Shadowing Practice: winning an argument is easy, actually - Learn English Speaking with Video
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The easiest way to win an argument is by avoiding it.
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The second easiest way to win an argument is by losing it.
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The third easiest way to win an argument is by defusing it.
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The fourth easiest way is to use logical fallacies plus unethical tactics, and at the bottom of the list,
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the hardest way is to actually have good logic.
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Those are the five different ways you can approach an argument.
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The reason I made this list is because if you ever google how to win an argument,
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pretty Pretty much every piece of advice focuses on the bottom two things,
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and a lot of it is just mirror their body language or make more eye contact.
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But sometimes I doubt how useful that stuff can actually be.
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Every method has its own problems.
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These three are just easier, they're easy to remember, and they don't take that much effort.
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And that is the kind of thing you are here for, hopefully.
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Let's start with method number one, avoiding the argument.
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Mark Twain once said, never argue with stupid people they will drag you down to their level
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and then beat you with experience.
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Now I like this advice
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because it tells you to be willing to give up on an argument
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or to walk away from a potential argument even when you know you're right.
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It's just not worth the frustration to argue with someone who just doesn't get it.
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But while it's very very easy to walk away from arguments in real life,
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in most arguments there is no way to know which one of you is the stupid one.
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Both of you each think that you are right and the other person is stupid.
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Imagine this, you walk up to a debate and you say 1 plus 1 equals 2.
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Your opponent says, well, actually, no, 1 plus 1 equals 1.
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You know that you are obviously right.
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BlueStickFigure also thinks that they are obviously right.
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But just keep in mind, your opponent might not always be stupid.
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They might just be misinformed.
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You can Google 1 plus 1 and then show them that it equals 2, but they're thinking, Google?
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What in the propaganda?
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Maybe you're the one that's brainwashed.
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It's decent advice to walk away from arguments that aren't helping you, but still, if you avoid every single argument,
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you'll end up living inside your own little bubble, and you might miss out on life -changing information from the outside world.
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Speaking of life -changing information, let me tell you about the new best way to browse the internet, Brought to you by Opera Browser.
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Opera 1 R2 is their brand new futuristic update and it's completely free.
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Let me show you.
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First of all, the browser opens with the classic theme but you can set it to Aurora, a dark theme, or Midsommar, a light theme.
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And each theme is endlessly customizable.
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Here's what mine's like.
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And if you want to do split screen,
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if you want to compare two pages side by side it just takes one second you can just drag
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and drop you don't even have to create a new window for it also at any time
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if you press ctrl slash it pulls up aria a fully integrated ai feature
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that can answer any question it can even summarize
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and answer questions about whatever website you're currently on like it's doing right here plus aria can both generate images
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and recognize images my favorite feature is being able to pop out a youtube video
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and have it play in the corner while I multitask and actually get some work done.
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As a bonus, you can even pop out your music player and move it around the screen, allowing you to easily play music while you're browsing.
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Opera also has tab islands now, allowing you to effortlessly group tabs based on context.
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You can collapse them and expand them whenever you want, like this.
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Tab traces is another cool feature.
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If you ever forget what tab you were most recently using, it underlines them for you,
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with the darker ones being the most recent tabs you used, and all of this is completely free.
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Just scroll down to the link in the description to give
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Opera a free download and you'll see what I'm talking about.
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Now, on to the next method of winning an argument, by losing the argument.
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Think about it, in many situations, the point of an argument is not to win, it's not to prove that you're right,
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it's to get what you want.
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Imagine you lived in a small apartment.
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Your roommate leaves out a cookie jar every week for the both of you to share, but after the first month, they confront you.
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I put out 20 cookies for the both of us to share, and you took 17 of them.
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What is wrong with you?
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Now here, it turns out, you actually only took 16.
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They counted wrong.
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Either way, you still obviously messed up.
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And now your roommate probably wants to kick you out, because you don't even pay your half of the rent,
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and you don't clean up your spills, and you ride around the apartment in a Segway like it's 2016,
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and now you can't even share a cookie jar.
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How are you going to argue your way out of this?
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Well, you can't use facts and evidence here, because the facts
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and evidence here are against
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you instead ask yourself what do i actually want out of this argument do i really care about proving
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that i actually only took 16 not 17 do i really care about convincing them
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that i did nothing wrong is all
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that worth it no in fact all i really want is to get my roommate to stop being angry
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and to keep leaving out the cookies only focus on the outcome you want
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and nothing else don't think about your pride or proving that you're right just think about the outcome.
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You could say I took 17 cookies?
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Wow, that's terrible.
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They were so good, I didn't even realize.
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I'm sorry, I promise I don't usually do that.
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I won't do it again, and if you really want, I could even buy a separate jar just so it doesn't happen again.
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Of course, you're never actually going to buy a separate jar, but to your roommate, this sounds like you really just made an honest mistake,
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and you're even willing to go out of your way to make things right.
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In fact, your apology was so good, you just made them feel bad for confronting you.
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This even applies to situations where you don't think you did anything wrong.
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Sometimes instead of trying to prove your innocence you can just apologize and win the argument by losing.
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Method number three, diffuse the argument.
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What I mean by this is make the argument nicer and calmer and actually try to understand the other person.
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If you do this chances are you'll realize that you
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and your opponent are not so different and you can finish the argument and come to an agreement pretty quickly.
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And this method is more
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or less from a guy in history who's apparently really good at winning arguments and his name was Socrates.
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Socrates argued with people in public for a living,
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and his big theory was that you should go into arguments with the intention of learning new things,
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not with the intention of showing how smart you are.
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In fact, he's famously quoted as saying, I only know one thing, and that is, I know nothing.
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And that's a really good point.
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Most of the time, the information we have, we don't know for sure that's 100 % true.
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We're just blindly trusting whatever source we got our information from.
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I don't even know if this is a real Socrates quote.
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I got it from a Google image.
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But if you take nothing else away from Socrates, remember this.
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Don't misunderstand their argument, and don't let them misunderstand yours.
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But then, once you understand someone's argument, don't just flat out tell them they're wrong.
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Instead, try to find little things that you both agree on,
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one at a time, and then build your way up to agreeing on the main point.
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This This is how you actually convince people of things.
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You start by agreeing on small things, and then you work your way up to bigger things until eventually, they change their mind.
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However, Socrates also had another, more annoying method, called Socratic questioning.
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This is where you just ask an endless stream of questions to the opponent until they get frustrated and can't explain something.
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And technically, there is a right way to use this method, but that doesn't really happen in real life situations.
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Instead, most people who use it just end up flooding their opponent with random unrelated questions that are meant to trip them up.
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What do you mean why am I mad?
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You took the last cookie from the jar.
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Why does it upset you if I took the last cookie?
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I wanted it.
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Well, is it not true that I also wanted it?
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Yeah, but that was your 18th cookie.
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That's too many.
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Why exactly do you perceive that as too many?
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You only let me have two.
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I had two, you had 18.
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Would you have perhaps instead preferred if we partitioned the cookies equally?
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Yeah, half and half.
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But is it not true that not all resources have to be partitioned equally?
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Does your boss give the same paycheck to everyone?
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Or do different people get different paychecks based on their job?
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That's not the same thing.
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Can you explain to me why it is not the same thing?
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This is an example of method number four, which is using unethical tactics.
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If you're willing to use unethical tactics like most people are socratic questioning is absolutely perfect
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you just keep asking questions every time the opponent gives a nice sensible answer just brush past it
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and ask another question there are a bunch of guides on the internet about how to win an argument unethically
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and they pretty much all require you to use fallacies aka bad logic
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and then hope the opponent doesn't notice some other guides might tell you to just sit there
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and wait for your opponent to commit a fallacy so you can interject with,
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my dude, did you literally just use an ad hominem fallacy against me?
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After enough times doing this, you will eventually realize your opponent literally does not care that you can name every fallacy in Latin.
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Instead, I like to take the easy route and just base my arguments off of this old cartoon by Scott Meyer.
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How to win an argument.
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First and foremost, pick your battles.
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Choose a topic nobody has strong opinions on or has given much thought.
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Make claims that are so outrageous that your opponent will be left sputtering in disbelief rather than refuting your claims.
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Make them prove their point beyond any possible doubt.
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When they can't, take it as proof of your point.
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Later, even if you lost the argument, see that you won.
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If you really want to get into the advanced techniques, Arthur Schopenhauer once wrote a sarcastic essay exposing how most debates are actually won.
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I'll go through all of these methods rapidly, just in case you find any of them useful.
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Number one, exaggerate your opponent's argument to make it sound extreme.
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Number 2.
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Take everything your opponent says and then generalize it so that it's easier to attack.
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Number 3.
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Ask your opponent a bunch of seemingly unrelated questions until you can get them to contradict themselves.
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Number 4.
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Instead of proving something, present it to your opponent as if it were already true.
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Number 5.
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Make them angry or attack your opponent's character to put them off their game.
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Number 6.
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Ask questions in a random order and jump around from topic to topic to confuse your opponent.
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7. Frame all of your questions in a way where the opponent has to answer with no. which makes them look super negative.
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Number eight, use random metaphors to make your argument look better than it actually is.
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Number nine, even when you lose, say that you were right about the stuff that actually mattered.
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Number 10, introduce an absurd situation to make your opponent's argument sound ridiculous.
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Number 11, when your argument is about to be proven wrong, change it to something else.
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Number 12, frequently interrupt your opponent so that they can't get a word in.
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Number 13, when your opponent says something, respond with, so basically, you're saying that, and then make some ridiculous conclusion that they never actually talked about.
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Number fourteen, if you could provide just one counterexample to your opponent's claim, act like that means their claim is completely false.
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Number fifteen, if your opponent asks you to prove something is true, ask them to prove that it's not true.
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Number sixteen, if there's an audience, try appealing to the audience's emotions by mentioning their families, or their pets, or their paychecks,
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or stuff that directly affects them, instead of just talking to your opponent.
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Number 17.
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Whenever your opponent makes a strong point, immediately change the subject.
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Number 18.
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Make up quotes from authority figures or experts to support your argument.
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Number 19.
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Avoid talking about any subject by just saying, I'm not an expert.
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Number 20.
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Associate your opponent's claim with something widely disliked, even if it's not actually a fair connection to make.
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Number 21.
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When your opponent makes any statement, respond with, Well, that works in theory, but it would never work in real life.
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Number 22, if you find a weak point in your opponent's argument, keep bringing it up and force them to keep talking about it.
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Number 23, just be really confident with your argument and pretend that it's really strong, even if it's not.
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Number 24, use big, complex words that your opponent can't understand.
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Number 25, if your opponent ever makes a small mistake, pretend
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that their conclusion is now totally false after hearing all of these methods
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you might ask is there any actually logical way to win an argument
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and the answer is yes and you see them all the time
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and they're usually pretty boring
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if you've ever written an essay
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you probably have to have some structure like claim evidence reasoning basically you make a claim
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and then you provide evidence
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but you can't just leave it there you have to explain why the evidence actually supports your claim
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if you can't provide that reasoning chances are, you either need to find better evidence, or you need to adjust your claim.
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Or, like many academics, you can just give up and elect to implement an excessively convoluted lexicon,
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replete with labyrinthine phraseology, thereby obfuscating the original intent, to such an extent that decipherability is rendered null.
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Alternatively, one may acquiesce to the inexorable alert of polysyllabic instructions and sesquipedalian tendencies,
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thereby engendering a cacophony of lexemic extravagance that transcends the cognitive grasp of the quotidian interlocutor,
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ultimately achieving a state of semantic opacity so profound
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that the conceptual underpinning of the dialogue dissipates into an abyss of intellectual perplexity.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “winning an argument is easy, actually”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: argument, opponent, method. This video has 202 sentences and 2546 words to shadow. The speech runs for 13:07. The speaker talks fast, about 194 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 85% 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 |
|---|---|---|
| opponent noun | /əˈpəʊ.nənt/ | One who opposes another; one who works or takes a position against someone or something; one who attempts to stop the progress of someone or something. |
| cookie noun | /ˈkʊki/ | A small, flat, baked good which is either crisp or soft but firm. |
| argue verb | /ˈɑɹ.ɡju/ | To show grounds for concluding (that); to indicate, imply. |
| roommate noun | /ˈɹu(m)ˌmeɪt/ | A person with whom one shares a room, as in a dormitory, barracks, rooming house, or apartment. |
| topic noun | /ˈtɑpɪk/ | A subject; a theme; a category or general area of interest. |
| tactics noun | /ˈtæktɪks/ | The military science that deals with achieving the objectives set by strategy. |
| ridiculous adjective | /ɹɪˈdɪk.jə.ləs/ | Deserving of ridicule; foolish, absurd. |
| dragon noun | /ˈdɹæɡən/ | In European mythologies, a gigantic beast, typically reptilian with leathery bat-like wings, lion-like claws, scaly skin and a lizard-like body, often a… |
| conclusion noun | /kənˈkluːʒən/ | The end, finish, close or last part of something. |
| equally adverb | /ˈiːkwəli/ | In an equal manner; in equal shares or proportion; with equal and impartial justice; evenly |
| outcome noun | /ˈaʊtkʌm/ | That which is produced or occurs as a result of an event or process. |
| intention noun | /ɪnˈtɛnʃn̩/ | A course of action that a person intends to follow. |
| pretend verb | /pɹəˈtɛnd/ | To speak or behave so as to give a false or simulated appearance. |
| convince verb | /kənˈvɪns/ | To make someone believe, or feel sure about something, especially by using logic, argument or evidence. |
| essay noun | /ˈɛs.eɪ/ | A written composition of moderate length, exploring a particular issue or subject. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| walk away from verb | To abandon or leave; to shun; to refuse. |
| end up verb | To bring to a conclusion. |
| leave out verb | To omit, to not include, to neglect to mention. |
| pop out verb | To appear on the screen as a temporary window or menu. |
| brush past verb | To go by (someone or something) quickly, making slight contact. |
| clean up verb | To make an area or a thing clean; to pick up a mess; to tidy. |
| give up verb | To surrender (someone or something); to inform on (someone). |
| go through verb | To travel from one end of something to the other. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- Let's start with method number one, avoiding the argument.
- What is wrong with you?
- What do you mean why am I mad?
- Why exactly do you perceive that as too many?
- Does your boss give the same paycheck to everyone?
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 | be misinformed · are meant · be partitioned |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | someone who just · people who use · four, which is |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | has given · you've ever written |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 50 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, you're, can't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: thereby /ðɛɹˈbaɪ/, unethical /ʌnˈɛθɪkəl/, labyrinthine /ˌlæb.əˈɹɪn.θɪn/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: conclusion /kənˈkluːʒən/, intention /ɪnˈtɛnʃn̩/, partition /pɑɹˈtɪ.ʃən/, associate /əˈsoʊʃi.ət/, brush /bɹʌʃ/
- Long words — get the stress right: ridiculous /ɹɪˈdɪk.jə.ləs/, associate /əˈsoʊʃi.ət/, intellectual /ˌɪntəˈlɛkt͡ʃʊəl/, apologize /əˈpɑləˌd͡ʒaɪz/, technically /ˈtɛk.nɪˌkəl.i/
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 opponent, cookie, argue.
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.