Shadowing Practice: Ancient Chinese Wisdom to Calm Your Modern Mind - Learn English Speaking with Video
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The End Once we stop learning in order to pass exams or to impress daunting people, we are ready for the best kind of education.
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The kind that's done for our own sakes, to strengthen us for the difficulties of our lives,
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to make us feel less sad and less alone.
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And it's here that we stand to derive much benefit from classical Chinese culture,
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in particular its painting, poetry, ceramics and philosophy.
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Despite the barriers of time and language, we are liable to discover many friends and familiar emotions that can illuminate neglected,
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important corners of our own deep selves.
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are five big ideas that the classical Chinese kept stressing for their benefit and now may serve our own.
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Firstly, how very small we are.
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The great Chinese artists never allowed themselves to forget
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that we are infinitesimal beings in a vast and mysterious universe and that this frightening thought,
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well handled, is in fact the route to salvation.
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They constantly show us vast landscapes against which humans barely make a mark.
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We have to search for them amidst gigantic mountains, rivers, boulders and forests.
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We loom so large in our own imaginations day to day.
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But under the wise tutelage of the Chinese masters, we are returned to more appropriate and more manageable dimensions.
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We relearn how little we matter.
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We can gain relief from seeing just how puny our ego-driven plans are in a world that's so much older,
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more majestic and more incomprehensible than we ordinarily recall while under the spell of our illusory ambitions.
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What does it matter who is famous and who obscure, who celebrated and who disgraced,
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when we are as earthworms or twigs next to the mighty southern mountains whose peaks are constantly shrouded in fast-flowing mists.
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Can we continue to care about personal achievement when nature is
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so resolutely indifferent to everything that we are and attempt to be.
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The artists of classical China were committed to tempering our distressing egoism and vanity by contemplating us from a new, fairer perspective.
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Secondly, sadness.
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A redeeming air of melancholy suffuses classical Chinese culture.
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Here, unlike Back in our own era and societies, we no longer have to smile when we would prefer to cry or be mute.
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The Chinese did not aggressively repudiate their own grief.
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They understood, from a Buddhist and Taoist perspective, that the ingredients of life are inherently rather than accidentally pretty serious.
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The gap between our aspirations and reality will always be vast.
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We will love those who cannot love us back, our friends and lovers will die, our own bodies are fast decaying.
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Far from making us sad, the sadness of the Chinese sages helps us to feel less alone and less persecuted with our own range of sorrows.
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We have not been handed some especially cruel fate.
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This is the way existence is, in and of its essence, when we are ready to throw off sentimental illusions.
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Here is the poet Wang Wei, reflecting on the passage of time.
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The poem is called Lamenting White Hairs.
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Once a child's face, now an old man's, White hairs soon replace the infant's down.
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How much can hurt the heart in one life span?
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The favourite seasons for the Chinese sages were autumn and winter, time when nature reminds us all of our adherence to nature's life cycles.
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Here is Su Shi drawing appropriately melancholy thoughts from this.
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The sunset clouds are gathered far away.
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It's clear and cold.
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The Milky Way is silent.
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I turn to the jade plate.
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The goodness of this life and of this night will not last for long.
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Next year, where will I watch the bright moon?
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Death is a constant in Chinese culture and it rips at all our plans for tenderness and love.
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giving way to sadness for an old friend.
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We followed you back for your burial on Mount Shiloh, and then through the greens of oaks and pines we rode away home.
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Your bones are there under the white clouds until the end of time, and there is only the stream that flows down to the world of men.
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Thirdly, open-heartedness.
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There is something immensely touching in how emotionally vulnerable the great figures of Chinese culture allowed themselves to be.
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We might imagine older societies to wear a stiff military upper lip.
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Surely back then they didn't cry over small things.
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They were not as soft-hearted as we know we are deep down.
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But far from it.
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The Chinese knew how to speak with near childlike honesty of what made them cry.
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And it was much the same as what makes us cry cry.
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Here is Wang Wei in the 8th century AD writing with acute,
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entirely modern, clear-eyed sensitivity about his emotions on watching a young man leaving his family to study in a faraway city.
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Green, green the willowed road, the road where they're separating, a loved son off for far provinces, old parents left at home.
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He must go or they couldn't live, but his going revives their grief.
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Tears dried, he must catch up with his companions.
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At last the carriage passes out of sight, but still at times there's the dust thrown up from the road.
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I too, long ago, said goodbye to my family, and when I see this, my handkerchief is wet with tears.
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Fourthly, we can cope with simple things.
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The classical Chinese lived in a highly unpredictable world.
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In the capital, the emperor in his court could be the route to vast riches and status.
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But politics and business were especially treacherous, and reversals of fortune were common.
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In order to calm themselves, the classical Chinese artists emphasised the satisfactions that were already available on a modest salary.
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Not in order to negate every kind of achievement,
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but in order to quieten their worries and comfort themselves with the idea that even in infamy and exile,
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there would still be much left to appreciate.
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There was a long tradition of people who'd fallen out of favour in important circles, leaving town and going to settle in remote provinces.
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This wasn't depicted as a punishment, pure and simple.
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In many ways, it could be a liberation.
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Artists depicted materially bare lives, unfolding in unshowy, uncostly small huts set within the majesty of nature.
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Chinese culture chose to celebrate simple elements like birds, rabbits, bamboo forests, flowers and the sight of the moon.
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No lesser figure than the 12th century emperor Huizong gained relief from painting vast numbers of finches in his palace garden.
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In order to make the most of their simple pleasures, Chinese artists invented particular rituals, for example, moon gazing, whereby one would sit,
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perhaps with a friend, and contemplate the moon for hours at a time on a veranda of one's house.
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And one might, in a similar manner, contemplate the ebb and flow of the tides.
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Fifthly, a cult of calm and simplicity.
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The Chinese had an extremely turbulent history.
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Civil wars regularly broke out.
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Invaders came from the north and west.
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In the midst of turmoil, they, like we, longed for calm.
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They wanted emptiness, purity, rest, everything their own lives had too little of.
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And one of the places they went to look for calm was in an arena
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that can powerfully move us to this day – pottery.
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The ceramicists of classical china could, when the occasion demanded it, create noisy, highly decorated pieces full of dragons and phoenixes.
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But what they really loved, and what we in turn loved them for, are those occasions when they created exquisitely pure,
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empty pieces of pottery in which we can bathe in expanses of milky green
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or bluey silver or playful yellow and attenuate some of our sorrows, confusion and anxiety.
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To our surprise, perhaps, We suffer today much as the Chinese suffered in their classical era.
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And we can look to their ingenuity and kindness to still our anxieties and appease our sense of loss and regret.
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We should study them not for knowledge's sake but with the highest ambition as a form of therapy.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Ancient Chinese Wisdom to Calm Your Modern Mind”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: Chinese, classical, vast, cry, artists. This video has 97 sentences and 1354 words to shadow. The speech runs for 9:23. The speaker talks at a steady 144 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. Only 77% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| contemplate verb | /ˈkɑn.təmˌpleɪt/ | To look at on all sides or in all its aspects; to view or consider with continued attention; to regard with deliberate care; to meditate on; to study, ponder… |
| sadness noun | /ˈsædnəs/ | The state or emotion of being sad. |
| depict verb | /dɪˈpɪkt/ | To render a representation of something, using words, sounds, images, or other means. |
| melancholy noun | /ˈmɛl.ənˌkɑ.li/ | Great sadness or depression, especially of a thoughtful or introspective nature. |
| milky adjective | /ˈmɪlki/ | Resembling milk in color, consistency, smell, etc.; consisting of milk. |
| amidst | /aˈmɪdst/ | In the midst or middle of; surrounded or encompassed by; among. |
| pottery noun | /ˈpɑtəɹi/ | Fired ceramic wares that contain clay when formed. |
| sorrow noun | /ˈsɑɹoʊ/ | unhappiness, woe |
| sage noun | /seɪd͡ʒ/ | The plant Salvia officinalis and savory spice produced from it; also planted for ornamental purposes. |
| ambition noun | /æmˈbɪʃ.ən/ | Eager or inordinate desire for some object that confers distinction, as preferment, honor, superiority, political power, or fame; desire to distinguish one's… |
| provinces noun | /ˈpɹɔv.ɪns.ɪz/ | The part of a country outside of the capital, major cities, etc., and regarded as being rustic or parochial; a hinterland. See provincial. |
| grief noun | /ɡɹiːf/ | Suffering, hardship. |
| emotion noun | /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/ | A person's internal state of being and involuntary physiological response to an object or a situation, based on or tied to physical state and sensory data. |
| adherence noun | /ədˈhɪə.ɹəns/ | A close physical union of two objects. |
| appease verb | /əˈpiːz/ | To make quiet; to calm; to reduce (something) to a state of peace; to dispel (anger, hatred, etc.). |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| break out verb | To escape, especially forcefully or defiantly. |
| throw off verb | To confuse; especially, to lose a pursuer. |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 5 contractions and reduced forms, such as couldn't, didn't, they're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: earthworm /ˈɜː(ɹ)θˌwɜː(ɹ)m/, fourthly /ˈfɔːɹθ.li/, strengthen /ˈstɹɛŋ(k)θən/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: ambition /æmˈbɪʃ.ən/, emotion /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/, aspiration /ˌæspəˈɹeɪʃən/, liberation /ˌlɪbəˈɹeɪʃən/, illusion /ɪˈl(j)uːʒ(ə)n/
- Long words — get the stress right: melancholy /ˈmɛl.ənˌkɑ.li/, aspiration /ˌæspəˈɹeɪʃən/, attenuate /əˈtɛn.juˌeɪt/, egoism /ˈi.ɡoʊˌɪ.zəm/, illuminate /ɪˈl(j)umɪneɪt/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like contemplate, sadness, depict.
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.