Shadowing Practice: The Crisis We’re Pretending Isn’t Happening - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Why is it the case that having this conversation is
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so unpopular on the internet and immediately gets thrown the right-wing conservative misogyny, the fascism?
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Why do those arguments get thrown around so quickly?
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I think people understand correctly that there can be, there certainly can be, and often in fact,
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there is a tension between sustainable fertility rates and the gender egalitarianism that I think most of us cherish.
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right that like i'm i'm not like a radical left feminist
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but like i do want my wife to be able to vote
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and own property and have the right to like the police hear her out
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if i'm beating her or something like i'm you know like little e egalitarian in
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that sense um
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and a lot of people fear very sincerely they say well i would i do worry about low fertility
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but I would never say so publicly because, you know, I stand with women and the pronatalists want to force women to stay barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen.
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Um, and, and I, I mean, I'm sympathetic to that.
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And, and unfortunately some varieties of pronatalism have tended to play into that.
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Um, the reality, and there's, and there's genuine tension.
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I mean, it is true that a lot of the most sexist countries in the world have the highest birth rates.
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It is true that within society, people with more traditional gender attitudes have higher birth rates.
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These are all true things.
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There's real tension between certain gender models and high fertility.
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Now, does it have to be intrinsic tension?
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Can we find a way through it to the other side?
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I hope so.
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And I think that's what you all have talked about as well, is that you want your progressive fence to be having kids so that their values can survive in the future too.
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And so I think there's a lot of people who feel rightly or wrongly feel trapped between two things they want.
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Okay.
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They, they don't love the idea of a low fertility future, but they also feel like they don't have an option other than to like,
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well, if a low fertility future is the only way to protect the fact that like, I'm a woman and I basically want to have rights, then like screw fertility, who cares?
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Um, or, you know, trust that it'll get solved somehow and just don't think about it.
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So, and I think on some level, pronatalists have not always done a great job, and I probably count myself in this to some extent,
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of trying to communicate that,
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yes, right now, feminism broadly construed is pretty strongly negatively correlated with fertility.
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It is on almost any metric.
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But we don't know that it has to be.
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We don't know that there's not a future version of feminism that's pronatal.
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We don't know that such an ideology couldn't be invented.
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The problem is most of the people who self-identify as feminists won't even try.
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So they won't even try to come up with a version of the ideology that's pronatal.
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And there are people who are.
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Like Leia Sargent has a great book on this where she's trying.
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So I would say I agree with what you're saying, but I'm a little more sympathetic to people who feel between a rock and a hard place.
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Well, I think the other point here is that it's obvious what you need to give up now, and it's not obvious what the costs will be in future.
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And for the most part, you're not going to pay them.
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And if you're not intending on having kids, or if fewer people around you are intending on having kids, then you're not even attached to people who might be having to pay them.
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So it's having to give up something that you want in order for something that you're being told that future people need.
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But we're not good in a society at doing that at the moment, at the old staving off And imagine you really value gender egalitarianism
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and then you have daughters and then you learn
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that the future is going to be one where like all the crazy far right people had all the babies
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and they're going to outvote you and now your daughters live out Handmaid's Tale.
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Okay.
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Like this, as silly as that sounds to like my rational brain, I personally know people who really think that's what's going to happen.
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That any kid they have is just going to be like governed by zealots.
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And so they're like, well, I don't want that from a kid.
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I'm not going to have.
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Yeah, but if feminists stop having kids, there will be no feminists left.
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I'm like, be the change you wish.
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What would you do to prevent forest fires?
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This is the gap, the mean change, the mean children by ideology, conservatives at 1.67, which has actually gone up since the 1980s.
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Yeah.
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And liberals from 1.29, which was nearly the same, 1.44 to 1.29, 1980, conservative to liberal,
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to now 1.67 to 0.87.
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It seems to be the case from well put together surveys
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that let's say 90%-ish of people at some point in life either have or want kids.
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That's not all right wingers.
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90% is pretty much everybody.
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I think the issue here is that the left have found it more challenging because of the frictions
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with some of their traditional beliefs to come up with a narrative here
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that enables them to come up with some form of voice.
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And I think people on the right, and I will say also, I'm not pronatalist.
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That surprises a lot of people.
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I'm a researcher.
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I call myself pannatalist.
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And a pannatalist is someone who supports people to have the kids they want to have, but also respects people who choose not to.
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Oh, we do too.
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It's great.
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Okay.
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I think that's pannatalism.
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I would call that pronatalism.
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Yeah.
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No, we only want people who like kids to have kids.
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I think pronatalism to me is interpreted rightly or wrongly as people who would encourage others to have kids.
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And I would encourage people to think about it.
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I don't know if that's a new one.
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That is a fetish on the left.
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That is all these women who are like, oh, Mr. Trump, don't send me to the Mar-a-Lago breeding pens.
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Why are they wearing those Handmaid's Tale costumes?
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Because it is it's hot.
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When you look at what women read in romance novels, don't breed me, sir.
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This is it's not real.
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No one is asking progressive women to have kids.
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When you look at like far right conservative men who are marrying women, they're marrying women from Latin America.
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They're marrying women from Eastern Europe.
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They're not marrying progressive white women.
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There's that return to land colony in the Ozarks.
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It's for whites only.
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And they have to keep saying to the men, sorry, like you have to actually marry a white woman if you want to come here.
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And they can't get any men who are far right, conservative white nationalists who have married white women because they're not there.
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I'm just saying this is fake.
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This whole like prenatalism, well, we want you to have kids.
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No, don't have kids.
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So if you want kids, have them.
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But otherwise you can just not inherit the future.
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All right, because they've screwed it.
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They've screwed it.
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This is a toxic culture.
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We have to wash our hands of it.
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We have to take through the stars and leave them behind.
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That's it.
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So I think, so I would, what you call pan-natalism.
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Yeah, I would, that's how I would describe pro-natalism.
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Okay.
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I don't think pro-natalism means forcing people to have unwanted children.
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I think it means pro-natalism, pro meaning in favor of, natal meaning births.
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It means you're in favor of births.
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In practice, I would say you're a pro-natalist if you support actually doing things that helps people actually have more kids.
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I think the problem with that, Simone, is that it's all well and good kind of victim blaming people and saying you believe in ideology that's self-defeating.
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Because of your belief in it,
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you have been psyoped or gaslit into not wanting something or having a life that doesn't permit you to have this thing,
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despite the fact that 90% of women have or want kids.
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So it seems to me that I understand
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if you've been in the trenches as you and your husband have for a long time, that you go, all right, I'm fucking done.
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I can't, the project to like try and change hearts and minds.
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I've kind of lost faith in that.
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I get it.
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I understand why you might be exhausted at doing that, but that is condemning a huge swath of women who are left of center, who, and men.
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Yeah, of course, because for each, you know, the two to tango,
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like you are condemning those people to kind of be at the mercy of an ideology that you think is bad.
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And I don't know, I would like to think
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that we can try and sort of stir the pot to bring some of the silt up and go, hey, maybe what you believe is good in many ways for the world,
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but also perhaps it's got some side effects that even the people that are espousing it aren't gonna embody.
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Like these people are endorsing beliefs that they don't embody
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and they're leaving you behind and it would be important to get you on site.
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One of the things I worry about if you say like, hey, if you're on the left and you don't think that kids are good, go fuck yourself My kids are going to inherit the earth.
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Like, I get it, but that's not actually what would be true
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if you were to continue to try and do the hearts and minds change thing.
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And again, for every step that you take forward, there's 10 people saying you're trying to take rights away, force, handmaid, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
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And I get why that would be exhausting, but I think trying to work out how to bring people into this, because if you really care about birth rates overall,
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you should be trying to get as big of a bucket as possible to scoop everybody up in.
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Context & Background

The speaker in the video discusses a complex societal issue concerning fertility rates and gender egalitarianism. They delve into the tension between the desire for sustainable fertility and the push for women’s rights, highlighting how many individuals feel trapped between these conflicting values. This conversation is notably contentious, with political ideologies swiftly affecting public discourse. The speaker presents the contrasting views surrounding feminism and fertility, ultimately advocating for a new perspective that reconciles both ideals. Such dialogues can significantly aid English learners in grasping nuanced social discussions while also improving their comprehension and pronunciation skills.

Top 5 Phrases for Daily Communication

  • "I stand with women." - A strong expression of support for women's rights.
  • "High fertility rates." - A term referring to the number of children born in a specific population.
  • "Genuine tension." - A phrase denoting a real conflict or concern between two ideas.
  • "Pronatalism." - The belief that promotes higher birth rates and family planning.
  • "Gender egalitarianism." - The goal of achieving equal rights and opportunities for all genders.

Step-by-step Shadowing Guide

To tackle the linguistic challenges presented in this video, particularly for the purpose of improving English pronunciation, consider adopting the following shadow speak techniques:

  1. Choose a segment: Start by selecting a short clip from the video where the speaker articulates complex ideas clearly.
  2. Listen actively: Play the selected segment multiple times. Pay close attention to the tone, pace, and pronunciation of key phrases.
  3. Pause and imitate: After hearing a sentence, pause the video and try to mimic the speaker's pronunciation and intonation. This exercise enhances your shadowspeak skills.
  4. Record yourself: Use your device to record your imitation. Listening to your recording helps you identify areas for improvement.
  5. Revisit and reflect: After practicing, return to the video and notice any progress in your understanding and pronunciation. Aim to make shadow speech a regular part of your learn English with YouTube routine.

By incorporating these techniques into your practice, you will not only enhance your speaking capabilities but also gain deeper insights into critical social issues discussed in contemporary conversations.

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.