Shadowing Practice: The Unbelievable Science of How We Read - Learn English Speaking with Video
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1
Hey smart people, Joe here.
Hola, gente inteligente, soy Joe.
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Today I’m going to teach you how to read. Which is something that you already know how to do, obviously, but you probably have no idea how you’re actually doing it.
Hoy te voy a enseñar a leer. Algo que, obviamente, ya sabes hacer, pero probablemente no tengas ni idea de cómo lo haces realmente.
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But first I need to let you in on a secret: There’s a trick being played on you every time you read something.
Pero antes tengo que contarte un secreto: te están gastando una broma cada vez que lees algo.
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In fact it’s right in front of you right now. Do you see it?
De hecho, está justo delante de ti ahora mismo. ¿Lo ves?
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Let’s take a closer look at just a couple of letters and see if you can see it then.
Analicemos con más detalle un par de letras y veamos si puedes detectarlo.
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Here’s just the C and T. These two letters are exactly the same weight, or “size” in this typeface, so you’d figure they’re the exact same height.
Aquí están solo la C y la T. Estas dos letras tienen exactamente el mismo grosor o "tamaño" en esta tipografía, por lo que se podría pensar que tienen exactamente la misma altura.
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But watch what happens when I lay them on top of each other. The C is ever-so-slightly taller.
Pero fíjense qué pasa cuando las pongo una encima de la otra. La C es ligeramente más alta.
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It’s true for other letter pairs too. Like E and S. The S is taller.
También es cierto para otros pares de letras. Como la E y la S. La S es más alta.
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It’s even true for other typefaces, like this one.
Esto también se aplica a otras tipografías, como esta.
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Letters that look the same size are actually… not the same size.
Las letras que parecen del mismo tamaño en realidad… no son del mismo tamaño.
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And this… is on purpose.
Y esto… es intencional.
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Because if they actually were the same size, mathematically speaking they wouldn’t look the same size.
Porque si realmente fueran del mismo tamaño, matemáticamente hablando no parecerían del mismo tamaño.
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Letters with rounded tops have to be slightly taller than letters with flat tops in order for them to appear the same size. This illusion is hiding in just about everything you’ve ever read. Yes, it’s even in Comic Sans!
Las letras con la parte superior redondeada deben ser ligeramente más altas que las letras con la parte superior plana para que parezcan del mismo tamaño. Esta ilusión se esconde en casi todo lo que has leído. ¡Sí, incluso en Comic Sans!
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Your letters are lying to you! But if this illusion wasn’t there, words would look really weird.
¡Tus cartas te están mintiendo! Pero si esta ilusión no existiera, las palabras se verían realmente extrañas.
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And that’s because we don’t read with a ruler.
Y eso es porque no leemos con regla.
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We read with our brain. And our brains like to lie to us.
Leemos con el cerebro. Y a nuestro cerebro le gusta mentirnos.
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The reason all this happens is related to another illusion that maybe you’ve seen before.
La razón por la que sucede todo esto está relacionada con otra ilusión que tal vez ya hayas visto antes.
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This line appears longer than this one. But in reality the two lines are the same length.
Esta línea parece más larga que esta otra. Pero en realidad ambas líneas tienen la misma longitud.
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This is one of the most famous illusions in visual science.
Esta es una de las ilusiones más famosas de la ciencia visual.
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And there’s lots of different versions of it. I mean, this is one of the most powerful illusions I’ve ever seen. Even when you know the lines are the same length, it doesn’t change the story your brain tells you. It’s really weird!
Y hay muchísimas versiones diferentes. Es una de las ilusiones más impactantes que he visto. Incluso sabiendo que las líneas tienen la misma longitud, la historia que te cuenta tu cerebro no cambia. ¡Es realmente extraño!
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So what does this have to do with letters?
¿Y qué tiene que ver esto con las letras?
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Well, we can explain what’s happening here if we turn the Müller-Lyer illusion on its side: This line, with its ends, looks kinda like the letter O.
Bueno, podemos explicar lo que sucede aquí si giramos la ilusión de Müller-Lyer de lado: esta línea, con sus extremos, se parece un poco a la letra O.
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The other line is more like an I or a T.
La otra línea se parece más a una I o una T.
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Our brains decide round letters like O look smaller than more squared off letters nearby, so we have to make the O bigger just to look the same size.
Nuestro cerebro decide que las letras redondas como la O parecen más pequeñas que las letras más cuadradas que están cerca, así que tenemos que agrandar la O para que parezca del mismo tamaño.
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So that’s a really cool illusion that fools you probably hundreds of times a day. And it shows us that there’s a lot more going on with how we recognize letters and words and turn them into meaning than you might expect.
Se trata de una ilusión óptica fascinante que probablemente nos engaña cientos de veces al día. Y nos demuestra que la forma en que reconocemos las letras y las palabras, y les damos significado, es mucho más compleja de lo que podríamos pensar.
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In other words: Reading is really weird.
En otras palabras: leer es realmente raro.
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Now, a good reader can recognize hundreds of words per minute.
Ahora bien, un buen lector puede reconocer cientos de palabras por minuto.
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And once you learn how to do it, most of us don’t have to actually think about reading.
Y una vez que aprendes a hacerlo, la mayoría de nosotros ya no tenemos que pensar en leer.
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It just happens.
Simplemente sucede.
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But while it feels automatic, there’s a lot going on under the hood.
Pero aunque parezca automático, hay mucho trabajo detrás del capó.
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Or under the skull really.
O mejor dicho, debajo del cráneo.
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You’re just not consciously aware of any of it.
Simplemente no eres consciente de nada de eso.
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When ya think about it it’s actually pretty weird that we can read at all.
Si lo piensas bien, es bastante raro que podamos leer.
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I mean, our brains evolved, pretty much in their current form, a hundred thousand years ago or so.
Es decir, nuestros cerebros evolucionaron, prácticamente en su forma actual, hace unos cien mil años.
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But writing is only a few thousand years old.
Pero la escritura tiene tan solo unos pocos miles de años.
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And standardized movable type, that was only invented like one thousand years ago, in Asia.
Y la imprenta de tipos móviles estandarizados, que se inventó hace apenas mil años en Asia.
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And then Gutenberg invented it again like 600 years ago.
Y luego Gutenberg lo volvió a inventar hace unos 600 años.
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I mean think about this: As recently as the 1800s maybe 1 in 8 people actually knew how to read.
Piensen en esto: todavía en el siglo XIX, quizás solo 1 de cada 8 personas sabía leer.
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It’s clearly not something that we evolved to do. But we can. So what’s up with that?
Está claro que no es algo para lo que hayamos evolucionado. Pero podemos hacerlo. ¿Qué pasa con eso?
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Luckily I happen to know a language expert, and she just so happens to have her own YouTube show.
Por suerte, conozco a una experta en idiomas, y resulta que tiene su propio programa en YouTube.
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So I asked her. Thanks, Joe! I’m Dr. Erica Brozovsky, sociolinguist and certified word nerd. On my show Otherwords, we delve into the amazing facets of human language, and the ability to read is one that almost defies logic.
Así que le pregunté. ¡Gracias, Joe! Soy la Dra. Erica Brozovsky, sociolingüista y una apasionada de las palabras. En mi programa Otherwords, profundizamos en las asombrosas facetas del lenguaje humano, y la capacidad de leer es una que casi desafía la lógica.
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How can a brain that evolved like a hundred thousand of years ago be so naturally good at a skill that we only invented 5,000 years ago? It’s been called the “paradox of reading” The answer may be that we’ve repurposed some existing brain functions for new uses.
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It’s a theory neuroscientist Stanislas Dehaene called "neural recycling" By studying the neural patterns of monkeys, scientists have been able to identify how their brains identify and make sense of the contours and lines that make up visual scenes.
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A corner here, an edge there, some intersecting edges here. And it seems like there’s a basic "alphabet" of simple shapes that their brains use to decode any number of possible scenes.
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What’s interesting is these shapes are remarkably similar to the strokes that make up most human writing. Whenever one object is behind another, you get a T shape. Corners of objects make L's and F's and Y's.
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And an O can be found in anything from a delicious fruit… to the eye of a predator.
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What these shapes have in common is that they're "non-accidental". If you threw a bunch of toothpicks on the floor, very rarely would three land with their ends perfectly touching.
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So if you see this pattern in real life… it's probably worth paying attention to, and our brains are especially adept at spotting it.
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Each pattern in this “shape alphabet” triggers neurons, and when certain combinations of neurons fire together, they trigger higher order neurons that help us eventually decode the meaning of an image.
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So this combination from our shape alphabet triggers the meaning “cat”. And so does this combination. Only, one is a group of shapes in nature, and one is just a collection of lines on paper.
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Early alphabets that used such shapes allowed more people to read, and let them read faster, eventually replacing cumbersome pictographic writing systems like Egyptian hieroglyphics.
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As Dehaene says, "...our cortex did not specifically evolve for writing… writing evolved to fit the cortex." That… is amazing.
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So let’s take a closer look at what’s happening when your brain decodes all these shapes and tries to make meaning out of them.
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How do we read?!
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One thing that we know about reading is that your brain isn’t sounding out words as you scan the page, like speaking them in your head. I mean, you might be able to make yourself consciously do that… One fish, two fish, red fish, blue fish That’s not how it works.
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When you read, your brain is directly turning those printed symbols into meaning.
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Now, words are made of letters.
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And we’ve already seen that we’re really sensitive to the shapes combinations of letters have when they’re put together.
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So the big question to figure out is: When we recognize a word, do we see a whole word and just recognize it by its shape? Or do we actually read the letters?
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You can think of the question this way: When I see an elephant, do I see all the individual parts: it’s big, it’s gray, ears, trunk, tusks, and recognize it that way?
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Or do I just see the whole thing and say “that’s an elephant”?
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To figure that big question out, in the 1880s a psychologist flashed words or letters in front of people for just a few milliseconds.
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And people more accurately recognized the whole words than letters all alone.
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And later experiments in the 1960s flashed either real words or nonsense words in front of people then asked if they recognized some particular letter And people recognized the right letter better when it was in a real word.
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These were a pretty good hint that, to our brains, there’s something special about whole words over just letters. The “Word Superiority Effect.” And this is kind of strange when you think about how we learn to read. When we’re young we make words by sounding out the letters or combinations of letters in the order they appear.
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av-o-cah-do That’s the “phonics” in “hooked on phonics” But the word superiority effect says that once we learn to read, we don’t actually process words like that. We just… see the word. And we recognize it.
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Now, at first scientists thought we recognized the literal shape of the word.
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Like if your brain sees this shape it analyzes that pattern of ascending and descending characters, and the word “shape” must be inside.
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And this makes sense! We tend to read lowercase faster than all caps, where the letter shapes aren’t as prominent.
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And (unless you’re super emo) we are terrible at reading AlTeRnAtInG upper and lower case.
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But that word shape explanation turned out to be a little too simple. Because you can’t spell READING… without the eye.
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Because . . . eye . . . reading . . . never mind.
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Now, obviously your eyes move when you scan a page. But they’re not scanning smoothly across lines of text. They jump around. Sometimes they even jump backwards.
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These little movements are called saccades. And they’re really fast. One jump takes 20 to 35 milliseconds. Around 10 times faster than the blink of an eye.
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You don’t even notice this jumping because it happens so fast it doesn’t even have time to register in your brain. But why can’t we see those jumps? Does anyone know a neuroscientist?!
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So here’s the crazy thing about saccades: Your eyes are jumping around about three times a second, and in between that they're making these little micro saccades, they're making little tiny jitters.
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But you can't see the whole world streaking by.
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Why not? Well it's because when your eyes go on this ballistic jump if we were actually seeing that it would look like the world is streaking around all the time So we don't experience that. Instead we just experience the world out there. Why?
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It's a very deep reason actually. It's because all you're ever seeing is your internal model of the outside world. You're not seeing the world as it is.
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Because it actually takes time for your eye to move from one place to another.
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So what happened to that time? Well it turns out your brain says okay i'm going to fill in the gap with whatever I land on.
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When your eyes land on the thing you've got this gap in time and so your brain essentially retrospectively fills that in.
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Thanks David Eagleman! Your eyes stop on a word for about 200 milliseconds, then they jump forward 7 to 9 letters. But somehow your eyes never land in between words.
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And some types of words: like short words or connector words like “the” and “and” Your eyes just skip right over them altogether.
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Now, how much information we gather each time our eyes stop is limited by how our eye is built.
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The fovea is the area in the center of your vision where the photoreceptors are most densely packed, and where your vision is the sharpest. It senses an area about the size of your fingertip at arm’s length. Around that is an area called the parafovea.
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The photoreceptors are less dense, and it can see some details but things are kinda fuzzy.
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And beyond that is basically your peripheral vision, where the photoreceptors can basically just tell that there’s something there, but are absolutely terrible at figuring out what.
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Each time your eyes stop, in that split second you’re gathering information from three different zones.
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In the center, your fovea clearly identifies 3 to 4 letters around where your eyes stop. This is usually enough to recognize that single word.
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The second zone is in the parafovea. It’s much more blurry, but can get at least a hint at what the first few letters of the next word are.
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And beyond that is an even blurrier zone. No letters being identified here, but importantly you are sensing how long the next word or two is.
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This gives you enough information to decide where your eyes will move next. If the next word is short and can be skipped, or whether it’s long and unfamiliar so you should stop on it.
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While you are recognizing the word you are actually looking at and focusing on, another part of your eye is already reading ahead to tell you what’s coming next.
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All in all your eyes only stop on about 60% of the words you read. Yet somehow you still read all of them.
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AND YOU HAVE NO IDEA YOU’RE DOING THIS.
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So we seem to recognize words not because of their shape, but because of the letters they contain.
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Which maybe isn’t that surprising, except we’re seeing most of those letters without actually looking at them.
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We think the way we recognize words works something like this: When your eyes land on or near a word, say SOAP, you see ALL the letters, that is, you process their shapes - basically simultaneously.
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You don’t scan the letters from left to right one by one, as if your brain is looking up a word in a dictionary.
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You know, the first letter "s" the second letter "o" . . . it doesn’t work that way.
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Your brain simultaneously compares each letter position with those in all the words you’ve seen before.
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Think of your mental dictionary as a pool full of words. Every word with one letter in common gets a little jolt in your brain’s neural networks and floats above the rest.
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The words with two letters in common get a bigger jolt in your brain and rise above those.
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Then the words with three letters in common get an even bigger jolt.
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Until finally, the strongest signal in the neural network of your brain’s dictionary rises to the top, and that’s the winner: The word you recognize.
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This happens over and over as your eyes jump from spot to spot across the page, taking in different kinds of information from various parts of your eye, unconsciously reading ahead in your brain, activating countless neural networks, all in less than a quarter of a second.
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And then you move your eyes, and do it again, and again, and again. All thanks to some ancient evolutionary ability you have to recognize certain shapes, curves, and corners.
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And the coolest part of all this is the next time you pick up a book, you won’t even think about any of this. You’ll just enjoy a good story. As long as the I’s and the O’s are the right size at least… Stay curious.
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And as always, a huge thank you to everyone who supports the show on Patreon.
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You guys know how Patreon works. Thank you so much for your support.
112
That is really what helps us make these videos, keep this channel going, support our team, and, we couldn’t do it without you. If you would like to help us do all of this, there is a link down in the description where you can learn more. And I will see you in the next video.
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Hey guys, if you liked this video, then you are going to love the show “Otherwords” It’s over on PBS Storied. You can click the link right up there to check it out. It’s a show all about language and linguistics and the stories inside of that from around the world that we all take for granted when we’re moving our mouth parts and listening to each other.
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You know, who among us doesn’t enjoy the turn of phrase . . . or . . . a fine tale of etymology?
115
A bit of vocabulary sprinkled here and there? We love that stuff! So check out “Otherwords”
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Vocabulario y notas de pronunciación para esta lección
Este vídeo tiene 115 frases y 2637 palabras para practicar shadowing. La parte hablada dura 16:47. El hablante habla a un ritmo natural de unas 157 palabras por minuto, cercano a una conversación cotidiana. El 86 % de las palabras está entre las 3.000 más comunes del inglés; conviene repasar el resto antes de empezar.
Vocabulario clave de este vídeo
15 palabras menos comunes del vídeo, con su pronunciación y significado:
- evolve /ɪˈvɑlv/ (verbo) — desarrollar. To move (something) in regular procession through a system.
- neural /ˈnʊɹəl/ (adjetivo) — neural. Of, or relating to the nerves, neurons or the nervous system.
- scan /skæn/ (verbo) — escrutar. To examine sequentially, carefully, or critically; to scrutinize; to behold closely.
- alphabet /ˈæl.fəˌbɛt/ (sustantivo) — alfabeto, abecedario. The set of letters used when writing in a language.
- trigger /ˈtɹɪɡɚ/ (sustantivo) — gatillo, perrillo. A finger-operated lever used to fire a gun.
- dictionary /ˈdɪk.ʃəˌnɛ.ɹi/ (sustantivo) — diccionario, tumbaburros. A reference work listing words or names from one or more languages, usually ordered alphabetically, explaining each word's meanings or senses, oftentimes also…
- invent /ɪnˈvɛnt/ (verbo) — inventar. To design a new process or mechanism.
- flash /flæʃ/ (verbo) — destellar, flashear. To cause to shine briefly or intermittently.
- scientist /ˈsaɪəntəst/ (sustantivo) — científico, científica. One whose activities make use of the scientific method to answer questions regarding the measurable universe. A scientist may be involved in original research…
- skip /skɪp/ (verbo) — saltar. To move by hopping on alternate feet.
- simultaneously /ˌsaɪmlˈteɪnɪəsli/ (adverbio) — simultáneamente. Occurring at the same time.
- elephant /ˈɛlɪfənt/ (sustantivo) — elefante. A large mammal of the family Elephantidae in the order Proboscidea, having a trunk, and native to Africa and Asia.
- hint /hɪnt/ (sustantivo) — pista, indicio. A clue.
- streak /stɹiːk/ (sustantivo) — raya, trazo. An irregular line, as is left from smearing or motion.
- superiority /sʊˌpɪə(ɹ).iˈɒ.ɹɪ.ti/ (sustantivo) — superioridad. The state of being superior.
Phrasal verbs que vas a escuchar
- think about /ˈθɪŋk əˌbaʊt/ (verbo) — pensar en, ocurrírsele. To ponder.
- look at (verbo) — mirar, funar. To observe or watch.
- figure out (verbo) — averiguar, captar. To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce.
- go on /ˈɡoʊˌɒn/ (verbo) — continuar. To continue in extent.
- make up /ˌmeɪk ˈʌp/ (verbo) — reponer, suplir. To constitute, to compose.
- check out (verbo) — investigar, chequear. To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.).
- fill in (verbo) — informar. To fill; to replace material that is absent or has been removed.
- look up /ˌlʊk ˈʌp/ (verbo) — mejorar. To have better prospects.
Pronunciación a tener en cuenta
El hablante usa 52 contracciones y formas reducidas, como they're, you're, don't. Dilas en su forma corta, tal como las oyes.
- Los sonidos de “th”: gather /ˈɡæðɚ/, altogether /ɔl.tuˈɡɛð.ɚ/, smoothly /ˈsmuːðli/
- Los sonidos de “sh” y “zh”: illusion /ɪˈl(j)uːʒ(ə)n/, dictionary /ˈdɪk.ʃəˌnɛ.ɹi/, combinations /kɑmbɪˈneɪʃənz/, flash /flæʃ/, sharp /ʃɑɹp/
- Palabras largas — cuida el acento: dictionary /ˈdɪk.ʃəˌnɛ.ɹi/, combinations /kɑmbɪˈneɪʃənz/, simultaneously /ˌsaɪmlˈteɪnɪəsli/, superiority /sʊˌpɪə(ɹ).iˈɒ.ɹɪ.ti/, naturally /ˈnæt͡ʃ.(ə.)ɹə.li/
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 evolve, neural, scan.
Gramática en este vídeo
Las estructuras que más usa el hablante, con las palabras exactas del vídeo:
| Estructura | En el vídeo |
|---|---|
| Oraciones condicionales if + oración, will/would + verbo — una condición y su resultado | if this illusion wasn't there, words would look |
| Voz pasiva be + participio pasado — importa lo que ocurre, no quién lo hace | being played · was only invented · been called |
| Present perfect have/has + participio pasado — una acción pasada que sigue importando ahora | you've ever read · you've seen · I've ever seen |
¿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.