Shadowing Practice: Behave as if You Are the First Here - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Transcription by CastingWords
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of a human being totally alive,
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intensely alive, enjoying everything that life makes available,
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and enjoying it with grace, gratitude, towards existence.
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And that's what loving yourself means.
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It means that you have thrown all garbage of religious rejection,
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repression, you have dropped all the ideals that they have given to you,
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that you are now standing on your own,
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as if you are Adam and Eve.
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So no priest has been there before,
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no religion has been there before, uncorrupted, unspoiled, clean.
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They start like Adam and Eve.
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Just think of the idea.
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Why bother about the past?
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Forget about it.
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You are the first man.
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start living as if you don't know how to live.
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Nobody is there to teach you.
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No guidelines exist.
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No books exist which say, how to do this, how to do that.
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You are just left alone on an island, everything is available.
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Intelligence is within you, instinct is within you,
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intellect is within you, intuition is within you.
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Now start moving.
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Yes, perhaps you may commit few mistakes, there is no wrong in it.
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That's how one learns.
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Perhaps few times you may fall, nothing to be worried about it.
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You can get up again.
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And next time you will be walking more carefully, more alert.
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So you have gained something out of that fall.
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Out of each mistake, each error, you are constantly gaining something.
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Errors are valuable.
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However, mistakes are immensely necessary.
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If you are somehow protected from committing mistakes and errors,
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you will never grow, you will never learn a thing, you will never mature.
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So behave as if you are the first here.
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And the whole world is available to you to explore.
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And in exploring it you will be surprised that simultaneously your inner world is being explored too.
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because as you explore the outer world your insight becomes deeper,
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your intelligence becomes sharper, your awareness becomes keener.
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And a perfectly fulfilled man is one who explores both the outer and the inner.
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and at the moment of death can have a smile on his face that he lived totally,
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that he is happy that he lived totally,
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that he burned his life candle from both ends together.
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When you can burn your candle from both ends together, why be miserly and burn just one side?
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When you can enjoy double light and two flames together, enjoy it.
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because enjoyment is not simply enjoyment.
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Every joy is growth and brings you closer to blissfulness, to ecstasy.
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and unless you have attained to a state of ecstasy,
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where you can say that I have arrived,
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that I am fulfilled, that the purpose of existence in me is completed,
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that if now death comes, it is welcome.
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Now that is the only thing that I don't know.
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A man who can say that that death now is the only thing that I don't know,
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life I have known, will be enthusiastic about death,
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will be eager to meet it, would like to have a plunge into it.
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And this is the paradox of life.
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One who is ready to die never dies.
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One who is himself ready to jump into death, for him death disappears.
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death is only for cowards, death is only for those who have not lived,
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who have really remained dead their whole life.
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Death is not for the living.
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The more living you are, the farther away is the death.
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If you are totally living, there is no death.
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Death exists not.
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Then there is only life, life eternal.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 66 sentences and 597 words to shadow. The speech runs for 9:17. The speaker talks slowly, about 64 words per minute, so there is time to copy every sound. 86% 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 less common words from the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
- explore /ɪkˈsploɹ/ (verb) — To examine or investigate something systematically.
- commit /kəˈmɪt/ (verb) — To give in trust; to put into charge or keeping; to entrust; to consign; used with to or formerly unto.
- candle /ˈkæn.dəl/ (noun) — A light source consisting of a wick embedded in a solid, flammable substance such as wax, tallow, or paraffin.
- fulfill /fʊlˈfɪl/ (verb) — To satisfy, carry out, bring to completion (an obligation, a requirement, etc.).
- enjoyment /ɪnˈd͡ʒɔɪ.mənt/ (noun) — The condition of enjoying anything.
- sharp /ʃɑɹp/ (adjective) — Terminating in a point or edge, especially one that can cut or pierce easily; not dull, obtuse, or rounded.
- carefully /ˈkɛɹf(ə)li/ (adverb) — With care; attentively, circumspectly.
- awareness /əˈwɛɹ.nəs/ (noun) — The state or level of consciousness where sense data can be confirmed by an observer.
- ideal /aɪˈdi(ə)l/ (adjective) — Pertaining to ideas, or to a given idea.
- bother /ˈbɑðɚ/ (verb) — To annoy, to disturb, to irritate; to be troublesome to, to make trouble for.
- arrive /əˈɹaɪv/ (verb) — To reach; to get to a certain place.
- alert /əˈlɝt/ (adjective) — Attentive; awake; on guard.
- priest /ˈpɹiːst/ (noun) — A religious clergyman (clergywoman, clergyperson) who is trained to perform services or sacrifices at a church or temple.
- mature /məˈt͡ʃʊ(ə)ɹ/ (adjective) — Fully developed; grown up in terms of physical appearance, behaviour or thinking; ripe.
- insight /ˈɪnsaɪ̯t/ (noun) — A sight or view of the interior of anything; a deep inspection or view; introspection; frequently used with into.
Phrasal verbs you will hear
- get up (verb) — To move in an upward direction; to ascend or climb.
- stand on (verb) — To continue following the same course.
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 3 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: bother /ˈbɑðɚ/, enthusiastic /ɪnˌθjuːzɪˈæstɪk/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: sharp /ʃɑɹp/, rejection /ɹɪˈd͡ʒɛkʃən/, intuition /ˌɪn.tjuːˈɪʃ.ən/, transcription /tɹænˈskɹɪpʃən/, repression /ɹəˈpɹɛʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: simultaneously /ˌsaɪmlˈteɪnɪəsli/, enthusiastic /ɪnˌθjuːzɪˈæstɪk/, intuition /ˌɪn.tjuːˈɪʃ.ən/
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 explore, commit, candle.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have thrown · have dropped · has been |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | one who explores · man who can · One who is |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | are just left · being explored · is completed |
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.