Shadowing Practice: PHILOSOPHY - The Stoics - Learn English Speaking with Video
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The Stoicism This is a film about Stoicism and why you need more of it in your life.
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Because, as people seldom tell you, but we will quietly.
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Stoicism was a philosophy that flourished for 480 years in ancient Greece
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and Rome and was popular with everyone from slaves to the aristocracy.
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Because, unlike so much philosophy, it was helpful.
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Helpful when we panic, want to give up, despair and rage at existence.
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We still honour this philosophy whenever we think of someone as brave and without perhaps quite knowing why, call them stoic.
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There are two great philosophers of stoicism.
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The first is the Roman writer and tutor to Nero, Seneca.
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He lived between AD 4 and AD 65.
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That's right, tutor to Nero, the infamous dictator who slept with his own mother, raped young boys and just because he felt like it, asked his old tutor, Seneca,
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to commit suicide in front of his own family.
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And our other guide to Stoicism is the kind and magnanimous Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius, AD 121-180, who was forced to spend most of his reign on the edges of the empire,
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fighting off invincible Germanic hordes, but found time to write one of the greatest works of philosophy, the Meditations, in his tent at night.
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There are two problems Stoicism can help us with in particular.
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The first is anxiety.
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When you're feeling anxious about something, most people are maddening.
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They believe it's their duty to cheer you up.
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However intelligent they might otherwise be, they say things like it'll be okay, don't worry, even cheer up.
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The Stoics were appalled.
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They hated any kind of consolation that aims to give the listener hope.
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Hope is the opium of the emotions
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and must be stamped out conclusively for a person to stand any chance of inner peace.
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Because hope only lifts you up higher for the eventual fall.
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The Stoics advise us to take a different path.
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To be calm, one has to tell oneself something very dark.
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It will be terrible.
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I might have to go to prison.
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The lump really could be malign.
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I probably will be fired and humiliated, my friends almost certainly will succeed.
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But a huge, consoling stoic but.
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One must keep in mind that one will, nevertheless, be okay.
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Okay, because in the end, as Marcus Aurelius said, we are each of us stronger than we think.
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Prison won't be fun, nor we're losing one's job or being made a laughing stock, but one will get through it.
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Stoicism emboldens us against the worst fate can throw at us.
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And if you really, really can't take it, suicide is always an option.
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The Stoics mentioned this repeatedly.
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Here is Seneca.
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Can you no longer see a road to freedom?
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It's right in front of you.
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You need only turn over your wrists.
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To build up an impression of one's own resilience, the Stoics suggested one regularly rehearse worst-case scenarios.
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For example, twice a year, one should take off one's smart clothes, into some dirty rags, sleep on a rug in the kitchen floor
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and eat only stale bread and rainwater from an animal's bowl.
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And thereby, you'll make an amazing discovery.
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As Marcus Aurelius put it, almost nothing material is needed for a happy life for he who has understood existence.
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Another subject of interest to the Stoics was anger.
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Romans were a bad tempered lot.
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The Stoics wanted to calm them down, but they did so by an unusual route, by intellectual argument.
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They propose that getting angry isn't something you do by nature
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because you have a Latin temper or are somehow inherently hot blooded.
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It's the result of being stupid, of having the wrong ideas about life.
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Anger stems when misplaced hope smashes into unforeseen reality.
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We don't shout every time something bad happens to us, only when it's bad and unexpected.
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For example, you never shout just because it started raining, even though rain can be horrible, because you've learnt to expect rain.
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The same should apply to everything.
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Don't only expect rain, expect betrayal, infamy, sadism, theft, humiliation, lust, greed, spite.
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One will stop being so angry when one learns the true facts of the misery of life.
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The wise person should aim to reach a state where simply nothing could suddenly disturb their peace of mind.
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Every tragedy should already be priced in.
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We're going to leave you with the most beautiful remark that Seneca made, just as Nero's guards were grabbing him
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and shoving him into a bathroom where he was meant to take a sharp knife and kill himself.
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His wife, Polina, and two children were panicking, weeping, clinging to his cloaks.
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But Seneca turned to them, pulled a weary smile at them, and simply said, what need is there to weep over parts of life?
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The whole of it calls for tears.
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We have much to learn from the Stoics.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This C1 speaking lesson is built on the video “PHILOSOPHY - The Stoics”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: stoic, stoicism, Seneca, philosophy, Aurelius. This video has 66 sentences and 821 words to shadow. The speech runs for 4:28. The speaker talks fast, about 184 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. Only 80% 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 |
|---|---|---|
| stoicism noun | /ˈstoʊɪsɪzəm/ | A school of philosophy popularized during the Roman Empire that emphasized reason as a means of understanding the natural state of things, or logos, and as a… |
| tutor noun | /ˈtjuːtəː/ | One who teaches another (usually called a student, learner, or tutee) in a one-on-one or small-group interaction. |
| stoic adjective | /ˈstoʊ.ɪk/ | Of or relating to the Stoics or their ideas. |
| weep verb | /ˈwiːp/ | To cry; to shed tears, especially when accompanied with sobbing or other difficulty speaking, as an expression of emotion such as sadness or joy. |
| temper noun | /ˈtɛmpɚ/ | A general tendency or orientation towards a certain type of mood, a volatile state; a habitual way of thinking, behaving or reacting. |
| shout verb | /ʃaʊt/ | To utter a sudden and loud cry, as in joy, triumph, exultation or anger, or to attract attention, to animate others, etc. |
| appall verb | /əˈpɔːl/ | To fill with horror or indignation; to dismay. |
| aristocracy noun | /ˌɛɹ.ɪˈstɑ.kɹə.si/ | The nobility, or the hereditary ruling class. |
| conclusively adverb | In a conclusive manner; with finality; decisively. | |
| embolden verb | /ɛmˈboʊld(ə)n/ | To render (someone) bolder or more courageous; to encourage, to hearten. |
| humiliate verb | /hjuːˈmɪliˌeɪt/ | To cause to be ashamed; to injure the dignity and self-respect of. |
| infamy noun | /ˈɪnfəmi/ | The state of being infamous. |
| invincible adjective | /ɪnˈvɪn.sə.bəl/ | Impossible to defeat, destroy, or kill; too powerful to be defeated or overcome. |
| magnanimous adjective | /mæɡˈnæn.ɪ.məs/ | Noble and generous in spirit. |
| malign adjective | /məˈlaɪn/ | Evil or malignant in disposition, nature, intent or influence. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| build up verb | To erect; to construct. | |
| cheer up verb | To become happier or less downcast. | |
| fight off verb | To succeed in defeating a challenge, or an attack. | |
| get through verb | /ɡɛt ˈθɹu/ | To overcome; to endure. |
| give up verb | To surrender (someone or something); to inform on (someone). | |
| take off verb | To remove. | |
| turn over verb | To flip over; to rotate uppermost to bottom. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- They believe it's their duty to cheer you up.
- Can you no longer see a road to freedom?
- It's right in front of you.
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 | was forced · were appalled · must be stamped |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | has understood · you've learnt |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 12 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, we're, can't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: thereby /ðɛɹˈbaɪ/, cloth /klɒθ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: shout /ʃaʊt/, flourish /ˈflʊ̈ɹ.ɪʃ/, consolation /ˌkɑn.səˈleɪ.ʃən/, humiliation /hjuːˌmɪliˈeɪʃən/, shove /ʃʌv/
- Long words — get the stress right: aristocracy /ˌɛɹ.ɪˈstɑ.kɹə.si/, humiliate /hjuːˈmɪliˌeɪt/, invincible /ɪnˈvɪn.sə.bəl/, magnanimous /mæɡˈnæn.ɪ.məs/, consolation /ˌkɑn.səˈleɪ.ʃən/
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 stoicism, tutor, stoic.
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.