Shadowing Practice: Things to Know Before Reading Pride and Prejudice | How to Read Jane Austen for Beginners - Learn English Speaking with Video
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So have you ever been watching Pride and Prejudice and it's just
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so great and romantic and it inspires you to read the book, but then you open the book and what do you find?
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Yes, it's a classic masterpiece, but it's full of confusing language and strange etiquette and who even knows what's going on in this thing.
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Well, that is why this video is here to help you understand all the things
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that you need to know before reading Pride and Prejudice so that you can have a smoother time
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enjoying the world of Elizabeth and Darcy.
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So if you would like to learn all about that then definitely stay tuned for today's video.
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My name is Ellie Dashwood and this is my channel where we talk about history and literature.
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If you like either of those things please subscribe.
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So in preparation for making this video, I actually went online and read a lot of one star Pride and Prejudice reviews.
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These are the people who bought Pride and Prejudice, read Pride and Prejudice, and then just really disliked it for one reason or the other.
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And I discovered that there was a common theme among most of them.
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The vast majority of the commons could be boiled down to the same common problem
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that could be fixed by one fact about Pride and Prejudice alone.
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And that fact is that Pride and Prejudice was published in 1813.
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That makes it about 209 years old.
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Now that might seem like a really basic fact, but it actually changes everything.
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Why?
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Well, there's this famous quote that goes, the past is a different country.
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They do things differently there.
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And that is so, so, so true when it comes to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.
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She lived in a world that is totally different from us.
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It really is like a different country where people speak and think and act differently.
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So here in today's video, we're going to be breaking down some of those differences.
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For example, in the way they think, they act, they make money, they get married, they even write.
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Because I know a lot of people also struggle with the way Jane Austen writes
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and that has a huge historical component to it as well.
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First up, let's talk about how they speak differently.
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So it will probably come as no surprise to you that language changes.
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Even in my own lifetime, I've seen major shifts in language.
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I don't understand a lot of like the new
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and trending phrases on the internet unless I ask my teenage sister what it means.
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And then when I do, she's like, you're old.
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Over the past 200 years, the English language has changed dramatically.
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And that's definitely one of the first things people notice when they start reading Pride and Prejudice.
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The language itself is different.
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It's not the English as native English speakers we speak today.
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Some of the major components of this is Jane Austen is definitely using more complicated sentence structures than we often do today.
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But also a lot of the words themselves are different.
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Austen uses a lot of words that have either completely fallen out of everyday use or have changed their meaning throughout time.
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So for example, one of the phrases we hear a lot in all of her books
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and general literature from the time is affected manners or unaffected manners.
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So for example, when we first meet Mr. Bingley in the story, we get this description of him that he has easy unaffected manners.
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Now, if you say the terms unaffected manners or affected manners to most anyone today,
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you're gonna get a blank stare because these are not words we normally use.
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What did affected manners mean in Jane Austen's time?
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Well, basically it meant someone was acting fake.
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And so if we really break down the phrase, effect means pretty much to act.
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So these people are acting like they have better different qualities or manners than they really do.
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Affected manners would be like a fake mask.
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Someone would put over their true qualities.
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Now, why would someone do this?
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So that they could appear to better social advantage in society.
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We're talking about an era that had a strict code of conduct, very defined limits between what was acceptable
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and non-acceptable behavior based on your social class and on your gender and on your age, on your marital status.
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There were so many restrictions on them.
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They had more reason than ever to pretend to be something they weren't
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because being who they really were was not always socially acceptable.
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For example, a young lady might be naturally self-confident and with it, but she knows that Regency Society thinks young ladies should be demure
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and bashful and she may act that way when around others, even though that's not really who she is on the inside because she's trying to affect,
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she's trying to act like society would like her to.
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Now personally, me, my everyday life, unless I'm talking to someone who's clearly being fake like a car salesman or something,
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I don't generally go around asking myself, does this person I met just have affected manners?
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Right?
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I don't think most people do, but in the Regency they really did.
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That was one of the major things they looked for when they met someone new.
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It was like, is this person tall or short?
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Rich or poor?
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Affected or unaffected?
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Which I think this really demonstrates another important difference between their time and ours, which is the fact that they thought differently.
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They were using phrases like affected manners to express concepts that were different from ours.
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Now let's talk about how they really did think about the world in a fundamentally different way than we do.
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So the first line of Pride and Prejudice starts out, it is a truth universally acknowledged.
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And really every generation has its truth that to them are universally acknowledged.
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For example, most people in our modern era do in fact recognize that the earth is a globe.
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However, there were whole generations of people on the planet
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that thought the earth was flat and that you might sail off the edge of it if you went too far.
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This just shows that different generations have different ideas and they just very strongly believe in those said ideas.
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They think it is reality.
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Likewise, Jane Austen's era had many ideas that to them were absolute reality.
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They had far different ideas about human rights and equality
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and women and marriage and religion and science and so many different things.
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And really so many of the fundamental building blocks were different in the era.
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However, they also had a lot of ideas and ideals that we don't even tend to think about anymore as a society.
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A good example of this is the concept of the picturesque.
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So in the most basic terms, something is picturesque landscape-wise if it would make a beautiful picture.
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So for example, if you see a really pretty sunset and you're like, I gotta pull out my phone to take a picture of this.
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It's at that moment you decided that sunset is picturesque.
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It's pretty enough to become a picture.
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However, in Jane Austen's time, this concept went so much deeper.
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There were theories and rules and taste and criticism involved in the picturesque.
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The people who understood what was truly picturesque were seen as superior to those who either pretended or honestly were like, I don't care about the picturesque.
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Now this might seem just like a really obscure topic.
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However, there are whole scenes in Jane Austen's books that would make almost no sense if you don't understand this idea.
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And for Regency readers reading these scenes about characters interacting with the picturesque, it would have been character defining for them.
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They're like, oh, this character is one of those people who truly understands the picturesque.
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They're a picturesque connoisseur.
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I have all these preconceived ideas and judgments of them because of this.
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So really even an idea as basic as what the picturesque was, was important to the time and it's important to understanding the story.
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And in understanding characters within that story, as I said, it was a character defining trait.
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Now you may have noticed with someone being affected or unaffected or appreciating the picturesque or not,
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there seems to be a lot of character defining traits in the Regency era.
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And that is definitely true, especially in this next topic we're going to delve into, which is they acted differently.
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So I think one of the main things people immediately connect with Jane Austen books is etiquette.
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They're like, those books, they're full of etiquette.
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If I ever met Jane Austen, she would look down on me because I'm not good at etiquette.
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And really that scene in Pride and Prejudice when Darcy runs into Elizabeth at his house, and it's so awkward.
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And the first thing he does is ask if her family is in good health.
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I mean, the thing has become a meme because it's like he has incredible etiquette, even amid awkwardness.
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And really the Regency world was full of etiquette and codes of conduct and manners.
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As I've spoken about in other videos, they lived in a social hierarchy based society that had a huge emphasis on respect.
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They had to constantly know their own social status as opposed to everyone they're around so that they could act accordingly.
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They needed to know how to curtsy and who to curtsy to.
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They needed to know how to pay social calls, start relationships, end relationships.
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Even just greeting people on the street had rules.
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All of this gave them a lot of different social constraints.
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They couldn't just say the things they wanted to.
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They couldn't act the way they wished they could.
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However, it also gave them a lot of security and stability in different social situations.
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They knew what to do.
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There was like a formula they could fall back on.
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So for example, in the first couple chapters of Pride and Prejudice, we see this new guy move into the Bennett's neighborhood and Mrs. Bennett tells Mr. Bennett, you should go visit him.
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Now there are rules Mr. Bennett needs to visit him in the afternoon for about 15 minutes
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and cover acceptable topics of conversation.
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Bennett doesn't have to guess what he needs to do.
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It's very well laid out for him his requirements.
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Now depending on how you look at it, these social conventions can be seen as helpful and comforting or stressful and oppressive.
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And we really see them presented as both in Jane Austen's books.
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We see Mr. Darcy again falling back on that ability just to ask about her family's health in a super awkward situation.
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Just think, what would Darcy have done otherwise?
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It would have been extra awkward had he not had anything to say.
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Meanwhile, when we have Elizabeth not wanting to dance with an unwanted suitor at the Netherfield ball,
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she doesn't have really the ability to tell him no. Thereby, social conventions are causing her social humiliation.
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For better or worse, this etiquette was there running their lives and sometimes ruining their lives.
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However, their standards of conduct went so much deeper than surface stuff like how to curtsy or how to be introduced.
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For example, to be a gentleman, a man was supposed to live up to a code of conduct where he was supposed to be honorable
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and gallant and be protective of the women around him and just be generally caring and considerate and well-mannered.
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Meanwhile, women were supposed to be accomplished and virtuous and chaste and pious.
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This created very distinct gender norms in the era that affected every aspect of their lives.
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So for example, when we see young women going to balls to dance with possible suitors, there were rules in place.
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Young women needed a chaperone or a married woman to go with them to protect their character and their purity.
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That chaperone was usually their mother but it could be another responsible married woman like an older sister, an aunt, or a family friend.
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Meanwhile, did young men need chaperones to go to balls?
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No. They enjoyed much more freedom in the era personally and honestly sexually.
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There was a major double sexual standard when it came to men and women but that's a whole other topic.
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This does lead us to the next major thing they did different in the era though which is get married.
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So people joke that Jane Austen books don't end until everybody is married and it's pretty much true.
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One of the reasons marriage is such a fundamental aspect of her novels is
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because the time period viewed marriage very differently from how it's viewed today.
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One basic reason is because more or less there was no divorce.
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It's estimated that about 40% of people who get married today in the United Kingdom will get divorced.
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Thousands and thousands of divorces happen every single year.
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Now, what was it like in 1800?
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Well, in the early 1800s, if like five couples got divorced that year, that was a major year for divorce.
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It's like, wow, five couples got divorced this year.
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Who knows what's becoming of marriage these days?
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So when a young couple got married in the Regency era, the expectation and the reality was they were going to be married until one of them died.
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That in itself heightens the intensity around marriage, that there was no easier way of getting out of it.
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You had to make sure you really wanted to be married to that person.
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But the thing that complicates marriage in the Regency even more is the money matters.
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Gonna talk more about how they made money in a minute.
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But most basically the upper class in the Regency era, their families were dual incomes.
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They required money coming in both from the husband and from the wife.
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Now a lot of people think of dual incomes as being a modern concept
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but it's really not and it was actually the standard for their class.
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Both a woman would be trying to marry a man with enough money
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and the lesser talked about fact but very very very true fact was young men also needed to marry women with money.
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They both needed to marry money in order to maintain their comfortable lifestyles.
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However, they also were a very romantic generation.
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They wanted to love someone when they married them and that person needed to be of the right social class.
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So here we see they have to be at least somewhat rich.
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They needed to be of the right social class.
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You had to like them.
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You had love them, you had to be okay being stuck with them until one of you guys died.
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That's a lot to ask for marriage and this could get complicated by so many factors.
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For example, what if you don't have enough money to attract a mate?
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Or what if you have a lot of money and you attract fortune hunters?
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Or what if you fall in love with someone who's not of the same social class?
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So much drama could go down.
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Now you could say, well they could just not get married and that was an option for the wealthier members of society, both men and women.
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They didn't have to get married, but for a lot of people to really achieve
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that comfortable lifestyle they were going for required the combining of resources in some way in that marriage.
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Especially for young women, there were not a lot of occupations
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that were acceptable or appealing for young women of the upper class.
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And really none of those occupations they could have gone into would have maintained them in the upper class
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that it would have been a huge hit to their social standing and their finances to go into any of them.
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The true path for financial security for women in this era was either to be rich themselves
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or to marry a rich man.
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And for the majority of women, they only really had the marry a rich man option.
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Which speaking of money, how on earth do any of the Pride and Prejudice characters even get money, right?
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Let's talk about that.
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Welcome to the section of this video called, They Made Money Differently.
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I know my sections of this video, they just have fascinating names, right?
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Yeah.
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This is one of the things I think that really confuses people when they first read Pride and Prejudice because it's like,
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all these people do is gossip with each other at other people's houses and go to balls.
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When do they work?
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How are they rich?
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Where's the money coming from?
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Those are excellent questions and we're about to answer them here for you.
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The two main groups of people we see in Pride and Prejudice are the landed gentry and those in trade.
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First up let's talk about how the landed gentry made their money.
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So who were the landed gentry?
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Well basically they were families that owned a lot of land.
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Now how they made money was from the land.
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They would rent out the land and have tenants.
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They would make money and other ways through agriculture, forestry, mining, residential or commercial development.
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Basically think of these guys as major landlords.
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Examples of landage entry that we have in the book are families like the Bennetts and the Darceys.
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That's where their money is coming from.
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Another way the landage entry made money was through investments.
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They would save up money from those rents they would get from their tenants
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and they would put them in investments that gave them four to 5% annually.
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So for example, if a family invested 30,000 pounds,
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they could expect to get 1,200 to 1,500 pounds back on that.
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And that right there, that 1,500 would have been a very, very comfortable income for someone in the era.
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Now this is how young women of these families ended up with money.
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Their families would do one of these investments for them.
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For example, in Pride and Prejudice, Mr. Darcy's sister Georgiana has 30,000 pounds.
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That's going to give her that 1,200 to 1,500 annually to contribute to that dual income when she gets married.
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That's what she's going to be bringing in.
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And because the landed gentry most often married other members of the landed gentry, she could marry some young man who's going to inherit his father's estates.
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And so he'd be bringing in the rental income from that as from being a landlord.
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And combined, that would be how their family made money.
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That's a very basic overview of this.
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I go into this topic way deeper on so many videos on my channel.
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Now let's talk about the second group in Pride and Prejudice is those in trade.
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Now as the name might suggest, they made their money in business and commercial activity.
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The families we see who've made money this way include the Bingley's, the Lucases and the Gardeners.
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What's really interesting about the Bingley's and the Lucases though, is they're trying to transition from people being in trade to
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the more socially prestigious aspect of being a member of the landed gentry.
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They're trying to move up in social climb by leaving trade,
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using money their family has saved up to buy land and transition into being members of the gentry.
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The whole video on this topic as well so I'm not going to go into too much of that here.
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All of these families ultimate goal in life was to live a life of leisure.
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Of having to do nothing but pretty much run their estates with the help of servants and agents.
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One of the things they would do in their leisure time though would be read novels.
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So now let's talk about the fact that even novels were written differently back then.
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So we can take the novel for kind of granted now, but it's actually a rather modern development.
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It only came into the world about 30 years before Jane Austen herself was born.
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This means that Jane Austen was an early pioneer of this new written form.
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She really left her mark on it.
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One of the things she was really noted for was her social realism.
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So for example, she doesn't ever write about two perfect heroines getting kidnapped by murderous uncles and held hostage in Italian castles.
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Right?
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That's not her style.
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She was very realistic in what she wrote.
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And this brings us to another thing that her novels are usually noted for, which is they are novels of manners.
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Or basically, she accurately maps the manners and social codes of her own era.
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And in many ways, her works act as commentary on those.
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For example, we see Jean Austin questioning the legitimacy and the basis of social norms in her era.
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For example, in Prejudice, Lady Catherine de Bourgh is the highest socially ranking woman in the whole book.
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And yet she doesn't really have the behavior that would befit a true lady.
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Meanwhile, we see Mr. Collins, who we just tend to lose respect for throughout the whole story.
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But again, he's supposed to represent that authority of the church.
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Meanwhile, we even see within the family, Elizabeth's parents aren't exactly the people you can go to when times get tough.
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Their parental authority is even lacking.
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Jane Austen also uses something called free indirect discourse that many people say she even invented,
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which is where her narrator can switch between the perspective of the different characters in the story
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and sometimes it almost feels like that character has taken over the narration of the story itself.
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A great example of this is the very first line of Pride and Prejudice when it says, it is a truth universally acknowledged
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that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.
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Now if you really look at this line, it raises the question, who universally acknowledges this.
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Is it the single men?
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Not likely.
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They doubtlessly have a whole variety of different things they're interested in life than just finding a wife,
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especially in Jane Austen's era where quite a few wealthy men were notorious for just wanting to stay single their whole life.
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Well, we discover exactly who thinks this a few lines down when it says, however little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighborhood.
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This truth is so well fixed in the minds of surrounding families
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that he is considered as the rightful property of someone or other of their daughters.
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So basically it's the families with eligible young daughters that think this.
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So really from the very first line of Pride and Prejudice, Austen already has us in the head of a group of people.
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A group of people who happen to have a very funny, un-universally acknowledged, self-serving belief.
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This line in itself shows Jane Austen's keen interest in human nature,
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her wit and irony, and advanced writing techniques that definitely left their mark on all novelists after her.
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Now that we've discussed so many of the highlights of Jane Austen's writing, let's talk about how it's different from what we're used to as modern readers.
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Jane Austen's writing is definitely one thing, not of the 21st century.
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It's not even of the 20th century.
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It's of 200 years ago and over the past 200 years, writing styles have definitely changed.
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There's been developments and twists and turns
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and now the way someone is taught to write a novel is completely different from how Austen wrote.
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If Austen was back with me in college creative writing class sitting next to me, she'd get her paper back full of red pen.
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The teacher would be telling her to show don't tell, to make sentences less complicated, basically to become a better writer.
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Now does that mean that Jane Austen's book is not good?
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Of course not.
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It's simply not the style that is considered ideal today.
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She's not on trend per se.
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Because as modern readers we're used to reading modern writing, it can be hard to get used to Jane Austen's style.
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I feel like this is especially true for people who really love reading historical fiction.
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Why?
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Because Pride and Prejudice is not historical fiction.
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It's classic literature.
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What is the difference?
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Well, historical fiction is written by a modern author about a past time, while classic literature is written in the past time.
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In other words, Jane Austen isn't a woman in 2022 writing about 1813.
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She's a woman in 1813 writing about 1813.
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And that's important because it dramatically changes the way an author writes a book.
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In what ways?
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Well, first, modern authors write according to those modern writing standards that we already talked about.
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Basically, they write what we're used to reading.
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Second, historical fiction authors are modern people themselves writing for a modern audience.
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They're not going to include confusing references to the picturesque because A, that's not how they think themselves and B,
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they know that's not something that their audience would understand.
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Third, and I think one of the biggest issues
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when it comes to historical fiction is historical fiction authors explain historical facts while Jane Austen assumes her audience already knows.
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Jane Austen was writing her books for her contemporaries living right there next to her in Regency England.
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She didn't need to explain how carriages worked or different social etiquette
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or the duties of a housemaid because everybody she was writing for already knew.
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However, when historical fiction author writes about these things, they often tend to try to explain things or bridge that gap of understanding for their audience.
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When a reader who's used to an author explaining things like that encounters Pride and Prejudice, where Jane Austen assumes everyone already knows,
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it can be a bit of a shock.
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All of this dives back into the most basic fact we've been examining here.
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Pride and Prejudice was published in 1813 and they did things differently back then.
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As we've seen in this video, they spoke differently, thought differently, married differently, made money differently, wrote differently.
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They even looked at nature differently.
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And really it's those differences I think that make Pride and Prejudice hard for modern readers to understand.
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It's what makes it frustrating.
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It prevents them from enjoying the Darcy and Elizabeth romance because there's just too much etiquette going on.
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How do you overcome this and really get to appreciate Jane Austen's masterpiece?
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Well a major factor is learning more about history, learning more about Jane Austen and the writing of the period.
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And that's actually one of the major aims of my YouTube channel.
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Here we talk about history, literature, and helping us understand important questions like, is Mr. Darcy really rich?
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Are the Bennets poor?
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And does Elizabeth even love Darcy?
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Major romantic questions happen in there.
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And so really these videos are there to help bridge
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that gap between our era and their era so that you can appreciate your favorite books.
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even better.
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Let me know in the comments down below what are some of the biggest questions you've had
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while reading Pride and Prejudice or watching the movie even.
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What confuses you?
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What's the most frustrating thing about the story or the writing?
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Let me know in the comments down below and make sure to subscribe
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if you would like to learn more and ultimately keep being awesome because you're awesome.
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Bye!
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Thank you.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Things to Know Before Reading Pride and Prejudice”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: Jane, Prejudice, Pride. This video has 336 sentences and 4649 words to shadow. The speech runs for 27:33. The speaker talks at a natural 169 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 85% 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
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| picturesque adjective | /ˌpɪkt͡ʃəˈɹɛsk/ | Resembling or worthy of a picture or painting; having the qualities of a picture or painting; pleasingly beautiful. |
| etiquette noun | /ˈɛt.ɪˌkɛt/ | The manners or decent behaviour to be observed in social or professional life; conventional decorum; the ceremonial code of polite society. |
| gentry noun | /ˈd͡ʒɛntɹi/ | Birth; condition; rank by birth. |
| unaffected adjective | /ˌʌnəˈfɛktɪd/ | Not affected or changed. |
| universally adverb | /ˌjunɪˈvɝsəli/ | In a universal manner. |
| confuse verb | /kənˈfjuːz/ | to puzzle, perplex, baffle, bewilder (somebody); to afflict by being complicated, contradictory, or otherwise difficult to understand |
| acknowledge verb | /əkˈnɑ.lɪd͡ʒ/ | To admit the knowledge of; to recognize as a fact or truth; to declare one's belief in. |
| curtsey noun | /ˈkɝtsɪ/ | A small bow, generally performed by a woman or a girl, where she crosses the shin of one leg behind the calf of her other leg and briefly bends her knees to… |
| socially adverb | /ˈsoʊʃəli/ | In a social manner; sociably. |
| chaperone noun | /ˈʃæ.pəˌɹoʊn/ | An older person who accompanies other younger people to ensure the propriety of their behaviour, often an older woman accompanying a young woman. |
| frustrate verb | /ˈfɹʌsˌtɹeɪt/ | To disappoint or defeat; to vex by depriving of something expected or desired. |
| trait noun | /tɹeɪt/ | An identifying characteristic, habit or trend. |
| tenant noun | /ˈtɛ.nənt/ | One who holds a lease (a tenancy). |
| masterpiece noun | /ˈmæstɚˌpis/ | A piece of work that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career. |
| leisure noun | /ˈlɛʒə(ɹ)/ | Freedom provided by the cessation of activities. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| break down verb | To stop functioning. |
| fall back on verb | To turn to as a substitute; to rely on as a backup. |
| get out of verb | To leave, exit or escape from; to become free of. |
| go around verb | To move or spread from person to person. |
| go down verb | To descend; to move from a higher place to a lower one. |
| look down on verb | To regard or treat as inferior. |
| pull out verb | To withdraw; especially of military forces; to retreat. |
| put over verb | To state or explain (a concept) in a clear, understandable manner. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- First up, let's talk about how they speak differently.
- Who knows what's becoming of marriage these days?
- Where's the money coming from?
- Basically, they write what we're used to reading.
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | have you ever been watching · we've been examining |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | I've seen · has changed · have changed |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | could be boiled · could be fixed · was published |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | people who bought · ours, which is · people who understood |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 55 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, they're, we're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: socially /ˈsoʊʃəli/, chaperone /ˈʃæ.pəˌɹoʊn/, leisure /ˈlɛʒə(ɹ)/, occupation /ˌɑkjʊˈpeɪʃən/, restriction /ɹɪˈstɹɪkʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: unaffected /ˌʌnəˈfɛktɪd/, universally /ˌjunɪˈvɝsəli/, occupation /ˌɑkjʊˈpeɪʃən/, realism /ˈɹi.əlɪzəm/, hierarchy /ˈhaɪ.ə.ɹɑː(ɹ).ki/
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 picturesque, etiquette, gentry.
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.