Shadowing Practice: love is how you treat someone, not how you feel about them - Learn English Speaking with Video
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One of the biggest issues with our generation is that we believe love is a feeling as opposed to an act.
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And because of that, it can be very easy to confuse it with lust, which leads to a whole number of separate issues.
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But I think that after reading Dostoevsky, after spending a lot of time studying philosophy,
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I've come to realize that life is about the actions that you take.
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And the way that you ultimately feel about someone is reciprocated in the actions,
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except the actions are more pure and it sort of acts as a filter.
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In other words, if you love someone, you are going to show up for them every single day, regardless of how you feel.
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Not that you're going to be perfect, but you're going to actively try to hear them out.
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You're going to try to understand them and you're going to try to create the best relationship possible.
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But when love is just a feeling, that means that you are heavily susceptible to emotions and mood swinging,
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you know, chemical changes in your brain over time,
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you know, beauty fades and beauty directly changes the way that we view and feel about certain people.
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And so you basically are just leaving yourself vulnerable to the many things
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which will inevitably happen in life that could change the way that you then treat someone.
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And I'm a big believer in the sort of Aristotle view, in Aristotle's view of who an individual is.
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Who you are is what you do, not what you think, not the intentions that you had, not what you wish to happen, right?
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It's what you do.
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And I think as it relates to relationships, your relationships is how you treat each other and love is a, is an action.
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It is a visible thing.
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Like you can see someone loving someone else, right?
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I remember talking to my grandfather,
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um, but after my grandmother had passed away and he was just the way that he talks about my grandmother was like,
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he was just so, so in love with her.
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Even after, you know, he's 80 years old, she's passed away.
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And the way that he talks about her, I, it just, I realized that it was so much deeper.
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Um, and there were so many actions behind everything and they showed up for each other constantly.
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I mean, it's one of those things where you just can't deny it.
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And then I'm sure that there were other people that are old now,
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and maybe they got divorced or the broken up or whatever.
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And a lot of that was because they felt a certain way in the moment.
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And that was, they were confusing lust for love or they had love,
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but they didn't continue to show up for each other after you know five ten years of marriage
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because they kind of sort of felt like it was an obligation to stay together
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and so it fell apart you know i i'm very very blessed
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and lucky to have um two parents that are still together
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and that love each other
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and sort of exemplify to me what it looks like where you know
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you you decide you make a decision a decision
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that oftentimes is not the easy one to make
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and you do it every day because you care about this person more than you
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and I've even started to realize this
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because love doesn't always have to be romantic I feel like what I've been talking about in this video
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so far has been purely romantic but even even in friendships right
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if you love someone like a brother then you are willing to compromise certain things I think about
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this when I was in um my later years of high school I remember
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that there was this guy that I knew and I wanted to basically be friends with this guy.
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And, and, you know, we had been friends like on and off there.
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It's never like we had a dramatic, like falling out or something, but just on and off throughout growing up as one does.
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And he said, um, it was, it was one of the later summers in my high school.
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And he was like, yeah, man, you know, we should hang out sometime over the summer.
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And I really, I had no friends.
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So I was like, definitely down to do it.
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And every single time
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that uh you know i'd offer to do something with this guy
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he would always be like well i'm playing poker with the guys
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and let's let's find another night but literally every single night
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that i would ever and and i didn't really contact him
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that much to be fair
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but he would always be like oh yeah i'm playing poker oh yeah i'm playing poker
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and i realized it was like if he actually cared to be friends with me
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and cared about the relationship
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and had a sort of brotherly love then he would have said
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you know what i'm going to make the time to do something
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that i could do with him you might be like well why didn't
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you do poker well i was completely broke
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i didn't have enough money to play poker there was a buy -in
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and also i just don't like to play it in general
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so it didn't really make sense for me to go
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and play poker with the group that he was playing with anyways that's besides the point
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Thank you i just realized in that moment
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that was such a big learning opportunity for me
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that it's like the actions the way that somebody treats you and what they're willing to sacrifice um for you is
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the literal like the visible um coming to life of love and most people
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that i mean this goes way over their head i feel like uh you know another thing is
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that your intentions don't erase the consequences of your behavior.
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And so most people don't understand this because I'm sure in his head, he was like, well, I do want to hang out with this guy,
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but you know, it's just poker.
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There were a lot, there were a lot of other guys.
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So it just kind of was the path of least resistance, whatever, excuse me.
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But the reality is if you love someone, you make the time, you make the effort,
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you make the sacrifice, you do what needs to be done.
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And that's just, that's how life is.
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That's how life is.
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When I was in college, there was one time where a buddy of mine who lived six and a half hours away said,
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I need a ride home for, and I was in our hometown and, you know, he was six and a half hours away,
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like I just said, but he needed a ride home for the holidays.
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And I drove six and a half hours to meet him.
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And then six and a half hours back to go back to our hometown.
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And I did this because I was like, this is what you do for someone.
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And, you know, I, I mean, I guess it's a different point of view that I'm going to have because I'm Christian,
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but like life is about acts of service and doing things for people, even if there's no reciprocity in it,
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you know, somebody is not always going to treat you the way that you treat them.
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And in my limited experience of life, I have realized that I always, almost always am willing to go the extra mile for other people,
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but that rarely ever is returned to me.
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And I like, that's not what the value of things is based off of.
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You do things because in general, I consider myself to be, I'm not trying to virtue signal,
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but I do consider myself to be a loving person in the sense that I like people specifically as individuals in groups,
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you know, it gets questionable, but as individuals, you know, I like to help people.
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And I think that that's a good thing.
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And I think almost everybody likes to help people.
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I think this is like a natural, you know, you feel good when you help people.
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I've never met someone that doesn't like to help people, but anyways, love is like, Hey, I'm going to show up.
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I'm going to do this.
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And it's just sad to see that most people don't make that effort.
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And I think what's scary is to think about when our generation starts to get married.
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And by the way, a lot of people are you know,
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the percentage of people that are getting married is getting lower and lower as time goes on.
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But I think what we're seeing is, or what we're going to see is a lot of people aren't going to stay married for very long
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because they don't know what it's like to commit through hard times, through aging, through, you know,
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the different mood swings or periods of life that people go through.
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And it just is a, is the, uh, sort of symbolic representation of failing love.
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That's what I think.
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Um, yeah, it's not just getting along with someone.
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It's not just being physically attracted to someone.
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It's not just having your interests be aligned for, you know, a finite period of time.
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It's so much more.
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It's, it's the actions that's showing up every day but yeah those are my thoughts thank you guys for watching
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “love is how you treat someone, not how you feel about them”. This video has 117 sentences and 1611 words to shadow. The speech runs for 8:37. The speaker talks fast, about 187 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 87% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| poker noun | /ˈpoʊkɚ/ | A metal rod, generally of wrought iron, for adjusting the burning logs or coals in a fire; a firestick. |
| mood noun | /muːd/ | A mental or emotional state, composure. |
| romantic adjective | /ɹoʊˈmæn(t)ɪk/ | Fantastic, unrealistic (of an idea etc.); fanciful, sentimental, impractical (of a person). |
| visible adjective | /ˈvɪzɪb(ə)l/ | Able to be seen. |
| swing verb | /ˈswɪŋ/ | To rotate about an off-centre fixed point. |
| sacrifice noun | /ˈsæk.ɹɪ.faɪs/ | Originally, the killing (and often burning) of a human being or an animal as an offering to a deity; later, also the offering of an object to a deity. |
| grandmother noun | /ˈɡɹæn(d)ˌmʌðɚ/ | A mother of someone's parent. |
| intentions noun | /ɪnˈtɛnʃənz/ | Desire to court, marry, date, woo or sleep with someone. |
| anyways adverb | /ˈɛn.iˌweɪz/ | Anyway, anyhow, in any case. |
| hometown noun | /ˈhoʊmˌtaʊn/ | An individual’s place of birth, childhood home, or place of main residence. |
| confuse verb | /kənˈfjuːz/ | to puzzle, perplex, baffle, bewilder (somebody); to afflict by being complicated, contradictory, or otherwise difficult to understand |
| percentage noun | /pə(ɹ)ˈsɛntɪd͡ʒ/ | The amount, number or rate of something, regarded as part of a total of 100; a part of a whole. |
| regardless adverb | /ɹɪˈɡɑɹd.lɪs/ | Without attention to warnings or indications of bad consequences. |
| rarely adverb | /ˈɹɛəɹli/ | Not occurring at a regular interval; seldom; not often. |
| dramatic adjective | /dɹəˈmætɪk/ | Of or relating to the drama. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| pass away verb | To die. |
| show up verb | To appear, arrive, or attend, especially suddenly or erratically. |
| break up verb | To break or separate into pieces. |
| fall apart verb | To disintegrate, to break into pieces. |
| fall out verb | To come out of something by falling. |
| go back to verb | To stem from; to originate in. |
| go through verb | To travel from one end of something to the other. |
| 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 |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | I've come · I've even started · has been |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | is reciprocated · be done · is returned |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 39 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, didn't, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: grandmother /ˈɡɹæn(d)ˌmʌðɚ/, grandfather /ˈɡɹæn(d)ˌfɑðɚ/, brotherly /ˈbɹʌð.ɚ.li/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: intentions /ɪnˈtɛnʃənz/, friendship /ˈfɹɛn(d)ʃɪp/, representation /ˌɹɛp.ɹə.zɛnˈteɪ.ʃən/, emotion /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/, obligation /ˌɑ.blɪˈɡeɪ.ʃn̩/
- Long words — get the stress right: representation /ˌɹɛp.ɹə.zɛnˈteɪ.ʃən/, inevitably /ɪˈnɛvɪtəbli/, exemplify /ɛɡˈzɛmplɪfaɪ/, reciprocate /ɹɪˈsɪpɹəˌkeɪt/, reciprocity /ˌrɛsəˈprɑsəti/
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 poker, mood, romantic.
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.