Shadowing Practice: 5 Weird Involuntary Behaviors Explained! - Learn English Speaking with Video
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We like to think we walk through our lives completely conscious,
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free to choose whatever we like, totally, completely in control.
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Not even close.
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Our bodies leave a lot to autopilot, which is a good thing, because imagine having to regulate your heartbeat and your breathing and your digestive system and your body temperature,
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while not peeing your pants and falling down.
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That would be hard.
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Many of those involuntary actions are mysterious, annoying, and just plain weird.
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Here are five of the human body's strangest out-of-control behaviors.
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Start typing why does my into Google, and the top result is an eye-opener.
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Involuntary twitching of the muscles around the eye has a number of causes, including dry eyes, caffeine, bright lights, and just like during a tough workout, from simple fatigue.
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It's usually totally harmless and eventually goes away on its own, and it's a good hint that you've probably been looking at that screen enough for one day.
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Looking at bright light can cause more than an eye twitch.
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In Aristotle's book of problems, he asks, why is it that one sneezes more after one has looked at the sun?
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Proving that people have been asking a lot of the same questions for a long time, and no one told Aristotle that you're not supposed to stare at the sun.
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Like, ever.
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The so-called photic sneeze reflex, aka the autosomal cholinergic heliophthalmic outburst,
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abbreviated achoo, yes, seriously, is experienced by about one in four people, leading scientists to believe that it is genetically heritable.
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While the exact cause hasn't been pinpointed, Many scientists think that it's due to crosstalk between the optic nerve
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and the nerve that feeds the tickling sensation in your nose.
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The visual cortex of sun-sneezing people is also prone to overstimulation, which might send the sneeze-sensing parts of their brain haywire.
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Have you ever been just about to go to sleep, walking through the gates to dreamland, only to have the floor pulled out from under you and suddenly you're falling and then you wake up?
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These frustrating sleep starts have another cool medical name, hypnagogic myoclonus.
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When we drift off, the areas of our brain that control motor function are inactivated, in favor of those that control our sleep cycles.
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Which is why you can dream about riding your bike without actually moving your feet.
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As the sleepy part of your brain fights with the awake and moving parts of your brain, that battle can spontaneously tip back in favor of the motor control side,
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and then suddenly you're like, whoa, I'm awake.
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Sleep starts aren't the only myocloni that we experience.
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Makeups are an uncontrollable contraction of the diaphragm muscle that we use to draw air into our lungs.
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About a quarter second after that muscle contracts, the vocal cords snap shut, creating that characteristic… Scientists still aren't sure what causes them,
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but possible explanations include hiccups being an evolutionary remnant from a few hundred million years ago, when our ancestors still had to pump water over their gills.
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Or, since hiccups mainly happen in mammals, that they they started as a way for nursing infants to clear air from their stomachs.
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If you want to get rid of hiccups, it seems that increasing the amount of CO2 in your blood can do the job, which is why common remedies include drinking water, holding our breath, or breathing into a paper bag.
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Yawning, another long, slow, involuntary form of breathing, is common throughout the animal kingdom, and it even happens in the womb.
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We know it's associated with sleep and boredom, but that doesn't explain why it happens.
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Unlike most human behaviors, if you stop and think about yawning long enough, it starts to become a really weird thing to do.
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Hippocrates believed that yawns released noxious fumes that had built up in the body, but modern medicine has shown us that that usually happens on the other end of the body.
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We also know that about 50% of people who observe a yawn will yawn in response, so it's thought to be a social cue to synchronize our biological clocks.
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One theory says yawns might even cool the brain slightly to make us more alert as we get bored or sleepy.
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Even watching someone talk for extended periods of time can induce yawning.
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So next time you're getting bored in class, tell your teacher it's Mother Nature's fault.
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Finally, I'll leave you with one bonus behavior, post-micturition convulsion syndrome, or the pee shivers.
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This is another behavior for which scientists haven't quite shaken out all the details,
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but some believe it's simply because we're exposing sensitive areas of our body to the cold while we expel some internal warmth.
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They might also arise from a bit of conflict between our autonomous nervous system that's usually quietly keeping all that pee inside,
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and the part of our conscious mind that's in charge of the plumbing at that moment.
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These weird, wild, and often twitchy behaviors may define nice neat explanations, and yes, sometimes they are very annoying, but in the great movie that is life,
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they're a nice reminder of all the amazing things going on behind the scenes.
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Here's a reflex action, you click subscribe, and I'll see you again next week.
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Stay curious.
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When the mercury plummets, we don't actually feel the temperature.
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We feel the flow of energy.
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We feel the heat.
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Feel, feel, feel, feel my heat.
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Or really, we feel the unheat, because cold can never move into something.
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It's heat flowing out.
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Vocabulario y notas de pronunciación para esta lección
Esta lección de conversación de nivel B2 se basa en el vídeo “5 Weird Involuntary Behaviors Explained!”. Las palabras que más se repiten: behavior, brain, sleep, yawn, scientists. Este vídeo tiene 55 frases y 931 palabras para practicar shadowing. La parte hablada dura 5:12. El hablante habla a un ritmo natural de unas 179 palabras por minuto, cercano a una conversación cotidiana. Solo el 80 % de las palabras está entre las 3.000 más comunes del inglés, por lo que el vocabulario es exigente.
Vocabulario clave de este vídeo
Las 15 palabras más avanzadas del vídeo, con su pronunciación y significado:
| Palabra | Pronunciación | Significado |
|---|---|---|
| yawn verbo | /jɔn/ | bostezar |
| sneeze verbo | /sniːz/ | estornudar |
| hiccup sustantivo | /ˈhɪkʌp/ | hipo, singulto |
| involuntary adjetivo | /ɪnˈvɑ.lənˌtɛɹ.i/ | involuntario |
| annoy verbo | /əˈnoɪ̯/ | enchilar, crispar |
| reflex sustantivo | /ˈɹiːflɛks/ | reflejo |
| sleepy adjetivo | /ˈsliːpi/ | tener sueño, cansado |
| twitch sustantivo | /twɪt͡ʃ/ | tic |
| bore verbo | /boɹ/ | aburrir |
| awake verbo | /əˈweɪk/ | despertarse |
| conscious adjetivo | /ˈkɑn.ʃəs/ | consciente |
| nerve sustantivo | /nɝv/ | nervio |
| abbreviate verbo | /əˈbɹi.vi.eɪt/ | abreviar |
| ancestor sustantivo | /ˈæn.sɛs.tɚ/ | ancestro, antepasado |
| autopilot sustantivo | /ˈɔtoʊˌpaɪlət/ | piloto automático, autopiloto |
Phrasal verbs que vas a escuchar
| Palabra | Pronunciación | Significado |
|---|---|---|
| walk through verbo | explicar paso a paso, enseñar | |
| wake up verbo | /ˌweɪk ˈʌp/ | despertarse, recordar |
Gramática en este vídeo
Las estructuras que más usa el hablante, con las palabras exactas del vídeo:
| Estructura | En el vídeo |
|---|---|
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — una acción que empezó antes y continúa | you've probably been looking · have been asking |
| Present perfect have/has + participio pasado — una acción pasada que sigue importando ahora | has looked · hasn't been pinpointed · has shown |
| Voz pasiva be + participio pasado — importa lo que ocurre, no quién lo hace | is experienced · been pinpointed · are inactivated |
| Oraciones de relativo who / which + oración — información extra sobre una persona o cosa | autopilot, which is · job, which is · people who observe |
Pronunciación a tener en cuenta
El hablante usa 16 contracciones y formas reducidas, como you're, aren't, I'll. Dilas en su forma corta, tal como las oyes.
- Los sonidos de “sh” y “zh”: conscious /ˈkɑn.ʃəs/, contraction /kənˈtɹækʃ(ə)n/, convulsion /kənˈvʌlʃən/, noxious /ˈnɑkʃəs/, shiver /ˈʃɪvɚ/
- Palabras largas — cuida el acento: involuntary /ɪnˈvɑ.lənˌtɛɹ.i/, abbreviate /əˈbɹi.vi.eɪt/, autopilot /ˈɔtoʊˌpaɪlət/, heritable /ˈhɛɹɪtəbəl/, hypnagogic /ˌhɪpnəˈɡɑd͡ʒɪk/
Sonidos difíciles para hispanohablantes:
- s + consonante al inicio — sin añadir una “e” delante: sneeze /sniːz/, sleepy /ˈsliːpi/, spontaneously /spɑnˈteɪ.ni.əs.li/, stare /stɛɚ/
- /v/ — no es /b/: los dientes tocan el labio inferior: involuntary /ɪnˈvɑ.lənˌtɛɹ.i/, nerve /nɝv/, abbreviate /əˈbɹi.vi.eɪt/, convulsion /kənˈvʌlʃən/, digestive /daɪˈdʒɛstɪv/
- /z/ — sonora, no /s/: sneeze /sniːz/, synchronize /ˈsɪŋ.kɹə.naɪːz/, arise /əˈɹaɪz/, expose /ɪkˈspoʊz/, observe /əbˈzɜːv/
Cómo practicar con este vídeo
- Escucha el vídeo entero una vez sin hablar y anota las palabras que no conoces.
- Empieza a velocidad 0,75×, haz shadowing frase por frase y vuelve a la velocidad normal cuando te resulte fácil.
- Grábate y compara con el original, prestando atención a palabras como yawn, sneeze, hiccup.
¿Qué es la Técnica de Shadowing?
Shadowing es una técnica de aprendizaje de idiomas respaldada por la ciencia, desarrollada originalmente para la formación de intérpretes profesionales y popularizada por el políglota Dr. Alexander Arguelles. El método es simple pero poderoso: escuchas audio en inglés nativo y lo repites en voz alta de inmediato, como una sombra que sigue al hablante con solo 1-2 segundos de retraso. A diferencia de la escucha pasiva o los ejercicios de gramática, el shadowing obliga a tu cerebro y músculos de la boca a procesar y reproducir simultáneamente patrones de habla reales. Las investigaciones muestran que mejora significativamente la precisión de la pronunciación, la entonación, el ritmo, el habla conectada, la comprensión auditiva y la fluidez al hablar, convirtiéndola en una de las metodologías más efectivas para la preparación del IELTS Speaking y la comunicación en inglés en el mundo real.