Shadowing Practice: I Tested the Deadliest Ancient Weapons - Learn English Speaking with Video

Can a 10,000 year old weapon generate more destructive energy than a modern firearm?

And what about a 700,000 year old knife?

Can that be as sharp as a razor sharp steel blade?

This hot stuff I think about being your average unemployed friend on a Tuesday morning.

Nonetheless, I wanna find out.

So I'm gonna test three weapons that get progressively older and measure how effective and powerful they are.

And the first one is the sling.

These things are fascinating.

You can kill giants with it.

Allegedly.

And so I want to find out how it works,

what kind of energy generates,

and then test the damage against the few targets.

A sling is one of the oldest known projectile weapons,

and Sumerian, Greek and Roman armies all had specialized slingers.

So what do you do for a living?

Why just throw little rocks at people?

It's pretty fun.

Anyway, a sling is basically a pouch attached to two cords and the projectiles you load into the pouch can be stones,

lead bullets, which are actually pretty nice because they spin in the air,

stabilizing the shot, soda cans,

tape, All right, let's test it.

To shoot I gotta place the loop on one end of the sling in the middle of the middle finger,

load the projectile and hold the other end of the sling.

Now there are many techniques you can use to shoot a sling based on the position of your arm

and I'm not great at any of them.

It takes a lot of practice especially to get accurate with it.

And since I used one just once before I'm basically just improvising.

But then after practicing for a while I'm now starting to get the timing down.

And even though this camera angle doesn't give you the idea of how fast the rocks are actually flying,

it's pretty clear that the energy generates.

Well it's a lot!

To measure it I place two sticks 1.3 meters apart from each other's

and by shooting a projectile in between them

and filming in slow motion I can find the velocity of the projectile and also the energy from there.

First I'm throwing a 107 grams rock by hand

and following my calculations the rock is flying at about 23 meters a second carrying an energy of 27.7 Joules.

Then I throw a similar sized rock,

but this time using the sling.

With that I get a speed of about 32 meters a second with an energy of 60.1 Joules.

That's more than double the energy I got by just throwing the rock by hand.

Now the reason why a sling is able to generate

so much more power compared to just throwing a rock is because of centripetal force.

When you swing a sling,

the tension in the cords and the speed of rotation generate kinetic energy

and when the sling is released all this energy is transferred to the projectile, increasing the speed.

Moreover, since the sling basically becomes an extension of your arm,

it also gives you a mechanical advantage,

and that's why longer slings are generally more powerful than the short ones.

Lastly, I tried another test with a much heavier rock,

and the sling still managed to throw the rock at about 24 meters a second,

which converts to 95 juice.

For comparison, that's almost 20% more energy than what I could get with the lethal slingshot I built a while ago.

And I believe that with a better technique and aerodynamic projectiles,

it could probably get into small firearm territory.

Now, what happens when you hit stuff with it?

I started with a watermelon and of course I missed a bunch of times.

Damaged the sawhorse, which I actually find quite impressive,

But after a few more tries, I got it.

Can this kill giants though?

Well I couldn't find any giant willing to test that.

Come on man, I'm sure you'll be fine.

But I found this one.

This is a ballistic dummy,

so the gelatin should simulate muscle tissue and the bones...

bones.

In short, the damage on this thing should be a pretty accurate representation of what would happen to someone

if they got hit by a sling.

First, I need to hear it though.

Spoiler, it's gonna take a while,

so I'm gonna just skip this process for you and while I throw rocks at nothing for the next few hours,

I wanna shout out this plate for supporting this video.

three in the shop for a while and I think they still look great

and so I got a few ones for my house too.

I love watching movies so this time they're basically all about that.

The first one is from Lord of the Rings.

For me one of the coolest shots in movie history.

The second one is A Dark Knight.

I posted a picture of Harvey Dent in one of my previous videos and nobody got the reference.

You gotta watch it, it's a masterpiece.

And then the last one is from Dune,

one of my favorite movies in recent years.

The posters feel sturdy and the clarity on the images is really good.

Displate also recently launched this new product called Displate Textra,

which gives extra clarity to the images by having a sort of 3D texture on the posters.

Hanging the posters is also super intuitive and you find everything you need to do it inside the box.

You just stick the protective leaf,

stick the magnet to the leaf and hang the displate.

And this way you can also adjust it or move it however you like it.

My shop has pre-roof was,

but the posters are still hanging there so I guess it works.

There are millions of artworks available in the Displate catalog

that you can pick from original art or licensed designs such as Marvel,

Star Wars or Elden Ring.

You can get them right now by going to displate.com slash MikeShake

or use my promo code MikeShake to get a really nice discount.

It's 22% off if you get two displates and 30% off if you get three or more.

And I'm also leaving a link in the description if you want to check them out at the end of the video.

Anyways, after 40 minutes I hit the first shot.

100

And at first I thought I did nothing to the dummy,

101

but then I checked the slow motion footage.

102

My goal is obviously to hit the skull.

103

But I feel like this shot is kind of impressive already.

104

The dam is pretty heavy and the rock not only flipped it 90 degrees,

105

but it also left deep cuts into the gelatin.

106

And so I kept trying.

107

In all that, I'm not sure if you can hear it,

108

but there is a sort of crack when I let the sling go.

109

And that is coming from the sling,

110

traveling faster than the speed of sound.

111

It turns out a sling basically works like a whip.

112

When the sling is released the kinetic energy built up during the swing is transferred down the length of the sling.

113

The transfer of energy increases in speed as it moves along the sling,

114

accelerating the tip of the sling,

115

called cracker, till it flies faster than the speed of sound.

116

Now the purpose of having a cracker is to dissipate the energy and slow the sling down,

117

so it basically doesn't come back whipping you every time you shoot.

118

Anyways, the more I'm using it,

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the more I'm becoming a fan of this thing.

120

As you can see, even if I still don't know what I'm doing,

121

it's pretty insane to me what a simple piece of rope can do.

122

And after about one hour I finally managed to hit the skull.

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Oh, it cracked it!

124

The rock still had a lot of energy left though,

125

and so I shot one more time.

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And this time I got it clean.

127

Breaking the bones and cutting the gelatin once again.

128

For the next weapon we're gonna go back about 10,000 years.

129

I'm talking about spear throwers.

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I found one in carbon fiber,

131

but before checking it out I'm mounting the spear,

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which kinda looks more like a long arrow than a spear.

133

It got feathers, a pointy tip on one end,

134

and a slot on the other end.

135

While the spear thrower has this sort of pin that locks into the slot of the spear,

136

basically like this.

137

I'm very curious to test this but I probably shouldn't do it in my shop.

138

So then I went outside.

139

You know it's actually quite easy to use, I wasn't expecting it.

140

After just a few throws I was already hitting the targets.

141

History says this was actually a big step in human evolution because before using this we were just throwing spears by hand.

142

A spear thrower works by extending the length of the thrower's arm providing leverage

143

that significantly increases the velocity and accuracy of the spears.

144

So compared to just using our arms,

145

it allowed us to increase the reach,

146

hunt larger game, and also be more accurate.

147

Or at least that's the theory.

148

So let's test that.

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I'm gonna throw one spear by hand and one using this,

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and we're gonna see the difference.

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I hope you can see me.

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Test one, range.

153

First shot using my hands.

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Alright, now the spear thrower.

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oh my I got 22 meters by hand

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and 48 meters with a spear thrower you probably didn't even

157

see where he landed I'm gonna give you a better angle oh

158

that went further away than the last time so

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when it comes to range a spear thrower is definitely a

160

big step up 64 right now one of the s penetration

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and damage and well you already know this guy it's just not in great shape right now

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so I'm gonna just use the back of the head shot one using my hands I don't even know

163

if I can hit it to be honest nope well after a while I actually hit it though

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I think I got it.

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But the spear did basically nothing to the skull.

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So then I got a little bit closer and I hit it.

167

Oh, nice.

168

This would have hurt.

169

What is happening?

170

Anyways, the spear got actually quite deep.

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All right, spear thrower.

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Shot one.

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Jeez, that's definitely different.

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Same exact spot by the way and the penetration was certainly higher than before.

175

I also tried to hit the skull,

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it took me a while and I broke a few spears in the process

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but interestingly when I hit it the spear snapped bouncing back towards me a little too fast for comfort

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and most importantly it didn't do significant damage to the skull,

179

just a little dent.

180

Still though, I find this quite fascinating and very very fun to use.

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It's nice.

182

The third weapon I want to test is the oldest one of the list and it's Obsidian.

183

Google says it's many times sharper than the sharpest steel blades,

184

so I want to test that.

185

I got a machine that measures exactly that.

186

The plan is to compare Obsidian to three different steel blades,

187

a utility razor blade, a shaving blade and a chef's knife.

188

I'm gonna sharpen myself.

189

As a reference a high-hand kitchen knife should be around 300 on the scale and the utility razor blade scored 235,

190

while a shaving razor is one of the sharpest blades you can purchase.

191

And with that I got a nice 35,

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also proving that the method I'm using is pretty accurate.

193

And now it's time for the chef's knife.

194

This is an old knife I bought from Ikea and it's pretty dull,

195

so I'm spending a while sharpening it with two different whetstones,

196

from a medium grit to basically a polishing one,

197

which is so fine that it doesn't even make a noise when I swipe the knife on it.

198

It took me about 10 minutes to do it and right now this thing should be very sharp.

199

So now, as I did with the previous blades,

200

I'm measuring the actual sharpness.

201

I wanna double check that, so I'm trying again.

202

50. Alright, I think I enjoy sharpening stuff a little too much.

203

I'm not sure why.

204

Anyways, these are all the results I got with the steel blades.

205

Now it's time to test obsidian.

206

Actually though, what even is obsidian?

207

It turns out it's a type of glass that forms when lava cools down rapidly,

208

usually when it comes into contact with water or air.

209

This rapid cooling prevents the formation of crystals,

210

and in short, that's basically why it looks like that.

211

It feels like a chunk of glass,

212

and like glass, it's brittle.

213

So, To make an eye fire off obsidian,

214

I need to start from a larger block and slowly remove material.

215

The problem is that all the videos I watched see the same thing.

216

You need to make sure to strike the obsidian in the right areas with the correct amount of force.

217

And if you are like me and you're using a mouse pad to protect your leg and a hammer to strike obsidian,

218

that sentence doesn't make any sense.

219

I'm still trying to do that though,

220

hitting the right parts with the correct amount of force,

221

which in practice turned to hitting random parts with random amount of force

222

and after 20 minutes I started to get kind of frustrated.

223

Every time I felt I was kind of getting closer then the stones randomly snapped.

224

I really thought I was gonna make this work

225

but after one hour the only thing I did was turning

226

big obsidian rocks into smaller obsidian rocks like a lot of them.

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I even tried grinding it.

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It didn't work.

229

Massive respect for all the craftsmen making obsidian blades and all the Neanderthal men out there.

230

I seriously underestimated this thing and now that I had no more obsidian to make a knife I thought about buying one.

231

The problem is that I couldn't find any store in Europe

232

that could ship an obsidian knife in time besides this website that says obsidian scalpels and then it hit me.

233

Not the scalpel, but a realization.

234

Even though it would be cool to have one of these big obsidian knives are not even

235

that sharp because they're pretty thick.

236

That is sharp obsidian flakes and luckily I got a lot of them.

237

As a reminder these are the results I got with the steel blades

238

and now I'm gonna test this which is obviously pretty sharp

239

but when I tried to measure it I only got 90

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so then I got the thinnest flake I could find but

241

when I measured the sharpness I got a score even higher than before,

242

probably because the edge wasn't very clean.

243

Then I tried with different flakes with a cleaner edge and things went definitely better.

244

Obsidian is very sharp but during my test at least I never managed to get results

245

that are 10 times sharper than razor blades or my IKEA knife.

246

Even when cutting paper you feel more resistance compared to the steel blades.

247

Still though, it's pretty cool and I'd like to make a knife out of this one day.

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Next I'm gonna make a very special sword and then I'm gonna finally test my supersonic nerf blaster.

249

So if you like this video,

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leave a like and subscribe to see when they'll come out.

251

Thank you for watching!

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Vocabulario y notas de pronunciación para esta lección

Esta lección de conversación de nivel B2 se basa en el vídeo “I Tested the Deadliest Ancient Weapons”. Las palabras que más se repiten: sling, spear, obsidian, rock, test. Este vídeo tiene 251 frases y 2593 palabras para practicar shadowing. La parte hablada dura 15:13. El hablante habla a un ritmo natural de unas 170 palabras por minuto, cercano a una conversación cotidiana. Solo el 77 % 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
sling sustantivo	/ˈslɪŋ/	honda
spear sustantivo	/spɪə̯(ɹ)/	lanza, venablo
obsidian sustantivo	/əbˈsɪd.i.ən/	obsidiana
blade sustantivo	/bleɪd/	cuchilla, hoja
projectile sustantivo	/pɹəˈd͡ʒɛk.taɪl/	proyectil
meter sustantivo	/ˈmitəɹ/	medidor, contador
razor sustantivo	/ˈɹeɪzɚ/	navaja, yen
poster sustantivo	/ˈpoʊstɚ/	cartel, póster
flake sustantivo	/fleɪk/	escama, hojuela
gelatin sustantivo	/ˈd͡ʒɛlətɪn/	gelatina
sharpen verbo	/ˈʃɑɹpən/	afilar, tajar
cracker sustantivo	/ˈkɹækə(ɹ)/	galleta, galleta de agua
fascinate verbo	/ˈfæsɪneɪt/	fascinar
kinetic adjetivo	/kɪˈnɛtɪk/	cinético
pouch sustantivo	/paʊt͡ʃ/	bolsa, saquito

Phrasal verbs que vas a escuchar

Palabra	Pronunciación	Significado
find out verbo		averiguar, anoticiarse
turn out verbo		resultar
come out verbo	/ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/	revelarse, salir a la luz
cool down verbo	/kuːl ˈdaʊn/	enfriarse
move along verbo		transitar, circular
step up verbo		aumentar, redoblar

Frases que vale la pena repetir

Frases cortas y completas del vídeo que puedes reutilizar en la conversación diaria:

Come on man, I'm sure you'll be fine.
You gotta watch it, it's a masterpiece.
I'm talking about spear throwers.
I'm measuring the actual sharpness.
I wanna double check that, so I'm trying again.

Gramática en este vídeo

Las estructuras que más usa el hablante, con las palabras exactas del vídeo:

Estructura	En el vídeo
Voz pasiva be + participio pasado — importa lo que ocurre, no quién lo hace	is released
Oraciones de relativo who / which + oración — información extra sobre una persona o cosa	bullets, which are · this which is

Pronunciación a tener en cuenta

El hablante usa 69 contracciones y formas reducidas, como I'm, gonna, doesn't. Dilas en su forma corta, tal como las oyes.

Los sonidos de “th”: feather /ˈfɛðə/, lethal /ˈliː.θəl/, nonetheless /ˌnʌnðəˈlɛs/
Los sonidos de “sh” y “zh”: sharpen /ˈʃɑɹpən/, penetration /pɛ.nəˈtɹeɪ.ʃən/, shave /ˈʃeɪ̯v/, slingshot /ˈslɪŋʃɒt/, specialize /ˈspɛʃəˌlaɪz/
Palabras largas — cuida el acento: obsidian /əbˈsɪd.i.ən/, penetration /pɛ.nəˈtɹeɪ.ʃən/, velocity /vəˈlɑsəti/, aerodynamic /ˌɛəɹəʊdaɪˈnæmɪk/, progressively /pɹəˈɡɹɛsɪvli/

Sonidos difíciles para hispanohablantes:

s + consonante al inicio — sin añadir una “e” delante: sling /ˈslɪŋ/, spear /spɪə̯(ɹ)/, scalpel /ˈskælpəl/, slot /slɑt/, slinger /ˈslɪŋ.ɚ/
/v/ — no es /b/: los dientes tocan el labio inferior: shave /ˈʃeɪ̯v/, velocity /vəˈlɑsəti/, improvise /ˈɪm.pɹə.vaɪz/, progressively /pɹəˈɡɹɛsɪvli/, intuitive /ɪnˈtjuːɪtɪv/
/z/ — sonora, no /s/: razor /ˈɹeɪzɚ/, anyways /ˈɛn.iˌweɪz/, improvise /ˈɪm.pɹə.vaɪz/, specialize /ˈspɛʃəˌlaɪz/, stabilize /ˈsteɪ.bəˌlaɪz/

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 sling, spear, obsidian.

¿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.

Técnica de shadowing: lee la guía completa paso a paso →

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