Shadowing Practice: What Actual Aliens Might Look Like - Learn English Speaking with Video
Elige un modo de práctica
Cada modo abre una sala de práctica a pantalla completa.
160 oraciones
Si las oraciones son demasiado cortas o largas, haz clic en Editar para ajustarlas.
1
What do real aliens look like?
2
We know that life on Earth is incredibly diverse and exists in the strangest and most extreme places.
3
From blue dragon sea slugs to aye-ayes, or Chrysomallon snails with shells of iron.
4
Or whatever this is supposed to be.
5
Let's use our imagination and real science to travel to three possible worlds, each more alien than the next.
6
Put on your future-science suit, and enter the portal to witness wonders never seen before.
7
This is the red dwarf star Oculus.
8
Five times smaller than our Sun and a lot less bright.
9
A bit larger than Earth but orbiting its star 20 times closer, you see the ice hell of the planet Ipa.
10
It's tidally locked, so one side experiences a never-ending night and the other an eternal day, lit by the star's dim glow.
11
In the region facing the dim star directly, temperatures are warm and pleasant.
12
The hell of ice has melted into a shallow black ocean: the Eye of Ipa.
13
About the size of Europe, barely 200 meters at its deepest points, churned by a never-ending storm where hot air meets the frigid winds from the icy outskirts.
14
But below this inhospitable chaos we find calm stability, an ecosystem in almost perfect balance.
15
Let's dive in.
16
Instead of meeting open water we splash into a floating underwater jungle.
17
We know places like this at home: kelp forests made from seaweeds up to 65 meters long, sheltering countless smaller creatures.
18
On Earth we get abundant white sunlight so our plants evolved to be green, absorbing the most useful red wavelengths for photosynthesis and reflecting away the rest.
19
But Oculus shines not nearly as bright and its dim rays are even further dulled by the storm.
20
So here plants are a deep black to make use of the weak infrared leftovers.
21
Which also gives the Eye of Ipa its striking black color.
22
Over billions of years, the jungle has occupied all possible space in the Eye.
23
Its roots extend deep into the seabed mud, anchoring them and providing access to nutrients.
24
They drop their seeds in the few free spaces in the mud.
25
Only death makes room for new life.
26
Big and streamlined teardrop-shaped creatures push through the dark water.
27
They kind of look like… fish?
28
Just like many sea creatures on Earth, their shape is optimized for the lowest drag when traveling through water.
29
Like underwater cattle, they lazily swim through the forest, grazing on leaves in peace.
30
Suddenly, a patch of strange looking leaves begins to move and wraps around a distracted grazer, dragging it down into hungry jaws.
31
A predator that's had eons to adapt its camouflage to fool its prey.
32
But not only by imitating leaves.
33
Both hunter and prey never evolved eyes in this dark underwater murk.
34
Instead, they do battle with sounds and textures.
35
Listen. There's a whole cacophony down here.
36
Countless species are singing to each other, sending warnings or invitations, forming a collective song.
37
Like the noisy jungles of Earth, except Howler Monkeys and screaming pihas are replaced by chattering Seed-Eaters poking at the mud with snapping pincers, squeaking Spike-Bulbs loaded with poison, and the flailing fins of starfish-shaped Grabbers hunting small prey.
38
Beautiful! And unsettling.
39
In this stable and never-changing ecosystem, their music will never end for billions of years.
40
You seem to have been noticed and Blind Creepers are crawling towards you.
41
You want to explore this world, not become part of it.
42
So it's time to leave.
43
You're immersed in the blinding light of the B type star Caeruleus, shining hot and blue, orbited by a dozen lava planets burned to a crisp.
44
But we'll visit the last planet: Nimbus, a gas giant very much like Neptune in size and composition, except there's a lot more water and seething hot Caeruleus showers it with 900 times more light than Neptune.
45
So its atmosphere is warm enough for gigantic white clouds the size of countries, to be lofted upward by titanic warm updrafts rising from the hazy depths.
46
Millions of years ago, and astonishingly quickly, life emerged and evolved inside tiny water droplets deeper down in the planet.
47
Like extremophile microbes on Earth, they found ways of breathing methane and using exotic enzymes to harvest sulfur and nitrogen compounds from the air.
48
As Caeruleus grew hotter and brighter, the higher altitudes of Nimbus became habitable and life spread.
49
Let's dive into to the gigantic white clouds to meet it.
50
Up here live quadrillions of tiny beings, a kind of cloud plankton so small they're carried on the gentlest air currents.
51
The most common type resembles flat four-legged spiders barely a millimeter wide, tinted yellow by the sulfur they consume.
52
They gain lift with wispy electrostatic threads, thinner than spider silk, pulling on the charge differences between the top and bottom of the cloud oceans.
53
A technique Xysticus crab spiders use to travel great distances on Earth.
54
You're just in time for mating season.
55
Billions of cloud plankton gather to join their threads into huge parachutes that ride updrafts for hundreds of kilometers.
56
Here in the hot heights, they hatch their eggs before their life comes to an end.
57
Other tiny creatures latch on, most of them predators looking to feast on fresh younglings.
58
But not all life on Nimbus is tiny.
59
The other way to stay up in the sky forever is to become a living balloon.
60
Like the enormous Sky Whales, taller than a skyscraper, almost completely made of a wafer thin membrane.
61
They heat up trapped gases, making them less dense than the air around them, giving them buoyancy.
62
The bigger their gas envelope, the more lift it produces, so Sky Whales evolved to be as large as possible.
63
Only a lumpy car-sized spherical bag of organs hangs at its bottom.
64
Heating up all this gas requires a lot of energy, so it is time to feed.
65
The spherical body opens up, unfolding and lowering a huge sticky net into the white clouds.
66
On Earth the largest animals to ever exist, blue whales, feed by filtering millions of tiny krill each day.
67
Similarly, the Sky Whales of Nimbus filter sky plankton out of the clouds.
68
Most is consumed right away and burned in specialized glands to generate heat.
69
The rest is converted into an orange and energy dense nectar for later.
70
This nectar is the most valuable resource on Nimbus.
71
Numerous predators are looking for it, but none so hungrily as the frog sized Jet Squids, evolutionary cousins of the whales.
72
Several of them trail each Sky Whale waiting for it to be distracted or sleepy after a succulent meal.
73
Jet Squids are far less efficient floaters.
74
But they are able to superheat and expel gases in short bursts, like a rocket.
75
Like vampiric hummingbirds, their long and pointy beaks try to pierce their prey and lap up some of the nectar inside.
76
Unlike in the stable Eye Ipa, life on Nimbus is doomed.
77
B Type stars like Caeruleus live for a few hundred million years at most and this time is coming to its end.
78
Soon it will be burning through its fuel at an astounding rate and violently burn our gas giant.
79
Life on Nimbus is only 600 million years old and has barely ten million years left.
80
Is this tragic?
81
Or is this unique ecosystem lucky to have existed in the first place?
82
Something to ponder as you move on before your jetpack runs out of fuel.
83
Orsted is a Y-class brown dwarf 13 times more massive than Jupiter and with a magnetic field 60 times stronger.
84
It belongs to yellow star Sturgeon, which is about to disappear behind Orsted’s shadow.
85
But you are interested in Monnier, one of Orsted’s many moons.
86
It should get as much sunlight as our Earth, but its 3 hour orbit around the brown dwarf means its days are extremely short.
87
Gravity here is a mere 5% of Earth’s, so the moon can only hold onto a thin carbon dioxide atmosphere that doesn’t retain much heat.
88
So, its average temperature is far below freezing.
89
As its cold night begins, a chill descends on Monnier and dry ice snows from the sky.
90
A green, blue and red aurora illuminates the landscape, made from star plasma caught in Orsted’s magnetic field and striking Monnier’s atmosphere.
91
The Sturgeon system was born from a nebula saturated with metals, so iron and lead are abundant.
92
In this frigid cold, chock-full of toxic minerals, life found unique ways to make the best of a bad situation: by using ammonia instead of water, which would freeze in the short nights.
93
And by incorporating magnetized minerals and Orsted’s magnetic field into its biology.
94
On Earth species like lobsters or bees have learnt to sense magnetic fields, but life on Monnier takes it to a whole other level.
95
As Sturgeon rises and its red rays filter through Orsted’s crescent, a yellow glow rushes over the horizon.
96
The snowfall stops and temperatures quickly rise.
97
The ground creaks and multi-colored liquids trickle out from fissures all around you: cryovolcanism just like on Jupiter’s moon Europa.
98
Brittle-seeming bundles start to unspool and climb off the ground, towards the bright star.
99
Like Arctic flowers on Earth sprouting in the short summer, these plants don’t have a minute of daytime to waste.
100
Their blossoms are saturated with magnetic minerals, making use of the extreme magnetism and low gravity to levitate, reaching up to a kilometer into the sky.
101
Extending the sunset for as long as possible.
102
Hey, don’t touch them!
103
With a loud crack, the skyflower detaches itself from the ground and drifts out of reach.
104
Suddenly you are surrounded.
105
Hundreds of shiny critters zoom by.
106
They look like ice-skating snails and can circle Monnier faster than the sunset.
107
From their head they extend two long stalks that are electrically-conductive and merge up top.
108
A magnetic kite that drags them along the surface at breathtaking speeds.
109
The Skaters formed a symbiotic relationship with photosynthetic purple microorganisms that live in their shells.
110
These biological solar panels produce sugars that they share with the skaters in exchange for continuous starlight.
111
If the skaters ever stop they risk their partners freezing and death by starvation.
112
The harmonic scenery is violently interrupted as the ground splinters open and a spiked metal claw grabs a Skater and crushes it.
113
It belongs to an animal that looks like a cross between a sea-lion and a beetle.
114
As it devours its prey, it gets covered in pink and sparkly fluids.
115
These Ambushers hide in the crystalline ground, spreading an array of electrically sensitive whiskers that they use to detect their prey and strike just as they zoom by.
116
Like living landmines that could be buried everywhere.
117
Maybe you should end your stroll.
118
The darkness will return soon.
119
It's time to return home.
120
Earth, warm and pleasant.
121
It's good to be home, in the environment you and all other life that's not made up evolved in.
122
But, who knows, if you look up at the countless flickering lights there may be countless strange worlds home to life stranger than anything you've seen.
123
Scientific speculation is fun but also useful, giving us ideas about what we should look out for and, who knows, maybe in a few thousand years our descendants may actually visit exotic oceans, fly over white clouds the size of continents or pet metallic animals.
124
And maybe, just maybe, even talk to others like us who are also marveling at all the strange life in our universe.
125
Want to go beyond imagining aliens and start uncovering real secrets of the cosmos?
126
Our friends of Brilliant can hand you the keys to unlocking new insights, right from the comfort of your planet.
127
Brilliant will make you a better thinker and problem solver, with thousands of hands-on bite-sized lessons on just about anything you may be curious about - from the physics of the world around us, to big concepts in AI, mathematics, data analysis and more.
128
On Brilliant, you'll learn through discovery, by trying things yourself.
129
You'll not only gain knowledge of key concepts, you'll learn to apply them to real world situations, helping you put the intelligent in intelligent life.
130
We also partnered with Brilliant to create a series of lessons to take your scientific knowledge to the next level.
131
These lessons let you further explore the topics in our most popular videos, from black holes and supernovae to climate science and viruses.
132
It's like a one-on-one version of a Kurzgesagt video.
133
And you can get started whenever, wherever, right from whatever device you'd like.
134
Brilliant has a huge library of other lessons to explore, with new lessons added each month.
135
And unlike waiting thousands of years to discover alien species, Brilliant helps you learn something new in just minutes.
136
Spending just a little time learning on Brilliant each day helps you see the world in new ways, build powerful problem solving skills and end every day a little smarter.
137
To get hands on with Kurzgesagt lessons and explore everything Brilliant has to offer for free, for a full 30 days, visit brilliant.org/nutshell or click on the link in the description.
138
You'll also get 20% off an annual premium subscription.
139
Welcome to the Kurzgesagt Lab.
140
Let's conduct a few stellar experiments.
141
We'll first add some more mass to this protostar.
142
More. A bit more.
143
Wow, we just created a blue giant!
144
A star with 10 times the mass of our Sun.
145
Let's now add a couple of million years and see what happens.
146
A supernova!
147
Breathtaking!
148
And look, it leaves behind a black hole.
149
Fascinating stuff.
150
Now we record our findings.
151
Be careful to preserve the sparkle.
152
It's now time for Duck's final inspection This one is always a nail-biter.
153
He has incredibly high standards.
154
luckily for us, our work is scientifically accurate, offers an overview of important astrophysical processes, and is a real stunner.
155
Duck approves.
156
Looks like it's ready to be shared with the world as a poster.
157
A very special piece of Kurzgesagt you can take home and touch.
158
You can get this very special poster along with many other sciencey and spacey things, created with love and care, from our shop.
159
Every Kurzgesagt product you buy directly funds another moment we get to spend working on our videos.
160
Thank you so much for being a part of our story and for making this channel possible
Descargar app
Todo lo que necesitas para hablar con fluidez
Pronunciación con IAEvalúa cada oración
Práctica de IPADomina cada sonido
VocabularioConstruye tu banco de palabras
Juego de vocabularioAprende mientras juegas
📺 Mismo canal
B229
Your Skeleton Is Electric
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B234
Your Brain Peaked at Birth
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C1116
Could Humans Evolve Flight?
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C135
Why Ebola Keeps Coming Back
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B27
3 Reasons Why Nuclear Energy Is Terrible! 2/3
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B2134
Can Earth Run Out of Water?
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C110
Would You Upload Your Mind?
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B264
What the Flu Does to Your Body
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B2556
What If You Never Slept?
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C11
The Rise of the Machines – Why Automation is Different this Time
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
Your Brain on Magic Mushrooms
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B21
The Most Complex Language in the World
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B25
Let’s Steal a New Moon
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B2759
How Stress Changes Your Brain
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B23
What Happens AFTER Nuclear War?
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B21
3 Reasons Why Nuclear Energy Is Awesome! 3/3
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B252
Can We Stop the Extinction?
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B26
YOU Own the Moon. And Mars. And Venus.
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B2209
The True Cost of War
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B23
What Is Life? Is Death Real?
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
✨ Recomendar Video
C19
92 oraciones
What Do Alien Civilizations Look Like? The Kardashev Scale
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
C11
64 oraciones
What Exactly Is Coral?
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
C13
74 oraciones
The Science Behind The Odyssey's Greatest Challenge
American AccentIELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
C16
74 oraciones
Black Holes Explained – From Birth to Death
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
B21
68 oraciones
Spooky Encounter in the Amazon Jungle (S5) | The Proof Is Out There
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
C19
48 oraciones
Why Don't Blue Whales Eat Fish?
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
C14
61 oraciones
All of Astronomy in 6 minutes
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
B24
41 oraciones
PROOF ALIENS ACTUALLY EXIST
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
B22
477 oraciones
تطور العين
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
C11
59 oraciones
Cambridge Ielts 16 Reading test 2 Passage 2
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepCambridge Exam Prep
C14
127 oraciones
The First Mass Extinction as Explained by Lindsay Nikole
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
C120
20 oraciones
How does light 'know' the shortest path?
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
Vocabulario y notas de pronunciación para esta lección
Esta lección de conversación de nivel C1 se basa en el vídeo “What Actual Aliens Might Look Like”. Este vídeo tiene 160 frases y 2432 palabras para practicar shadowing. La parte hablada dura 15:43. El hablante habla a un ritmo natural de unas 155 palabras por minuto, cercano a una conversación cotidiana. Solo el 72 % 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 |
|---|---|---|
| prey sustantivo | /pɹeɪ/ | presa |
| evolve verbo | /ɪˈvɑlv/ | desarrollar |
| whale sustantivo | /ˈweɪl/ | ballena |
| countless adjetivo | /ˈkaʊntləs/ | incontable, innumerable |
| nectar sustantivo | /ˈnɛk.təɹ/ | néctar |
| plankton sustantivo | /ˈplæŋ(k).tən/ | plancton |
| skater sustantivo | /ˈskeɪ.tə(ɹ)/ | patinador, patinadora |
| ecosystem sustantivo | /ˈikoʊˌsɪstəm/ | ecosistema |
| underwater adjetivo | /ʌndɚˈwɔtəɹ/ | sumergido, subacuático |
| mineral sustantivo | /ˈmɪn.ə.ɹəl/ | mineral |
| electrically adverbio | /ɪˈlɛk.tɹɪk.li/ | eléctricamente |
| frigid adjetivo | /ˈfɹɪd͡ʒɪd/ | frígido |
| spherical adjetivo | /ˈsfɛɹɪkəl/ | esférico |
| sulfur sustantivo | /ˈsʌl.fə/ | azufre |
| breathtaking adjetivo | /ˈbɹɛθˌteɪ.kɪŋ/ | impresionante, emocionante |
Phrasal verbs que vas a escuchar
| Palabra | Pronunciación | Significado |
|---|---|---|
| get off verbo | bajarse | |
| make up verbo | /ˌmeɪk ˈʌp/ | reponer, suplir |
Frases que vale la pena repetir
Frases cortas y completas del vídeo que puedes reutilizar en la conversación diaria:
- You're just in time for mating season.
- Let's conduct a few stellar experiments.
- We'll first add some more mass to this protostar.
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 optimized · are replaced · have been noticed |
| Present perfect have/has + participio pasado — una acción pasada que sigue importando ahora | has melted · has occupied · have learnt |
Pronunciación a tener en cuenta
El hablante usa 14 contracciones y formas reducidas, como you'll, don't, we'll. Dilas en su forma corta, tal como las oyes.
- Los sonidos de “sh” y “zh”: specialize /ˈspɛʃəˌlaɪz/, speculation /ˌspɛk.jəˈleɪ.ʃən/, shallow /ˈʃæloʊ/, subscription /səbˈskɹɪpʃən/
- Palabras largas — cuida el acento: ecosystem /ˈikoʊˌsɪstəm/, underwater /ʌndɚˈwɔtəɹ/, electrically /ɪˈlɛk.tɹɪk.li/, violently /ˈvaɪ(ə)ləntli/, speculation /ˌspɛk.jəˈleɪ.ʃən/
Sonidos difíciles para hispanohablantes:
- s + consonante al inicio — sin añadir una “e” delante: skater /ˈskeɪ.tə(ɹ)/, spherical /ˈsfɛɹɪkəl/, snail /sneɪl/, specialize /ˈspɛʃəˌlaɪz/, speculation /ˌspɛk.jəˈleɪ.ʃən/
- /v/ — no es /b/: los dientes tocan el labio inferior: evolve /ɪˈvɑlv/, violently /ˈvaɪ(ə)ləntli/, harvest /ˈhɑɹ.vəst/
- /z/ — sonora, no /s/: zoom /zuːm/, exotic /ɪɡˈzɑtɪk/, specialize /ˈspɛʃəˌlaɪz/, horizon /həˈɹaɪ.zən/, poison /ˈpɔɪ.zən/
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 prey, evolve, whale.
¿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.