Shadowing Practice: Why You Should Write Personal Essays (Even If Nobody Reads Them) - Learn English Speaking with Video

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If you think essays are boring, then you are trapped in this awful school mindset where you think

that all an essay is good for is for writing down and passing an exam.

Essays are so fundamental to the human condition and they have never been more important as a skill for you to train.

At a time where you can prompt an AI to give you an essay like this,

there has never been more value in you sitting down thinking and working out your own essay, your own opinions, your own thoughts

so in this video I am going to make the argument

that you should be writing personal essays

and not only am I going to convince you of writing personal essays

I'm going to give you an exact framework

that you can be using to write personal essays such that

if you engage with this video particularly well

you'll already have your first personal essay by the time

you finished it as a bit of background my name is Erin

I post three times a week here on YouTube

I post broadly about curiosity learning productivity neuroscience I'm a student at the University of Cambridge

so I write a lot of academic essays

but I also write a lot of personal essays over on my sub stack

and generally in my journal and in my diaries and I think

that for providing some level of introspection

and providing some level of understanding about yourself there just is nothing

that you can do that is better than writing a personal essay

so that is all the yapping that I'm going to do about it let's get into the substance of the video.

I would like to quote Joan Didion, who in her Why I Write, she said, I write entirely to find out what I'm thinking.

And that encapsulates exactly why I write personal essays, with the emphasis being on what I am thinking.

Because if you're like me, you probably spend a while in social media every single day.

And that means you are constantly consuming the thoughts, opinions, and ideas of other people.

That's really valuable because sometimes you need to know what other people think in order to figure out what you think.

But if you're never stepping back and you're never questioning what it is that you personally think and feel,

then you're never coming up with your own opinions.

And personal essays give you the room and the space to do that.

So I'm going to start by giving

you a bit of an intellectual argument as to why you should be writing the personal essay.

And you might want to skip through this and go for it, but I actually think it's really, really important.

So first of all, writing is a form of thinking.

It's not just a record of what you thought.

When you're writing, you're actively going through ideas and it's forcing you to slow down.

Thinking is very, very fast.

You can think like this.

Speaking is also pretty fast.

It's slower than thinking but it's still much faster than writing.

Writing really makes you slow down.

You can only think at the speed at which your hand can write

and that forces you to really go through different processes and to really evaluate options.

The permanence or the perceived permanence of writing,

you can always put something in the bin or burn it or just get rid of it by other means.

But the perceived permanence also means

that we're a lot more thoughtful about what we write than what we speak and what we think.

And so that becomes a fascinatingly powerful way of working through your own ideas, assumptions, and the way that you're thinking about a given thing.

And what that leads into is the fact

that writing really teaches you this level of intellectual independence that you don't really get through schools.

Your opinions that you write in academic essays are often informed by the other papers that you have read,

they're informed by your friends or what you think your teacher's going to like

and when you're writing this personal essay you have this independence because who's going to read it?

You, you're the only person who's going to read it, you're the audience, you might want to share it with other people,

that's on you but that's not a prerequisite and when it's only you being your audience, when you're an audience of one,

it allows you to be a lot more honest

and it allows you to really explore your own thoughts

and ideas without thinking oh is this going to make it you know less impressive to an examiner

and because you're slowing down

so much you're connecting ideas between different fields you're giving your brain the ability to make distinctions

and make connections that at the speed of thinking

and at the speed of speech it just might not be able to do

but my favorite reason as to why I write essays

and I go back on my essays for this exact reason

it creates a bit of an intellectual history of yourself sometimes I'll go back read my early essays

and go wow can't believe I thought like this can't believe I believe

that it's insane it's crazy but it's written down

and it allows me to chart my own progress

and my own intellectual thought processes and I think that's something really valuable

and honestly really very cool actually

if we go back into the history of essay writing they were never meant to be school assignments

if we go back to 1580 I can never pronounce his name very well

but it's Michel de Montaigne and he published the first edition of his essays it was obviously given the name in French,

the word essay means something like an attempt or a trial or a test.

Basically Montaigne wasn't presenting a definitive system of answers.

He wasn't presenting these conclusions.

Essays were not meant to be conclusionary.

Instead they were meant to be exploratory.

They're meant to be a test of ideas, a test of belief systems

and in writing you're able to distill your beliefs into something approaching a conclusion at the end

but that's not the important bit.

The important bit is the intellectual exploration that happens beforehand and that's where a personal essay really

becomes distinct from a school essay because a school essay is structured around defending a conclusion, right?

And a personal essay is structured around discovering a conclusion.

You can't state your thesis in the opening because you don't know it.

You can just state your ideas and sort of explore from there.

So the personal essay method, how are you going to go and write your first one?

The more you do, the less you'll need this method.

But sometimes given that we operate in a world of structure, it can be nice to have some structure given to you.

It becomes a lot easier for you to sort of look into the world

and begin to write something rather than staring at a blank page where you could write absolutely anything.

So I'm going to give you a bit of structure.

The first thing that you're going to do is you're going to find some friction in your life.

What I mean by this is, is there a problem that you are working through?

Is there an emotion that you're feeling that you've not really given yourself time to feel?

Is there a particular situation, scenario, problem space that you just want to explore in slightly more depth?

identify that and then turn it into a question

so find a specific element of it

or turn the entire thing into a bit of a question

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and this is going to be the question

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that you are trying to find a conclusion for through your essay

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it's going to be sort of the guiding idea that you are

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exploratively working towards throughout the entire thing

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and from there you need to think okay well

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if I'm going to be exploring what I personally think my conclusion to this is you need some feedstock for that.

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You need some raw material.

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You need some personal experiences or perhaps some memories or something a friend said, videos, podcasts, things that you've watched and can recall.

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I'm not saying go away and do research.

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I'm saying think about what you've already experienced that you could bring into your discussions around trying to discover this conclusion.

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And then you're going to put your pen on the page.

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And you're going to start simply by stating the question

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and then what I find most beneficial for getting started is

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then go into one of these raw materials go into one of these experiences write about it

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and then write about how that links to your question

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and what sort of a conclusion that would push you towards

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and by the time you're here you'll have some momentum

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and you'll be thinking well maybe x and y isn't really true

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or maybe there was some bias here or maybe this doesn't apply in these other situations

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and you want to be finding constantly these persuasive objections to your beliefs try

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and find counter examples try and find opposing views

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and discuss them discuss them in depth really strong man the argument

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and give yourself something to work with you want this constant back

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and forth between yourself and your other self between the perspectives

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that you had initially and the perspectives

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that you're growing to have as you're writing more

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and more you might think sometimes what do i say next

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if you're ever stuck

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if you don't know what to say next find another piece of raw material find another experience

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or conversational moment and bring that in and then contrast it to the previous

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and that'll kind of give you infinite material to keep going

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and keep evaluating the same points and going towards this particular conclusion

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that you're trying to make

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and as you're doing this you are trying to identify changes in the way

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that you're thinking about either the situation the question as a whole

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or where you think that conclusion is pointing you towards and when you feel like you're experiencing one of those changes

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you don't have to literally flag it but you can sort of mentally flag it and flag it in your own writing.

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So those are the sort of phases that you're going to try

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and work through as you are writing these essays

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but as you're doing that try and keep in mind the fact that firstly you want to be discussing some specific things.

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It's really good to have these sort of general ideas

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but generally you can bring these general principles

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and these bigger questions into smaller more sort of condensed mini questions that you're looking at.

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They can draw in these big principles

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but ultimately you want to be questioning these small

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and specific things such that

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when you're reaching a conclusion you feel as though you've actually meaningfully changed something about a perspective

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or a way you feel about a particular situation and coupling

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that it's so great to write sentences paragraphs etc that sound amazing

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but I think particularly

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if you're coming from a background of having done a lot of academic essays

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there is a tendency to want to be performatively profound

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and to say things just because they sound really good

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or they look really good when they're written down but

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that doesn't necessarily translate into something that's going to give you utility it's always better to say something

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that is precise to say something that is thought through even

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if it is using the most basic language

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because it is actually very much a skill to be able

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to distill large complex ideas feelings emotions etc into super basic words

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and if you can do that in your personal essays then you're going to be really finding some beneficial value in there.

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So some recommendations I would have if you want to read some more personal essays.

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Obviously I've already mentioned Michel de Montaigne, his essays.

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Fantastic collection.

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To that I would add

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Why I Write by George Orwell.

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This is an insane, insane explanation of why you should be writing

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and if you do read this you will never be not writing personal essays ever again.

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You will constantly be returning to them i also am quite partial to the death of the moth

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and other essays by virginia wolf that's a good sort of starting ground

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i think i also mentioned joan didion at the start from her why i write

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That is really good, but also slouching towards Bethlehem is fantastic.

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It's a piece of work of hers.

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So go, write your first essay.

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Replay this video, replay the section where I'm telling you how to write a personal essay

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and follow along and write it because there is something insanely wonderful about the fact

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that you can sit down with a question,

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a blank page and a pen and nothing particularly intelligent to say already in your brain and through the act of writing,

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realise you have so much more to say, so much more to think about and sometimes a very changed view on the world

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and remember you don't need anybody to read them

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you don't need to think of yourself as a writer although in the act of writing

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you do become a writer but the important thing is

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that you're just giving yourself time

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and the opportunity to work out what exactly it is

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that you think and that is the conclusion

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that i want you to take away from this video i hope you're going to go away

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and write a bunch of personal essays

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if you do keep them safe build on them allow them to shape your world view

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that's all for this video I really hope you found it interesting and enjoyable

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if you did you're going to love the rest of my

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videos be sure to subscribe give this video itself a little thumbs up

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and a comment what would you like to see next what

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are your thoughts on personal essays have you written any

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if there are any you'd like to share then put them in the comments

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and we can take a look at them together and as always I'll see you in the next video bye

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24 sentences

Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This speaking lesson is built on the video “Why You Should Write Personal Essays”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: essay, write, writing, personal, conclusion. This video has 193 sentences and 2439 words to shadow. The speech runs for 11:22. The speaker talks fast, about 214 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 86% 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 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
essay noun	/ˈɛs.eɪ/	A written composition of moderate length, exploring a particular issue or subject.
conclusion noun	/kənˈkluːʒən/	The end, finish, close or last part of something.
intellectual adjective	/ˌɪntəˈlɛkt͡ʃʊəl/	Pertaining to, or performed by, the intellect; mental or cognitive.
explore verb	/ɪkˈsploɹ/	To examine or investigate something systematically.
belief noun	/bɪˈliːf/	Mental acceptance of a claim as true.
insane adjective	/ɪnˈseɪn/	Exhibiting unsoundness or disorder of mind; not sane; utterly mad.
skill noun	/skɪl/	A capacity to do something well; a technique, an ability, usually acquired or learned, as opposed to abilities that are regarded as innate.
discover verb	/dɪˈskʌvə/	To find or learn something for the first time.
principle noun	/ˈpɹɪn.sɪ.pəl/	A fundamental assumption, fundamental law or guiding belief.
emotion noun	/ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/	A person's internal state of being and involuntary physiological response to an object or a situation, based on or tied to physical state and sensory data.
inform verb	/ɪnˈfɔɹm/	To communicate knowledge to.
blank noun	/ˈblæŋk/	The white spot in the centre of a target; hence (figuratively) the object to which anything is directed or aimed, the range of such aim.
beneficial adjective	/ˌbɛn.ɪˈfɪʃ.əl/	Helpful or good to something or someone.
evaluate verb	/ɪˈvaljʊeɪt/	To draw conclusions from examining; to assess; to appraise.
replay noun	/ˈɹiːpleɪ/	An act or instance of replaying (of playing something, such as a game, again); a replaying of (something).

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
slow down verb		To decelerate.
work through verb		To get past a difficult or stressful situation by thinking or talking about it.
write down verb		To produce or set (something) down in writing; to record something.
go away verb		To depart or leave a place.
go through verb		To travel from one end of something to the other.
work out verb	/ˌwɝk ˈaʊt/	To calculate.
come up with verb		To manage to produce, deliver, or present (something) by inventing, creating, thinking of, or obtaining it.
figure out verb		To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result	if you do read this you will never · if there are any you'd like
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	are trapped · are often informed · were never meant
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	have never been · has never been · have read

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 78 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, I'm, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: thesis /ˈθisɪs/, thumb /ˈθʌm/, thoughtful /ˈθɔːtfəl/, moth /mɔθ/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: conclusion /kənˈkluːʒən/, emotion /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/, beneficial /ˌbɛn.ɪˈfɪʃ.əl/, contrast /kənˈt(ʃ)ɹæst/, explanation /ˌɛkspləˈneɪʃən/
Long words — get the stress right: intellectual /ˌɪntəˈlɛkt͡ʃʊəl/, beneficial /ˌbɛn.ɪˈfɪʃ.əl/, necessarily /ˌnɛs.əˈsɛɹ.ə.li/, explanation /ˌɛkspləˈneɪʃən/, fundamental /ˌfʌn.dəˈmɛn.təl/

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 essay, conclusion, intellectual.

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.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: Why You Should Write Personal Essays (Even If Nobody Reads Them) - Learn English Speaking with Video

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