Shadowing Practice: The Red Flags You Keep Ignoring - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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There's a familiar expression that captures a deep psychological truth.
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When people tell you who they are, believe them.
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What does this mean?
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That certain people constantly reveal to us some of their deep-seated inclinations towards unkindness, treachery, vanity and selfishness.
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They make no bones about their cowardice or greed.
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They may simply and in broad daylight,
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declare their harmful natures and take no precautions in offering up stories from which a negative moral is blatantly clear.
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But for our part, we miss every one of these clues.
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We remain too hopeful, too naive, too much on the other side
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and not enough on our own to trust in the omens we are witnessing
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and in the process we may destroy our lives.
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someone who never returns any of our generosity, or someone who tells us they didn't mean to hurt us by flirting with other people but continues to do so regardless,
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or someone who intermittently disappears without warning, or someone who again and again responds with defensiveness to ideas that matter to us,
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or someone who greets every warm comment from us with curt, dismissive replies, or someone who never invites us to meet any of their friends,
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or someone who is half-hearted in saying thank you, or always says maybe when we need a yes, or someone who never asks us anything about ourselves.
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All these are, in their way, extremely clear communications.
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They are ways for our interlocutors to tell us in ironclad terms, in effect, I am not to be trusted,
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I don't respect you, I have other things that matter more to me than you, your feelings aren't a concern to me, I don't love you, I don't have a moral code,
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I'm not accountable and I will put my comfort far above your needs.
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One would think that such alarming truths would immediately enter our consciousness and lead us to walk away and defend our interests.
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The problem is that some of us are not remotely built to notice the attacks on us by others.
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We listen and we look, but the deeper import of what we're witnessing evades us.
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Yes, of course, the other person does seem a bit distracted, we can concede that.
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But perhaps they're busy or exhausted or taken up temporarily with other thoughts.
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And yes, it's true that their behaviour isn't entirely gentle or considerate, but isn't it the case that they were pretty kind to us a year ago
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and once promised to take us out for a treat, even if they did later forget to do so?
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The thing we can't do is lay appropriate and proportionate emphasis on the darkness.
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The truth that we have a dangerous con artist or worse on our hands constantly escapes us.
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And the reason is simple.
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We were never educated to despair correctly of people who frustrated, neglected, ignored, tantalized or blindfolded us.
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We weren't able to squarely acknowledge the harmful nature of those around us
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when we were children because these people happened to carry the title of parent or caregiver.
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And no child can afford to give up cleanly on those on whom its existence depends.
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No child can believe in the full bad news of their families of birth.
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Which is why the truth gets twisted unbearably.
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My father is lovely.
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He's just a bit tough.
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My father did care for me.
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He just got married to someone else.
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My mother is sweet.
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She's just busy.
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My stepfather is nice.
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He just looks at me a little bit strangely at times.
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From this enforced generosity towards the harmfulness of others,
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we develop a lifelong bias towards not believing bad news from people in our circle.
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When we end up in a relationship with someone who, beneath a sweet manner, constantly disrespects us, it may take us five years to wake up to the humiliation.
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The last thing on our mind is that someone close to us could be a disreputable turncoat.
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even though the signs may have been piling up and all our true friends knew it from the start.
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Once we wake up and learn to properly believe the negative verdicts we're being served up, there will, it is true,
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be far fewer individuals we'd ever consider dating, working with, marrying, or continuing to spend time around.
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That sounds like a pity, but it's an even greater pity, indeed a tragedy, to keep insisting that certain people are decent,
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about to take us seriously or are faithful, when they're not.
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We need to finally
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and fairly give up on those who betray us in order to recover a lost loyalty towards someone we've neglected
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and disrespected for far too long.
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Our vulnerable, worthy, true, intelligent selves.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 56 sentences and 793 words to shadow. The speech runs for 4:53. The speaker talks at a natural 162 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 |
|---|---|---|
| moral adjective | /ˈmoɹəl/ | Of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behaviour, especially conforming to principles of rectitude. |
| pity noun | /ˈpɪt.i/ | A feeling of sympathy at the misfortune or suffering of someone or something. |
| harmful adjective | /ˈhɑɹmfl̩/ | Causing or likely to cause harm or damage; injurious. |
| neglect verb | /nɪˈɡlɛkt/ | To fail to care for or attend to something. |
| disrespect noun | /dɪsɹɪˈspɛkt/ | A lack of respect, esteem or courteous behavior. |
| generosity noun | /ˌd͡ʒɛn.əˈɹɑ.sə.ti/ | The trait of being willing to donate money, resources, or time. |
| ignore verb | /ɪɡˈnɔː/ | To deliberately not listen or pay attention to. |
| regardless adverb | /ɹɪˈɡɑɹd.lɪs/ | Without attention to warnings or indications of bad consequences. |
| bone noun | /boʊn/ | A composite material consisting largely of calcium phosphate and collagen and making up the skeleton of most vertebrates. |
| defend verb | /dɪˈfɪnd/ | To ward off attacks against (something or someone). |
| reveal verb | /ɹɪˈviːl/ | To uncover; to show and display that which was hidden. |
| capture verb | /ˈkæp.(t)ʃɚ/ | To take control of; to seize by force or stratagem. |
| comfort noun | /ˈkʌm.fət/ | Contentment, ease. |
| decent adjective | /ˈdiː.sənt/ | Appropriate; suitable for the circumstances. |
| marry verb | /ˈmæɹi/ | To enter into the conjugal or connubial state; to take a husband or a wife. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| give up verb | To surrender (someone or something); to inform on (someone). | |
| pile up verb | To form a pile, stack, or heap. | |
| take up verb | To pick up. | |
| wake up verb | /ˌweɪk ˈʌp/ | To stop sleeping; to awake. |
| walk away verb | To withdraw from a problematic situation. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | someone who never · someone who intermittently · someone who greets |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | be trusted · were never educated · being served |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 16 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, isn't, they're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: worthy /ˈwɝ.ði/, beneath /bɪˈniːθ/, faithful /ˈfeɪθ.fl̩/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: capture /ˈkæp.(t)ʃɚ/, consciousness /ˈkɑnʃəsnəs/, humiliation /hjuːˌmɪliˈeɪʃən/, inclination /ˌɪn.klɪˈneɪ.ʃən/, precaution /pɹiːˈkɔ.ʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: generosity /ˌd͡ʒɛn.əˈɹɑ.sə.ti/, intelligent /ɪnˈtɛlɪd͡ʒənt/, psychological /ˌsaɪ.kəˈlɑː.d͡ʒɪ.kl̩/, temporarily /ˌtɛmpəˈɹɛɹəli/, humiliation /hjuːˌmɪliˈeɪʃən/
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 moral, pity, harmful.
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.