Shadowing Practice: What's the tallest skyscraper anyone can build? - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Hi, it's Doug.

Have you ever played the game Jenga?

Some people are able to build some pretty tall towers.

Like, check out this, the world record.

This person piled 485 blocks on one single Jenga block.

That's some amazing balancing skills.

Someone named Ashley has a question about building things.

Let's give Ashley a call now.

Hi, Doug.

Hi, Ashley.

I have a question for you.

What's the tallest skyscraper anyone can build?

Oh, that's a great question.

Humans have been trying to build super tall things for a long time.

Before skyscrapers were invented, pyramids were the tallest objects built on Earth.

Take a look at this one.

It's called the Great Pyramid of Giza.

Builders stacked over 2 million heavy stone blocks to make it that high.

The pyramid was the tallest human -made thing on Earth for almost 4 ,000 years until this came along.

This is the Lincoln Cathedral, and it was once over 500 feet tall.

But then something happened.

If you've ever built a tower with blocks, you've probably noticed that the taller you build, the harder it gets.

And that's what happened to the Lincoln Cathedral.

The tallest part toppled over during a storm.

It was just too tall.

When it was built, people just couldn't build things that were very tall yet.

Before I go on, I'm curious.

Why couldn't those earlier pyramids and cathedrals be built as high as skyscrapers are today?

What do you think?

Now would be a good time to pause the video and discuss.

Okay, you ready?

Well, I'm not sure how you answered, but you might think that the earlier buildings weren't made of very strong materials.

But that's not really what's most important.

Bricks and stone blocks are incredibly strong.

It turns out it's the piling up of bricks or stone blocks that creates the problem.

You see, buildings back then were made by piling bricks or stones on top of each other.

The taller the building, the more bricks they would use.

And the more bricks they would use, the heavier the building would get.

If it got too heavy, it could collapse from its own weight, or it could topple over.

So the piling up of bricks or stone blocks is what kept people from making really tall buildings.

Since then, we've figured out how to build even taller buildings, buildings that are way taller than the first pyramids and cathedrals,

buildings that seem to scrape the sky.

These buildings, called skyscrapers, are now the tallest human -made objects on Earth, and they don't fall down.

How is that even possible?

Well, building a skyscraper involves a totally different way of creating a building.

Rather than stacking up building blocks, the way they did with pyramids, or the way you do in Jenga,

it involves giving the building a skeleton or structure on the inside.

This new way of building led to the first ever skyscraper, the Home Insurance Building in Chicago.

Instead of building with piled up bricks, it was built with a steel skeleton.

And since the skeleton was holding the building up, the rest of the building, like walls and windows, could be hung on the steel beams,

like pictures hang on walls.

And since those walls didn't need to be made out of piled up bricks anymore, they could be really light.

At least much less heavy than building materials of the past.

This changed everything.

By building with steel skeletons instead of heavy bricks, builders could build taller than ever.

Now, even with a skeleton, there was another thing that could knock it over.

Wind.

A skyscraper is like a giant sail.

The taller it is, the more wind pushes into it, and those winds can actually knock a skyscraper down.

So skyscraper builders are constantly trying to find ways to get around this problem, like the builders of this skyscraper did.

This is one of the tallest skyscrapers in the world.

You see the shape of the sides?

Why do you think they built it this way?

It's all because of the wind.

The spiral shape helps the wind twist around it instead of crashing into it.

And take a look at this one.

You notice the top?

Some Some skyscrapers are even built with holes in them so that the wind blows straight through.

Now by inventing new ways to trick the wind,

we've been able to build from 88 floors to 101 floors to the tallest skyscraper in the world, currently the Burj Khalifa.

It's 163 floors tall.

And that brings us back to our question.

How tall can a skyscraper be?

Well, no one really knows for sure how tall, but we are sure of this.

We can build a lot higher than the skyscrapers we have today.

In fact, builders in Japan are planning to build a skyscraper that's one mile tall.

It's called the Sky Mile Tower, and when it's finished, it will be more than 10 times the height of the Great Pyramid of Giza.

That's twice as tall as the tallest skyscraper we have now.

That's all for this week's question.

Thanks Ashley for asking it.

Now with Valentine's Day coming up, I picked out three questions from the question jar that all have something to do with the heart.

When this video is done playing, you'll get to vote on one.

You can choose from, does your heart grow?

Which animal has the biggest heart?

Or what's inside your heart?

So submit your vote when the video's over.

I want to hear from all of you watching.

There are mysteries all around us.

Stay curious and see you next week.

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Vocabulario clave de este vídeo

15 palabras del vídeo que vale la pena aprender, con su pronunciación y significado:

Palabra	Pronunciación	Significado
brick sustantivo	/ˈbɹɪk/	ladrillo, tabique
pyramid sustantivo	/ˈpɪɹ.ə.mɪd/	pirámide
pile sustantivo	/paɪl/	montón, rimero
builder sustantivo	/ˈbɪl.dəɹ/	constructor, constructora
skeleton sustantivo	/ˈskɛlətən/	esqueleto, osamenta
curious adjetivo	/ˈkjʊɹ.i.əs/	curioso, tener curiosidad
knock verbo	/nɑk/	llamar a, golpear
involve verbo	/ɪnˈvɑlv/	involucrar
stack sustantivo	/stæk/	pila, montón
cathedral sustantivo	/kəˈθiːdɹəl/	catedral
invent verbo	/ɪnˈvɛnt/	inventar
trick sustantivo	/ˈtɹɪk/	truco, artimaña
mystery sustantivo	/ˈmɪs.t(ə.)ɹi/	misterio, arcano
skill sustantivo	/skɪl/	destreza, habilidad
incredibly adverbio	/ɪŋˈkɹɛdɪbli/	increíblemente

Phrasal verbs que vas a escuchar

Palabra	Significado
pile up verbo	arrumar, apilar
check out verbo	investigar, chequear
come along verbo	avanzar, marchar
come up verbo	salir a relucir
figure out verbo	averiguar, captar
turn out verbo	resultar

Frases que vale la pena repetir

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

What's the tallest skyscraper anyone can build?
What do you think?
You see the shape of the sides?
Why do you think they built it this way?
You notice the top?

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	were invented · was built · be built
Present perfect have/has + participio pasado — una acción pasada que sigue importando ahora	Have you ever played · you've ever built · we've figured
Superlativos the -est / the most … — lo más alto o lo más bajo de un grupo	the tallest · the biggest
Comparativos -er than / more … than — comparar dos cosas	taller than · less heavy than · higher than

Pronunciación a tener en cuenta

El hablante usa 13 contracciones y formas reducidas, como couldn't, I'm, we've. Dilas en su forma corta, tal como las oyes.

Sonidos difíciles para hispanohablantes:

s + consonante al inicio — sin añadir una “e” delante: skeleton /ˈskɛlətən/, stack /stæk/, skill /skɪl/, spiral /ˈspaɪɹəl/, skyscraper /ˈskaɪˌskɹeɪpɚ/
/v/ — no es /b/: los dientes tocan el labio inferior: involve /ɪnˈvɑlv/, invent /ɪnˈvɛnt/

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 brick, pyramid, pile.

¿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 →

Shadowing Practice: What's the tallest skyscraper anyone can build? - Learn English Speaking with Video

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