Shadowing Practice: TED Ed Vietsub Tình yêu là gì Brad Troeger - Learn English Speaking with Video
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73 sentences
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1
What is love?
2
Seriously though, what is it?
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What is love?
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A verb?
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A noun?
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A universal truth?
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An ideal?
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The common thread of all religions?
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A cult?
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A neurological phenomenon?
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There's no shortage of answers.
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Some are all-encompassing.
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It conquers all.
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It's all you need.
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It's all there is.
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These are all comparisons though.
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Ways of defining it by contrast, by saying it's more important than all other things.
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But is it?
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Sure, love matters more than your standard turkey sandwich, but does it matter more than shelter, or sanity, or an exceptional turkey sandwich?
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No matter your answer, you're just ranking it, not defining it.
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Another challenge to defining love is we often try to do so while falling into it or out of it.
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Would you trust someone who just won the lottery to accurately define the concept of currency?
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Or, I don't know, ask a guy to define bears while he's fending them off?
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Or is romance not like winning the lottery?
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Are breakups not like bear attacks?
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Bad comparisons?
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That's my point.
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I'm not thinking right because I'm in love. So, ha!
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Taking a step back, or taking a cold shower, whatever.
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Love is potentially the most intensely thought about thing in all of human history.
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And despite centuries upon centuries of obsession, it still overwhelms us.
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Some say it's a feeling, a magical emotion, a feeling for someone like you've never felt before.
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But feelings are fluid, not very concrete foundation for a definition.
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Sometimes you hate the person you love.
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Plus, come on, you've felt feelings like it before, sort of in miniature.
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Your relationships with your family shape your relationships with partners, and your love for your partner may be in its own dynamic relationship,
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healthy or totally weird, with the love of your parents and siblings.
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Love is also a set of behaviors we associate with the feeling.
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Holding hands, kissing, hugging, public displays of affection, dating, marriage, having kids, or just sex.
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But these loving actions can be subjective or culturally relative.
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You may love or be someone who can't have kids or doesn't want to, who believes in marriage but also in divorce,
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who's from a culture where people don't really date the way we think of dating, or who just doesn't want to make out on the bus.
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But if love is a thing that we can define, then how can it mean opposite things for so many people?
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So maybe love's all just in your head, a personal mystery winding through your neural pathways and lighting up pleasing natural rewards in your nervous system.
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Perhaps these rewards are addictive.
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Perhaps love is a temporary or permanent addiction to a person, just like a person can be addicted to a drug.
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I don't mean to be edgy like some pop song.
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Evidence shows that chemicals in your brain and stimulated by another person can make you develop a habit for that person.
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The person comes to satisfy a physiological craving, and you want more.
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But then sometimes, slowly or suddenly, you don't.
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You've fallen out of love, become unaddicted, for a spell.
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What happened?
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Does one develop a tolerance or hit a limit?
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Why do some lovers stay addicted to each other their entire lives?
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Perhaps to create new lives?
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To proliferate their species?
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Baby love is just human DNA's optimal method for bringing about its own replication.
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There are evolutionary arguments regarding every human mating behavior, from how we display ourselves to potential mates, to how we treat each other in relationships, to how we raise kids.
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Thus, some argue
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that the feeling you think you feel in your soul is just biology's way to make you continue our species.
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Nature has selected you to have crushes on hotties, just like it makes monkeys have crushes on hot monkeys, and biology marches on.
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But is that all love is?
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Or perhaps worse, is it just a construct, some fake concept we all convince each other to try to live up to for a fake sense of purpose?
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Maybe it is a construct, but let's be more precise about what a construct is, because love is constructed from reality.
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Our experiences, feelings, brain chemistry, cultural expectations, our lives.
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And this edifice can be viewed through countless dimensions, scientific, emotional, historical, spiritual, legal, or just personal.
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If no two people are the same, no two people's love is the same either.
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So in every loving relationship, there's a lot to talk about, and partners should be open to that, or the relationship probably won't last.
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Love is always up for discussion, and sure, under construction.
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So if we can't define it, that's a good sign.
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It means we're all still making it.
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Wait, I didn't mean...
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You know what I meant.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 73 sentences and 803 words to shadow. The speech runs for 4:43. The speaker talks at a natural 170 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. Only 80% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 less common words from the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
- define /dɪˈfaɪn/ (verb) — To determine with precision; to mark out with distinctness; to ascertain or exhibit clearly.
- construct /ˈkɑn.stɹʌkt/ (verb) — To build or form (something) by assembling parts.
- reward /ɹɪˈwɔɹd/ (noun) — Something of value given in return for an act.
- crush /kɹʌʃ/ (verb) — To press between two hard objects; to squeeze so as to alter the natural shape or integrity, or to force together into a mass.
- sandwich /ˈsæn(d).wɪd͡ʒ/ (noun) — A dish or foodstuff where at least one piece, but typically two or more pieces, of bread serves as the wrapper or container of some other food.
- monkey /ˈmʌŋki/ (noun) — A member of the clade Simiiformes other than those in the clade Hominoidea containing apes, generally (but not universally) distinguished by small size, tails…
- lottery /ˈlɑtɚi/ (noun) — A scheme for the distribution of prizes by lot or chance, especially a gaming scheme in which one or more tickets bearing particular numbers draw prizes, the…
- addict /ˈæd.ɪkt/ (noun) — A person who is addicted, especially to a harmful drug.
- universal /ˌjunəˈvɜɹs(ə)l/ (adjective) — Of or pertaining to the universe.
- relative /ˈɹɛl.ə.tɪv/ (noun) — Someone connected by blood, marriage, or adoption; someone in the same family.
- temporary /ˈtɛmp(əˌɹ)ɛɹi/ (adjective) — Not permanent; existing only for a period or periods of time.
- argue /ˈɑɹ.ɡju/ (verb) — To show grounds for concluding (that); to indicate, imply.
- contrast /kənˈt(ʃ)ɹæst/ (noun) — The degree of this difference.
- mystery /ˈmɪs.t(ə.)ɹi/ (noun) — Something secret or unexplainable; an unknown.
- select /sɪˈlɛkt/ (verb) — To choose one or more elements of a set, especially a set of options.
Phrasal verbs you will hear
- bring about (verb) — To cause to take place.
- come on /ˌkʌm ˈɒn/ — Come along with me; join me in going.
- fall into (verb) — To go into something by falling.
- feel for (verb) — To experience sympathy for, to sympathise with.
- light up (verb) — To illuminate, to bring light to something, to brighten.
- step back /stɛp ˈbæk/ (verb) — To stop what one is doing and evaluate the current situation.
- talk about (verb) — Used to draw attention to the speaker's characterization of someone or something.
- think about /ˈθɪŋk əˌbaʊt/ (verb) — To ponder.
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 17 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, you've, can't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: thread /ˈθɹɛd/, pathway /ˈpæθˌweɪ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: crush /kɹʌʃ/, contrast /kənˈt(ʃ)ɹæst/, associate /əˈsoʊʃi.ət/, potentially /pəˈtɛnʃ(ə)li/, shelter /ˈʃɛltə/
- Long words — get the stress right: universal /ˌjunəˈvɜɹs(ə)l/, temporary /ˈtɛmp(əˌɹ)ɛɹi/, associate /əˈsoʊʃi.ət/, potentially /pəˈtɛnʃ(ə)li/, biology /baɪˈɑ.lə.d͡ʒi/
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 define, construct, reward.
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 | you've never felt · you've felt · You've fallen |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | can be addicted · is constructed · can be viewed |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | someone who just · someone who can |
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.