Pratica di Shadowing: AEE - What is Lookism and What Can We Do About It? - Impara a parlare inglese con i video

Creazione lezione...
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Hello, Lindsay.
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How are you?
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Hey, Aubrey.
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I'm doing great.
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Great to be back on the mic.
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We took a little break, although episodes still came out, but you and I haven't recorded in a few weeks here, so it's nice to be back on the microphone together.
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It is nice to be back, and I have a question for you.
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This is going to be a really interesting topic today, and I'm wondering, do you ever judge someone based on their appearance?
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I mean, I think if you said no, oh, it would be a lie, right?
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The human mind is designed to draw conclusions as quickly as possible because that's evolutionarily how we survived as a species, unfortunately.
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But I will say that what I try to do is when I make a judgment, I think about the fact that I just made a judgment.
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It's like an awareness, right?
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And I think, oh, could that be untrue?
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At least you're questioning the prejudices.
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You might have the assumptions and it might not not necessarily be about someone's beauty or something physical,
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but maybe if they're slovenly dressed or seem like they have poor hygiene, things like that, it's hard to not draw conclusions about a person.
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Oh, for sure.
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I mean, and I know it happens on the other side.
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Like I know that when I bring my son into daycare now, I basically roll out of bed, feed him and then go in kind of like just in cut off jeans.
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My hair is all over the place.
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And most parents drop off their kids when they are polished, ready for work in their high heels.
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And I know I've been looked up and down and I know what they're thinking.
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I've had that same experience.
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If I have to drop something off to kids at school and I'm like, I wonder what the other moms look like coming in.
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I'm like barely dressed.
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It's true.
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I'm like, I work from home.
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Okay.
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So it happens on both sides.
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And so we're going to talk about this today.
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This is fascinating.
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This was inspired by an article that I saw in the New Yorker that was called, should we do more to fight lookism?
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And I immediately was like, what is lookism?
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I had never heard this word.
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And Lindsay and I chatted briefly, you hadn't as well, right?
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So it's sort of a new term, I think.
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But it makes sense.
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This is the unfair treatment or discrimination of people based on their physical appearance.
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So judging someone's character, intelligence, or value because of how they look.
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And that can be anything about their appearance, something that doesn't necessarily have anything to do with their character
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but it's a judgment solely based on how they look completely
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guys we love to get into topics like this thought -provoking new cultural topics
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and we're going to show you later in the episode how
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you can talk with another english speaker about this too
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so hit follow
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if you love our style we'll show you how most importantly to connect around good conversation yes exactly
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because this is such an interesting topic it's very cultural i'm sure it's different around the world.
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But all of us have observed it or noticed it or found ourselves doing it.
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So definitely something that's interesting to talk about.
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100%.
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So where should we start today, Aubrey?
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What do we need to know?
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So I'll first share some details about this article if you want to go check it out.
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It was in the New Yorker.
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And sort of the subheading was discrimination against the unattractive is widespread and widely tolerated.
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So this was by Joshua Rothman, July 24th of this year, 2026.
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And this is interesting how it's not just about the fact that lookism exists.
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It's more about why isn't anyone doing anything about it?
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Like, why are there no repercussions?
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Why are there no consequences if someone is getting a promotion or getting a job?
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And there's a chance that that was affected by something about their appearance.
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Very interesting, right?
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Because if you look at the C -suite of many companies, it's often the good looking, well, it's often men, good looking men and older men.
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Right.
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Um, and so there's a lot there, but this, this is fascinating.
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So, so when we talk about lookism, let's make sure we have the definition.
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Are we looking just at attractiveness?
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Are we also looking at looking like, let's say on camp to work?
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Like I said before, kind of showing up at daycare sort of hair all over the place.
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I mean, all of that, right.
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There's a reason that
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when you go to a job interview you are dressing in your nicest clothing
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and trying to do your hair
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and look well you know most of us don't go to an interview looking unkempt
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and there's a reason for that lookism right we know
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that we are being judged based on the appearance that we put forth
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and you can't prove it you can't prove you didn't get a job
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because you went in sweats to an interview but you can assume
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that right because that's just part of our culture it's part of what our society values.
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Right.
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So we put on makeup, right.
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To prepare for a job interview, we put on our best clothes and yeah, I mean, that's just, I guess I've never thought of it this way.
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Right.
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And I hadn't thought of it as an ism, right.
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Something that we're being judged on and maybe unfairly, like I had never thought of it like this exists in our society, but is it not okay?
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Is it something we should be fighting?
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It was just always sort of a given and
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that I'm sort of fascinating in my own assumptions fascinated by my own assumptions there.
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That is really fascinating.
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So what are kind of the key aspects here of lookism?
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Yeah.
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So of course the workplace, right?
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Employers often will favor attractive job candidates for hiring and promotions.
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There is this sort of beauty premium where better looking workers often earn more money.
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And we know that there have been studies about this.
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There are statistics, but it's tricky because it's really hard to prove.
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Like, like you said, often leadership in a company are good looking people.
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How can you prove that that helps them get the job?
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Right.
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And also it would be hard to prove because those people that have made it to the leadership, the C -suite have the skills because they've been good looking, not just because of it,
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let's just say it's all the reason, but partially because of this throughout their entire careers, right?
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Something that compounds, something that would, there's a built -in confidence when their whole life they have known that they have this attractiveness going for them.
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So there's a lot more to it than just attractiveness.
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If that person were a poor leader and had a lack of confidence, then they probably wouldn't be getting that job.
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It's kind of all related.
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So they're kind of compounding effects where maybe it starts with knowing you're an attractive person that makes you more confident.
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Therefore you gain more skills.
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Therefore you become even more qualified.
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Exactly.
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Right.
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And it's interesting to think about how social media affects this
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this i think is becoming even more prevalent in our culture
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because of digital culture right selfie sharing apps
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that increase appearance pressure people have to think more i was talking to my teenagers about this they never know
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when someone's going to take a picture of them
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and post it immediately we didn't have
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that pressure as kids where it was just film cameras like
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there were like two pictures have taken of me a year so i didn't have to worry about it so much.
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The focus wasn't so much on appearance.
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That's a lot of pressure.
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Gosh, that is a lot of pressure for teenagers to have when they're already, you know, struggling with their appearance, maybe you're trying to figure out who they are or changes.
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This really reinforces those narrow beauty standards that you have to always be put together and photo ready.
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And so it's interesting how that really has compounded this lookism and made it a bigger part of our culture, unfortunately.
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Yeah.
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And there really aren't any, uh, laws that ban this because as we said, it's really hard.
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It would be really hard to prove this.
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We have more laws about things like ageism, racism, sexism.
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Um, what's another one?
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I don't know if we have any, any laws for fatism, but it is a term too, um, that I've heard lately.
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Yeah.
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Interesting.
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Yeah.
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So yeah, it's true.
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There aren't really any laws on the books.
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So, you know, targets of this don't really have legal protection.
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And you couldn't really prove it.
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If you are maybe, by society standards, an unattractive person, and you feel like you're not getting jobs and you're not getting promotions,
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how could you possibly prove that?
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It would be really hard to do, for sure.
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So what is this halo effect?
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This is interesting.
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So this was kind of in the research about why this persists.
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And this something called the halo effect is that people tend to automatically assume that attractive individuals are smarter, kinder, healthier, more confident.
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And often maybe they are because like we were saying, this compounds, this sort of reinforces.
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And so they might all be related often.
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And so we do, a lot of individuals have this tendency to assume attractiveness equals all these other positive characteristics.
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Interesting.
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But it's interesting why it could be true.
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It's because of lookism, because they've been given those opportunities, those advantages throughout their lives.
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It's not because they're good looking.
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Right. So interesting.
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And I researched this a little further because this was the first I had heard this term.
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But there was an academic paper by the Cambridge University Press in April of 2026 called Lookism and Acceptable Discrimination.
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And this was a really fascinating paper
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that studied why lookism isn't taken as seriously in policy and practice as other forms of discrimination, such as sexism and racism.
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So you can just search and read that entire academic paper if you really want to dive in for details about this, because it is fascinating.
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And it's also interesting to think about the cultural piece.
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This is possibly prevalent in many countries across many cultures, but it's likely different depending on where you live.
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And that's really interesting as well of course.
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Standards of beauty are different, of course.
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But this seems like because there have been two articles written in the last three or four months, it seems like it could be a hot new term kind of emerging
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that we're going to start talking about on a societal level.
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So this is really tuning our listeners in to a current topic that matters.
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Exactly.
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Really interesting.
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So definitely it might come up in conversations
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and you want to be ready hey quick question do you want to feel more confident
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when you speak english if
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so we made a free guide for you it'll help you avoid those common mistakes
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and start speaking more naturally in real conversations go grab it in the description below
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and if this is helpful for you make sure that you like
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and subscribe we're here five times a week to help you connect in english All right, Aubrey.
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So what are some ways that our listeners can take this new concept
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that maybe today's the first time they've heard about it and start talking about it in English to practice and to connect?
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Yeah, we're excited for you to have these conversations, but this is definitely one of those things
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that you have to be aware that whoever you're talking to may never have heard this term before.
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So we've recommended this in the past as a way to do that.
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So our first recommendation is to start the conversation with something like this.
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I was listening to a podcast about lookism where people experience discrimination based on their appearance.
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Do you think that happens a lot?
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So I wouldn't say something like, I was listening to a podcast about lookism.
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Have you heard of that?
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Do you know what that is?
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I would start it sort of assuming that they haven't heard this term
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and then say it this way where you kind of automatically very briefly define it and then jump right into the conversation.
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Yeah, for sure.
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And I can't overemphasize how common this chunk is.
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These days out in the world, I was listening to a podcast about X.
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It's so common.
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It's the easiest way to start a conversation because it takes out that sort of condescension of like, I heard about this, right?
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Everyone listens to podcasts.
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It's such a easy medium to be like, I randomly heard about this on a podcast.
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I'm not setting myself up as more learned or intelligent than the person I'm talking to.
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Exactly.
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It's just so funny because we started the show in 2013.
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And that wasn't a thing you heard anywhere.
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No one knew what a podcast was.
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It's just, it's such a cultural shift that we've gone through in the last 10, 13 years.
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It's amazing.
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I don't know. So true.
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And then this second thing I want to recommend is you can say like, have you heard of lookism?
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But what you're doing is immediately sharing that you had not before, right?
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Cause this is such an uncommon term.
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Most likely the person that you're talking to would just say, no, I haven't.
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What's that?
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You don't want to set yourself up as an expert that could hurt the connection.
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So what you can say is something like, Hey, have you heard of lookism?
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I had not heard of it before, but I just heard a podcast about it.
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Yes, exactly.
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And you know, some follow -up questions that we could have, uh, you could then, you know, if the response is people are curious, whoever you're talking to, you could ask,
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have you ever witnessed or do you feel like you've ever seen it?
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Maybe more casually, right?
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Have you ever witnessed lookism?
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Do you feel like you've ever seen this or experienced it, what else?
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Or are you guilty of it?
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Like you could admit yourself, be like, I definitely feel like I've been guilty of this.
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What about you?
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Right.
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Admit that vulnerability.
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Yes.
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Um, or you could ask, is it common where you live and work?
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Um, it's also really interesting to talk about standards of beauty, which would be a slightly different topic, but what is considered beautiful in your culture?
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Definitely.
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It would It'd be interesting to find out how that's different with who you're talking to.
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Yeah.
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Just yesterday, we ran our fluency party, which we run once a month for anyone in any one of our courses.
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And we were talking about sunscreen and tanning, right, Aubrey?
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That's a good example.
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I thought of this lookism when we had that conversation, because this, of course, is different across cultures, depending on beauty standards.
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Here in the United States, that sun -kissed, a little bit tanned skin is a beauty standard, but that's not how it is around the world necessarily.
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Exactly.
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It's fascinating.
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So, um, all right, Aubrey, are we going to dive into a role play here to show our listeners how we might talk about this together?
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Uh, let's do it.
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Um, so here you and I are friends chatting at lunch.
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I'll start us out.
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All right.
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I was listening to a podcast about lookism where people experience discrimination based on their appearance.
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Do you think that happens a lot?
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Yeah, I do.
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I don't think people always realize they're doing it, but first impressions can be really powerful.
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I agree.
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Have you ever caught yourself making assumptions about someone based on how they look?
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Honestly, yeah.
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I have assumed someone was unfriendly because they looked serious.
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And then after talking to them, they turned out to be really kind.
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Oh, that's a great example.
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Do you think social media makes it worse?
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Probably, yeah.
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We're constantly seeing carefully chosen photos, so it's easy to judge people based on appearances.
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That's true.
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It's a good reminder to give people a chance before jumping to conclusions.
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Yeah.
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Interesting.
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Yeah.
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I think most people will probably admit, yes, they've experienced this and, and experienced it and, and done it.
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Right.
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Um, I, I'm sure.
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and it's a great conversation to strike it is interesting it's
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going to be interesting to see whoever you're talking to how they respond where the conversation goes
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because there are
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so many possibilities right you could end up talking more about someone could share specific experiences they've had at work
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or in their life or specific times when they felt like they judged someone else
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always going to be a way to connect because people are going to start sharing truths about themselves
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yes 100 all right abri
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so anything we want to go through in the role play
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here do we have any we didn't really have key phrases today
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which is kind of a nice little refreshing change right we're
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talking about a concept right it's not about the vocabulary it's about the concept
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and what a great conversation topic it is and how to start
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that conversation because it is tricky
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if you just say like do you know what lookism is
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and you've heard this podcast you've been delving into it
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and they just are like no what's
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that this is a mistake a conversation mistake that a lot of people do where they set themselves up as an expert.
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And now you're in a position where you need to just lecture them, share all this information.
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And that's not a fun conversation.
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So if instead you make it collaborative like this, just share, you heard about it on a podcast and go from there.
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That's such a better way to connect over a conversation.
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Yeah.
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We'd call that a conversation killer, setting yourself up as an expert from the beginning, right?
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It's only going down all of the information I heard with you.
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Some people do it.
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I mean, there's a whole woman -splaining, man -splaining thing that happens, which just is nauseating for me.
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We want to be careful to avoid that, right?
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There are better ways to have a conversation about something you've been learning about that the person you're talking to might.
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And you might find that someone's like, yes, I've just read an article about that.
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And then the conversation would go, you know, and you both are more informed.
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Yes.
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All right, guys, there's another great episode.
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If you love today's episode, go check out another one keep listening to allers english it's episode 2698 in a
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while or for a while tricky english grammar explained we'll show you
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when to use each of these very important for basic grammar absolutely go check it out
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and if you missed that episode you might not be following the podcast
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so wherever you're listening follow all ears english so you never miss any of our episodes.
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All right.
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Sounds great, Aubrey.
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You have a good rest of your day.
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You too.
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Thanks, Lindsay.
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Bye.

Vocabolario e note di pronuncia per questa lezione

Questa lezione di conversazione si basa sul video “AEE - What is Lookism and What Can We Do About It?”. Le parole che ritornano più spesso: interesting, conversation, heard, lookism. Questo video contiene 14 frasi e 3311 parole da ripetere con lo shadowing. Il parlato dura 17:06. Chi parla va veloce, circa 194 parole al minuto: aspettati suoni legati e ridotti. Il 86% delle parole rientra nelle 3.000 più comuni dell’inglese; conviene studiare le altre prima di iniziare. 48 delle sue 14 frasi sono domande: un buon esercizio per l’intonazione interrogativa e le risposte brevi.

Vocaboli chiave di questo video

15 parole del video che vale la pena imparare, con pronuncia e significato:

ParolaPronunciaSignificato
podcast sostantivo/ˈpɑdˌkæst/podcast, audioprogramma
topic sostantivo/ˈtɑpɪk/tema, categoria
discrimination sostantivo/dɪskɹɪmɪˈneɪʃən/discriminazione
connect verbo/kəˈnɛkt/connettere, connettersi
compound sostantivo/ˈkɑmpaʊnd/composto, miscuglio
necessarily avverbio/ˌnɛs.əˈsɛɹ.ə.li/necessariamente, a tutti i costi
whoever/huˈɛvɚ/chiunque
promotion sostantivo/pɹəˈmoʊʃn̩/promozione, miglioramento
conclusion sostantivo/kənˈkluːʒən/conclusione
judgment sostantivo/ˈd͡ʒʌd͡ʒ.mənt/giudizio
racism sostantivo/ˈɹeɪsɪzm̩/razzismo
assumption sostantivo/əˈsʌm(p).ʃ(ə)n/assunzione
tricky aggettivo/ˈtɹɪk.i/insidioso, ingannevole
listener sostantivo/ˈlɪs(ə)nɚ/ascoltatore, ascoltatrice
briefly avverbio/ˈbɹiːfli/concisamente, brevemente

I phrasal verb che sentirai

ParolaSignificato
check out verboinvestigare
drop off verboaddormentarsi, appisolarsi
end up verboandare a finire, finire
figure out verboscoprire, rendersi conto
find out verboscoprire
put together verboassemblare, montare
take out verbocavare, cacciare

Frasi da ripetere

Frasi brevi e complete del video che puoi riutilizzare nella conversazione di tutti i giorni:

  • Aubrey, what what do we need to know?
  • Are we looking just at attractiveness?
  • Is it something we should be fighting?
  • How could you possibly prove  that?
  • Do you think that happens a lot?

La grammatica di questo video

Le strutture che chi parla usa di più, con le parole esatte del video:

StrutturaNel video
Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — un’azione iniziata prima e ancora in corsoyou've been delving · you've been learning
Frasi condizionali if + frase, will/would + verbo — una condizione e il suo risultatoif you said no, oh, it would be · if you love our style we'll show
Present perfect have/has + participio passato — un’azione passata che conta ancora adessohaven't recorded · I've been looked · have observed
Forma passiva be + participio passato — conta ciò che accade, non chi lo fais designed · are polished · I've been looked

Pronuncia a cui fare attenzione

Chi parla usa 87 contrazioni e forme ridotte, come you're, I'm, we're. Pronunciale nella forma breve, così come le senti.

  • I suoni “sh” e “zh”: discrimination /dɪskɹɪmɪˈneɪʃən/, promotion /pɹəˈmoʊʃn̩/, conclusion /kənˈkluːʒən/, assumption /əˈsʌm(p).ʃ(ə)n/, impression /ɪmˈpɹɛʃn̩/
  • Parole lunghe — attenzione all’accento: discrimination /dɪskɹɪmɪˈneɪʃən/, necessarily /ˌnɛs.əˈsɛɹ.ə.li/, naturally /ˈnæt͡ʃ.(ə.)ɹə.li/, intelligent /ɪnˈtɛlɪd͡ʒənt/, importantly /ɪmˈpɔɹ.tənt.li/

I suoni difficili per chi parla italiano:

  • /h/ — va soffiata, non è muta: whoever /huˈɛvɚ/, helpful /ˈhɛlp.fl̩/, hire /ˈhaɪɹ/, wherever /(h)wɛɹˈɛvɚ/, heel /hil/
  • Consonante finale — senza aggiungere una vocale dopo: podcast /ˈpɑdˌkæst/, topic /ˈtɑpɪk/, connect /kəˈnɛkt/, compound /ˈkɑmpaʊnd/, judgment /ˈd͡ʒʌd͡ʒ.mənt/
  • /æ/ — più aperta della “e”: podcast /ˈpɑdˌkæst/, grammar /ˈɡɹæm.ə(ɹ)/, tan /tæn/, naturally /ˈnæt͡ʃ.(ə.)ɹə.li/, aspect /ˈæspɛkt/

Come esercitarsi con questo video

  1. Ascolta tutto il video una volta senza parlare e annota le parole che non conosci.
  2. Inizia a velocità 0,75×, fai shadowing frase per frase e torna alla velocità normale quando diventa facile.
  3. Registrati e confronta con l’originale, facendo attenzione a parole come podcast, topic, discrimination.

Cos'è la tecnica dello Shadowing?

Shadowing è una tecnica di apprendimento delle lingue supportata da studi scientifici, originariamente sviluppata per la formazione dei traduttori professionisti e resa popolare dal poliglotta Dr. Alexander Arguelles. Il metodo è semplice ma potente: ascolti un audio in inglese di madrelingua e lo ripeti immediatamente ad alta voce — come un'ombra che segue il parlante con un ritardo di solo 1–2 secondi. A differenza dell'ascolto passivo o degli esercizi di grammatica, lo shadowing costringe il tuo cervello e i muscoli della bocca a elaborare e riprodurre simultaneamente i modelli di discorso reale. La ricerca dimostra che migliora significativamente la precisione della pronuncia, l'intonazione, il ritmo, il discorso connesso, la comprensione dell'ascolto e la fluidità del parlato — rendendolo uno dei metodi più efficaci per la preparazione alla prova di speaking dell'IELTS e per la comunicazione reale in inglese.

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