Shadowing Practice: Why a Language Map of the World is Impossible - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Bienvenido, zu, Garta, Miehet, Viz, I, Wanwame, Men, Ea, Tehe, Nunanguak.

Mup, men, mup, men, mup, mup, men, men.

There are more than 7 ,000 languages spoken on planet Earth alone.

Which one you choose to speak every day is very strongly linked to where you choose to live.

For example, people who speak Keshwar tend to live here, and people who speak Mongolian tend to live here.

So, here's the super simple challenge.

Is it possible to draw up a world map divided up neatly into who speaks what language where using Microsoft Paint?

Why?

Because a map of languages will provide a living blueprint of the stories of our ancestors

and our shared cultures across the world.

No, I mean why use Microsoft Paint?

That's the most powerful graphic software I know how to use.

I don't think this will be super simple.

One piece of good news is

that this map is certainly easier to draw today than it would have been a few hundred years ago.

Language first developed on Earth on the 18th of September, 97 ,006 BC.

Spoon.

And ever since then, languages started spreading around the world, gradually splitting up into lots of different languages.

People rarely communicated with people outside of their own village, which meant that the language spoken in the next village was slightly different.

Spoon.

Speen.

Spleen.

But then, thanks to increased mobility and printing technology, languages became standardised.

There were now great big zones in which everyone more or less understood the same languages.

But these didn't necessarily correspond to political borders.

Borders were determined by dynastic inheritance, military conquest, and or royal marriages.

This is how you end up with states like the Austro -Hungarian Empire, a single massive blob on the map where the rulers spoke German, but the citizens spoke German, Hungarian, Czech, Slovakian, Polish, Ukrainian,

Slovenian, Serbo -Croat, Romanian, and Italian in no particular order. But then...

A German philosopher called Johann Gottfried von Herder once argued that A people's soul, identity and world view are inherently tied to their native tongue.

To be ruled by a foreign empire is a great injustice.

Herder's ideas sparked a massive movement across Europe where linguistic identity was the same as national identity.

To summarise this incredibly complicated history in as few words as possible, wars.

Which is how you get modern nation states, each with their own language, that we know and like today.

Making Europe a great easy place to start drawing our map.

So, Portuguese in Portugal, Spanish in Spain, French in France, German in Germany, easy -peasy language squeezy.

Wait a minute!

A small handful of small nations are an exception to this rule, with some European countries not having languages to call their own, but borrowing the languages spoken across the border,

making Austria and Liechtenstein disappear into Germany, Switzerland disappear into Italy, France and Germany, and Belgium disappear into the Netherlands, France and Germany a bit.

Well that's just a handful of anomalies, we can work with that.

Filling in all of Europe very, very fast.

Right, that's Europe completely filled in.

Time to move on to the rest of the planet.

Not yet!

Rather a lot of languages don't have the advantage of being represented by a fully -fledged nation -state, but are still spoken by a lot of people, and deserve to be on this map.

For example, take France.

Thank you.

France does not just speak French.

There are also plenty of regional languages that you'll often see on street signs, such as Breton, Basque, Occitan, Corsican, and Alsatian.

And that's just France.

There are regional languages on street signs, local newspapers and bus timetables in certain regions of Spain, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Poland, Finland.

Hang on, hang on, hang on.

This is getting too cluttery.

If our map of all the world's languages is going to be anyway legible, we're just going to have to get rid of some of the unimportant ones.

Uh -oh.

Differentiating between which languages are apparently important is not data, it's a personal opinion.

How would you like it if it was your language that the powers that be decided didn't belong on this map.

Well, I'd feel marginalised and ignored.

Not a nice feeling, is it?

Wouldn't know.

So we need a simple rule to keep the map legible that can be applied to the whole map, devoid of our own personal opinions.

I think I've got one.

You do?

Yep, and it's very simple.

All languages on this map have to be official.

That sounds nice and simple.

To see if that's any help at all, let's look at Ireland.

The Arctic Circle, home to some of the most inhospitable environments on Earth.

It is also incredibly boring.

But this human thinks he has found an ingenious solution.

Surfshark VPN, the sponsor of this video.

With this remarkable adaptation, he can now watch streaming services is usually only available to those in other countries.

Not only will this stave off boredom, the Surfshark CleanWeb feature ensures he won't be overwhelmed by ads and trackers, meaning faster load times and lower data usage,

whilst its email scam checker helps protect against criminal calamity.

But not everyone is so lucky.

No!

With access to only the Danish internet, this individual has reached his wits end.

But I already know Jens and Sebastian are the same person!

I've seen it 15 times!

Surfshark's benefits are truly humorous.

If humans like the one behind me do not learn to click the link in the description...

Will I borrow your heater?

Shut up!

Surfshark .com forward slash mapmen and use the code MAPMEN.

You're so mean!

Shut up!

To get four months extra, then they will surely become extinct.

Can I use your Surfshark account?

Right, that's it!

No, please!

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

The official first language of the Republic of Ireland, explicitly stated by the Irish Constitution, is Irish.

It's on all road signs, government websites, library cards, public transport announcements, and government -funded TV and radio stations.

However, 98 % of the Irish population actually speaks English.

The Irish language is spoken at home by less than 2 % of Irish people.

Lots of Irish people can speak some Irish, but mostly because it's taught in schools as a compulsory subject.

To ladron erin, to ladron eris, to ladron erin, to ladron erin.

Irish is just one example of an official language that is not a majority language.

100

Thanks to modern -day migration, Scotland has more speakers of Polish than Scottish Gaelic, Toulouse has more speakers of Arabic than Occitan and Switzerland has more speakers of Portuguese than Romance.

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Many languages are made official for historical or political reasons.

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In the case of Irish, its modern preservation is a direct response to undo the damage done by centuries of attempts by the English to eradicate it.

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And it's a similar story for many of the other languages

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that appear on street signs whose status comes not from the fact that so many people speak them, but that so many people don't speak them.

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So the word official is officially unhelpful for our map.

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So far, but it might come in handy once we finally zoom out of Europe

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and have a look at the rest of the world.

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Beyond Europe, many places speak a European language thanks to colonialism.

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Thanks to colonialism?

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What's the word for thanks to but when it's a bad thing?

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Thanks to bad.

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Thanks to bad colonialism.

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So French is an official language in these countries, Portuguese is an official language in these countries,

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Spanish in these countries and of course English in all these countries.

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Not so fast, Bucket!

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Let's see which languages are actually spoken in these places.

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This is Namibia, in the southwest of Africa, just northwest of South Africa.

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According to its constitution, after gaining independence in 1990, that was late, its only official language is English.

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It's used in boring government documents, PowerPoint presentations in business meetings, and the Namibian Post Office's FAQ webpage.

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However, English is actually spoken as a first language by less than 4 % of actual Namibians.

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So what do actual Namibians actually speak?

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Most Namibians speak a patchwork of dozens of indigenous languages, languages, such as Oshiwambo, Cuocacoap, Ochiherero, Rukwangali.

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So why is their official language English?

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If they'd chosen any of the indigenous languages, they'd have risked alienating speakers of the other ones.

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By selecting English, a language native to almost nobody, Namibia established a neutral bridging language, putting all citizens at the same annoying disadvantage.

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So if our map's going to be actually useful, we can't use English for Namibia?

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Certainly not!

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Nor can you use it for any other countries where English is an official but by no means majority language, such as India, Pakistan, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Cameroon, Papua New Guinea,

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Zambia, Malawi, Lesotho, Botswana, Eswatini, Vanuatu or the Solomon Islands.

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Conversely, in this country, where English actually is widely spoken by the population, the English language has no legal official status at all.

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In the United States, the fact that all the country's business

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and TV stations and national anthems just happen to be conducted in English is, legally speaking, a happy and very useful coincidence.

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OK, it's taken a lot of research and a lot of colours, but I've ignored the politicians, ignored national borders, and just coloured each area according to the most spoken language.

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Spoken language? Or languages?

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Oh no. The majority of the world is not monolingual.

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Speaking one language when you're at home, and then another language when you're at work, or school, or in court, is completely normal for roughly 60 % of the world's population.

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Take Paraguay.

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Thank you.

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In Paraguay, the country in South America you know least about, the vast majority of the population speaks both Spanish and Guarani, the local indigenous language.

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But when they use each one depends on the situation.

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Spanish is used for formal purposes like business or education, and Guarani is used for informal, intimate and everyday personal interactions.

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This is called diglossia.

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This is completely true, by the way.

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I actually did a gap year in Paraguay when I was 19, so I actually saw this for myself.

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I was teaching English in a school and the kids would all speak Spanish to me in our lessons, but every time they spoke to each other, they'd speak in Guarani.

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And I did manage to learn just a little bit of Guarani while I was out there.

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Paraguay is far from the only place on our map where we'd have to show two or more languages at once.

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In many bi - or tri -lingual parts of the world, people switch languages not just throughout a typical day, but throughout a typical sentence.

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This is called code -switching, and it'll be familiar to anybody who grew up in a bilingual household.

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Dad, can I with and Steve's after school?

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Only if your mother says .

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This happens in, for example, Delhi, where the average sentence switches every few seconds between English and Hindi, or the Philippines between English and Tagalog, or Singapore between English, Malay,

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Cantonese and Hokkien, more commonly known as Singlish.

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So if our map is going to be accurate, it's going to have to have lots of zones where you have to show two or more languages at once.

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And how are you going to do that?

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Errr...

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Well, if we draw very, very, very thin vertical lines with alternating colours, it sort of makes it look really clear that it's meant to be both languages at once.

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Problem solved!

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Can I have a go?

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Go ahead.

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Yeah, look at that!

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Hello?

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I'll tell him.

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Apparently Singlish mixes these languages together in such a consistent way, that it arguably doesn't count as code -switching, and it's its own dialect.

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Oh no no no, we're not putting dialects on this map.

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Why not?

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Who was that?

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King of Singapore.

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Because this map is crowded enough.

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It's not supposed to be a map of dialects, it's a map of different languages.

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Do you know the difference?

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A dialect is a version of a language, with some of its own distinct vocabulary, or grammar or pronunciation, but it's still generally understood by speakers of other dialects.

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For example, Geordie, spoken in Newcastle, is a dialect of English, understood by speakers of other English dialects.

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So you say.

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But to the relief of everyone from Sunderland, the rest of the world is not like Newcastle.

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This is China, home to more than a billion speakers of dozens of languages.

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For example, in Beijing, they speak Mandarin.

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And in Hong Kong, they speak Cantonese.

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These are as different from each other as Spanish is from Italian.

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However… If you ask the Chinese government what languages these people are speaking, they'll say they're speaking the same language.

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For the purposes of political unity, these two languages, and indeed all the other dozens of mutually unintelligible languages across China, are referred to as dialects of Chinese.

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Confusing things a bit, these mutually unintelligible tongues share the same pictorial writing system, So, written down, they all count as Chinese, even though they sound very different.

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Well, we're not letting the Chinese government dictate what our map looks like.

184

Then you'll need a consistent definition across the world for what counts as a language, and not a dialect.

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How about this?

186

It counts as a different language if two speakers can't understand each other.

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I'm afraid if you apply that rule, we'll have to start Europe all over again.

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What?

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In Scandinavia, the countries of Norway, Denmark and Sweden respectively speak the languages Norwegian, Danish and Swedish.

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How.

191

Ever.

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If you've ever had a curious look at the user manual for a 2006 Peugeot 107, you'll notice that the instructions in Danish, Swedish and Norwegian are remarkably similar.

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The result of so much shared Scandinavian geography and history is

194

that 64 % of Danish speakers can understand 91 % of Norwegian, and 88 % of Norwegian speakers can understand 72 % of Swedish.

195

That's a lot of percent.

196

It's about like hearing an English sentence like this a bit.

197

Understand it, you can't perfect, Borg.

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Only it sound, it sound a bit wrong." There is arguably more mutual understanding

199

between the three Scandinavian languages than there is between speakers of wildly different dialects of Arabic.

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Okay, couldn't we just colour all of Scandinavia one colour?

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Nay, nay and nay.

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There is no such thing as standard pan -Scandinavian.

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These nations take each other's separate identities and independence very seriously, and have been to war with each other several times just to make sure.

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For similarly politically sensitive reasons, you can't say Serbian is the same as Bosnian or

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that Czech is the same as Slovak or that Hindi is the same as Urdu.

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Even though it sort of is, it sort of is and it sort of is.

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So if it's not government recognition or mutual intelligibility, what on earth is the difference between a language and a dialect?

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There isn't one!

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As the famous linguist Max Weinreich once said, A language is just a dialect with an army and a navy.

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A quote which has been endlessly re -quoted again and again in dozens of dialects.

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Well this is getting ridiculous now.

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If it counts as a different language, even if you can still understand each other, we'll be dividing the map up all day.

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My neighbour pronounces spade differently.

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Mind if I borrow your spade?

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In truth, that's the very thing that makes this map impossibilist to draw.

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My neighbour?

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In a manner of speaking, yes.

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In a globalised world of high international travel and migration, the reality is there are dozens of different dialects in every district.

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In my street alone, there are families speaking Greek, Romanian, Portuguese, Yoruba, and that weird kid at number 12 who's made up his own language.

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To show broad generalisations on a legible map is sort of saying that these people don't matter or don't exist.

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So it turns out a map of all the world's languages can never be truly representative

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and consistent and accurate at the same time, no matter how state -of -the -art your software is.

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Ah, I guess you're right.

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Making this map was completely pointless.

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Well, that's not what I said.

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Even if the map itself is fundamentally flawed, the process of trying to make it teaches us so much.

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The very thing that makes the topic of linguistics

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so endlessly fascinating is the fact that you can't show the rich

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and varied tapestries of the world's languages in one single map.

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Each new layer of complexity, each caveat and bit of nuance, reveals more about how cultural exchange, political control and human interconnectivity have shaped the world today.

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Vocabulario y notas de pronunciación para esta lección

Esta lección de conversación de nivel C1 se basa en el vídeo “Why a Language Map of the World is Impossible”. Las palabras que más se repiten: language, map, English, speak, dialect. Este vídeo tiene 230 frases y 2804 palabras para practicar shadowing. La parte hablada dura 15:28. El hablante habla rápido, unas 181 palabras por minuto, así que espera sonidos enlazados y reducidos. Solo el 79 % 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
legible adjetivo	/ˈlɛd͡ʒəbl/	legible, leíble
spoon sustantivo	/spuːn/	cuchara
disappear verbo	/dɪsəˈpɪɹ/	desaparecer, desparecer
endlessly adverbio	/ˈɛndləsli/	sin fin, interminablemente
unintelligible adjetivo	/ˌʌnɪnˈtɛlɪd͡ʒɪbəl/	ininteligible
mutually adverbio	/ˈmjut͡ʃuəli/	mutuamente
neighbour sustantivo	/ˈneɪbɚ/	vecino, vecina
arguably adverbio	/ˈɑɹɡjuəbli/	argüiblemente
bore verbo	/boɹ/	aburrir
borrow verbo	/ˈbɑɹ.oʊ/	pedir prestado, tomar prestado
alienate verbo	/ˈeɪ.li.ə.neɪt/	alienar, enajenar
ancestor sustantivo	/ˈæn.sɛs.tɚ/	ancestro, antepasado
anomaly sustantivo	/əˈnɑ.mə.li/	anomalía
blueprint sustantivo	/ˈbluːˌpɹɪnt/	cianotipia
boredom sustantivo	/ˈbɔɹ.dəm/	aburrimiento, tedio

Phrasal verbs que vas a escuchar

Palabra	Pronunciación	Significado
shut up	/ʃʌt ʌp/	cállate la boca, cállate
go ahead verbo	/ˌɡoʊ əˈhɛd/	venga, adelante
make up verbo	/ˌmeɪk ˈʌp/	reponer, suplir
turn out verbo		resultar
write down verbo		apuntar, anotar

Frases que vale la pena repetir

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

I don't think this will be super simple.
Will I borrow your heater?
Can I have a go?
Do you know the difference?
Mind if I borrow your spade?

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 you apply that rule, we'll have
Voz pasiva be + participio pasado — importa lo que ocurre, no quién lo hace	are inherently tied · be ruled · being represented
Present perfect have/has + participio pasado — una acción pasada que sigue importando ahora	has found · has reached · I've seen
Oraciones de relativo who / which + oración — información extra sobre una persona o cosa	people who speak · anybody who grew · quote which has

Pronunciación a tener en cuenta

El hablante usa 43 contracciones y formas reducidas, como can't, don't, you're. Dilas en su forma corta, tal como las oyes.

Los sonidos de “sh” y “zh”: pronunciation /pɹəˌnʌn.siˈeɪ.ʃən/, differentiate /dɪf.əˈɹɛn.ʃi.eɪt/, preservation /ˌpɹɛz.əˈveɪ.ʃən/, adaptation /ˌæd.æpˈteɪ.ʃən/
Palabras largas — cuida el acento: unintelligible /ˌʌnɪnˈtɛlɪd͡ʒɪbəl/, alienate /ˈeɪ.li.ə.neɪt/, anomaly /əˈnɑ.mə.li/, calamity /kəˈlæmɪti/, diglossia /ˌdaɪˈɡlɑsi.ə/

Sonidos difíciles para hispanohablantes:

s + consonante al inicio — sin añadir una “e” delante: spoon /spuːn/, spleen /spliːn/, standardise [ˈstændə(ɹ)daɪz], scam /ˈskæm/, spark /ˈspɑɹk/
/v/ — no es /b/: los dientes tocan el labio inferior: caveat /ˈkæviɑt/, devoid /dɪˈvɔɪd/, overwhelm /ˌoʊ.vɚˈwɛlm/, conversely /kənˈvɝsli/, disadvantage /ˌdɪsədˈvæntɪd͡ʒ/
/z/ — sonora, no /s/: standardise [ˈstændə(ɹ)daɪz], summarize /ˈsʌməˌɹaɪz/, confuse /kənˈfjuːz/, zoom /zuːm/, preservation /ˌpɹɛz.əˈveɪ.ʃən/

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 legible, spoon, disappear.

¿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: Why a Language Map of the World is Impossible - Learn English Speaking with Video

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