Shadowing Practice: Why We Faint (When Other Animals Don't) - Learn English Speaking with Video

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The more we learn about the animal kingdom, the less unique humans seem.
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But as far as we know, no other animal on Earth faints from fright like we do...lucky us.
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Like lots of other animals, when we sense we’re in danger - or experience another surge of emotion - our blood pressure spikes, rushing blood to our brain and increasing our alertness.
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But, in humans, once the threat is over, our body sometimes overcompensates, dropping our blood pressure too low and reducing the blood supply to our brain, causing us to briefly lose consciousness - in other words, we faint.
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While a few other animals do fall over, mainly from unrelated muscle issues, we’re the only ones who lose consciousness.
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And that’s thanks to a unique combination of two traits: an upright stance and a big brain.
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Spending most of our time upright, with our brain above our heart, means our blood has to fight gravity to reach the brain.
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And on top of that – or rather, below – we have big, veiny legs, which – when we stand still for too long – collect lots of blood, making it even harder to supply our brains with enough blood.
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While there are other animals with brains high above their hearts, none of them have brains as demanding as humans’.
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The bigger an animal’s brain, the more blood the brain needs; our big brains hog a whopping 20% of our bodies’ blood flow compared to less than 7% for our closest relatives and less than 1% in animals with even smaller brains.
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That’s why just a slight dip in our blood pressure can interrupt the flow of blood to our brain, while even a significant drop in other animals’ blood pressure won’t stop their brains from getting enough blood to keep running or hopping.
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Our unique combination of traits means that even something as silly as a...
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JUMP! SCARE in a horror film or simply the sight of blood can cause our blood pressure to drop enough for us to, well, drop.
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The good news is that falling puts our head and heart at the same level, allowing blood to quickly reach our brain again.
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The bad news is that fainting can also lead to sometimes serious injuries, accounting for about a million hospital visits each year.
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But the upright stance and big brain that make humans the only animals to faint from fright are the same traits that have allowed us to thrive and spread all over the globe.
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So, I guess you could say world domination is for the faint of heart.
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Vocabulario y notas de pronunciación para esta lección

Esta lección de conversación de nivel B2 se basa en el vídeo “Why We Faint”. Las palabras que más se repiten: brain, blood, animal, pressure, faint. Este vídeo tiene 17 frases y 426 palabras para practicar shadowing. La parte hablada dura 2:22. El hablante habla rápido, unas 180 palabras por minuto, así que espera sonidos enlazados y reducidos. El 85 % de las palabras está entre las 3.000 más comunes del inglés; conviene repasar el resto antes de empezar.

Vocabulario clave de este vídeo

Las 15 palabras más avanzadas del vídeo, con su pronunciación y significado:

PalabraPronunciaciónSignificado
faint adjetivo/feɪnt/débil
trait sustantivo/tɹeɪt/rasgo, característica
upright adjetivo/ˈʌpɹaɪt/vertical, recto
fright sustantivo/fɹaɪt/susto
stance sustantivo/stæns/postura
consciousness sustantivo/ˈkɑnʃəsnəs/conciencia
alertness sustantivo/əˈlɝt.nəs/vigilancia
whopping adjetivo/ˈ(h)wɑpɪŋ/enorme, gigante
interrupt verbo/ˌɪntəˈɹʌpt/interrumpir, interromper
domination sustantivo/ˌdɑːməˈneɪʃən/dominación
thrive verbo/θɹajv/prosperar, crecer
unrelated adjetivono relacionado
surge sustantivo/sɝd͡ʒ/aluvión, oleada
spike sustantivo/spaɪk/clavo, pincho
emotion sustantivo/ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/afecto, emoción

Phrasal verbs que vas a escuchar

PalabraSignificado
fall over verbocaerse

Gramática en este vídeo

Las estructuras que más usa el hablante, con las palabras exactas del vídeo:

EstructuraEn el vídeo
Present perfect have/has + participio pasado — una acción pasada que sigue importando ahorahave allowed
Oraciones de relativo who / which + oración — información extra sobre una persona o cosaones who lose

Pronunciación a tener en cuenta

El hablante usa 3 contracciones y formas reducidas, como we're, won't. Dilas en su forma corta, tal como las oyes.

  • Los sonidos de “sh” y “zh”: consciousness /ˈkɑnʃəsnəs/, domination /ˌdɑːməˈneɪʃən/, emotion /ɪˈməʊ.ʃən/

Sonidos difíciles para hispanohablantes:

  • s + consonante al inicio — sin añadir una “e” delante: stance /stæns/, spike /spaɪk/

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 faint, trait, upright.

¿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 →