Shadowing Practice: Emma Watson: “Marriage Isn’t a Checklist — It’s a Constant Choice” 💍 - Learn English Speaking with Video

And I think that word honor and respect, probably the last thing I'd say, I think we always say love is respect and based on respect, but...

I wrote a list of things

that I tried to be clear with myself about what it is I was really looking for and I really want.

And one is someone that I can learn from.

So it's really interesting that you said, learning without teaching, teaching without learning and that kind of reciprocal.

I really want to be with someone that I can learn from.

And I hope that, yeah, as you say, has the humility to be willing to learn from me.

But the other thing is, I think it's why I was so obsessed with the musical Hamilton, why so many people have been.

But like, maybe this is so funny that we're on the purpose podcast, but like, are you with someone who,

because obviously what you have with someone is wonderful, right?

Like what you two share together.

But if you can be in service of a vision that you both share, or at the very least, are you willing to honour and give dignity to the work of the other person

and whatever their vision or mission is in this world?

That to me seems far more sustainable than anything else.

And so I guess my big hope or wish would be

that I met someone who feels like what I want to do in the world,

yes, that I'm important, but they also feel that what I'm here to do is important to them too, and in some way intersects with what they're here to do.

I couldn't agree more.

That's exactly what I was going to say. Is it?

Yeah, I think the word respect and relationships thrown around a lot, but this is the deepest form of respect where there's a famous quote that, I don't know who said it,

but there's a, and I would, you know, you could take the genders out of it now, but there's a famous quote that says, men marry women hoping they'll never change.

And women marry men hoping they can change them.

And to me, wanting someone to never change

or wanting to be able to change someone are both signs of disrespect

because I think the greatest respect you can have is to respect what this person values in this moment

and how that evolves.

And that's their purpose, their offering, their values.

And at no point are you trying to change them and i've talked about this often where

my wife and i i do this exercise with couples

when i'm working with them but i've also done it in our relationship

and i ask people to rank their top three priorities in order wow

and people do it privately and then they share them wow and so generally one person will put themselves first,

their partner second, and then the kids third.

And the other person will put the kids first, the partner second, and themselves third.

And the person who put themselves third is always mad at the person who put themselves first because there's this friction of, well, wait a minute, how can you not put the kids first?

Well, how can you not put family first or whatever it may be in your given situation?

And the other person's like, well, if I don't put myself first, then what can I give to you all?

And that kind of displays this dichotomy

and this belief we have around love means complete sacrifice

and love means self-sabotage to some degree or love means putting yourself aside.

And the reality is actually, no, my goal is to make sure that you live your purpose and greatest vision of yourself.

Yes.

And your purpose is to help me do that.

When we both do that, everything's...

Then it's poetry.

And my wife practiced that and she does it naturally.

And it's hard to do that in a world

that constantly reminds you both that sometimes the other person isn't where you are.

Or, you know, the idea of why haven't you had kids yet?

Or when are you going to be in the same country for longer than a month?

Or whatever there may be, because it doesn't fit into the norm of what relationships look like.

And I was thinking about

that with you as well like you know i know you you talked about getting asked the question

when are you getting married yeah why aren't you married yet yes

and there's something every woman's hearing what's your reaction when you hear

that i'm just so happy not to be divorced yet like

that sounds like a really negative answer but i just like i think

that we are we're being pressured and forced into this thing that I believe is a kind of miracle.

I might never be worthy of it.

I hope it happens to me, but I don't feel entitled to it.

It will either be part of my purpose here and my destiny, or it won't.

And I think the way we treat it as though, well, why haven't you?

And this is something that has to happen in this certain

time span

and at a certain age in this kind of way is like the least romantic thing I can possibly think of.

Like truly, like if I had tried to get married any point basically before about a year ago,

it would have been carnage.

I just didn't know myself well enough yet.

I didn't have a clear enough idea of what my purpose, my vision, like how I was going to be of service.

I didn't know where I really felt like I needed to be.

I think I have some of those answers now.

So when I meet someone, I can say, hi, I'm Emma.

This is what I care about.

This is where the people I love the most live.

This is where it's meaningful for me to be in the world.

And then they can decide whether they can see

that there's a way that I can serve what they're trying to do and they can serve what I'm trying to do.

But before that, they would have just got a very mixed signal.

I mean, there's some parts of me that have stayed utterly consistent, but there are some parts that I was really still teasing out and figuring out.

And I think it's such a violence and it's such a cruelty on people, and especially young people, I think,

and especially women, to make them feel like they have no worth

or like they haven't succeeded yet in life

because they haven't forced to its culmination something that I just don't think can or should ever be forced.

It's something that, honestly, I feel like I've had to earn, I've had to work for to be in a place where

I feel like I can look someone in the eye and be able to tell them who I am.

And to have some idea and it will change and grow of what I want and what I'm here to do, that takes work.

Like, I have like really sat with myself in a lot of discomfort

and asked myself a lot of very difficult questions to be at that point.

It hasn't happened to me yet.

I do think everyone's worthy of love, but I, like, I, and, and I don't think that's what you're saying either yeah i think

so i guess maybe like partnership

or marriage i guess is what we're both saying is like

almost a different game like it's it's almost a different playing field actually like actually co-joining

and like properly sharing your life with someone

and being in partnership with them seems like it's its own thing it is it takes

so much work and it takes so much adjustment and adapting more than compromising and sacrificing.

There's so much flexibility, there's so much allowing.

It's so different at different times.

Like sometimes patience looks like being by that person's side and saying nothing.

100

And sometimes patience means being halfway across the world and not communicating.

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And sometimes patience looks like talking and listening.

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Like, you know, patience doesn't look like one thing over a lifespan.

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And there are parts of my wife that have stayed exactly the same in 12 years, and there are parts that have completely changed.

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and I have a choice every time

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that happens to learn to love the new or not

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and that's a choice I have to make

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and she has to make as well and so there's

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so much constant choosing and constant evolving

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that it's very easy to just yeah it's very easy to

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be like yeah I chose them the day we got married

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and people always ask me I'm like I don't think I even knew who my wife was like now

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when i think about it it's like i loved her

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but i had no idea and

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and that's what it should feel like i don't think

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if i was here to say like yeah the wedding the

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wedding day was one of the best days of my life

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but it's not the day i loved my wife the most yeah because i didn't

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really even know what i was getting myself into that's amazing

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.

Shadowing Practice: Emma Watson: “Marriage Isn’t a Checklist — It’s a Constant Choice” 💍 - Learn English Speaking with Video

Context & Background

Top 5 Phrases for Daily Communication

Step-by-step Shadowing Guide

What is the Shadowing Technique?