's book.
50
We're going to just do four questions instead of a longer one,
51
and it'll help you get a good idea of where you're at on this spectrum.
52
Question number one, when you're choosing a song to listen to or a show to watch on streaming, do you often take a while to decide?
53
And even after you decide, do you sometimes flip around or wonder if you made the right choice out of all the options.
54
When you shop for a new appliance like a coffee maker,
55
do you choose pretty quickly and find something that meets your needs and then you're done with it?
56
Or do you feel inundated by research options and overwhelmed with trying to find the right option?
57
And then for questions three and four, you'll see how much you agree with the following statements.
58
Three, no matter what I do, I have the highest standards for myself.
59
4. I often fantasize about living lives that are different from my own
60
and other paths that are quite different from my actual life.
61
And of course you can check out
62
Barry's book for the full quiz and there probably are some quizzes online.
63
I can link one if I find one in the show notes.
64
But here you get the sense that maximizing and satisficing is not across the board.
65
So for instance, when I'm choosing a consumer good, like if I was choosing a coffee maker, I would be able to choose that pretty quickly.
66
But numbers three and four, when it comes to standards for myself or what life path I'm on,
67
these more macro views, I really sometimes struggle or I especially have in the past and it's something that I'm working on.
68
So it's helpful to note what are the areas that you satisfy
69
and what are the areas that you maximize because generally nobody is across the board one or the other.
70
And you might notice these trends for yourself too.
71
Maybe when it comes to media, like the first example, you start watching something
72
and then you five minutes later click out of it and try watching something else.
73
And by the end of the evening, you've watched a little bit of like four videos and weren't really that invested in any of them.
74
We're going to get into a little later why that happens,
75
how often the more options we consider it makes us less invested in the option we end up going with
76
because that lack of satisfaction that's part of what happens when we evaluate this way.
77
And so as you might already be starting to gather, it is really important to learn about this for our well -being.
78
Maximizers tend to report more regret, more social comparison, or at least more negative views of the self when they do participate in social comparison,
79
less satisfaction, more depression or depressive symptoms.
80
And it's important to note that the direction is not necessarily causal.
81
This is something
82
Barry notes in his book is that we don't know
83
if these things are just correlated or if maximizing actually makes us less happy.
84
I personally think that it is cyclical.
85
Barry has noted that maximizing probably makes us feel worse about a lot of things.
86
If you think about it, if you're trying to make the perfect choice, even after you make a choice,
87
you'll often wonder, was that the right choice?
88
You remember that question from the end of the quiz.
89
Do you often think about other possible lives?
90
Because if you're really trying to make the best choice, you might think, oh, I'm a teacher,
91
but I've always wondered about going into administration within the school
92
or maybe going back to school and actually becoming a therapist instead.
93
And, you know, when I was younger, I wanted to be a marine biologist.
94
And I wonder how my life would have turned out if I had done that.
95
And maybe you log on LinkedIn
96
and you see someone doing something totally different like they went from teaching more into consulting
97
and oh it looks like they're making a lot of money
98
and traveling and what would
99
that life be like versus someone satisficing in this area might be more likely to say
100
this is the life I chose this is good enough
101
it meets my standards why would I think about all those other paths
102
it's not relevant for me going back to some of my personal theories I personally think
103
that a little bit of it has to do with personality types.
104
If you're very creative or imaginative, or if you have perfectionistic tendencies,
105
or if you believe you have a lot of control over your life, a high internal locus of control and a lot of agency,
106
all of these things are going to lead you to try to optimize
107
or might lead you to imagine other lives for yourself.
108
So I think there's a lot of reasons we might be a maximizer.
109
Maybe your parents had really high standards.
110
Maybe you have a bit of diagnosed or undiagnosed OCD.
111
So you feel a bit of a compulsion to keep coming back to a certain thought.
112
And maybe working with a certain professional on that would help.
113
I think that there are so many causes that could lead someone to be a maximizer that are not as simple as,
114
oh, you just want to make the best decision.
115
There's a lot that could lead you to be that way.
116
Now, you might be wondering, why would having a very high sense of agency lead to issues?
117
Isn't that a good thing?
118
And largely it is.
119
But if you believe that you have a lot of control over your life and you have all of these options,
120
you're going to feel bad about yourself if you made a choice that wasn't as ideal.
121
You're thinking, I could have prevented that problem and I didn't.
122
And the problem is with the more options we consider, we see all of these great options we could have had.
123
Let's go back to that example of a vacation.
124
And Barry uses a pretty similar example in his book.
125
Let's say you're choosing between a getaway to a beach
126
or a very cozy cabin in the woods
127
or a family trip to the suburbs with some movie nights on the couch and dinners you make together.
128
And maybe you end up choosing between five potential trips.
129
As you start adding more and more options, you start thinking, why can't I get the relaxation
130
that this one would bring and the excitement that this one would bring and the community that this one would bring.
131
You start to think I'm missing out on all of these different things, when you're really not, because as we know, we are finite humans.
132
And this is why economists always say, opportunity cost is really only the second option.
133
Really, you're only choosing between A and B.
134
You're not choosing between A, B, C, D, and B because you can't have all of those.
135
So you're choosing between your top two choices.
136
The problem is, is that as we evaluate A, B, C, D, E, we're thinking about all the good parts about all of those.
137
And we feel like we're missing out on all of the good parts of all of those.
138
And in our world and life that inundates us with all of the wonderful things about all these other paths, all of these other consumer choices,
139
all these places you could go, all these foods you could eat, all of these people you could be with on dating apps,
140
like we're going to get into next episode.
141
It can feel so overwhelming.
142
It can feel like I'll never be able to find the
143
optimal path out of the thousands of options surrounding me all of the time.
144
It can feel incredibly overwhelming.
145
Something we're going to keep diving into in this series, but let's focus here specifically on maximizing and satisficing.
146
So I think now let's dig a little deeper into the psychology elements.
147
For the areas that you are maximizing in, there is probably something really important to you tied to it.
148
If you maximize a lot, for instance, with consumer decisions or how you spend your money,
149
it's probably because you really value money or maybe even underneath that just security in general.
150
If you're someone that maximizes a lot with your standards for work, that's probably because you tie maybe some of your worth to
151
that or maybe you were brought up in a family where delivering high results was expected of you constantly.
152
So it can be helpful to ask what are the areas where I'm maximizing
153
because I attach a great importance to the results of my decisions
154
and what are the areas where I satisfy because I recognize
155
that good enough is good enough
156
and at the end like I said we are going to get into more specific action steps here
157
but I think that
158
if we want to go even one layer deeper this is a personal theory
159
that I have this is not something in the book like we talked about
160
but we're going to touch on from a different angle here.
161
I think that certain personality types are associated with maximizing.
162
And one of those aspects could be sensitivity, big emotions, maybe even a touch of neuroticism.
163
And my take here is that what happens is we have this sensitivity
164
and emotions and we're scared of pain because we've felt pain deeply before.
165
Then there's the desire to avoid making the wrong decision to try to avoid pain.
166
So we deliberate, we think we maximize, then for all the reasons we're talking about this here, this leads to more comparison,
167
more regret, more uncertainty, and perceived opportunity costs of Oh, I could have made the right decision, I should have made the right decision.
168
This then leads us to feel worse, and have a worse experience with what we chose.
169
And this can lead us to feel motivated to avoid future pain with more deliberation.
170
This can unfortunately be a negative cycle.
171
So it's not necessarily just that maximizing causes regret, fear of regret can cause maximizing.
172
So let's look a little bit closer at two more downsides of maximizing and then get into some action steps.
173
One of them is the negative aspects of social comparison.
174
From a 2002 study, Schwartz et al found in a study of maximizing versus is satisfying.
175
Happiness is a matter of choice is the name of the study.
176
They had maximizers and satisficers do a anagram puzzle.
177
While someone also in the lab that they assumed was a peer,
178
but really was someone that was part of the research team also did a puzzle next to them.
179
If that peer did the puzzle faster or better, this had a greater negative effect on their mood or self -evaluation.
180
So the way we could think about this is a maximizer, if they're around someone doing better than them, they're going to feel worse about themselves,
181
the way they view and evaluate themselves, and also they're going to be in a worse mood.
182
This begs the question again, how self -esteem is tied into this.
183
Does someone become a maximizer because maybe they have lower self -esteem?
184
Or do we develop a lower self -esteem because we're trying to maximize, we're trying to optimize and do it all and be the best
185
and that makes us feel bad about ourselves when we can't do that?
186
And all of these are interesting questions we can maybe get into more another time,
187
but we can just let them kind of sit in the back of our mind for now without a clean answer.
188
And the final thing
189
I want to talk about in the negative side here is a bit more on this aspect of regret.
190
It's one thing to sort of wonder if you went to the right college
191
and occasionally maybe that pops in your mind of,
192
oh, I wonder what it would have been like in my educational experience if I'd gone to a different school.
193
And maybe that doesn't impact you that much.
194
But if you're maximizing across the board, if you're constantly wondering if you made the right decision for where to send your kids to school,
195
or if it really was right to follow through with that divorce, or maybe you should still be with that person,
196
or if you're wondering if this course you just signed up for actually was the right decision
197
or this other one would have been better, and you're constantly second guessing yourself, it's a really debilitating way to live.
198
And unfortunately, I think a lot of people live in this state more than they realize.
199
This is an easy thing to kind of think we can compartmentalize like, oh yeah, don't have regrets and don't overthink things.
200
But this can be extremely pervasive.
201
If you again, just let this concept hang out in your conscious and subconscious mind for the next couple weeks,
202
notice the many areas you're doing it and how it affects your well -being.
203
I think you might be surprised
204
and I also think you might be surprised how quickly your life can change
205
when you start to make changes to be more of a satisficer.
206
This is something
207
that I've been really pleasantly surprised with even just in the recent time I've been applying this
208
because I've heard of this concept a long time ago
209
but I didn't actually dive deep into the research and application until doing this series.
210
So let's now go into six steps to learn to satisfy a bit more often and increase well -being.
211
The first step is just to simply see it in action.
212
Barry Schwartz discusses why would anyone maximize when clearly it's not the better option.
213
It's ironic because he said that if someone's actually maximizing, they wouldn't actually be a maximizer because it doesn't lead to a better life in general.
214
So the first step is to see yourself doing it.
215
To realize when you're trying to acquire more information into the point of clear diminishing returns.
216
More thinking is not making this a better choice.
217
And because that is easier said than done, we'll keep moving on to the other steps here.
218
Another step is to learn from yourself.
219
There are areas where you satisfy, where you say, I know what I want, I choose it, and it's good enough.
220
And then what we want to do is learn through observing that decision making process, going to the counter, deciding that vanilla yogurt is good enough,
221
eating it, being happy with it.
222
How can you expand the bubble of that a bit more often?
223
Something that is not maybe an area where you're really entrenched and stuck in that maximizing mindset, but something where it's sort of borderline.
224
How can you apply that satisficing a bit more often and train that muscle?
225
And then speaking of learning from ourselves, we can also learn from others.
226
There are people in my life who do really well with satisficing.
227
And I'll give you an example with relationships.
228
So someone I know is in a marriage and they've always been pretty happy in their relationships in general.
229
And she told me that it really just came down to knowing what she wants.
230
And then once she found someone that met that criteria, that's it.
231
She's not really going to overthink it.
232
The list was not that elaborate.
233
I think it was like five things.
234
Now, I don't think that she
235
She was walking around with a checklist approaching this very analytically.
236
She was following her feelings as well, something we talked about in the last episode.
237
But having a list of standards really helps because if you're just dating and thinking, I'll know when I find the right person,
238
you might keep looking and looking and then who is a good enough fit in a sea of so many options.
239
But if you know, these are my standards.
240
I've met someone that meets those standards.
241
I'm going to commit and move on it's a different way of approaching decisions and this can apply across the board.
242
Which brings up a really interesting point that
243
Barry Schwartz goes into is that it's not that satisficers have low standards.
244
They can actually have very high standards but once they find an option that meets those standards they decide.
245
I think sometimes maximizers are unclear what those standards even are.
246
If they're shopping for a car
247
and they don't really know what they want in a car of course
248
that's going to lead to some interesting deliberation and being stuck between choices
249
because they might not even know what they want in the first place.
250
So a step could be before you make a choice or even before you get into the moment of decision,
251
coming up with a list of what is important to you.
252
This is where things get a bit more messy or complicated though,
253
is because sometimes even the idea of thinking about how you make a choice affects how you feel about it.
254
Thinking explicitly about what we value can itself alter what we report valuing.
255
For instance, if you think, is safety more important to me in a car or price, you might start then thinking,
256
oh, well, safety is really the most important thing.
257
That's all that matters.
258
And then that might even change how you think through something.
259
And there was some pretty interesting stuff in the book here.
260
For instance, in a study on relationship satisfaction, people would, I don't know if they were journaling or talking about it,
261
but essentially they were evaluating the relationship periodically and it changed how they felt about their relationship.
262
So sometimes even just trying to put something into words can change how you think about it.
263
If you're making a list of five things you like about your partner, some things might be easier to put into words than others.
264
And then maybe there's sort of some intangibles you couldn't put into words that aren't on that list.
265
And then maybe you start thinking about your partner differently.
266
It's very interesting.
267
So this isn't to just say, think about your values and analyze more and it will help.
268
But I do think occasionally having a clear list of standards can help
269
and simplify things because satisficers are known for once something meets my standards, I choose and commit.
270
So knowing your standards and being a bit more clear on them, I would think could help.
271
Another step is reminiscent of cognitive behavioral therapy or simply changing our thought patterns.
272
When you notice yourself
273
getting stuck in these sort of loops of I should have chosen differently
274
or oh my goodness I need to make the right choice right here it's really really important we can question
275
and push back on our thoughts
276
so let's take an example here I recently got back on LinkedIn after being off
277
it for a really long time so I think
278
that it works really well here because
279
when you log on LinkedIn you see basically everyone from your past and how they're doing professionally and only the highlight reels.
280
So it can encourage this line of thinking of,
281
oh, what would my life be like if I had gone to law school or things like that?
282
Now, first of all, I really am glad I didn't go to law school for a lot of reasons,
283
but it is something that I considered my first year of college.
284
And then actually a professor
285
that was an attorney talked me out of it for several reasons based on what he knew about me and my goals.
286
But anyway, imagine I log on to LinkedIn and I see someone that has taken a really interesting position in DC.
287
They've just done some really fascinating stuff with their career after going to law school, someone that I went to college with.
288
And I could think, oh, wait a second, that seems like a really interesting life path.
289
Maybe I should have done that.
290
Boom, boom, boom, going into a thought spiral.
291
Away we go with it.
292
That can really go for a while before you even catch yourself,
293
especially if you're scrolling on LinkedIn for a while and seeing all of these other possible paths.
294
When that happens, you can stop and say, wait a second, what are the reasons that I didn't go to law school?
295
Oh yeah, the whole reason that I was considering doing
296
that is because I thought it looked like it did on TV with being in courtrooms and talking to people all day.
297
And that professor was telling me that that's such a small percent of what it's actually like.
298
And he told me what the job was like and, oh yeah, that's right.
299
And that decision actually makes sense.
300
Or you could even just remember the other parts like the debt you would have had after
301
or the stress that might have come with that job.
302
And not to say that you're trying to tear down that career or people that do it.
303
You're just trying to not get carried away with a certain thought process about my life would have been better
304
if I did this.
305
You're trying to question those thoughts.
306
You're trying to pull them apart instead of letting them carry so much magnitude or perceived truth.
307
And you can do this for any decision
308
when you start to feel yourself getting pulled down by the weight of regret
309
or the weight of having to make the perfect choice, you can remember that there is no perfect choice and push back on those thoughts.
310
And finally, we can reduce our choice sets.
311
The more options that you examine, the more likely you are to be a maximizer.
312
So Barry talks about in his book, our culture these days with all the options we have encourages maximizing.
313
It encourages the idea that, you know, a commercial.
314
Oh, wait, would my life be better off with that product?
315
I didn't think I need that product.
316
Now do I need to compare that product to the one I currently have?
317
I thought the one I was doing was just fine.
318
And it's not just commercials.
319
It's just all of the optionality that we have in general these days.
320
But when it comes to where you want to live, what you want your family situation to be like, what job you want to have,
321
who do you want to spend time with as friends?
322
How much time do you want to spend with them?
323
What do you want to do with your morning?
324
Should you be on your phone right now or should you be meditating?
325
Should you have gone on a trip or should you have saved your money?
326
We have so much choice now.
327
Many of us in many situations.
328
Of course, not everyone does have the same degree of choice.
329
As I'm wrapping up here, I'm realizing a couple things I didn't get to.
330
So a couple more tips.
331
One is to examine our expectations, not only our standards, but what we expect from life.
332
I remember in college, I asked my positive psychology professor about job satisfaction.
333
And I said, If you find a job that is 80 % of stuff you like, 80 % good stuff, is that pretty good?
334
Knowing that there's no perfect option.
335
I think we were talking about something like this and him and everyone in the class kind of looked at me appalled.
336
Like, are you kidding me?
337
Of course, that's really high for a job.
338
You should be really happy with that job.
339
But I think that often we can have these sort of distorted expectations.
340
We can think I want some situation to be better than it is.
341
It can be hard in a society like ours,
342
a consumer society, where we can think I can pick and choose and make something better to then realize, no, maybe my expectations are unrealistic.
343
Maybe 60 percent good in a certain area is actually pretty good.
344
Maybe it's good enough.
345
And often you've probably noticed that when your expectations are exceeded, you actually like something.
346
Maybe you go into a movie and you had heard not great things about it.
347
And then if you ended up enjoying it, you could end up really liking it, even if maybe it's not the best movie,
348
but it surpassed your expectations.
349
And we know the opposite could happen.
350
Maybe everyone told you something was the best movie.
351
So you were expecting a 95 % if you were to give it your own
352
Rotten Tomatoes score.
353
And then because it was a 85%, oh, that didn't quite meet my expectations.
354
So something the book also goes into is how so much of this is relative, but we can learn to adjust our expectations.
355
And I don't think that that is settling in a negative way.
356
It's just coming into contact with reality, which brings us to the final point is that we get to choose what we spend more time choosing,
357
what we want to really focus on trying to maximize.
358
Because if we try to maximize everything, we're going to be let down.
359
We're going to waste a lot of time in analysis paralysis and regret and comparison in a negative way.
360
And we're also just going to fall prey to many mental shortcuts
361
or heuristics or poor decision making
362
because there's just too many decisions in our life to try to make them all extremely well.
363
But if we choose the areas of our life to try to really maximize
364
and if it's not causing negative issues in our life and if that additional analysis actually makes us better off,
365
this is something we can observe over time through experimentation, then it's worth it.
366
This is a book I'm going to come back to because at least for me, decision making has been something I've studied for a long time.
367
I've always known about this principle.
368
And again, until applying it, it did not actually make my life better.
369
Oh, go figure.
370
That's like most things in psychology.
371
Thank you so much for being with us.
372
Speak to you next week.
373
We will go into the paradox of choice with dating apps,
374
how the way we evaluate relationships is so different in this modern era compared to every generation before us.
375
We're going to keep going with this decision -making series for several episodes.
376
Would love to hear your thoughts on any of these topics through either a voicemail or a comment.
377
And lastly, if this was something that you found helpful, this idea of maximizing and satisficing.
378
Sharing with a friend and discussing this topic with them could be helpful.
379
Maybe they might even help you see, oh, here's an area where you have a certain tendency, maybe where you didn't even realize,
380
or you can help hold each other accountable for working on some of these ways of making decisions
381
because it's someone to talk it through with.
382
Looking forward to diving deeper on the decision -making series and speak to you next Sunday.
Descargar app
Todo lo que necesitas para hablar con fluidez
Pronunciación con IAEvalúa cada oración
Práctica de IPADomina cada sonido
VocabularioConstruye tu banco de palabras
Juego de vocabularioAprende mientras juegas
FOR YOU
Recomendar Video
C11
259 oraciones
Talk Back: Why Arguing With Yourself Can Help You Flourish
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
![The Paradox of Choice • Level 4 [B2] • ESL Listening](https://img.youtube.com/vi/4MzrgdfIgi8/mqdefault.jpg)
B28
14 oraciones
The Paradox of Choice • Level 4 [B2] • ESL Listening
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C11
246 oraciones
Why Life Feels Boring (And Skyrim Doesn’t)
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C11
251 oraciones
Things That Are Not What They Seem and the Truth About Life | Advanced Podcast for Conversations
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C11
256 oraciones
Psychology of Life (And How To Spend It Wisely)
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
![[C1] Stop Overthinking | English Listening & Speaking Practice](https://img.youtube.com/vi/p7oFZJmTjv0/mqdefault.jpg)
C1160
63 oraciones
[C1] Stop Overthinking | English Listening & Speaking Practice
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
C12
132 oraciones
Sam Harris basically breaks down the secret to life (again)
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C110
25 oraciones
Should I Choose Passion or Duty?
British AccentBusiness EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
C12
637 oraciones
Why We Choose the Partners We Choose
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B21
230 oraciones
English Podcast - Can money really buy happiness? | Intermediate
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
C16
286 oraciones
The Psychology of People Who Want to Do Everything
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C11
141 oraciones
Mark Manson: Self-control is a complete illusion
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
Vocabulario y notas de pronunciación para esta lección
Esta lección de conversación se basa en el vídeo “Why trying to make the “best” choice can make you less happy”. Este vídeo tiene 382 frases y 5248 palabras para practicar shadowing. La parte hablada dura 28:24. El hablante habla rápido, unas 185 palabras por minuto, así que espera sonidos enlazados y reducidos. El 87 % de las palabras está entre las 3.000 más comunes del inglés, por lo que el vocabulario es fácil de seguir.
Vocabulario clave de este vídeo
15 palabras del vídeo que vale la pena aprender, con su pronunciación y significado:
| Palabra | Pronunciación | Significado |
|---|---|---|
| maximize verbo | /ˈmæksəmaɪz/ | maximizar, extremar |
| regret verbo | /ɹɪˈɡɹɛt/ | lamentar, arrepentirse [de] |
| expectation sustantivo | /ˌɛk.spɛkˈteɪ.ʃən/ | expectación |
| satisfy verbo | /ˈsætɪsfaɪ/ | satisfacer |
| evaluate verbo | /ɪˈvaljʊeɪt/ | evaluar |
| helpful adjetivo | /ˈhɛlp.fl̩/ | servicial, adyuvante |
| vacation sustantivo | /veɪˈkeɪ.ʃən/ | vacaciones, vacación |
| psychology sustantivo | /saɪˈkɑ.lə.d͡ʒi/ | psicología |
| satisfaction sustantivo | /sætɪsˈfækʃən/ | satisfacción |
| dive verbo | /daɪv/ | bucear, somorgujar |
| quiz sustantivo | /kwɪz/ | prueba, cuestionario |
| topic sustantivo | /ˈtɑpɪk/ | tema, tópico |
| encourage verbo | /ɪnˈkʌɹ.ɪd͡ʒ/ | alentar, arengar |
| ideal adjetivo | /aɪˈdi(ə)l/ | ideal, idóneo |
| boom verbo | /bum/ | retumbar |
Phrasal verbs que vas a escuchar
| Palabra | Significado |
|---|---|
| end up verbo | terminar, ir a parar |
| come up with verbo | ingeniar, ingeniarse |
| bring up verbo | levantar, alzar |
| check out verbo | investigar, chequear |
| let down verbo | alargar |
| look forward to verbo | no ver la hora de, quedar a la espera de |
| pull down verbo | demoler |
| think through verbo | cavilar |
Frases que vale la pena repetir
Frases cortas y completas del vídeo que puedes reutilizar en la conversación diaria:
- You won't try to meet every single person.
- Do you often think about other possible lives?
- Isn't that a good thing?
- Let's go back to that example of a vacation.
- What do you want to do with your morning?
Gramática en este vídeo
Las estructuras que más usa el hablante, con las palabras exactas del vídeo:
| Estructura | En el vídeo |
|---|---|
| Oraciones condicionales if + oración, will/would + verbo — una condición y su resultado | if someone's actually maximizing, they wouldn't actually · if you're just dating and thinking, I'll know |
| Present perfect have/has + participio pasado — una acción pasada que sigue importando ahora | has honestly been · you've watched · has noted |
| Voz pasiva be + participio pasado — importa lo que ocurre, no quién lo hace | was popularized · is adapted · are just correlated |
Pronunciación a tener en cuenta
El hablante usa 124 contracciones y formas reducidas, como you're, we're, I'm. Dilas en su forma corta, tal como las oyes.
- Los sonidos de “th”: gather /ˈɡæðɚ/, underneath /ˌʌndɚˈniθ/, therapist /ˈθɛɹəpɪst/, bandwidth /ˈbændwɪdθ/
- Los sonidos de “sh” y “zh”: expectation /ˌɛk.spɛkˈteɪ.ʃən/, vacation /veɪˈkeɪ.ʃən/, satisfaction /sætɪsˈfækʃən/, occasionally /əˈkeɪʒənəli/, emotion /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/
- Palabras largas — cuida el acento: expectation /ˌɛk.spɛkˈteɪ.ʃən/, psychology /saɪˈkɑ.lə.d͡ʒi/, satisfaction /sætɪsˈfækʃən/, differently /ˈdɪf.ə.ɹənt.li/, necessarily /ˌnɛs.əˈsɛɹ.ə.li/
Sonidos difíciles para hispanohablantes:
- s + consonante al inicio — sin añadir una “e” delante: spectrum /ˈspɛktɹəm/, spiral /ˈspaɪɹəl/
- /v/ — no es /b/: los dientes tocan el labio inferior: evaluate /ɪˈvaljʊeɪt/, vacation /veɪˈkeɪ.ʃən/, dive /daɪv/, invest /ɪnˈvɛst/, versus /ˈvɝsəs/
- /z/ — sonora, no /s/: maximize /ˈmæksəmaɪz/, quiz /kwɪz/, puzzle /ˈpʌzəl/, examine /ɪɡˈzæmɪn/, jeans /d͡ʒiːnz/
Cómo practicar con este vídeo
- Escucha el vídeo entero una vez sin hablar y anota las palabras que no conoces.
- Empieza a velocidad 0,75×, haz shadowing frase por frase y vuelve a la velocidad normal cuando te resulte fácil.
- Grábate y compara con el original, prestando atención a palabras como maximize, regret, expectation.
¿Qué es la Técnica de Shadowing?
Shadowing es una técnica de aprendizaje de idiomas respaldada por la ciencia, desarrollada originalmente para la formación de intérpretes profesionales y popularizada por el políglota Dr. Alexander Arguelles. El método es simple pero poderoso: escuchas audio en inglés nativo y lo repites en voz alta de inmediato, como una sombra que sigue al hablante con solo 1-2 segundos de retraso. A diferencia de la escucha pasiva o los ejercicios de gramática, el shadowing obliga a tu cerebro y músculos de la boca a procesar y reproducir simultáneamente patrones de habla reales. Las investigaciones muestran que mejora significativamente la precisión de la pronunciación, la entonación, el ritmo, el habla conectada, la comprensión auditiva y la fluidez al hablar, convirtiéndola en una de las metodologías más efectivas para la preparación del IELTS Speaking y la comunicación en inglés en el mundo real.