Shadowing Practice: Why We Should Refuse to Get Into Arguments - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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However deep our theoretical commitment to serenity, in the course of an average day,
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we're likely to encounter a number of extremely well-crafted invitations to lose our tempers badly.
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Our partner will press a well-flagged nuclear button related, let's imagine, to their views on our mother or our career choice.
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At work, a colleague may deliberately not answer a very simple question to which we so urgently need an answer.
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A shop attendant may give us a bored, insolent shrug.
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Someone in the supermarket may falsely accuse us of standing in the wrong line.
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What we're apt to miss at such moments of blatant provocation, as we get swallowed up in fears of humiliation,
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illogicality and injustice, is just how much many people enjoy having arguments – indeed,
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crave them – in order to re-find their equilibrium and appease their psychic discomforts.
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We're tricked into imagining that there may be genuine issues that require a wholehearted engagement,
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but we thereby lose sight of the true psychological motivations at play.
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A person is trying to get us into a fight not because they have a sincere complaint against us,
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but because they're feeling overwhelmed by the intensity of their own aggression,
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which they hope to placate by spoiling a portion of our lives.
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By goading us into a battle, they're looking for a way to evacuate their fury into us, to use us as a receptacle for their emotional waste,
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to employ a skirmish with us to distract themselves from their own intractable conflicts and muted sorrows,
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to seduce us into joining them in their sadness and entanglements so that they might feel less alone and less bereft.
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We should resist such enthusiastic
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and subtly crafted invitations by recognizing them for what they are
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– attempts by the other party to rescue themselves from unbearable feelings.
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We might, if we are exceptionally generous, pity them for their despair.
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we don't in any way need to join them in their gladiatorial quests.
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What may at times provoke us to a particular pitch of
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excitement is a puzzlement as to why others are behaving as they are.
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Why on earth we wander in a strangled way?
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Have they once again mentioned something we implored them to leave alone?
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Why are they being almost deliberately slow or rude or surly?
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Why is someone who should be kind and thoughtful suddenly so offhand and cruel.
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There aren't any good reasons for this discord.
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It's just that our interlocutor is in a very bad way and has concluded,
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not incorrectly alas, that they may well feel significantly better once we've started to raise our voice,
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redden and call them horrible names we'll later regret with intensity.
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We should work out the clever game and refuse to play any further rounds of it, whether the invitee is our spouse,
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stranger, our child or colleague.
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We're not being kind by leaving them to it.
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We're not being pacific or eerily grown up.
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It's just there is so much else that needs our attention.
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We have to hold on to our thoughts, repair our wounds, appease our turmoils and discover our own roots to happiness.
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We must sidestep the many dragnets because we have so many other, truly more important things to do.
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About This Lesson
You're practicing English with "Why We Should Refuse to Get Into Arguments" using the Shadowing technique — a method originally developed for professional interpreter training.
Focus on sounding like the speaker — not just repeating words. With 15–30 minutes of daily practice, you'll build real-world speaking confidence.
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.