Shadowing Practice: 80% of programmers are NOT happy… why? - Learn English Speaking with Video
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You know that feeling when your alarm clock wakes you up at 6am
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and you have to go to work again because you didn't die in your sleep?
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Well, you're not alone.
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80% of professional developers know this feeling according to the 2024 Stack Overflow survey results.
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One in three programmers actively hate their job, while nearly half are just plowing through life shackled to their comfort zone.
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And that leaves only 20% with delusions of happiness.
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Personally, I could pound my keyboard all day and be happy, and that's why I found these results quite shocking.
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Programmers are well-paid, get tons of vacation, can work remote, and even when forced back into the office, they usually have nap pods and adult ball pits to help ward off depression.
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But apparently that's not enough.
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In today's video, we'll dissect the brain of the modern code monkey
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and examine its weird environment to find the truth about why farmers and plumbers are statistically more happy.
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And most importantly, what you can do to cope about it.
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It is July 29th, 2024, and you're watching The Code Report.
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Last week, the Stack Overflow Annual Survey was released with over 65,000 responses from professional developers around the world.
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And it contains a ton of surprising insights about the current state of programmers and technology.
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Not only will we look at this data, but also anecdotes from strangers on the internet to shed light on the underappreciated problems faced by those who code.
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Reason number one, dollar dollar bills y'all.
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Money can't buy happiness, but let's be real, you've never seen anyone cry while driving a Lambo.
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Programmers are well paid, but not as well paid as you might think.
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They say if you learn PHP, you're guaranteed a Lambo, but here's a reality check.
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PHP is almost the lowest paid language with a median salary of 49k, and to make matters worse, this was a decline from last year.
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The reality is that every PHP millionaire, like Zuck or Levels, is also an entrepreneur.
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The actual problem with PHP is that it's popular, and you'll notice that less popular specialized languages like Erlang and low-level languages like Rust earn better salaries.
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The best way to make more money, though, is to simply respawn in the United States, where salaries are higher, or learn how to talk to people so you can become a manager someday.
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Paradoxically, though, the depression rates are much higher in the United States than, say, Southeast Asia, so maybe it is true that money doesn't actually buy happiness.
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If you're getting into programming just for the money, you might want to rethink that plan.
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Reason number two, technical debt.
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The number one shared frustration among professional developers is technical debt, and this is what technical debt actually looks like.
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This codebase is ugly and flawed, but it gets the job done, so we'll just keep building on top of it because starting over is too hard.
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This process goes on for years and decades until the codebase is filled with to-do-I'll-fix-it-later comments, and when you run get blamed to find out why the build fails when you remove this one line of code,
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it pulls up the obituary of some guy who worked there eight years ago.
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That means the best thing to do is just not touch this code.
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We all want to do good work, but it's nearly impossible when faced with soul-sucking technical debt.
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But what can you do about it?
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Well, to be honest, pretty much nothing.
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It's no one programmer's fault, but a systemic issue caused by reason number three, hustle-or-die culture.
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As you write code, you've got TechLead pressuring you to close out all these tickets before the end of the sprint, who's being pressured by the engineering manager to ship this product by the end of the quarter,
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who's being pressured by the VP to execute on the product strategy, who's being pressured by the CEO to jack up revenue, who's being pressured by BlackRock to beat earnings,
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who's being pressured by anonymous deep-state trillionaires to fund interdimensional wars beyond your comprehension.
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The machine has to keep moving, and all this pressure is eventually released through the boots-on-the-ground software engineers, which come in the form of unrealistic timelines and expectations.
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Now, what you can do about it is quit your job.
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The turnover rate among software engineers is extremely high, because unlike many other industries, you can often make a lot more money by switching jobs.
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But you still might not be happy if you end up working for a corporate dinosaur, where you become nothing more than a cog.
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Many companies are so bloated with bureaucracy that it becomes nearly impossible to get anything done.
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When programmers have to go to meetings to schedule pre-meetings to discuss the agenda for the upcoming meeting about last week's meeting, they start to become disillusioned.
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Viktor Frankl showed us how a man can find meaning in life despite the most horrific of circumstances, like an extermination camp,
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but he never had to get programming work done between seven meetings with product managers who have conflicting requirements.
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Meetings might kill your focus, but ultimately, it's hard to be happy if you feel like your work is contributing nothing of value to the world.
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Now, even if you have a great job, a great salary, and a great boss, you'll probably get laid off around the age of 25 when you become too old to code.
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All the recent layoffs and the hangover from the COVID boom has black-pilled a large segment of the industry, but programming can also be very unhealthy physically.
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According to science, being chained to a chair all day is more unhealthy than smoking.
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But also according to science, exercise is one of the best, if not the best, medicine for depression.
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So that's an easy bug to fix.
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But even if it is true that 80% of programmers are not happy, the best way to cope is to realize that out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls,
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and the most massive characters are seared with scars.
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This has been the Code Report, thanks for watching, and I will see you in the next one.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 56 sentences and 1053 words to shadow. The speech runs for 4:43. The speaker talks fast, about 224 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 83% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| programmer noun | /ˈpɹoʊɡɹæmɚ/ | One who writes computer programs. |
| salary noun | /ˈsæləɹi/ | A fixed amount of money paid to a worker, usually calculated on a monthly or annual basis, not hourly, as wages. Implies a degree of professionalism and/or… |
| happiness noun | /ˈhæpinɪs/ | The emotion of being happy; joy; elation. |
| developer noun | /dɪˈvɛləpɚ/ | A person or entity engaged in the creation or improvement of certain classes of products. |
| unhealthy adjective | /ʌnˈhɛl.θi/ | Characterized by, or conducive to poor health. |
| earn verb | /ɝn/ | To gain (success, reward, recognition) through applied effort or work. |
| shock noun | /ʃɔk/ | A sudden, heavy impact. |
| suffer verb | /ˈsʌfɚ/ | To undergo hardship. |
| guarantee noun | /ˌɡæɹ.ənˈtiː/ | Anything that assures a certain outcome. |
| clock noun | /klɑk/ | A chronometer, an instrument that measures time, particularly the time of day. |
| suck verb | /sʌk/ | To use the mouth and lips to pull in (a liquid, especially milk from the breast). |
| ugly adjective | /ˈʌɡli/ | Displeasing to the eye; aesthetically unpleasing. |
| comfort noun | /ˈkʌm.fət/ | Contentment, ease. |
| remote adjective | /ɹəˈməʊt̞/ | At a distance; disconnected. |
| decline verb | /dɪˈklaɪn/ | To move downwards, to fall, to drop. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| close out verb | To terminate; to call the end of. | |
| end up verb | To bring to a conclusion. | |
| find out verb | To discover, as by asking or investigating. | |
| lay off verb | (of an employer) To dismiss (workers) from employment, e.g. at a time of low business volume or through no fault of the worker, often with a severance package. | |
| pull up verb | /ˌpʊl ˈʌp/ | To lift upwards or vertically. |
| start over verb | to begin again; to return to the beginning |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | was released · is filled · being pressured |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | you've never seen · have emerged · has been |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | those who code · guy who worked |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 14 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, we'll, you'll. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: unhealthy /ʌnˈhɛl.θi/, rethink /ɹiːˈθɪŋk/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: shock /ʃɔk/, vacation /veɪˈkeɪ.ʃən/, expectation /ˌɛk.spɛkˈteɪ.ʃən/, frustration /fɹʌsˈtɹeɪ.ʃən/, comprehension /ˌkɑmpɹɪˈhɛnʃn̩/
- Long words — get the stress right: developer /dɪˈvɛləpɚ/, anonymous /əˈnɒn.ə.məs/, importantly /ɪmˈpɔɹ.tənt.li/, entrepreneur /ˌɑn.tɹə.pɹəˈnɝ/, expectation /ˌɛk.spɛkˈteɪ.ʃən/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like programmer, salary, happiness.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.