Shadowing Practice: The Worst Form of Immaturity - Learn English Speaking with Video
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One of the things that we established when we were looking at the developmental course of maturation, so tell me what you think about this.
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So it seems to me that a lot of what we see as narcissism is actually something like prolonged immaturity.
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Now, it's a little more complicated than that.
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So the little kids that we studied, and this is true of those who've studied little kids in general
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so there's about five percent of males at the age of two who hit kick bite and steal
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when you put them with other two-year-olds and they're almost all male
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and there's only one in 20 and
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so you could say most two-year-olds aren't psychopathic narcissists by by temperament
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so these are probably the boys who are disagreeable extroverts by temperament right and so they're competitive,
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they're pushy, and when they're very young, they're impulsive.
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Now, most of them are socialized by the age of four.
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Now, our studies of long-term criminality indicated that it was the minority of
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that 5% who weren't socialized by the age of four that became the long-term predatory criminals.
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And it was very difficult to do anything about that after the age four.
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But that's also made me think more recently that what we're seeing as that narcissistic,
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predatory parasitism is probably something like a failure of maturation.
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It's like, rather than being a pathology in and of itself, it's just the maintenance of self-centered immaturity far beyond its expiry date.
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And so I'm wondering what you think of a formulation like that.
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I like that idea and that there is an immaturity to narcissism.
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Just to take it in a little bit of a Freudian direction, it seems you can think,
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you know, if you think about it in terms of sort of Freud's developmental model,
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the narcissism is like being stuck in the phallic stage a little bit rather than being stuck in, say, the oral stage or anal
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So I don't think it's just there can be different types of being immature.
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I think that- Right, right, right.
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It's not dependent, for example.
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Yeah, you're not a dependent, not like, I just need someone to take care of me.
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I'm 50 years old.
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It's more, you get stuck in this, like I should say adolescent, this childish, phallic, masculine, I'm going to do this.
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I'm going to get this.
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And you get stuck in that.
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And that model, you know, you can use it as an adult, but it's kind of like you're a little bit of a cartoon.
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And so that's something I see that it's like you're a cartoon child acting like an adult, like I'm a big deal,
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like the guys that try to be alpha.
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And I'm like, yeah, dude.
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So yeah, I do see.
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Calm down there, buddy.
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Yeah, calm down.
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Come on.
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So I do see that for sure.
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But I do think it's sort of one path in development that you don't develop.
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It's not all the paths.
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Yeah.
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Well, I think that's a good distinction because it shines a light on another sociological or psychological phenomena.
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So one of the things that we see is the rise to a certain type of stardom of people like Andrew Tate.
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And the Andrew Tate phenomenon has really interested me because I have some sympathy for him.
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Now it's limited, but it's limited in the way that you just described.
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So you could imagine that the worst form of immaturity, the most counterproductive form of immaturity would be something like,
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well, the Freudian oral stage.
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If we reformulated that in more modern terminology, that would be something like prolonged infantile immaturity.
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So you're basically stuck as a dependent, right?
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And so you have no, all your locus of control is external.
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All you do is whine to get people to deliver to you what you want.
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Now that's perfectly acceptable if you're six months old, although you could even use smiling at that point and as an invitation.
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But then you might imagine that if you are stuck at that dependent stage and you have a impulse for maturation,
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if someone who was more narcissistic and aggressive came along, they would actually look attractive to you because first of all,
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it would be better to be, it's better to be a narcissistic extrovert than it is to be a dependent infant.
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That doesn't mean it's good, right?
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But it does mean that it's better.
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Yeah.
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Well, and you can think about that from an evolutionary biological perspective too,
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because it's definitely the case that manipulative psychopaths can be successful in finding sexual partners.
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Whereas infantile dependent men, they're just not going anywhere on that side of things because they can't,
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like no women, virtually no women are attracted to infantile dependent men.
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some women are attracted to narcissistic blowhards, right?
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So yeah, is that in keeping with your understanding of the developmental progression?
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Yeah.
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I mean, I think it makes sense.
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And I like how you're saying that.
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Like, look, dude, it's better to be narcissistic and full of yourself if you're a guy than just be a dependent loser.
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But that isn't the highest stage of male development isn't being a peacock.
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It's helping.
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It's being a provider.
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It's doing more than that.
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It's leading a family.
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It's leading people.
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But again, it is better to be narcissistic than just dependent.
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So yeah, it makes sense.
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Oh, you mentioned Andrew Tate.
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I'm kind of old for this,
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but I see a lot of younger guys that are attracted to this more sort of alpha in quotes personality model.
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And I understand it too, because they're not getting a lot of really good male role models out there.
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So they see one that looks sort of cartoonish and seems functional
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and seems to have some agency
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and seems to be navigating life effectively in a way that would be appealing to a 15-year-old guy.
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And so I understand it.
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I just wish we had better role models, you know, but I understand it.
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It might also be, well, it might also be that there is a a time at which that's actually developmentally appropriate.
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So, you know, one of the things we found in our analysis of the development of psychopathology, so imagine with teenagers, okay,
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imagine there's two patterns of, three patterns of living with the rules,
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say when you're 13 to 15 and you're a male.
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Now, it also applies to females, but less so because they're not as aggressive.
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So imagine that you're a 13 to 15-year-old male who never breaks a rule ever.
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Okay, now imagine you're a 13 to 15-year-old and you break a rule all the time, And then imagine that you're somewhere in the middle.
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Okay, so that's the whole distribution.
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Well, the males who never break a rule, they are at higher risk for dependent personality disorder,
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for depression and anxiety later in life.
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Now, the ones on the other end of the spectrum are much more at risk for lifetime criminality,
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let's say, and substance abuse, violence, and all that.
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So there's pathology associated with both extremes with regards to rules.
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Now, the kids in the middle, they are going to experiment.
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And so now you can imagine that if you're a kid who comes from a good home and you're pretty rule oriented,
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there might well be a time between the ages of 13 and 15 or 16,
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something like that, where it's actually appropriate for you to admire the rule breakers to some degree,
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because that's one of the things that pops you out of that childhood dependence on your parents, right?
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But hopefully you would supersede that as you mature.
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And that is the pattern for most men, right?
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I mean, criminality drops off like mad around 25.
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And so does substance abuse, something like that.
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And that's often when men who are like men, women like men, four to five years older.
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And so it makes sense that it's about 25 or so that men start to get their act together.
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And that's when they take that step beyond the more narcissistic
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and showy aspects of masculinity and take on these roles
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that are oriented towards a longer time span and a broader social horizon.
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What you're making me think of is the classic, you know, Jack Block's work on, you know, drug use in Berkeley back in the 70s.
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It was the people who didn't use any and used too much that got into trouble.
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And then there's this golden mean in the middle.
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And you see that golden mean in a lot of things where you want to have a little edge, but not too much edge.
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You don't want to be perfectly moral, but you don't want to be immoral.
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There's always that little bit of edge.
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And you're right, developmentally, I think it's appropriate for young guys to kind of go to
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that little darker side for a while, maybe.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “The Worst Form of Immaturity”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: dependent, imagine, narcissistic, male, rule. This video has 121 sentences and 1511 words to shadow. The speech runs for 9:16. The speaker talks at a natural 163 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 84% 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 |
|---|---|---|
| dependent adjective | /dɪˈpɛndənt/ | Relying upon; depending upon. |
| attract verb | /əˈtɹækt/ | To pull toward without touching. |
| developmental adjective | /dɪˌvɛləpˈmɛntəl/ | Related to development. |
| aggressive adjective | /əˈɡɹɛs.ɪv/ | Characterized by aggression; highly combative; prone to behave in a way that involves attacking (especially if unjustly) or arguing. |
| oral adjective | /ˈɔː.ɹəl/ | Relating to the mouth. |
| alpha noun | /ˈæl.fə/ | The name of the first letter of the Greek alphabet (Α, α), followed by beta. In the Latin alphabet it is the predecessor to A. |
| substance noun | /ˈsʌbstəns/ | Physical matter; material. |
| phenomenon noun | /fəˈnɒm.ɪ.nən/ | A thing or being, event or process, perceptible through senses; or a fact or occurrence thereof. |
| cartoon noun | /kɑɹˈtun/ | A humorous drawing, often with a caption, or a strip of such drawings. |
| pathology noun | /pəˈθɒləd͡ʒi/ | The clinical biomedical specialty that provides microscopy and other laboratory services to clinicians (e.g., cytology, histology, cytopathology… |
| complicated adjective | /ˈkɑm.plɪˌkeɪ.tɪd/ | Difficult or convoluted. |
| establish verb | /ɪˈstæb.lɪʃ/ | To make stable or firm; to confirm. |
| moral adjective | /ˈmoɹəl/ | Of or relating to principles of right and wrong in behaviour, especially conforming to principles of rectitude. |
| anxiety noun | /æŋˈzaɪ.əti/ | An unpleasant state of mental uneasiness, nervousness, apprehension and obsession or concern about some uncertain event. |
| aspect noun | /ˈæspɛkt/ | Any specific feature, part, or element of something. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| calm down verb | To become less excited, intense, or angry. |
| come along verb | To accompany. |
| drop off verb | To fall asleep. |
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 | are socialized · weren't socialized · being stuck |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | someone who was · kid who comes · men who are |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | who've studied · has really interested |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 44 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, they're, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: pathology /pəˈθɒləd͡ʒi/, sympathy /ˈsɪm.pəθ.i/, psychopath /ˈsaɪkəʊpæθ/, psychopathic /ˌsaɪkoʊˈpæθɪk/, psychopathology /ˌsaɪ̯kɒpəˈθɒlədʒɪ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: establish /ɪˈstæb.lɪʃ/, associate /əˈsoʊʃi.ət/, shine /ʃaɪn/, invitation /ɪnvɪˈteɪʃən/, distinction /dɪˈstɪŋkʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: developmental /dɪˌvɛləpˈmɛntəl/, phenomenon /fəˈnɒm.ɪ.nən/, pathology /pəˈθɒləd͡ʒi/, complicated /ˈkɑm.plɪˌkeɪ.tɪd/, anxiety /æŋˈzaɪ.əti/
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 dependent, attract, developmental.
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.