Shadowing Practice: Who Am I? - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Over a lifetime, all of us change to an extraordinary degree.
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From a physical perspective, we start off as a little bundle about 50 cm high, with cherubic features and elastic soft skin.
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And then we may end up, some 90 years later, as a stooped, grey, liver -spotted, 180 cm high structure.
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In the intervening period, every single cell in our body will have been replaced,
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often many times over, and will have gone through all kinds of experiences that perhaps leave almost no trace in memory.
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The 25 -year -old won't remember most of what the 5 -year -old felt so strongly about.
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The 67 -year -old will only dimly recall what was on their mind as they approached 30.
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We carry the same name throughout our lives and consider ourselves as a relatively stable, unitary entity.
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But is it really right to think of ourselves as the same person?
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Once one puts it under a philosophical microscope, the issue of personal identity emerges as far trickier than at first assumed.
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So in what ways could we be said to be continuous throughout time?
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What does guarantee that we can plausibly think of ourselves as the same people over a lifetime?
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Just where is personal identity located?
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A standard assumption is that it's our body that guarantees our personal identity.
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This is the theory that a key part of what makes me me is that I'm housed in an identical body.
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But philosophers like to push this assumption around a little.
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Imagine if I lost all my hair, would I still be me?
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Yes, sure.
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What if I lost a finger?
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Yes, a leg?
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Definitely.
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Now, what if a malevolent demon appeared and told us that we'd have to lose every part of our bodies, but could keep just one bit.
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Which bit would it be?
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Few of us would pick our elbow or belly button.
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Almost all of us would pick our brains.
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Now that tells us something interesting.
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We assume implicitly that some bits of our bodies are more me -ish, closer to the core of personal identity than others.
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And the most me -ish of all the bits are our brains.
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Christianity runs a version of this thought experiment.
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It asked us to think what will happen after our death, and it imagines a separation of the body, ultimately not that significant, and the ongoing survival of a more modest,
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precious bit that it calls the soul.
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There's another version of this thought experiment that two lovers can play.
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In the early throes of love, two people who've gone to bed together might ask, what do you really like about me?
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The wrong answer is to say your fabulous breasts or your amazing muscular arms.
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Breasts and chest don't ultimately feel me -ish enough to be a respectable answer.
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It seems we want to be loved for something closer to our real self, perhaps our soul or our brain.
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Now let's push the thought experiment further.
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What bit of the brain is actually most crucial to being me?
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Let's imagine that I have a bump to the head and lose my ability to play table tennis.
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Am I still myself?
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Most of us would say yes, sure.
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What if I once spoke Latin and lose the ability or forgot how to cook asparagus with a light mayonnaise sauce?
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Would I still be me?
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Yes.
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In other words, technical capacities don't feel very close to the core of personal identity.
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What about other kinds of memories?
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A big part of making me me Tends to be my
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store of memories I remember the carpet in my bedroom
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when I was growing up or the girl I was in love with at university
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or the weather over Sydney as we came into land for my first Australian book tour
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But what if these memories all vanished as well?
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Could I still be me?
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One view is possibly so long as something else remained and that thing we can call my character.
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In other words, if my characteristic way of responding to situations, my sense of what is funny,
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wise, interesting or important remain the same, I can still in some fundamental way claim to be the same person.
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My memory store of feelings and behaviors might be gone, but I could be assured of continuing to feel and behave in compatible ways in the future.
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Those around me would need to keep reminding me of stuff that had happened, but they would still recognize me as me.
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A fascinating idea comes into view.
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Personal identity seems to consist not in bodily survival, I could be put in somebody else's body or live in a jar and still be me,
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nor in the survival of memory, I could forget everything and still be me, but in the survival of what we're here going to call character.
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This is an idea attributed to the English philosopher John Locke who famously wrote
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that personal identity is made up of what he called sameness of consciousness.
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If a demon offered us a choice between remembering everything but feeling and valuing very differently,
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or feeling and valuing the same sorts of things but remembering nothing, most of us would, Locke suggests, choose the latter.
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So, if we have to boil personal identity down to its essence, it seems to come down to values, inclinations and temperament.
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Let's think of death with all this in mind.
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The standard view of death is that it's sad because it means the end of our identity.
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Now, it certainly does mean the end
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if we identify identity with the survival of our bodies or with that of our memories.
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But if we think that who we are is to a large degree about our values and uncharacteristic loves and hates, then we are, in a sense,
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granted a kind of immortality simply through the fact that these will continue to live on in our species as a whole,
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lodged here and there, outside of their present home.
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Perhaps what we have learnt to call a me was only
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ever a temporary resting place for a set of ideas
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and proclivities that are far are far older and are destined to live on far longer than our bodies.
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We might attempt to be less sad about death by letting go of the idea
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that we are a particular constellation of physical features.
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We are always in a sense far longer lasting, far more transgenerational as a bundle of inclinations and ideas.
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We will continue to crop up and live wherever those ideas
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that are most characteristic of us will emerge as they must in the generations that are to come.
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Focusing in on questions of identity has the paradoxical
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and rather cheering effect of making us both less attached to certain bits of us
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and more confident
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that the really important things about who we have been will
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survive in a way long after our bodies have returned to dust and our memories have been obliterated.
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Thank you.
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IFO | Bài phát biểu xứng tầm 9.0 của sinh viên trường Thanh Hoa | Full Eng-Vie sub
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 86 sentences and 1174 words to shadow. The speech runs for 7:16. The speaker talks at a natural 162 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 less common words from the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
- survival /sɚˈvaɪ.vəl/ (noun) — The fact or act of surviving; continued existence or life.
- experiment /ɪkˈspɛɹ.ə.mənt/ (noun) — A test under controlled conditions made to either demonstrate a known truth, examine the validity of a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of…
- guarantee /ˌɡæɹ.ənˈtiː/ (noun) — Anything that assures a certain outcome.
- lifetime /ˈlaɪf.taɪm/ (noun) — The duration of the life of someone or something.
- breast /bɹɛst/ (noun) — Either of the two organs on the front of a female human's chest, which contain the mammary glands; also the analogous organs in males.
- assumption /əˈsʌm(p).ʃ(ə)n/ (noun) — The act of assuming, or taking to or upon oneself; the act of taking up or adopting.
- demon /ˈdiː.mən/ (noun) — An evil being resident in or working for Hell; a devil.
- characteristic /ˌkæɹ(ə)ktəˈɹɪstɪk/ (noun) — A distinguishing feature of a person or thing, a part of mental or physical behavior.
- bundle /ˈbʌn.dl̩/ (noun) — A group of objects held together by wrapping or tying.
- emerge /ɪˈmɝd͡ʒ/ (verb) — To come into view.
- philosopher /fəˈlɑsəfɚ/ (noun) — A lover of wisdom.
- finger /ˈfɪŋɡɚ/ (noun) — A slender jointed extremity of the human hand, (often) exclusive of the thumb, and the corresponding part, irrespective of including a thumb, in many other…
- grey /ɡɹeɪ/ (adjective) — Commonwealth standard spelling of gray.
- stable /ˈsteɪ.bəl/ (noun) — A building, wing or dependency set apart and adapted for lodging and feeding (and training) ungulates, especially horses.
- temporary /ˈtɛmp(əˌɹ)ɛɹi/ (adjective) — Not permanent; existing only for a period or periods of time.
Phrasal verbs you will hear
- come into (verb) — To obtain (usually money or property), especially through inheritance.
- come down to (verb) — To reach by moving down or reducing.
- end up (verb) — To bring to a conclusion.
- go through (verb) — To travel from one end of something to the other.
- grow up (verb) — To mature and become an adult.
- live in (verb) — To reside on the premises of one's employer (used especially of domestic staff such as nannies, cooks, maids, etc.)
- live on (verb) — To endure.
- put in (verb) — To place inside.
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 7 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, I'm, we'd. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: assumption /əˈsʌm(p).ʃ(ə)n/, crucial /ˈkɹuː.ʃəl/, consciousness /ˈkɑnʃəsnəs/, separation /ˌsɛp.əˈɹeɪ.ʃən/, assure /əˈʃʊɹ/
- Long words — get the stress right: experiment /ɪkˈspɛɹ.ə.mənt/, characteristic /ˌkæɹ(ə)ktəˈɹɪstɪk/, philosopher /fəˈlɑsəfɚ/, temporary /ˈtɛmp(əˌɹ)ɛɹi/, extraordinary /ɪksˈtɹɔːrdɪn(ə)ɹi/
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 survival, experiment, guarantee.
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 | have been replaced · be said · be loved |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | who've gone · have learnt · have been |
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.