Shadowing Practice: How Different Are Our Inner Monologues? - Learn English Speaking with Video
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About 47 % of waking hours are spent thinking about what isn't going on,
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meaning for almost half of your existence you're living in your own mind,
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and that's not great since it could be the reason you feel down a lot of the time.
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Your mind generates somewhere between 6 ,000 to 60 ,000 thoughts a day, tiny flashes, fragments and impulses,
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most of which appear and disappear without you ever noticing.
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But inside that private space only about one to two -fifths of your thoughts show up as words
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or as an internal conversation or a narration you hear.
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The rest is just a mix of images, audio cues, flashes of memory,
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feelings, gut pulls and half -formed ideas that you understand without ever saying them.
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And that's assuming you're even in the 30 -50 % of people who report having an inner voice at all.
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Granted, most of these numbers are self -reported, since we're yet to find a perfect scientific way to measure qualia or someone's private experience.
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Still, it's safe to say, inner monologues and the many ways people think are far too strange, too diverse and too fascinating to not talk about.
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And yet we all just assume everyone else's inner world works like ours.
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It doesn't. At all.
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Because there isn't one default setting for thinking, there are five entirely different ways that people can think.
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Some people, about 40%, have internal voices, which are like constant dialogues or conversations going on with themselves in their head.
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They talk to themselves, argue with themselves, rehearse conversations they might never have.
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And for them, silence isn't real silence.
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It's just the moment that voice speaks.
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So if they'd lost their keys and they go looking for them, their mind goes, did I leave them on the table?
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Maybe in my jacket, maybe I dropped them in the car.
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That kind of inner speech shows up in about 20 to 30 % of thoughts on average.
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The variation is wild.
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Some people use it more than 70 % of the time, others almost never do.
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Then around 50 % of people are visual thinkers.
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These people don't talk to themselves.
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They mostly see things.
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Meaning instead of saying where are my keys, they get a mental snapshot of the last place they remember having them without any words associated.
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Maybe even picture their keys in each place they think of looking into.
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Other people, or about 20%, only think in feelings so their thoughts are more like emotional responses.
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Their thoughts show up as emotional pulls, moods, or body level sensations.
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Looking for keys becomes a tiny jolt of panic, then a feeling that points them toward the bedroom or toward their bag.
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Like their emotions guide the search before their mind explains it.
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Another 20 % of people say it's common for their thoughts to be more like senses.
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This means when they try to remember their keys,
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they might mentally feel the motion of putting them in a coat pocket or remember the sound of them hitting a surface.
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Lastly, and maybe the most misunderstood group, which is surprisingly not that small,
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are the ones that have no audio or visual association with their thoughts whatsoever.
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These are people who report not experiencing any kind of inner thoughts the way the rest of us do.
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Now you might have noticed that these percentages don't quite add up to an exact 100.
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That's firstly because this is still a self -reported topic, meaning the values shouldn't be taken as exact,
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but also because most people are a blend of more than one style.
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You could talk to yourself internally and still visualize things clearly.
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You could think mostly in concepts, but get emotional signals when something demands it.
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The mind isn't locked into one format.
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It's fluid, layered, inconsistent in the most human way.
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And even within one category, people exist on different levels.
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A verbal thinker could have full discussions with themselves, sometimes even say stuff out loud, while another hears just fragments of phrases.
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A visual thinker might see crisp, detailed scenes, while someone else only gets faint silhouettes.
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A well -known example of this difference is something called the Apple test.
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If I ask you to close your eyes and picture an apple, and then describe what you saw in a comment,
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you'll notice the results scatter everywhere.
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Some of you will see it like it's physically there with perfect textures shadows
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and highlights some could even rotate it move
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it around some wouldn't even need to close their eyes they could do it
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that easily others would get a dim impression like a low resolution image some only see the word apple
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or the idea of one with no picture at all
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and a small portion of people
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or apparently 0 .8 percent of you will see absolutely nothing a complete absence of imagery
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and that's aphantasia or the inability to form mental images
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And what's crazy is that people with aphantasia often don't realise they're different until their 20s or 30s.
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They hear people say picture this and think it's just a figure of speech.
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When they find out other people actually see images, their whole understanding of reality shifts.
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Temple Grandin, the famous animal scientist with autism, is on the opposite end.
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She's a hyperphantasic visual thinker, meaning she's able to have exceptionally vivid mental imagery to the point where it can seem as real as actual sight.
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She said trying to understand word -based thinkers feels like trying to understand aliens.
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This is why communication is harder than we think.
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You might describe something with words, but the person listening might think in pictures.
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You might give someone directions verbally while their brain wants a map.
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Teachers explain concepts linearly, while some students only understand them spatially.
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We think we're speaking the same language, but sometimes we're not even using the same operating system.
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And the differences don't stop at how we think.
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It shows in all the weird little things we always could do without really noticing, although they're kind of insane if you think about them,
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like how almost 80 % of us can replay music internally almost perfectly,
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and how few of us could even hear it so vivid that it's nearly indistinguishable from actual sound.
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Another thing is how you can talk to yourself in your head in voices you can't even do in real life.
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Every pitch, no matter how deep or high, accents or tones, are all almost natural to do inside.
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You could probably even perfectly mimic every person and character you could think of, even if it's a voice you physically can't produce.
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It feels like voice acting if you had no limits to what you can do, and this is something over half of us experience.
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Some people can also feel sensations just by thinking about them.
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If they think about cold metal, they get a tiny chill on their fingertips.
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If they imagine running their hand along velvet, they get a faint texture sensation.
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If they see pain, they often can't stand looking because to some level they feel it too.
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This shows up in around 15 % of people.
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And interestingly, those who report this kind of sensory imagination tend to score higher on measures of effective empathy.
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the kind of empathy that lets you feel what others feel.
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And if your mind still isn't impressing you enough, you could even train it to use something called the Loci Method, or a Memory Palace.
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It's basically turning information into a route you walk through in your head.
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You take a place you already know, like the layout of your apartment,
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and you assign each object or corner to a piece of information you want to remember.
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It's the standard tool used by competitive memory athletes, not because they're born different, but because this one technique works insanely well.
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In studies where regular people are taught the method, their recall often jumps to several times higher than before,
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sometimes 5 -10 times the amount they could remember with repetition alone.
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And even though it's that effective, barely anyone uses it.
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And this is why people with visual thinking are usually better at memorising, sometimes even having photographic memory, although some consider it a myth.
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That doesn't mean people with strong inner voices are any less fascinating.
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They usually have an edge when it comes to planning, problem solving and rehearsing, since they silently talk all the time.
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But that same skill makes them more prone to looping thoughts.
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And proof is, overthinking shows up more often in people who rely heavily on verbal thinking.
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And all of this goes to show how the way you experience consciousness, a particular mix of voices,
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images, feelings and silence in your head is completely unique to you.
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Nobody will ever know what your mind actually looks or sounds or feels like, and you'll never truly know theirs.
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You can describe it, you can approximate, but the lived experience is forever yours alone
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because every person you meet is in a way living in a completely different universe than you.
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Their internal reality is fundamentally different from yours.
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The only life you truly live isn't the one people see from the outside, it's the one inside your head and it's really humbling to notice
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that everyone passing you in the street every day has a whole life going on as special and full as yours,
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but that's a topic for another video.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “How Different Are Our Inner Monologues?”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: thoughts, voice, inner. This video has 108 sentences and 1572 words to shadow. The speech runs for 8:41. The speaker talks fast, about 181 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 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 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| silence noun | /ˈsaɪ̯ləns/ | The absence of any sound. |
| sensation noun | /sɛnˈseɪʃən/ | A physical feeling or perception from something that comes into contact with the body; something sensed. |
| topic noun | /ˈtɑpɪk/ | A subject; a theme; a category or general area of interest. |
| audio adjective | /ˈɔ.di.oʊ/ | Focused on audible sound, as opposed to sight. |
| flash verb | /flæʃ/ | To cause to shine briefly or intermittently. |
| physically adverb | /ˈfɪz.ɪ.kli/ | In a physical manner. |
| texture noun | /ˈtɛkst͡ʃə(ɹ)/ | The feel or shape of a surface or substance; the smoothness, roughness, softness, etc. of something. |
| verbal adjective | /ˈvɜː.bəl/ | Of or relating to words. |
| imagery noun | /ˈɪmɪd͡ʒɹi/ | The work of one who makes images or visible representation of objects. |
| faint adjective | /feɪnt/ | Lacking strength; weak; languid; inclined to lose consciousness |
| internally adverb | /ɪnˈtɜːnəli/ | In an internal manner; within or inside of external limits; in an inner part or situation. |
| vivid adjective | /ˈvɪvɪd/ | Clear, detailed, or powerful. |
| empathy noun | /ˈɛmpəθi/ | Identification with or understanding of the thoughts, feelings, or emotional state of another person. |
| fragment noun | /ˈfɹæɡmənt/ | A part broken off; a small, detached portion; an imperfect part, either physically or not. |
| tone noun | /ˈtəʊn/ | A specific pitch. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| show up verb | To appear, arrive, or attend, especially suddenly or erratically. |
| add up to verb | To have a particular effect in combination. |
| find out verb | To discover, as by asking or investigating. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | people who report · voices, which are · group, which is |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | are spent · be taken · isn't locked |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 28 contractions and reduced forms, such as isn't, don't, can't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: empathy /ˈɛmpəθi/, athlete /ˈæθ.liːt/, myth /mɪθ/, theirs /ðɛɚz/, thinker /ˈθɪŋ.kɚ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: sensation /sɛnˈseɪʃən/, flash /flæʃ/, shadow /ˈʃædəʊ̯/, impression /ɪmˈpɹɛʃn̩/, imagination /ɪˌmæd͡ʒəˈneɪʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: internally /ɪnˈtɜːnəli/, imagination /ɪˌmæd͡ʒəˈneɪʃən/, surprisingly /səˈpɹaɪzɪŋli/, whatsoever /ˌ(h)wʌtsoʊˈɛvɚ/, inability /ˌɪnəˈbɪlɪti/
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 silence, sensation, topic.
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.