Shadowing Practice: Every Disturbing Trait That Serial Killers Have Explained in 12 Minutes - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Cognitive Distortions.
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You're standing on the side of a highway at dusk, and a car slows down just in front.
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Inside, a middle-aged man gives a friendly wave.
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When you get into the car, he makes small talk, asking where you're headed.
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But after a short distance, he places his hand on your shoulder and smiles.
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Also, before we continue, I just wanted to say that we're not AI.
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Everything you're about to see and hear is pure human creativity.
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Your mind instantly goes haywire, and you flinch.
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But after he apologizes, you still believe he's going to hurt you.
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Apparently, every man who picks you up is the same, predators waiting for the right moment.
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This is cognitive distortion, and it's when your brain bends reality to fit the narrative you need.
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It's a huge problem, especially when you walk around with a loaded gun.
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This was Eileen Wuornos' case, and her cognitive distortion made her kill seven men in just one year.
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After murdering them, she searched their pockets, took their cash, and drove off in their cars.
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When the police found and arrested Eileen, she didn't even deny it, since her first victim, Richard Mallory, was a convicted...
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She just felt all men were the same.
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Even on death row, even with the needle in her arm, Eileen screamed at the courtroom saying, I hope your wife gets narcissism.
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While sitting in a Texas prison cell, old and sick, a ranger walks up to you asking about some women.
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You don't remember their names, but their faces are crystal clear in your head.
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You pick up a colored pencil and start drawing.
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The portrait is perfect.
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You hand it to the ranger and he stares at the drawing, then at you.
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You've just identified a victim police didn't even know existed, and you're doing it because you want everyone to know it.
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This is narcissism, a condition where you are so obsessed with being exceptional
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that you don't even care about what happens to other people.
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Samuel Little, the serial killer in question, had this condition, and it was so bad that he could never stop killing.
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Since he was so obsessed with being extraordinary, even in monstrosity, Samuel targeted women the society ignored.
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Ex-workers, addicts, and the homeless.
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He knew no one would look for them, and for 40 years, he was right.
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During his time in prison, Samuel drew dozens of portraits, each one closing a cold case.
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Apparently, he just wanted his name and history books as the most prolific serial killer in US history.
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He achieved exactly what he wanted, immortality through infamy.
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And it all started with his narcissism.
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Compartmentalization.
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You're sitting at a desk in a Seattle crisis center with your headset on.
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A woman on the other end is crying, saying she can't go on.
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You listen, comfort her, and she thanks you, saying you just saved her life, but you're not done.
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That night you drive to a college campus.
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There, you see her walking alone, but since she's never seen you, you fake an injury and ask for help carrying books to your car.
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The woman hesitantly agrees, unaware of your sinister intentions.
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This was Ted Bundy, and he suffered from compartmentalization,
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a disturbing trait where your brain walls off parts of your mind so completely that they never touch.
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Ted at the hotline genuinely cared about saving lives, but him on the college campus enjoys ending them.
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These two versions never conflicted because they didn't even know each other existed.
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Once she got close enough, Ted killed her on the spot.
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This was his plan all along and he'd done it so many times.
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He even went back to the body sometimes to talk and do things with them.
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Yet morning after morning, he answered calls and talked people through their darkest moments.
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Everyone liked him, so no one suspected anything.
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Ted Bundy killed at least 30 women this way.
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He had built walls inside his mind so strong that the killer and the counselor inside him never had to meet.
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Even after his arrest and execution, everyone who worked beside him or knew him from the university didn't believe that he was a serial killer.
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Now these conditions reveal how twisted a serial killer's mind can be, but the next ones are even more disturbing.
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Hit subscribe and let's dive in.
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Extreme Misogyny It's in the evening and you're driving your patrol car through the frozen streets of Angarsk, Siberia.
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A woman stands on the road shivering trying to flag down a ride.
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As you pull over, she gets into the car and her face floods with relief, but you have other plans.
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Rather than heading to her address, you turn onto a back road leading into the forest.
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She notices and asks where you're going, but you don't answer.
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In your head, this woman is out late, probably unfaithful and probably a...
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Women like her are a poison to society.
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This is extreme misogyny, and it is hatred so deep it becomes a moral code.
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A misogynist doesn't see women as people, they see them as filth.
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Mikhail Popkov, the Angarsk maniac, had the same trait.
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When he pulled into the woods, the women tried to run, but he was faster and he killed them.
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To him, it was what she deserved for being out at night.
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As a cop, Mikhail investigated murders, sometimes even his own, for over 20 years.
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He killed at least 78 women the same way, all because he was cleaning up.
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When he was finally caught in 2012, Mikhail kept on saying he was helping them clean up the streets.
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He continued with this, even until his imprisonment.
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Impulse Dysregulation.
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Richard Ramirez was driving through a quiet California suburb at 2 a.m high on .
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On the way, he saw a house with an unlocked window, so he climbed inside and there was an elderly couple sleeping in the bedroom.
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With a tire iron, he swung again and again until they were both dead.
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Minutes later, he was across town at a different house and this time he shot a man in his sleep, then walked to the next room and stabbed his wife.
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There was no real plan here was just very chaotic for no reason.
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This is impulse dysregulation, and it's when your mind doesn't have any mental breaks.
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While most people would feel an urge, they'd pause and reconsider, but Richard didn't have that buffer.
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He could kill, steal, or kidnap someone, because it felt right in that exact moment.
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Also known as the Night Stalker, Richard had this condition.
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In just one summer, he met over a dozen people and countless more were terrorized.
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He never had any personal reason for killing them.
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He just couldn't control his urges.
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Stalking and Fantasy Fixation While heading home from your job as a compliance officer, you pass a particular house again, the third time this week.
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You've been watching the woman in it for months, photographing her house from different angles.
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She doesn't know you exist, but in your mind, she's already starred in a hundred different scenarios.
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You call her Project 10.
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This is fantasy fixation, and it's a condition when your mental script becomes more real than reality itself.
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Dennis Rader, known as BTK, suffered from this trait.
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He'd been reliving such fantasy moments since childhood, tying up dolls, then animals, and then women.
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By night, Dennis breaks into her house and waits inside.
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When she comes home, he ties her up exactly as he imagined.
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The kill is just the final scene of a movie he's watched a thousand times in his head.
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After it was over, Dennis took photos of himself wearing her clothes, posing in bondage positions in the woods.
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He kept these for the cooling off period when the fantasy needed to be fed again.
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Dennis did this for 30 years with 10 victims, all named Project 1 through 10.
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Meanwhile, he was a church president, a Boy Scout leader, and a model citizen.
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No one suspected that the friendly compliance officer was the danger they were trying to lock out.
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The police had no clue who Dennis was until he anonymously sent them a floppy disk asking them to trace it.
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In the end, the disk led straight to the church computer where Dennis was arrested.
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Victim Objectification You're a successful contractor who's well respected in the community.
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One day, you find a homeless young man at the bus station looking tired and rough.
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Pick him up and offer him a job, some quick cash for odd work around your house.
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To you, he's not a person anymore.
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He's a solution to a problem you've been having.
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Back at your house, you show him the handcuff trick.
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A little magic demonstration, you say.
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He lets you lock his wrists, but the moment the cuffs click, he realizes it's too late.
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This is victim objectification, and it's when you strip a human of their identity until they're just a logistical problem.
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John Wayne Gacy, the killer clown, suffered from this trait.
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To him, these young people were just objects.
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Space fillers, nothing more.
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John would kill them, drag the bodies into the crawlspace beneath his house, and cover them with lime to mask the smell.
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In six years, he piled 26 bodies into the same crawlspace.
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Meanwhile, above the crawlspace, he hosted dinner parties, entertained guests, and even shook hands with politicians.
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Yet no noticed the smell.
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John Wayne Gacy killed at least 33 young men and boys and he hid 26 of them under his house.
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He didn't hate his victims, he simply didn't think they were real.
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Even in prison, John complained that the victims didn't have the decency to die quickly and even until his last breath,
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he never saw them as humans.
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Emotional detachment.
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Pedro Lopez was walking through a crowded market in the Andes when he saw a little girl selling flowers with her mother.
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He smiled and offered her a small toy.
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While her mother was distracted by another customer, he took the girl's hand and led her away.
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The following day, she was dead and he was looking for another.
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He did this over 300 times across Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.
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Each girl was the same to him.
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He strangled them slowly, studying their faces.
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And when it was over, he felt the same flat calm he'd feel finishing a sandwich.
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He didn't bury them deep.
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Sometimes he came back days later, dug them up, and sat with them like they were dolls at a tea party.
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He called them his dollies.
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They didn't talk back or judge him.
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That's exactly what he wanted.
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This is emotional detachment, and it's the complete absence of guilt, empathy, or psychological consequences.
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To Pedro, feeling nothing was way easier than feeling something.
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In the 1980s, after a failed abduction in an Ecuadorian market, Pedro was finally caught.
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He confessed calmly, leading police to 53 bodies in a single field near Embato.
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He said he just loved seeing the lights go out, adding that he never really felt anything for the girls.
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Ecuador sentenced Pedro to their maximum 18 years in prison.
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In 1998, they released him for good behavior, believing he had changed.
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However, after walking out of prison, he vanished.
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And to this day, no one knows where Pedro Lopez is.
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If these traits were very disturbing, some stories involve terrifying cursed objects instead of people.
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Check out this video, The 7 Most Horrible Haunted Objects Explained.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Every Disturbing Trait That Serial Killers Have Explained in 12 Minutes”. This video has 145 sentences and 1923 words to shadow. The speech runs for 12:13. The speaker talks at a natural 157 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. Only 81% 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 |
|---|---|---|
| trait noun | /tɹeɪt/ | An identifying characteristic, habit or trend. |
| narcissism noun | /ˈnɑɹsəˌsɪzm/ | A self-centered personality trait in which the person is infatuated with their own characteristics and image that are idealized while others and their… |
| disturb verb | /dɪˈstɜːb/ | to confuse a quiet, constant state or a calm, continuous flow, in particular: thoughts, actions or liquids. |
| cognitive adjective | /ˈkɑɡ.nɪ.tɪv/ | Relating to the part of mental functions that deals with logic, as opposed to affective which deals with emotions. |
| compartmentalization noun | /(ˌ)kɑm.pɑɹtˌmɛn.təl.əˈzeɪ.ʃən/ | Division into compartments or parts. |
| detachment noun | /dɪˈtæt͡ʃmənt/ | The action of detaching; separation. |
| dysregulation noun | A failure to regulate properly. | |
| fixation noun | /fɪksˈeɪʃən/ | The act of fixing. |
| misogyny noun | /mɪˈsɑd͡ʒ.ɪ.ni/ | Hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against women. |
| objectification noun | /ɒbˌd͡ʒɛkt.ɪ.fɪˈkeɪ.ʃʌn/ | The act or process of objectifying something intangible. |
| obsess verb | /əbˈsɛs/ | To be preoccupied with a single topic or emotion. |
| distortion noun | /dɪsˈtɔːʃən/ | An act of distorting. |
| impulse noun | /ˈɪmpʌls/ | A thrust; a push; a sudden force that impels. |
| ranger noun | /ˈɹeɪ̯nd͡ʒɚ/ | One who ranges; a rover. |
| disk noun | /dɪsk/ | A thin, flat, circular plate or similar object. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| clean up verb | To make an area or a thing clean; to pick up a mess; to tidy. |
| check out verb | To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.). |
| come back verb | To return to a place. |
| cool off verb | To decrease in temperature, activity, or temper. |
| go back to verb | To stem from; to originate in. |
| go out verb | To leave, especially a building. |
| pick up verb | To lift; to grasp and raise. |
| pull over verb | To come to a stop, and turn off the road (i.e. onto the roadside or hard shoulder). |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- Hit subscribe and let's dive in.
- To you, he's not a person anymore.
- He's a solution to a problem you've been having.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | You've been watching · you've been having |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | is hatred · was finally caught · were terrorized |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | man who picks · everyone who worked |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 36 contractions and reduced forms, such as didn't, you're, doesn't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: compartmentalization /(ˌ)kɑm.pɑɹtˌmɛn.təl.əˈzeɪ.ʃən/, fixation /fɪksˈeɪʃən/, objectification /ɒbˌd͡ʒɛkt.ɪ.fɪˈkeɪ.ʃʌn/, distortion /dɪsˈtɔːʃən/, abduction /æbˈdʌk.ʃn̩/
- Long words — get the stress right: compartmentalization /(ˌ)kɑm.pɑɹtˌmɛn.təl.əˈzeɪ.ʃən/, misogyny /mɪˈsɑd͡ʒ.ɪ.ni/, objectification /ɒbˌd͡ʒɛkt.ɪ.fɪˈkeɪ.ʃʌn/, anonymously /əˈnɒnəməsli/, immortality /ˌɪmɔːɹˈtæləti/
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 trait, narcissism, disturb.
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.