Pratica di Shadowing: The Man Who Survived Both Atomic Bombs - Impara a parlare inglese con i video
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On the morning of August 6th, 1945, the US bomber Enola Gay flew towards Hiroshima, carrying a weapon unlike anything the world had ever seen.
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The weapon was an atomic bomb, and very few outside of America even knew that such a thing existed.
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In minutes, the entire city would become a graveyard.
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But down on the ground in Hiroshima, it was a clear summer morning, and the city was just starting its normal day.
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This morning was special though, for a man named Tsutomu Yamaguchi.
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Tsutomo was 29 years old and worked as an engineer at shipyards.
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Tsutomo was from Nagasaki, but he had been living in Hiroshima for the past three months, designing ships for the Japanese Navy.
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Today was the last day of his three-month-long project though, and he had a train ticket later that evening to Nagasaki.
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Tsutomo was excited that he was finally about to go home to see his wife and child, but instead, he was about to step into history's deadliest nightmare.
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As he was arriving at the shipyard that morning, he heard a plane buzzing overhead.
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This wasn't anything uncommon given Japan was in the midst of World War II, but this plane sounded different.
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He looked up at the plane and immediately knew it was a B-29 bomber.
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Japan didn't have any B-29 bombers of their own, so he knew this couldn't be a Japanese plane.
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As he's watching the plane go over him, he sees something drop out the back of it.
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Two parachutes then deploy from this object, slowing the fall.
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Tsutomo is watching this object in the distance fall, trying to figure out exactly what it is.
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The object then dips below the trees, and it stays silent for another moment.
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Then suddenly, a crazy bright flash fills the sky, and it blinds Tsutomo.
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In this split second, Tsutomo is completely disoriented, but he knows this extremely bright flash is an explosion from afar.
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He knows that the sound is coming next.
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He immediately dives to the ground for cover
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and he rolls over into a ditch Covering his face with his hands
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and plugging his ears just in time to hear a massive thunderous boom
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The force of this blast is so strong
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that even though he was ducking for cover in the ditch
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The energy of the explosion lifted him off the ground and spun him in the air like a tornado
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Tsutomo remembers flying through the air spinning and then BAM he slams to the ground and is out.
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Tsutomo was only about 3 kilometers or 2 miles from where the bomb detonated, and just about everyone else around him was dead.
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In this moment, when Tsutomo was out cold, he remembered thinking in his head that he was dead himself.
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He had memories and images of his wife and child pop up in his head, feeling like they were circling around him.
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But then all of a sudden, Tsutomo started regaining consciousness.
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He's able to open his eyes, but everything around him looks dark.
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His ears are also ringing, and he can't even hear himself think.
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There's objects flying all around in the sky, and massive fires are raging all around him.
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But in this moment of complete disbelief and shock, Tsutomo knew he needed to survive this to see his family again one day.
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Tsutomo knew that he needed to find shelter.
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Tsutomo then started rushing towards an army shooting range that was nearby.
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Tsutomo had been to this shooting range before and remembered that it had very large concrete walls.
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The range was built almost like a concrete bunker.
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When he got to the shooting range, there was a bunch of Koreans inside who were also caught on the blast.
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Their clothes had been ripped off their bodies and they were as red as shrimp from the burns of the blast.
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They were in the bunker screaming, help, help, in Korean.
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But Tsutomo was just as badly injured and there wasn't anything he could do to help.
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Shortly after, two students from the Hiroshima Technical High School came into the range.
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One of the students looked at Tsutomo's burns and couldn't believe how bad they were.
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This student reached into his bag and pulled out a special ointment that had seashells mixed in with it.
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The student then rubbed this on Tsutomo's burns that that covered his entire body.
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Tsutomo found a mirror inside this range and couldn't even recognize himself in it.
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Much of his skin was peeling off his body and he knew he was going to need serious medical help.
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Tsutomo then decided he needed a venture back outside to find assistance.
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He wanted to try and return to the shipyard to see if any of his co-workers and friends were still alive there.
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After leaving the shooting range, Tsutomo passed by the completely destroyed Korean barracks.
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Korea was under Japanese rule during World War II, so Japan forced many of these Korean men to fight alongside them.
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It's estimated that 70-80,000 people died instantly during the blast of Hiroshima, and 20-30,000 of these people were Koreans.
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Unfortunately, Tsutomu was in no condition to try and help the survivors, so he carried on with his journey back to the shipyard.
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Once he finally returned to the company's shipyard, the devastation was unimaginable.
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The whole area was littered with burned corpses.
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The company's dormitory, which is where Tsutomo had been living for the past three months, was also completely destroyed, so Tsutomo didn't have many options for where he could sleep.
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He didn't have much energy left, and decided to just fall asleep on the riverbank amidst the burning city.
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The next morning, Tsutomo woke up and finally had some good news.
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He overheard from a few other survivors that there was an evacuation train leaving for Nagasaki later that morning.
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Somehow the rail track was just far enough away from the blast
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that it was still functional and was going to help people escape to Nagasaki.
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Tsutomo couldn't believe the news, but he wanted to make one final stop before returning to Nagasaki.
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He had to go to his parents' home in Okamachi, which was just outside of Hiroshima.
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Tsutomo had no way of knowing whether or not his parents were still alive, but he had to make the trip just in case they were.
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Tsutomo then traveled through the fiery and obliterated city and walked all the way to Okamachi.
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Another air raid siren started going off just as Tsutomo got to his parents' home.
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Nobody was home inside it seemed, but Tsutomo went in and sat down in front of the family's altar.
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He sat there and finally had a moment to decompress
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and wait out whatever attack may be coming given the alert from the air raid sirens.
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Eventually, the warning was lifted without any attack, and he heard his parents coming back to the home.
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On the way in, Tsutomo heard his mother and father talking.
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The mother said that, we'll have to go to Hiroshima and collect his remains.
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Then the father said, even if we go, we won't be able to recognize his body.
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We don't know where he died, and we won't be able to tell one body from another.
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It was at that very moment that the father
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and mother walked in to see Tsutomo sitting in front of the family's altar.
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At first, the parents were wondering who had broken into their home as Tsutomo wasn't even recognizable from his burns.
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Then Tsutomo spoke and his parents realized it was their son.
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Tsutomo couldn't stay here for long though as he had to
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make his way across town to catch the train heading for Nagasaki.
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Tsutomo wasn't gonna lose his chance to see his wife and kids again.
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In order to get to the train station, he had to pass over several bridges.
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As he would travel over these bridges, below Tsutomo saw what he described as a river of corpses.
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It was unlike anything you could ever imagine, and Tsutomo ended up writing a poem about this devastating experience titled,
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And the River Flowed as a Raft of Corpses.
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Finally, Tsutomo made it to the train station and boarded the overnight journey to Nagasaki.
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The next day, now on August 8th, 1945, Tsutomo's train made it back to Nagasaki.
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He immediately went straight to the Mitsubishi Hospital next to the Nagasaki station for medical treatment.
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Tsutomo later described the doctors as heroes and did everything they could to treat his wounds.
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Tsutomo ended up leaving the hospital looking like the Michelin Man, where his entire body was covered with bandages aside from his eyes, nose, and mouth.
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was finally able to make his way back home to see his wife and kids.
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His wife and kid, like his parents, didn't even recognize Tsutomo at first, especially because of the bandages that covered his entire body.
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They were completely shocked to see him alive, however.
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The next morning, on August 9th, 1945, now three days after Hiroshima was hit,
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Tsutomo started making his way to the Mitsubishi office in Nagasaki for work.
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Tsutomo is still severely injured and mentally traumatized.
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This may sound insane that he was going to work just three days after an atomic bomb's explosion,
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but generally in Japan, people tend to treat their jobs with an exceptionally high level of seriousness, loyalty, and responsibility, much more so than in other countries.
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Not to mention, Mitsubishi was building military equipment for Japan during the war, so Tsutomu likely felt an obligation to help his country.
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Once he got to his office, like back at home, nobody recognized Tsutomo at first.
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It was only when they heard his voice was when they said, Oh Yamaguchi, you made it back to Hiroshima alive?
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Tsutomo was causing quite a stir around the office and everybody gathered around.
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They kept saying, He's back!
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Yamaguchi is back!
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Then Tsutomo's manager pulled him aside to figure out exactly what happened.
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There was a lot of confusion in Japan in the early hours and even days after Hiroshima was attacked.
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It sounded at first like just another city had been bombed by the United States.
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Tsutomo told his manager, though, that Hiroshima had been hit with just one bomb and the entire city was destroyed because of it.
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Everyone, including his manager, was refusing to believe this could be the case.
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They said things like, there is no way one bomb could destroy an entire city like Hiroshima.
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They also kept joking with Tsutomou by saying things like, you're an engineer, you must know that one bomb can't destroy an entire city as large as Hiroshima.
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Sutomo's manager was going on by saying, it must be the hit you took to your head.
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That must have done something to you.
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Others were even saying, I think this guy has lost his mind.
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I thought he was an engineer.
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As everyone was railing on Sutomo, not believing his story, right then, another flash came, similar to the one Sutomo had just lived through.
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This flash blinded him for a second, and then the energy of the explosion ripped off most of Sutomo's bandages.
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He's been through this before though and knows exactly what's coming this time.
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Tsutomu immediately dives under his desk without saying a word, and then moments later a massive boom thunders through the office.
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All the windows chatter and debris and glass fly everywhere.
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A second atomic bomb had just been dropped, this time on Nagasaki.
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This time though, he's not quite as injured as he was in Hiroshima.
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Tsutomu was at a similar distance away from ground zero of the blast, just about 3 kilometers but there was a small hill separating his office from ground zero,
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adding just enough protection to survive.
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Tsutomo rushed out of the office bow and ran back home to see if his wife and child were still alive.
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As he's running, he's making his way through thick clouds of ash and there's fires popping up all around him.
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He finally arrives back at his home, but is devastated to see that the whole thing had been reduced to just a pile of rubble.
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Tsutomo can't believe it and has no clue if his wife and kids were inside at the time of the blast.
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Tsutomo's wife had actually been outside of the house helping dig bomb shelters.
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She was inside one of these shelters working on digging more soil when the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki.
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Thankfully Tsutomo's wife was still alive and she was rushing back to the house.
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As for Tsutomo's son, he was outside with another girl from the neighborhood playing in the yard.
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As the explosion happened, a roof tile came flying and hit his son in the head.
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This is when the son said ouch for the first time.
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Miraculously though, the son and the schoolgirl survived only with minor injuries.
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Tsutomou had now just become a survivor of the only two atomic bombs ever dropped on civilians and somehow his wife, child, and even parents were all still alive.
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Tsu-Tomo ended up living an incredibly long life, living to 93 years old, until he finally passed away in 2010 due to cancer.
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But this story isn't the only time in history where fate seemed to defy all odds.
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In another disaster, decades later, just four people would survive one of the darkest attacks in modern history.
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The four people who survived above where the plane hit on 9-11 in the South Tower.
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You can find that video right here.
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Contesto e sfondo
Il video racconta la straordinaria storia di Tsutomu Yamaguchi, l'uomo che sopravvisse a entrambi i bombardamenti atomici della seconda guerra mondiale. Tramite questo racconto avvincente, gli apprendenti di inglese possono esercitarsi a capire un discorso narrativo, con dettagli vividamente descritti e un flusso temporale chiaro. È un'ottima occasione per migliorare la comprensione auditiva e familiarizzare con vocaboli specifici, come "bomba atomica", "esplosione" o "ricovero", mentre si immergono in una storia vera e commovente.
5 frasi principali per la comunicazione quotidiana
- "This wasn't anything uncommon" (Non era niente di insolito): Utile per descrivere situazioni normali in contesti vari.
- "He immediately dives to the ground" (Si tuffa subito a terra): Perfetta per azioni istantanee in scenari di emergenza o sorpresa.
- "He started regaining consciousness" (Iniziò a riprendere conoscenza): Importante per parlare di stati fisici o recupero dopo un incidente.
- "There wasn't anything he could do" (Non c'era niente che potesse fare): Utile per esprimere l'impotenza in situazioni difficili.
- "He decided he needed to venture back" (Decise di rientrare): Ottima per azioni coraggiose o necessarie nonostante i pericoli.
Guida passo passo per lo shadowing
Lo shadowing è una tecnica efficace per migliorare la pronuncia inglese e l'intonazione. Ecco come affrontare questo video: 1. Ascolta un frammento di 5-10 secondi, focalizzandoti sulla velocità e sulle pause. 2. Ripeti immediatamente dopo, cercando di imitare il tono e la pronuncia. Usa un shadowsite o un semplice registratore per confrontarti. 3. Analizza le parole difficili, come "disoriented" o "thunderous", e ripetile finché non le senti naturali. 4. Aumenta la lunghezza dei frammenti man mano che la confidenza cresce. Ricorda: lo shadow speech non è solo ripetere, ma capire il senso e il sentimento dietro le parole. Con la pratica, noterai un miglioramento nella fluidità e nella comprensione istantanea. Iniziamo e divertitevi a imparare con questa storia unica!
La grammatica di questo video
Le strutture che chi parla usa di più, con le parole esatte del video:
| Struttura | Nel video |
|---|---|
| Forma passiva be + participio passato — conta ciò che accade, non chi lo fa | was built · were also caught · had been ripped |
| Frasi relative who / which + frase — un’informazione in più su una persona o una cosa | dormitory, which is · Okamachi, which was · people who survived |
Cos'è la tecnica dello Shadowing?
Shadowing è una tecnica di apprendimento delle lingue supportata da studi scientifici, originariamente sviluppata per la formazione dei traduttori professionisti e resa popolare dal poliglotta Dr. Alexander Arguelles. Il metodo è semplice ma potente: ascolti un audio in inglese di madrelingua e lo ripeti immediatamente ad alta voce — come un'ombra che segue il parlante con un ritardo di solo 1–2 secondi. A differenza dell'ascolto passivo o degli esercizi di grammatica, lo shadowing costringe il tuo cervello e i muscoli della bocca a elaborare e riprodurre simultaneamente i modelli di discorso reale. La ricerca dimostra che migliora significativamente la precisione della pronuncia, l'intonazione, il ritmo, il discorso connesso, la comprensione dell'ascolto e la fluidità del parlato — rendendolo uno dei metodi più efficaci per la preparazione alla prova di speaking dell'IELTS e per la comunicazione reale in inglese.