Shadowing Practice: Read Books That Challenge Your Mind - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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The main thing is to always finish books and don't just choose things
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that you think are entertaining and fun because that's going to make you lazy
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and it's going to make you weak and it's make you always look for things that are entertaining, fun and distracting.
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You want things that are going to challenge you constantly.
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How to read more books.
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I think a lot of problems that I'm reading about in the papers and in online is that in colleges, et cetera, young people are not taught to read entire texts.
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They're given passages, citations, chapters, but they're not reading the whole thing because it's so difficult to get through an entire text.
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And what you want to do is you have to do kind of resistance training.
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And what I mean by that is the following.
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If everything in life were easy and pleasant and fun, we would never get anywhere.
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When you go to the gym, if you use weights, it's creating resistance.
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And the more resistance you have, the stronger you get.
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And it's not necessarily fun in the moment as you're lifting weights, but slowly you start developing muscle, you start developing confidence, you start looking good,
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feeling better, and it does become kind of pleasant.
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But the resistance is what makes you stronger.
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If you could press that 200 pounds, it was like that, it was so easy, there wouldn't be any value.
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But the fact that it's more resistance, the stronger you get.
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Everything in life is like that.
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So reading is a form of resistance.
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Because when you enter a book, you don't know what it is.
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You don't know exactly how much fun, how entertaining it will be.
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There's an element of boredom.
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I can even say that about my own books.
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There are passages I find that are probably a little bit boring and slow, but you want that.
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You want the slowness.
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You want the boredom.
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You want things that don't interest you and you want to push through and you want to read the entire book.
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And so you want to train yourself to finish books and not constantly be going from one to another to another.
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That will train you so that you will have like a reading skill and you will have the patience.
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And what I often do when I read a book that I hate, that is boring, and I make myself read all the way through, I kind of take angry notes about it.
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I go, God, this is ridiculous.
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This is so stupid.
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I hate this.
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This guy doesn't know what he's talking about.
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You can react to the book.
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You can have a dialogue with it, but you want to be able to have the patience to get through a 400, 500, 600 page book.
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So think of it like you're going to the gym.
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So a 200 page book will be kind of easy and it could be a subject that interests you.
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Choose something that's a little bit difficult and a little bit complicated.
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So it's more like pressing 200 or 300 pounds.
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It's hard.
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It's not easy, but it's training the mind to be patient.
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Also look for books that are going to challenge you.
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That maybe it's not how you feel politically about the world.
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It's not how you feel spiritually about the world.
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It's something that's a little bit outside what you would normally encounter.
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It's not something that other people, that your friends talk about.
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So you're challenging yourself with content that is difficult or that is not what you normally believe in or not from
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the circle of friends and influencers that you normally pay attention to.
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That's also resistance.
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It's training you to open your mind to different ways of thinking.
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I often, when I write a book, I deliberately read a book that completely contradicts what I'm saying
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so that I can open my mind to other ways of thinking.
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The main thing is to always finish books and don't just choose things
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that you think are entertaining and fun because that's going to make you lazy and it's going to make you weak.
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And it's make you always look for things that are entertaining, fun and distracting.
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Right.
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You want things that are going to challenge you constantly.
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All right.
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And the longer the book, the better.
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I mean, take one of Robert Caro's books about LBJ.
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They're about 800.
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They're over some of them.
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I think some of them are over a thousand pages long.
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They're very exciting.
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They're very interesting.
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But if you read one of those books, you have to maintain your patience, your concentration for quite a long time, go through that entire book that will train you.
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Reading is a process of slowing down, right?
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Your mind is moving too fast right now.
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You're kind of going all these things that are distracting you right on the internet, et cetera.
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Reading is slow.
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It's slow.
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You have to take things slowly.
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You have to be patient.
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You have to go page by page.
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You have to absorb ideas.
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Please, I beg you to train your mind like you train your body to go through something that's a little more difficult, a little more challenging, that's going to take some time for you.
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That's the way to develop the habit of wanting to read and to have the patience to read more books.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Read Books That Challenge Your Mind”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: resistance, reading, entertaining, train, page. This video has 78 sentences and 910 words to shadow. The speech runs for 4:50. The speaker talks fast, about 189 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 89% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| entertain verb | /ˌɛntəˈteɪn/ | To amuse (someone); to engage the attention of agreeably. |
| patience noun | /ˈpeɪ̯.ʃəns/ | The quality of being patient. |
| distract verb | /dɪˈstɹækt/ | To divert the attention of. |
| boredom noun | /ˈbɔɹ.dəm/ | The state of being bored. |
| bore verb | /boɹ/ | To inspire boredom in somebody. |
| contradict verb | /ˌkɑn.tɹəˈdɪkt/ | To deny the truth or validity of (a statement or statements). |
| excite verb | /ɪkˈsaɪt/ | To stir the emotions of; to cause to feel excitement. |
| influencer noun | /ˈɪnflu.ənsə(ɹ)/ | A person who or a thing which influences. |
| slowness noun | The quality or state of being slow. | |
| spiritually adverb | In a manner affecting, relating or pertaining to the spirit or the soul. | |
| absorb verb | /æbˈsɔɹb/ | To include so that it no longer has separate existence; to overwhelm; to cause to disappear as if by swallowing up; to incorporate; to assimilate; to take in… |
| citation noun | /ˌsaɪˈteɪʃən/ | An official summons or notice given to a person to appear. |
| deliberately adverb | /dɪˈlɪb.(ə.)ɹət.li/ | Intentionally, or after deliberation; not accidentally. |
| politically adverb | In a political manner. | |
| react verb | /ɹiːˈækt/ | To act in response. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| get through verb | /ɡɛt ˈθɹu/ | To overcome; to endure. |
| go through verb | To travel from one end of something to the other. | |
| push through verb | To force (legislation or a plan) to be passed or agreed to or a decision to be reached. | |
| slow down verb | To decelerate. |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 19 contractions and reduced forms, such as they're, don't, you're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: patience /ˈpeɪ̯.ʃəns/, citation /ˌsaɪˈteɪʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: influencer /ˈɪnflu.ənsə(ɹ)/, deliberately /dɪˈlɪb.(ə.)ɹət.li/
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 entertain, patience, distract.
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.