Shadowing Practice: i wish i realized this sooner - Learn English Speaking with Video
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159 sentences
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For most of my life, I thought life was a test.
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Every decision, every person I dated, every year of my 20s, there was a right and a wrong answer.
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Like, if I made the right moves, the right city, the right job, the right person, the right version of myself,
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then one day, I'll finally pass.
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But lately, I started to think that the whole frame is broken.
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Maybe life was never a test.
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I think life is a game.
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Act 1.
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Most people are playing a game they didn't choose.
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I think the first game I ever learned to play was the college admissions game.
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Be well -rounded, but also exceptional, but also impressive enough in a way that can be summarized in 650 words.
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Super easy, right?
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My entire childhood became this long, convoluted game that I never remembered agreeing to play.
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Join this club, take this AP, volunteer here, become a full human being, but somehow still can be flattened into neat little bullet points.
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I learned a lot.
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I worked hard.
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I became disciplined.
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But the dangerous part by the game is when you start believing that the rules are reality.
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When you start believing that the scoreboard is the truth.
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And my scoreboard is very clear.
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Get good grades means being a good person.
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Good school means good future.
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And rejection means you did something horribly wrong.
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And when you believe that for long enough, you stop asking yourself what you actually want.
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You're playing the game.
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You're stuck in the game.
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You just ask what will make it look like you're winning.
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That was the first game I ever remembered to play.
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The game of being impressive.
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But the thing about the game of being impressive is that it never really ends.
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You think it ends when you get into college.
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No, no, no. Then it becomes internships, then jobs, then cities, then apartments, then relationships.
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Then whether you're doing it by 22, 25, 40, this game never ends.
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You always keep on playing.
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My whole life, my whole childhood was built around getting into an Ivy League school.
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That was the bare minimum extortation.
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As a young person, you just feel like a failure.
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Your parents immigrated here and put so much money into your education.
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And for it to not pay off in the way
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that they expected or for you to expect it is a tough thing to deal with.
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And at that time, the Ivy League school was a trophy.
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That was the proof.
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That was the thing that I felt like I needed to feel that I'd done my childhood correctly.
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So when I got rejected, it didn't just feel like a school didn't want me.
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It felt like the whole game had ended game over test failed please restart your life
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but what's funny is
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that it's only after getting rejected from all these colleges did i start posting youtube videos it was only
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because the door that i had worshipped for so long didn't open
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that i started looking for a different one
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i thought rejection was the end of my life not to be dramatic
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or anything but it might have been the first time my life actually became mine.
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Act two.
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A game is different from a test.
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I think this is why the difference between a test and a game matters.
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A test has one correct answer.
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A game has many strategies.
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A test says don't mess up, but a game says learn the mechanics.
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A test makes one wrong move feel like a failure.
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A game makes wrong moves part of how you get better.
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And when I thought that life was a test, every wrong move felt fatal.
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If I failed, it meant that I wasn't talented.
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If I changed my mind, it meant that I wasn't consistent.
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But in a game, the wrong move isn't an identity.
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It's information.
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It tells you what doesn't work.
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It tells you where the walls are.
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It teaches you the map.
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You don't play a game for the first time and expect yourself to immediately understand the world completely.
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You wander around.
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You press the wrong buttons.
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You talk to random characters who maybe will matter later.
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You enter rooms that lead nowhere.
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And maybe life is more like that than we would like to admit.
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Maybe some things don't make sense yet because you haven't unlocked the next level.
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And that's the inspiring part.
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Not that life is easy, not that rejection isn't hurt,
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embarrassment isn't sting, or losing something that you really wanted makes you want to rot in bed and order a $30 salad.
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Restarted, explored, and eventually mastered.
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A test makes you freeze because any answer could be wrong.
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A game lets you move because every move will teach you something.
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But I think where life is a game gets dangerous is
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when people hear it and they just think the point is to just win harder.
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More money, more beauty, more status, more followers.
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The problem is not that people treat life like a game.
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The problem is that they never ask which game they're actually playing.
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Because every game has a different prize.
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The status game says the prize is being admired.
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The beauty game says the prize is to be desired.
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The comparison game says proving your life is better than everyone else's.
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But there is another game, the life game.
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And that game has completely different rules.
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The prize is not being the most impressive person in the room.
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The prize is making things that feel true.
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And I think that's a game that I'm trying to play now.
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Not because I don't care about success, trust me, I do.
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But because I don't want to play meaningless games that lead me to meaningless prizes.
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I don't think the goal is to stop playing games.
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I think the goal is to choose a better one.
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Act four, play is where the self comes back.
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So if the aliveness game has a different prize, it also has a different way of playing.
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And I think the mechanic is something we've all almost forgotten to do.
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Play.
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There is a psychiatrist named Stuart Brown who has this line that I haven't stopped thinking about.
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He says, the opposite of play is not work, it's depression.
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Like, okay, Stuart, I just said I had no hobbies.
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But I think what he means is that when you lose play, you lose vitality.
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You lose spontaneity.
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You lose a part of yourself that can be still surprised at your own life.
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There's another psychoanalyst, Winnicott, who wrote about the true self and the false self.
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He basically believed that play is where the real self comes out, that it is in playing that a person becomes creative,
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uses the whole personality, and discovers the self.
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The true self wants to walk all around Manhattan to try all of the chocolate chip cookie stores and rank them.
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The true self wants to make something meaningful and beautiful even if it doesn't necessarily make economic sense.
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And I think that's why YouTube started to feel different for me this year.
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Because on paper, pivoting into YouTube made almost no sense.
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It meant longer videos, more effort, less immediate money, more vulnerability.
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But it felt meaningful.
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It felt like I was playing again.
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Telling these stories connecting with you guys being able to write and share these thoughts feels like playing
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It doesn't feel like just making a 30 second tiktok about lip glosses or the outfit i'm wearing that day
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It feels Fun And I think for the first time in a
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while I felt like I wasn't just feeding into a machine
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I was truly making something something with a beginning middle and end something that I could put my brain inside my memories
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My thoughts my slightly dramatic inner monologue it ultimately felt like play.
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Act five, time to play your own game.
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I don't think play means not caring.
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I think play is what becomes possible when you stop confusing fear with seriousness.
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Because I think for a long time, I thought that I was being mature when I was just being scared.
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Scared to look stupid, scared to be misunderstood, scared to try and have people see me trying.
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Children play because they don't yet believe that every mistake they make is a referendum on who they are.
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Adults stop playing because we're so obsessed with the idea of being perceived correctly.
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We would rather be impressive than curious.
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We would rather be safe than alive.
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We would rather have a perfect plan than an interesting life.
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And I think that is such a tragic trade because the people
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that I admire the most are never the ones that never lose.
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They're the ones that stay in motion.
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The ones who try strange things.
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The ones who let themselves be beginners the ones that understand
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that embarrassment is sometimes the entry ticket to a new level of the game.
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So I started to try to change the rules.
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Instead of asking, did I fail?
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What skill did this unlock?
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And I know this is slightly cringe, but maybe that's part of the entire point.
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I don't have that neat of a conclusion to this because I'm still very much in the game.
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I still want things.
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I still want success.
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I still want money.
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I still want to be admired.
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All these thing that everyone wants.
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But I'm starting to notice when my ambition starts turning me into someone that I don't like.
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I'm trying to notice when I am performing, when I could be playing, when I'm trying to win a game,
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when I never really wanted the prize to begin with.
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And I think that's the whole thing.
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Not quitting the game, not pretending that you don't care, but just pausing every once in a while and asking yourself, who made the rules?
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What am I trying to prove?
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And And what would I do if I remembered that I was allowed to play?
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Because I don't think I want a life where the prize is looking like I won.
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I think I want a life where the prize is that I got to play.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “i wish i realized this sooner”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: prize, test, felt, self. This video has 159 sentences and 1721 words to shadow. The speech runs for 9:14. The speaker talks fast, about 186 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 84% 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 |
|---|---|---|
| impressive adjective | /ɪmˈpɹɛsɪv/ | Making, or tending to make, a positive impression; having power to impress. |
| scare verb | /skɛɚ/ | To frighten, terrify, startle, especially in a minor way. |
| admire verb | /ədˈmaɪɹ/ | To regard with wonder and delight. |
| rejection noun | /ɹɪˈd͡ʒɛkʃən/ | The act of rejecting. |
| dramatic adjective | /dɹəˈmætɪk/ | Of or relating to the drama. |
| correctly adverb | /kəˈɹɛk(t).li/ | In a correct manner. |
| meaningful adjective | /ˈmiː.nɪŋ.fl̩/ | Having meaning, significant. |
| unlock verb | /ʌnˈlɑk/ | To undo or open a lock or something locked by, for example, turning a key, or selecting a combination. |
| mechanic noun | /mɪˈkænɪk/ | Someone who builds or repairs machinery, a technician; now specifically, someone who works with and repairs the mechanical parts of a motor vehicle, aircraft… |
| embarrassment noun | /ɪmˈbæɹ.əs.mənt/ | A state of discomfort arising from bashfulness or consciousness of having violated a social rule; humiliation. |
| meaningless adjective | /ˈmiː.nɪŋ.ləs/ | Lacking meaning. |
| consistent adjective | /kənˈsɪs.tənt/ | Of a regularly occurring, dependable nature. |
| necessarily adverb | /ˌnɛs.əˈsɛɹ.ə.li/ | Inevitably; of necessity. |
| curious adjective | /ˈkjʊɹ.i.əs/ | Tending to ask questions, or to want to explore or investigate; inquisitive; (with a negative connotation) nosy, prying. |
| rank noun | /ˈɹæŋk/ | A row of people or things organized in a grid pattern, often soldiers. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| come back verb | To return to a place. | |
| come out verb | /ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/ | To be discovered; to be revealed. |
| mess up verb | To make a mess of; to untidy, disorder, soil, or muss. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- You're stuck in the game.
- If I failed, it meant that I wasn't talented.
- It tells you what doesn't work.
- Instead of asking, did I fail?
- What am I trying to prove?
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 | is broken · can be summarized · can be flattened |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | haven't unlocked · haven't stopped |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | ones who try · ones who let |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 43 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, I'm, didn't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: rejection /ɹɪˈd͡ʒɛkʃən/, conclusion /kənˈkluːʒən/, worship /ˈwɝ.ʃɪp/, exceptional /ɪkˈsɛpʃənəl/, ambition /æmˈbɪʃ.ən/
- Long words — get the stress right: embarrassment /ɪmˈbæɹ.əs.mənt/, necessarily /ˌnɛs.əˈsɛɹ.ə.li/, exceptional /ɪkˈsɛpʃənəl/, referendum /ˌɹɛfəˈɹɛndəm/, psychiatrist /ˌsaɪˈkaɪ.ə.tɹɪst/
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 impressive, scare, admire.
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.