Shadowing Practice: Why Hurt People Hurt People - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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It's one of the puzzles of relationships that after a hugely promising few months or years,
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one of the members of a couple may start to exhibit notably aggressive and unyielding behaviour.
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Out go their previous tenderness and loveliness, and in come roughness and neglect.
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All they seem to want to do is to go out alone with their friends or flirt with strangers.
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One might wonder if it's the other person in the couple who might somehow be to blame for this.
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Perhaps they've done something wrong, and they're being, in certain ways appropriately, punished for not living up to expectations that they set.
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But the truth may be a great deal more circuitous and complex.
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In certain cases, the partner is in fact being punished, but not for doing anything wrong.
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If we can put it this way, they're being punished precisely for doing things rather right.
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They're being punished for not abandoning their lover, for not being cross, for not being mean, for not looking elsewhere, for not shouting,
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for not bullying and for not humiliating.
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They're being punished for their sweetness, crushed for their gentleness and tormented for their faith.
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Why on earth might kindly behaviours prove problematic?
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Because, in one of the truly oddest -sounding phenomena of love,
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the kindness of the partner may trigger an intense wish in a person to punish their lover for what, many years before in their childhood,
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a parent did wrong to them.
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It's the very sweetness of the partner, their kindness and loyalty, their disinclination to violence and unreason,
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that create the perfect conditions in which a hurt party will experience
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and then redirect a resentment and a rage that were actually owed, but could never be delivered to, a disappointing parent.
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The appalling behaviour winds up as a hugely peculiar and deeply tragic tribute to a unique degree of generosity and care.
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The arena in which this pattern can most clearly be observed is not directly in relationships, but in adoptive families.
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Research repeatedly shows that the nicer a recipient family is,
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the more an adopted child is liable in adolescence to become very difficult indeed.
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They will steal from their adopted family, perhaps scrawl on the walls, scream at them during arguments, parents, tell them that they loathe them,
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and then leave the house for hours slamming the door behind them.
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What in heaven's name have we done to deserve this?
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The adoptive parents may ask themselves in despair.
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And the answer, entirely odd though it may sound, is absolutely nothing.
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Which is exactly why you're being hurt so badly.
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You're being treated horribly for not being horrible.
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You're being made to feel what the abandoned infant once had to go through when no one else cared to listen.
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You're having to hear cries that went unheard.
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You've created the very conditions of safety in which intense pain can finally find a way out.
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A version of the very same dynamic can unfold more surreptitiously in adult love.
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Behind every drama that a person in a couple may cause, every holiday they ruin, every month they chew up,
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is a muffled, incoherent, but essential complaint.
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Where were you when I really needed you?
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How dare you be so kind to me when all I've had is cruelty all my life?
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How can I possibly deal with this loveliness when pain has been my home all along?
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Fuck off and die for trying to save and adore me.
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There is no alternative here but insight great,
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enormous, boundaried compassion, and an awareness that the person who's acting up still wants love very badly,
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they just have no clue how to accept it.
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One day, after much thought and therapy, perhaps long after the relationships ended,
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the destructive party needs to find a way to express the truth to the first person who ever loved them.
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Thank you for being kind enough to elicit my rage and my sadism.
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Apologies, deep apologies, for trying to destroy you for your unremitting love.
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I never wanted to harm you.
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I just had no idea what to do with the pain inside me.
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In the skies up above, angels will be weeping.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This C1 speaking lesson is built on the video “Why Hurt People Hurt People”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: punished, parent, behaviour, relationships, partner. This video has 50 sentences and 701 words to shadow. The speech runs for 4:46. The speaker talks at a steady 147 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. Only 80% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| punish verb | /ˈpʌnɪʃ/ | To cause (a child, student, or someone else being looked after, or a suspect or criminal) to suffer for crime or misconduct, to administer disciplinary action… |
| adoptive adjective | /əˈdɒptɪv/ | Related through adoption. |
| loveliness noun | /ˈlʌvlinəs/ | The property of being lovely, of attractiveness, beauty, appearing to be lovable. |
| sweetness noun | /ˈswitnəs/ | The condition of being sweet (all senses). |
| hugely adverb | /ˈhjuːd͡ʒli/ | Greatly; to a huge extent. |
| kindness noun | /ˈkaɪnd.nəs/ | The state of being kind. |
| abandon verb | /əˈbæn.dən/ | To give up or relinquish control of, to surrender or to give oneself over, or to yield to one's emotions. |
| apology noun | /əˈpɑ.lə.d͡ʒi/ | An expression of remorse or regret for having said or done something that harmed another: an instance of apologizing (saying that one is sorry). |
| adolescence noun | /ˌædəˈlɛsəns/ | The transitional period of physical and psychological development between childhood and maturity, beginning at the onset of puberty and with an endpoint… |
| appalling adjective | /əˈpɔːlɪŋ/ | Horrifying and astonishing. |
| boundaried adjective | Enclosed by a boundary or boundaries. | |
| circuitous adjective | /sɚˈkjuːətəs/ | Not direct or to the point. |
| disinclination noun | /ˌdɪsɪŋklɪˈneɪʃən/ | The state of being disinclined; want of propensity, desire, or affection; slight aversion or dislike |
| elicit verb | /ɪˈlɪsɪt/ | To evoke, educe (emotions, feelings, responses, etc.); to generate, obtain, or provoke as a response or answer. |
| gentleness noun | /ˈd͡ʒɛntl̩nəs/ | The state of being gentle. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| act up verb | /ækt ˈʌp/ | To misbehave; to cause trouble. |
| go out verb | To leave, especially a building. | |
| go through verb | To travel from one end of something to the other. | |
| wind up verb | /waɪnd ˈʌp/ | To wind (rope, string, mainsprings, etc.) completely. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- What in heaven's name have we done to deserve this?
- Which is exactly why you're being hurt so badly.
- You're being treated horribly for not being horrible.
- You're having to hear cries that went unheard.
- Where were you when I really needed you?
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 | being punished · be delivered · be observed |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | they've done · You've created · has been |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 11 contractions and reduced forms, such as they're, you're, I've. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: punish /ˈpʌnɪʃ/, disinclination /ˌdɪsɪŋklɪˈneɪʃən/, surreptitiously /sʌɹəpˈtɪʃəsli/, compassion /kəmˈpæʃ.ən/, expectation /ˌɛk.spɛkˈteɪ.ʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: apology /əˈpɑ.lə.d͡ʒi/, adolescence /ˌædəˈlɛsəns/, circuitous /sɚˈkjuːətəs/, disinclination /ˌdɪsɪŋklɪˈneɪʃən/, humiliate /hjuːˈmɪliˌeɪt/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like punish, adoptive, loveliness.
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.