Shadowing Practice: Why a Walk in the Park Can Save Your Life - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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Imagine that we've been in the apartment by ourselves since the previous evening, and now, at the start of the weekend, it's 11 in the morning.
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A succession of small bits of bad news have been coming in over the past 24 hours.
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Someone's unhappy with our performance at work.
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A customer complained about our attention to detail.
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We have a traffic fine to pay.
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The milk is off.
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A friend is accusing us of not caring enough about them.
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And then, the final straw, someone we very much hoped to see for dinner, cancelled on us abruptly, with an unconvincing excuse about their mother.
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We try to keep the different strands separate, but eventually, in the stillness of the small living room, they coalesce into an overwhelming impression.
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We're not very worthy.
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There's something wrong with us.
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We're ugly inside and out.
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We've been like this since the start.
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No one likes us.
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We're going to die alone, unhappy and mediocre.
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The impression is stronger than we are.
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We curl into a ball and can't hold back a tear, which rolls onto and is absorbed by the grey-green sofa.
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Ten minutes pass, then another twenty.
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Finally, we can't take it any longer.
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We have to pull ourselves out of the spin.
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So, with a newfound urgency, we grab our jacket, run downstairs and head for the nearby park.
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This expanse of green was laid out by a group of enlightened planners and municipal engineers a few generations ago.
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There's an inner and an outer circle, a small fountain, a playground and a statue of a man who pioneered research into bees.
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More importantly, the park has very little idea of us.
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It hasn't heard of our place of employment.
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It doesn't have any views on our romantic life.
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It couldn't care less whether we're alive or dead.
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And the ignorance, far from crushing us further, has an immediate soothing effect.
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A grand oak tree that's been sitting patiently in this spot for 150 years at least, has priorities blessedly far from our own.
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It's pulling nutrients from the soil, it's showing its freshest, newest leaves to the sun.
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It's providing a nesting place for robins and an athletic park for grey squirrels.
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The indifference is not nature's alone.
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There's a person in scrubs on a break from the nearby hospital, sitting on a bench with a flask of tea.
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They might later be fixing up catheters on the children's ward or ministering to a dying nonagenarian.
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To their left, a little boy is playing tag with his father.
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His joyful screams are unabashed.
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It's a game, but something very serious, about love and self-esteem and having a home, is also being exercised.
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Overhead planes, perhaps heading back from Singapore or Madrid, are locking onto the final approach beacons at the airport to the west.
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In the distance, a line of uncomplaining pylons is bringing in electricity from the coast to power hair dryers and video games.
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Our strange, extraordinary, pathetic species in all our glory, complexity and mundanity.
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With all this in view, it suddenly seems not to matter quite so much that we may or may not be a wretch, that a lover has let us down.
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Heaven knows they might have their reasons and we aren't perfect either.
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or that we should, in all fairness, probably make more of an effort with our career.
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The individual ego diminishes.
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We let ourselves dissolve into a wider realm.
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What happens to us no longer has to be the measure of everything.
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We are, in part, also the trees, the houses, the clouds overhead, the pigeon who has come to peck at a leftover sandwich,
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and the young boy now being hugged tightly by his dad.
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Our ultimate fate ceases to concern us so tightly.
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What does it matter quite so much what we're worth or where we end up?
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We rejoin the ocean from which we've been in frightened exile for too long.
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None of the elements that have helped us to recover our balance care to articulate a theory of existence.
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They may have one nevertheless.
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The oak tree has its own distinctive silent take on love, achievement, success and power, as do the clouds,
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the robins, the squirrels and the contrails.
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Each one of them is whispering very quietly indeed, matter less, forget more, open your heart, let go of your resentments, surrender.
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We can be so much happier
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when we manage for a time to still the clamour of the I and live less intimately with ourselves,
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when we stop insisting that everything that happens to us must say something profound about us, when we can wear our fate more lightly.
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We may end up alone, we may be foolish, we may be sad.
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None of it, the park tells us, might matter too much anyway.
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We'll cope, after all, perhaps we'll go to the cinema alone tonight, or have a drink on the terrace.
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We haven't just taken a walk, we've had a covert philosophy lesson.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 63 sentences and 840 words to shadow. The speech runs for 5:01. The speaker talks at a natural 167 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. Only 78% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| grey adjective | /ɡɹeɪ/ | Commonwealth standard spelling of gray. |
| cloud noun | /ˈklaʊ̯d/ | A visible mass of water droplets suspended in the air. |
| fate noun | /feɪt/ | The presumed cause, force, principle, or divine will that predetermines events. |
| impression noun | /ɪmˈpɹɛʃn̩/ | The indentation or depression made by the pressure of one object on or into another. |
| robin noun | /ˈɹɑ.bɪn/ | A European robin, Erithacus rubecula. |
| unhappy adjective | /ʌnˈhæpi/ | Not happy; sad. |
| overhead noun | /ˈəʊvəˌhɛd/ | The expense of a business not directly assigned to goods or services provided. |
| tightly adverb | /ˈtaɪtli/ | In a tight manner. |
| squirrel noun | /ˈskwɪ.ɹ(ə)l/ | Any of the rodents of the family Sciuridae. |
| lesson noun | /ˈlɛs.ən/ | A section of learning or teaching into which a wider learning content is divided. |
| element noun | /ˈɛləmənt/ | One of the simplest or essential parts or principles of which anything consists, or upon which the constitution or fundamental powers of anything are based. |
| silent adjective | /ˈsaɪ̯lənt/ | Free from sound or noise; absolutely still; perfectly quiet. |
| electricity noun | /ɪˌlɛkˈtɹɪsɪti/ | Originally, a property of amber and certain other nonconducting substances to attract lightweight material when rubbed, or the cause of this property; now… |
| romantic adjective | /ɹoʊˈmæn(t)ɪk/ | Fantastic, unrealistic (of an idea etc.); fanciful, sentimental, impractical (of a person). |
| soil noun | /sɔɪl/ | A mixture of mineral particles and organic material, used to support plant growth. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| end up verb | To bring to a conclusion. | |
| fix up verb | To provide (someone) with something; to furnish. | |
| hold back verb | To act with reserve; to contain one's full measure or power. | |
| lay out verb | /ˌleɪ ˈaʊt/ | To expend or contribute money to an expense or purchase. |
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 been coming · that's been sitting |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | we've been · hasn't heard · has let |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | is absorbed · was laid · are unabashed |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 18 contractions and reduced forms, such as we're, we've, can't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: worthy /ˈwɝ.ði/, nevertheless /ˌnɛvɚðəˈlɛs/, athletic /æθˈlɛt.ɪk/, pathetic /pəˈθɛtɪk/, catheter /ˈkæθɪtɚ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: impression /ɪmˈpɹɛʃn̩/, crush /kɹʌʃ/, succession /səkˈsɛʃ.ən/, foolish /ˈfuː.lɪʃ/, diminish /dɪˈmɪnɪʃ/
- Long words — get the stress right: electricity /ɪˌlɛkˈtɹɪsɪti/, priority /pɹaɪˈɒɹɪti/, extraordinary /ɪksˈtɹɔːrdɪn(ə)ɹi/, nevertheless /ˌnɛvɚðəˈlɛs/, municipal /mjuˈnɪsɪpəl/
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 grey, cloud, fate.
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.