Shadowing Practice: Don't Worry, No One Cares - Learn English Speaking with Video
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We tend to begin our lives with a deeply unrepresentative experience:
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that of being surrounded by people who care to an extraordinary extent about us.
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We look up from the dreams and confusions of early infancy and may find a smiling face or two,
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observing us with the utmost tenderness and concern.
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They watch us as a rivulet of saliva leaks slowly from the corner of our mouth
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and rush to wipe it away as if dabbing at a precious canvas, then indulgently stroke the fine, soft hairs on our delicate scalps.
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first smile.
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The applause rings for days when we take our initial steps, giggle, totter, fall and bravely try to resume our progress.
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It isn't just at home.
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At school, the best teachers encourage us when we find something difficult.
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They understand we might be shy.
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They are keen to detect and encourage the early tentative signs of our particular talents.
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Then, of course, we grow up and we're inducted into a horrific reality.
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We exist in a world of astonishing indifference to almost everything we are, think, say or do.
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We might be in late adolescence when the point really hits home.
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We might be in a bedsit at university or wandering the streets of the city at night on our own,
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when it occurs to us with full force how negligible a thing we are in the wider scheme.
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No one in the crowds we pass knows anything about us.
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Our welfare is of no concern to them.
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They jostle against us on the pavements and treat us as a mere impediment to their progress.
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We are tiny against the towers and brightly lit flashing advertising hoardings.
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We might die, and no one would even notice.
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It may be a stern truth, but we make it all the more so by focusing only on its darkest dimensions.
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We remain grief -stricken by how invisible we are, yet we cease to put this bracing thought to its proper philosophical purpose.
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that of rescuing us from another problem which is gnawing at us all the
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while an ongoing and highly corrosive sense of self -consciousness.
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In another side of our minds, we haven't accepted the indifference of others at all.
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In fact, we know and suffer intensely from just how much, as we feel sure, Others, are thinking of us.
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We are extremely worried about how high -pitched and odd our voice sounded
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when we asked the waiter for a bit more milk.
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We are certain that the sales attendant noticed how out of shape our stomach is.
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The people in the restaurant where we're eating alone are undoubtedly spending considerable time wondering why we have no friends.
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At work, they're still dwelling on that slightly stupid thing we said last month about the US sales strategy.
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A person we went to bed with four years ago is
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to this day thinking ill of us in some powerful but undefined way.
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We don't really have any evidence for this and yet it can feel like an emotional certainty.
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it can feel intuitively clear that our foolishness
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and less than impressive sides are being noted and dwelt on all the time by everyone at large.
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Every way in which we depart from what the world considers to be normal, upstanding and dignified has been registered by the widest constituency.
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To liberate us from this kind of punitive story, we may need to conduct a deliberately artificial thought exercise.
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We may have to set ourselves the challenge of examining how long we spend on the foolishness or just existence
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of other people.
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How we think
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and feel about other people we don't particularly know is perhaps the best guide to the workings of the average human imagination.
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To pretty much the rest of the world, we are the very same sort of strangers or casual acquaintances as we know and deal with in our own daily experience.
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And now here, the results can be surprising.
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Imagine that we are in an elevator, standing next to someone on our way to the 20th floor.
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They think they know that we disapprove of their choice of jacket.
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They think they know that we should have picked another one and that they look silly and pinched in this one.
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But in reality, we haven't noticed the jacket.
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In fact, we haven't noticed they were born, or that one day they're going to die.
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We're just worrying about how our partner responded when we mentioned our mother's cold to them last night.
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Or imagine it's well on the way into the last bit of a two -hour meeting
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that we sense that a colleague's hair really is a bit different today, though we can't quite put a finger on how,
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even though they spent a small fortune on their cut and thought intensely about the wisdom of visiting a new salon.
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In other words, when we take our own minds as a guide, we get a far more accurate
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and far less oppressive vision of what is likely to be going on in the heads of other people
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when they encounter us which is, in the nicest way, Not very much.
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This kind of news is both very bad and strangely good.
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On the one hand, no one may notice when we die.
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On the other, they are also sure not to have noticed
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when we spill some orange juice down our front or do our hair the wrong way.
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It's not that we or they are horrible.
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Our lack of caring isn't absolute.
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If we really saw a stranger in trouble in the water, we would dive in.
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When a friend is in tears, we are sympathetic.
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It's just that for the most part, we need to filter.
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Our everyday lack of care occurs for a perfectly sane and forgivable reason.
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We need to spend most of our waking energies on navigating and doing justice to our own intimate concerns.
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Once we've had to think about our relationship, our career, our finances, our health, our close relatives, our offspring, our upcoming holidays, our friends and the state of our household,
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there's just going to be very little time left to reflect on the suddenly high -pitched voice of a customer
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or the outfit of a colleague.
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We are owed the upside of an otherwise tragic insight.
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We shouldn't just suffer from the indifference of other people.
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We should, where it matters, properly reciprocate it.
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We shouldn't merely suffer from being ignored, we should accept the liberation implicit in the fact that we are being so.
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And then in turn, we should embark more courageously on those situations
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and adventures where a touch of foolishness is always going to be a possibility, like the start of a new business, a romantic invitation, or asking a question at a conference.
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We may fail, but we can believe with new certainty that almost no one will give a damn if we do.
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An idea that may, above anything else, help to contribute to our future success.
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Something which, as we now know, no one's going to much notice or care about anyway.
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At the School of Life, we believe that confidence is a skill we can all learn.
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Click now to learn more.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 83 sentences and 1217 words to shadow. The speech runs for 7:22. The speaker talks at a natural 165 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 82% 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 |
|---|---|---|
| suffer verb | /ˈsʌfɚ/ | To undergo hardship. |
| occur verb | /əˈkɜː/ | To happen or take place. |
| encourage verb | /ɪnˈkʌɹ.ɪd͡ʒ/ | To mentally support; to motivate, give courage, hope or spirit. |
| pitch noun | /pɪt͡ʃ/ | A throw; a toss; a cast, as of something from the hand. |
| jacket noun | /ˈd͡ʒæk.ɪt/ | A piece of clothing worn on the upper body outside a shirt or blouse, often waist length to thigh length. |
| certainty noun | /ˈsɝtn̩ti/ | The state of being certain. |
| dwell verb | /dwɛl/ | To live; to reside. |
| intensely adverb | /ɪnˈtɛnsli/ | In an intense manner. |
| finger noun | /ˈfɪŋɡɚ/ | A slender jointed extremity of the human hand, (often) exclusive of the thumb, and the corresponding part, irrespective of including a thumb, in many other… |
| ignore verb | /ɪɡˈnɔː/ | To deliberately not listen or pay attention to. |
| relative noun | /ˈɹɛl.ə.tɪv/ | Someone connected by blood, marriage, or adoption; someone in the same family. |
| rescue verb | /ˈɹɛs.kjuː/ | To save from any violence, danger or evil. |
| rush verb | /ɹʌʃ/ | To hurry; to perform a task with great haste, often not properly or without thinking carefully. |
| everyday adjective | /ˈɛvɹiˌdeɪ/ | Appropriate for ordinary use, rather than for special occasions. |
| extent noun | /ɪkˈstɛnt/ | A range of values or locations. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| grow up verb | To mature and become an adult. |
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 | being surrounded · being noted · has been registered |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | haven't accepted · has been registered · haven't noticed |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | people who care · problem which is |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 16 contractions and reduced forms, such as haven't, we're, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: rush /ɹʌʃ/, flash /flæʃ/, artificial /ˌɑː.tɪˈfɪʃ.əl/, casual /ˈkæʒ(u)əl/, imagination /ɪˌmæd͡ʒəˈneɪʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: extraordinary /ɪksˈtɹɔːrdɪn(ə)ɹi/, considerable /kənˈsɪdəɹəbl̩/, artificial /ˌɑː.tɪˈfɪʃ.əl/, imagination /ɪˌmæd͡ʒəˈneɪʃən/, invitation /ɪnvɪˈteɪʃən/
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 suffer, occur, encourage.
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.