Shadowing Practice: The Robot Chess Player Scam - Learn English Speaking with Video

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This is The Turk a mechanical chess-playing robot  from the 1700s that was basically unbeatable.
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It made its own moves, called checkmate, and even  laughed in its opponent's face.
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For almost 90 years it toured the world facing some of the best chess players and historical figures and beating them all.
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Hundreds of articles were written trying to expose its secrets but no one ever figured out how it worked or if it was actually real or not.
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Amazingly, the real secret behind this mysterious  machine remained unknown for almost 90 years and was almost lost completely when The Turk eventually parished in a fire.
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We modeled the entire thing to show you how this incredible machine worked and how it managed to trick the entire world for almost a century.
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The story begins in Vienna in 1769 where a special event was  being held by the Empress of Austria.
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At the event the audience were being treated to a show by a famous French magician who performed illusions using magnets.
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While the audience was blown away,  one man was less than impressed.
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Hungarian inventor Wolf Gang Von Kempelen He worked for the Empress and  promised that he would come back next year with a much more impressive creation of his own.
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And so over the next 6 months in the secrecy of his own home, he constructed The Turk.
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Kempelen revealed his creation at the next event and it was an absolute hit.
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The audience watched on in amazement as this  mysterious serous looking mannequin came to life moving around the chess pieces and destroying his opponent.
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Word spread quickly about The Turk and soon hundreds of people around Europe wanted to take on the machine 10 years went by, but the demand to see The Turk was higher than ever and so Kempelen took the machine out on the road starting its first European tour in 1783.
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This is how a typical show would go.
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At the beginning, Kempelen would go around opening the cabinet doors and inviting people to look inside the machine starting with the left door.
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It would reveal a compartment full of complex machinery.
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To show that there was nothing hiding behind the machinery he opened the door at the back and lit a candle so that the audience could see right through the  machine, then he closed the rear door and opened up the main compartment which was mostly empty.
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With all the doors open, Kempelen pulled out a set of chess pieces from the drawer at the bottom.
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The Turk was now ready to play.
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Kempelen would challenge the most intelligent member of the audience to try and beat The Turk and almost always The Turk would come out on top.
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Kempelen and his machine  continued traveling across Europe playing some of the most skilled Chess Masters of the time.
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For the final game in France The Turk went up against Benjamin Franklin Despite being a chess fanatic,  The Turk quickly defeated him with ease.
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After this, speculation behind the machine's authenticity started to ramp up.
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While many believed it really was a completely automated machine some thought it was also being controlled by magnets and some thought there was a small child operating The Turk from inside but Kempelen was determined to take the secret to his grave and in 1804 he passed away at the age of 70.
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The Turk was eventually sold to a German inventor called Johann Maelzel for around $300,000.
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Over the course of several years he figured out The Turk's secrets and took it back out on the road.
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This time finding even more success in America.
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But one day, after performing in Baltimore,  an article was written in the local newspaper that appeared to give away The Turk's secret.
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Two young boys had climbed onto The Turk's storage shed and saw Maelzel opening the cabinet and a man climbing out of it.
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A few days later the newspaper retracted the article because the boy's story couldn't be verified.
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This is still a problem in today's world that's why we're working with Ground News again for this video.
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Invented by a former NASA engineer Ground News is a news app and website that allows you to compare articles from a wide range of sources to verify information and see the full picture.
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Every story comes with a quick  visual breakdown of the political bias reliability, ownership and headlines all backed by ratings from three Independent News monitoring organizations.
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Take this story about Boeing Starliner More than 150 news outlets reported on the story most of which are from the left.
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You can also see a  breakdown of the reliability and ownership as well as headlines to see how this bias can affect framing.
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With their bias comparison feature  which highlights specific differences in reporting we can see that the left and center outlets  tended to focus on the number of helium leaks and the affected valves while right-leaning outlets framed these leaks as a crucial test for Boeing's competition with SpaceX.
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One of our favorite features is their blind spot feed which highlights stories underreported by one side of the political spectrum.
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For example, if you lean left you probably missed this story on Boeing being blocked from increasing production of their airplane .
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for a more faithful and objective way to keep up with current events click the link in the video description or scan the QR code to get 40% off the unlimited access plan.
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After figuring out the secrets behind his new machine, Maelzel took The Turk back out on the road.
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One of his first opponents was none other than Napoleon Bonaparte, who he defeated with ease.
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Maelzel and The Turk spent the next 20 years touring all the way from Boston to the Mississippi River and everywhere in between.
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The Turk was more  popular than ever, but still nobody knew if it was real or not.
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Famous Poet Edgar Alan Poe was invited to inspect the machine and ended up writing an essay on how he thought it worked.
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He thought that there was simply a man underneath The Turk's clothing that could see the chessboard and was making all of the moves.
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Maelzel spent most of the 1830s touring America and Cuba with great success but while sailing back to the US, Maelzel suddenly  died at sea and The Turk and all of its secrets were now just waiting to be uncovered once it arrived back.
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The machine eventually fell into the hands of Edgar Alan Poe's physician who had always been interested in the machine, but by then The Turk was 70 years old and without a charismatic owner to put on the show, it was eventually donated to a museum in Philadelphia.
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He remained here for over a decade until one day, a fire swept through and completely destroyed The Turk.
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It was no doubt one of the best-kept secrets in the world.
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It traveled everywhere, constantly under scrutiny from the world's brightest minds and yet, even through multiple owners it managed to take its secrets  all the way to the end.
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It seemed like the secrets behind The Turk would remain unknown forever but a year later the son of The Turk's last owner  published an article that would finally reveal the truth.
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These are the secrets behind The Turk.
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As it turned out, The Turk wasn't automated at all and was in fact operated by a Chessmaster hidden inside the machine at all times.
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The fake machinery and the bottom drawer didn't extend all the way to the back of the cabinet and so there was space for the operator to sit with his legs stretched out under a fake floor.
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Before the left door was opened  the operator would slide forward on a movable chair into the main compartment, closing behind him a secret door.
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The presenter would then open the rear door and show the audience that there was nothing but machinery inside.
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as the presenter closed the rear door the operator would slide back  into his original position closing another door behind him and in front of him.
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The presenter would then open up the front and rear doors to the main compartment to allow the audience to see inside .
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Having seen right through the whole machine the audience would now have full belief that no one could be hidden inside the machine.
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the doors were then locked and The Turk was ready to come to life.
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The operator would slide back into the main compartment and open a hidden door inside The Turk's body revealing a candle, a chessboard, and a mechanical lever which would control The Turk's arm.
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The lever was in fact a clever pantograph mechanism using strings that would mimic the exact movements of The Turk's arm.
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It had a pointer which the operator could lift to raise the arm and twist to close The Turk's fingers.
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By moving the pointer over the chessboard it would move The Turk's hand over the exact same square on the real chessboard.
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But how did the operator see the moves his opponent was making?
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Above the operator was a fake ceiling that could be taken down to reveal the bottom of the real chessboard.
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under each square was a small magnet dangling from a copper wire.
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The chess pieces themselves also had magnets in their base and so the magnets would get pulled up wherever there was a chess piece.
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As his opponent picked up a chess piece the corresponding magnet would  drop and wobble for about 30 seconds allowing the operator to see what piece had moved and replicate it on his own chessboard.
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To this day, the original operator of The Turk is unknown but during Maelzel's tours the machine was operated   by an impressive list of chess masters all of whom kept their part of the secret.
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Over the course of its 90-year career, The Turk played hundreds, if not thousands of games and won almost all of them.
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Amazingly, the story of these young boys seeing an operator climb out of the machine was almost certainly true, but The Turk  went on to keep it secret for another 30 years.
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And now for the Primal Space giveaway.
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The winner of the previous giveaway is Marco. Congratulations.
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In the next video, we'll be giving away this awesome Mechanical Turk poster.
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All you need to do is sign up at the link below like the video, and leave a comment saying how you thought The Turk actually worked.
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Thank you very much for watching and I'll see you in the next video!

Vocabulario y notas de pronunciación para esta lección

Esta lección de conversación de nivel B2 se basa en el vídeo “The Robot Chess Player Scam”. Las palabras que más se repiten: Turk, machine, secret, door, chess. Este vídeo tiene 78 frases y 1769 palabras para practicar shadowing. La parte hablada dura 9:45. El hablante habla rápido, unas 181 palabras por minuto, así que espera sonidos enlazados y reducidos. 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:

PalabraPronunciaciónSignificado
chess sustantivo/t͡ʃɛs/ajedrez, escaques
chessboard sustantivotablero de ajedrez
magnet sustantivo/ˈmæɡ.nɪt/imán
compartment sustantivo/kəmˈpɑɹtmənt/compartimiento, compartimento
machinery sustantivo/məˈʃiːnəɹi/máquinas, maquinaria
opponent sustantivo/əˈpəʊ.nənt/oponente, antagonista
presenter sustantivo/pɹɪˈzɛntə(ɹ)/presentador, presentadora
outlet sustantivo/ˈaʊtlɛt/salida, escape
bias sustantivo/ˈbaɪ.əs/sesgo, bías
automate verbo/ˈɔ.təˌmeɪt/automatizar
inventor sustantivo/ɪnˈvɛntɚ/inventor, inventora
pointer sustantivo/ˈpɔɪn.təɹ/puntero
lever sustantivo/ˈliː.və/palanca
amazingly adverbio/əˈmeɪzɪŋli/asombrosamente
drawer sustantivo/dɹɔɹ/cajón, gaveta

Phrasal verbs que vas a escuchar

PalabraSignificado
figure out verboaveriguar, captar
end up verboterminar, ir a parar
get off verbobajarse
go around verbocundir
hand over verbodevolver, entregar
keep up with verboseguir, ir al paso
move around verbomovilizarse
pick up verbocoger, asir

Pronunciación a tener en cuenta

El hablante usa 6 contracciones y formas reducidas, como couldn't, didn't, I'll. Dilas en su forma corta, tal como las oyes.

  • Los sonidos de “th”: authenticity /ɑθɛnˈtɪsɪti/, underneath /ˌʌndɚˈniθ/, faithful /ˈfeɪθ.fl̩/
  • Los sonidos de “sh” y “zh”: machinery /məˈʃiːnəɹi/, illusion /ɪˈl(j)uːʒ(ə)n/, speculation /ˌspɛk.jəˈleɪ.ʃən/, parish /ˈpæɹɪʃ/, physician /fəˈzɪʃən/
  • Palabras largas — cuida el acento: machinery /məˈʃiːnəɹi/, amazingly /əˈmeɪzɪŋli/, mysterious /mɪˈstɪɹi.əs/, charismatic /ˌkɛɹəzˈmætək/, authenticity /ɑθɛnˈtɪsɪti/

Sonidos difíciles para hispanohablantes:

  • s + consonante al inicio — sin añadir una “e” delante: scrutiny /ˈskɹuː.tɪ.ni/, sweep /swiːp/, speculation /ˌspɛk.jəˈleɪ.ʃən/, scan /skæn/
  • /v/ — no es /b/: los dientes tocan el labio inferior: inventor /ɪnˈvɛntɚ/, lever /ˈliː.və/, verify /ˈvɛɹɪfaɪ/, movable /ˈmuːvəbəl/, uncover /ʌnˈkʌvɚ/
  • /z/ — sonora, no /s/: presenter /pɹɪˈzɛntə(ɹ)/, amazingly /əˈmeɪzɪŋli/, amazement /əˈmeɪz.mənt/, charismatic /ˌkɛɹəzˈmætək/, expose /ɪkˈspoʊz/

Cómo practicar con este vídeo

  1. Escucha el vídeo entero una vez sin hablar y anota las palabras que no conoces.
  2. Empieza a velocidad 0,75×, haz shadowing frase por frase y vuelve a la velocidad normal cuando te resulte fácil.
  3. Grábate y compara con el original, prestando atención a palabras como chess, chessboard, magnet.

¿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 →