Shadowing Practice: PLATO ON: The Allegory of the Cave - Learn English Speaking with Video
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The ancient Greeks were emphatic that philosophy was not just an elaborate abstract exercise.
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It was, they felt, a deeply useful skill that should be learnt
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and practiced by all in order to help us to live and die well.
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No one believed this more than Plato, who was passionate in his defense of philosophy as a kind of therapy for the soul.
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One of the most forceful stories
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he told on behalf of the utility of philosophy was what has become known as the allegory of the cave.
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It is perhaps the most famous allegory in philosophy.
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This was a story that was intended, as he wrote, to compare the effect of education and the lack of it on our nature.
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At the start of book 7 of his masterpiece, The Republic, Plato tells us about some people living imprisoned in a cave.
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They've always lived there and don't know anything of the outside world.
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There is no natural light in this cave.
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The walls are damp and dark.
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All the inhabitants can see comes from the shadows of things thrown up on the wall by a light of a fire.
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The cave dwellers get fascinated by these reflections of animals, plants and people.
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Moreover, they assume that these shadows are real and that if you pay a lot of attention to them, you'll understand and succeed in life.
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They don't of course realise that they are looking at mere phantoms.
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They chat about shadowy things enthusiastically and take great pride in their sophistication and wisdom.
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Then one day, quite by chance, someone discovers a way out of the cave, out into the open air.
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At first, it's simply overwhelming.
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He is dazzled by the brilliant sunshine, in which everything is for the first time properly illuminated.
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Gradually, his eyes adjust and he encounters the true forms of all those things which he had formerly known only as shadows.
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He sees actual flowers, the colours of birds, the nuances in the bark of trees.
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He observes stars and grasps the vastness and sublime nature of the universe.
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As Plato puts it in solemn terms, previously he had been looking merely at phantoms, now he is nearer to the true nature of being.
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Out of compassion, this newly enlightened man decides to leave the sunlit upper world
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and makes his way back into the cave to try to help out his companions, who are still mired in confusion and error.
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Because he has become used to the bright upper world, he can hardly see anything underground.
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He stumbles along the damp, wet corridors and gets confused.
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He seems to the others totally unimpressive.
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When he in turn is unimpressed by them
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and insists on explaining what the sun is or what a real tree is like, the cave dwellers get sarcastic,
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then very angry and eventually plot to kill him.
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The story of the cave is an allegory of the life of all enlightened people.
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The cave dwellers are humans before philosophy.
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The sun is the light of reason.
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The alienation of the returned philosopher is what all truth tellers can expect
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when they take their knowledge back to people who have not devoted themselves to thinking.
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For Plato, we are all for much of our lives in shadow.
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Many of the things we get excited about, like fame, the perfect partner, a high -status job, are infinitely less real than we suppose.
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They are, for the most part, phantoms projected by our culture onto the walls of our fragile and flawed minds.
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But because everyone around us is insisting that they are genuine, we are taken in from from a young age.
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It's not our fault individually, no one chooses to be in the cave, that's just where we happen to begin.
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We're all starting from a very difficult place.
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If, like the man in Plato's story, you bluntly tell people they're wrong, you get nowhere, you cause deep offence and may endanger your own life.
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Athens had, after all, recently put Socrates, Plato's friend, to death.
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Plato knew from close experience just what the cave dwellers might do to those who claim to know the sun.
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The solution, Plato says, is a process of widespread, carefully administered philosophical education,
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by which he understood the method of inquiry pioneered by Socrates and known to us as the Socratic method.
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It's a very gentle process.
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You don't lecture or harangue or force someone to read a particular book.
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You just start with a general declaration of intellectual modesty.
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No one knows very much, it's always good to insist and wisdom starts with owning up to ignorance.
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Confess that you don't know exactly what the government should do, what war is meant to achieve or how good relationships work.
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You then get the other person to say what they think and gradually together you investigate the answers.
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Most likely the other person will be confident or rather painfully overconfident.
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They may tell you it's all quite simple really and everyone knows the answer already.
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You must be supremely patient with this kind of bravado.
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If they go off topic, you must cheerfully double back.
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You must take a lot of time and be ready to have chats over many days.
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This method of talking is founded on a lovely confidence that with the right encouragement,
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people can eventually work out things for themselves and detect errors in their own reasoning,
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if you carefully and quietly draw their attention to tricky points and don't cast blame or ever get annoyed.
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You never teach anyone anything by making them feel stupid, even if they are at first.
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We have all started in that cave, but it is Plato's deepest insight that we don't have to stay there.
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And the road out is called, quite simply, philosophy.
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This is the sun whose light we can follow and by whose rays the proper nature of things can become clear.
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If you enjoy the films on this channel, you might want to hear about another smart, insightful channel we love called Wisecrack.
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Click here to visit their channel page and discover a succession of videos on world literature, philosophy, cinema, history and more,
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all delivered with a playful, beguiling sense of humour.
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They're in LA, we're here in London, but the School of Life and Wisecrack have become firm friends, based around shared values about making education compelling.
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We'd love you to befriend us both in turn.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “PLATO ON: The Allegory of the Cave”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: cave, philosophy, Plato, dwellers, shadow. This video has 8 sentences and 1060 words to shadow. The speech runs for 6:07. The speaker talks at a natural 173 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 82% 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 |
|---|---|---|
| cave noun | /keɪv/ | A large, naturally-occurring cavity formed underground or in the face of a cliff or a hillside. |
| shadow noun | /ˈʃædəʊ̯/ | A dark image projected onto a surface where light (or other radiation) is blocked by the shade of an object. |
| insist verb | /ɪnˈsɪst/ | To hold up a claim emphatically. |
| carefully adverb | /ˈkɛɹf(ə)li/ | With care; attentively, circumspectly. |
| discover verb | /dɪˈskʌvə/ | To find or learn something for the first time. |
| wisdom noun | /ˈwɪzdəm/ | An element of personal character that enables one to distinguish the wise from the unwise. |
| gradually adverb | /ˈɡɹæd͡ʒuəli/ | In a gradual manner; making slow progress; slowly. |
| phantom noun | /ˈfæntəm/ | A ghost or apparition. |
| damp adjective | /ˈdæmp/ | In a state between dry and wet; moderately wet; moist. |
| topic noun | /ˈtɑpɪk/ | A subject; a theme; a category or general area of interest. |
| confused adjective | /kənˈfjuːzd/ | unable to think clearly or understand |
| compare verb | /kəmˈpɛɚ/ | To assess the similarities and differences between two or more things [“to compare X with Y”]. Having made the comparison of X with Y, one might have found it… |
| deeply adverb | /ˈdi(ː)pli/ | To a deep extent or degree; very greatly. |
| behalf noun | /bɪˈhæf/ | The interest, benefit, or wellbeing of someone or something. |
| flower noun | /ˈfloʊɚ/ | A reproductive structure in angiosperms (flowering plants), often conspicuously colourful and typically including sepals, petals, and either or both stamens… |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| double back verb | To retrace one's steps; to go back where one has already gone. | |
| go off verb | To explode. | |
| help out verb | To provide assistance. | |
| work out verb | /ˌwɝk ˈaʊt/ | To calculate. |
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 | should be learnt · was intended · is dazzled |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | has become · They've always lived · have not devoted |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | people who have · those who claim |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 14 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, they're, we're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: shadow /ˈʃædəʊ̯/, confusion /kənˈfjuːʒən/, reflection /ɹɪˈflɛkʃən/, sunshine /ˈsʌnʃaɪn/, declaration /ˌdɛk.ləˈɹeɪ.ʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: investigate /ɪnˈvɛs.tə.ɡeɪt/, intellectual /ˌɪntəˈlɛkt͡ʃʊəl/, utility /juːˈtɪlɪti/, inquiry /ɪnˈkwaɪ(ə)ɹi/, declaration /ˌdɛk.ləˈɹeɪ.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 cave, shadow, insist.
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.