シャドーイング練習: You Live Inside a Cosmic Hole... And there's a problem - 動画で英語スピーキングを学ぶ
レッスンを作成中...
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There is a giant hole in the universe.
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Imagine a big empty ball that measures two billion light-years across,
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meaning it would take half the age of planet Earth for light to travel from one side to the other.
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And right here, in the very center of this cosmic void, is you and me, and the entire Milky Way galaxy.
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Now, the idea that we live in the middle of a big hole in space might sound weird, even kinda terrifying, but there's actually a good chance
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that this hole is our key to finally understanding the mysterious nature of our own infinite universe.
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Because when we look up at the night sky, even from the darkest place in the world, or through the lens of the most powerful telescope in space, we never see the full picture.
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The universe is not an endless blanket of stars.
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The real universe looks like this.
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A three-dimensional structure of voids and clusters that stretches out like an infinite web.
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It's actually not so different from the way that neurons move through your brain, which is interesting and probably not a coincidence.
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But going back to the universe, there are two opposing forces that are working against each other to create this web.
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Those are gravity and dark energy.
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Most of us are pretty familiar with gravity.
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It's the reason why things fall down when you drop them, and gravity is a product of mass.
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The Earth is very massive, so therefore it creates the pull of gravity that you are experiencing right now.
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Even astronauts in space are still caught up in Earth's gravity, and so is the Moon.
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That's what keeps it close to us.
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Gravity can stretch out through space over long distances, and the more massive the object creating the pull, the further it can reach.
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That's how the Sun's gravity is able to hold on to planets as far away as Neptune.
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And the most massive object in our galaxy is a black hole located at the very center.
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It's called Sagittarius A star.
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Now, it's not a star like the way that our Sun is a star.
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The star actually refers to this asterisk in the name, and that is just a way to mark this object as an important one.
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But saying Sagittarius A asterisk is pretty awkward, so instead we use star.
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Now the gravity of our galaxy, the Milky Way, holds our Sun in place, but it's also powerful enough to reach out and pull on other galaxies.
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This is our closest neighbor galaxy, Andromeda.
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It's stuck in the hole with us.
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One thing you might find comforting is that we're not alone in this giant void.
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The Milky Way is actually part of a cluster of galaxies that we call our local group.
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There's one large spiral called Triangulum that's just a little further away than Andromeda.
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then there are a few dozen much smaller dwarf galaxies that cluster around us.
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The combined gravity of the three large galaxies is actually
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so strong that all three of us are being pulled together into one epic collision event
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that will merge the three spirals together into one super galaxy.
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That's like two or three billion years from now though, so don't worry too much about it.
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But the inevitability of the merger does give us a problem that we need to solve right now.
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If galaxies have a tendency to pull themselves together, then how do we end up with a giant void where hardly any galaxies exist
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and just one small cluster gets stuck in the middle?
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Were we rejected by the other galaxies?
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Are we the misfits of the cosmos?
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Maybe.
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But to find a more reasonable answer, we have to look at the big opposing force to gravity, dark energy.
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It's very spooky-sounding stuff, but dark energy is actually just a label
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that we use to describe the mysterious force that is causing the universe to expand.
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When we think about exploration, we usually imagine rockets, satellites,
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and distant planets, but some of the most fascinating discoveries happen much closer to home.
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That's where today's sponsor, Radiocode, comes in.
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What makes it especially impressive is that it can measure radiation up to 40 times faster than traditional Geiger counters,
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while also helping identify specific isotopes through detailed radiation spectra.
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It connects to free iOS and Android apps that unlock advanced features like search mode, detailed accumulated dose, spectrum analysis,
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spectrograms, and even interactive color-coded radiation tracks that show you what you've discovered along the way.
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Whether you're exploring cities, museums, forests, old mining sites, abandoned locations, or simply running your own experiments,
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They also offer a wide range of practical accessories, making it easy to customize your setup for whatever kind of exploration interests you most.
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Just head to radiocode.com or use the link in the description to learn more and start exploring the invisible world around you.
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This is one of the biggest problems with our current understanding of gravity.
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If mass attracts other mass, even over incredibly long distances, then in theory, all of the mass in the universe should be pulling itself together.
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But instead, we've seen evidence that the universe actually does the opposite.
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It expands.
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And more recently, we've noticed that the speed of that expansion appears to be accelerating, which would mean that dark energy is not only an opposite to gravity,
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but it's actually a more powerful force
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that is able to push objects away from each other faster than gravity can pull them together.
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Now, in the same way that gravity is powered by mass, dark energy appears to be powered by emptiness, which is pretty weird.
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And the smartest people on Earth are still trying to figure out how that works.
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But we know that the result looks like this.
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If two massive objects are close together, like the Milky Way and Andromeda, then gravity will pull them closer.
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But if two objects are very far away, like the galaxies on the other side of our big hole, then regardless of their mass, dark energy will push them apart.
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And the crazy thing is that this all started with the Big Bang itself, which seems like an impossible thing to be able to know.
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But we can actually show you a picture of the universe from 13.8 billion years ago.
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That's about 400,000 years after the Big Bang.
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We call this picture the Cosmic Microwave Background, or CMB.
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It's the oldest light that we're able to detect, so old and faint that it's fallen down out of the visible spectrum of the human eye.
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It's even below infrared, all the way down to microwaves of light.
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Now, the Big Bang was not yellow and blue.
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It wasn't an oval either.
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Like a map of the world, this is a two-dimensional representation of a 3D image, and the colors were added to show differences in temperature.
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Red for hot spots, blue for cold, which also correspond to areas of higher density and lower density.
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One of the most interesting parts of the CMB image is down here in the lower right.
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This is known as the cold spot.
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It doesn't look like much just because of where it lands on the 2D projection,
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but it is a massive region of space where light from the Big Bang is significantly colder than the average temperature.
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What really makes this spot stand out, though, is the fact that it is surrounded by areas that are hotter than average.
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So there's a massive contrast in this one location, like falling off a mountain cliff into a deep valley.
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No one is sure how that happened, but theories run from a supervoid of deep nothingness to a bruise or imprint from the bubble of our universe
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colliding with a parallel universe in the distant past.
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But what it does tell us for sure is that from the very moment of creation, there have been powerful cosmic forces at work.
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And that's how we end up with a universe that is not just one consistent blanket of stars.
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This web structure is shaped by pockets of dark energy
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that expand into voids and concentrations of gravity that pull galaxies into long strands.
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This means that there is a natural opposite to the void.
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That's what we call an attractor, and this is ultimately where we are headed.
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So the good news is that the Milky Way, or the inevitably fused Milky Way-Andromeda Triangulum, will not be stranded in the middle of this hole forever.
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We are being pulled.
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The mass of the galaxies outside the hole is large enough and close enough to be drawing us out with their gravity.
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But even those are being drawn towards an even greater force in the universe.
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In fact, every galaxy in our general area of space, whether they're inside the hole or outside the hole,
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is being reeled in like a fish on a line towards one singular point in space.
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This is the Great Attractor.
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As with most things in deep space, we're not exactly sure what the source of this attraction actually is,
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but we can say that there is some kind of gravitational anomaly located right around here, on the edge of our giant hole.
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For it to be creating enough gravity to power this flow of galaxies, it would need to have a concentration of mass about 10 quintillion times greater than the Sun.
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That is 10 million billion suns.
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The problem with the Great Attractor is that even though it is humongous, we can't see it from our location on Earth,
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and that's because our own galaxy is in the way.
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From our point of view, the dense core of the Milky Way covers about one-fifth of the visible universe, making it very difficult to see what's on the other side.
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We call this the zone of avoidance, and that is where the great attractor lies.
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This one probably is a coincidence, but it's still kind of spooky,
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and it turns out that this contrast between voids and attractors is responsible for creating the shape of our known universe.
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Now when we pull back and look at the bigger picture, we see that the universe is actually full of holes, kind of like a sponge or swiss cheese,
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with the most infamous of these voids being this one right here, the Boötes void, also known as the Great Nothing,
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and this is where we start to find some perspective on our own place in the cosmos.
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At 400 million light-years across, Boötes is not the biggest hole in the universe, but it is the deepest and darkest.
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Going by the average density, a region of space this size should probably contain about 2,000 galaxies.
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Instead, the Boötes void is home to just 60.
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That is some empty space.
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And when we start to compare that against our own local hole, which is named the KBC void, we start to notice something.
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Our hole isn't anywhere near as dark.
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So what's the deal with that?
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Well, as with most things in science, this is all about relativity.
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The KBC void is much larger than Boötes, but it's not nearly as empty.
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Our local hole contains the Milky Way and our local group of galaxies, and it also contains most of the Laniakea supercluster,
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which is this massive structure made from hundreds of thousands of galaxies.
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So our void is actually better described as an under-dense region of space.
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And depending on where you are inside the void, there is going to be somewhere between 20 and 80% less density than the cosmic average.
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So it's not empty, but it's not full either, meaning that we're not as isolated as you might think.
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Instead of being stranded in the middle of a cosmic desert, we're in more of a galactic suburb.
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And that can really help us to understand our place in the universe.
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Maybe we're not alone.
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It's just that all of the aliens are partying at the Great Attractor, and we're stuck out here at the end of a very long line waiting to get in.
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Or it could be the opposite, and life just tends to thrive in the suburbs.
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Think about it.
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Cities are fun to be in, but they're also dangerous.
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People get murdered, they get hit by cars, stuff falls on them.
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The same goes for these dense galactic clusters.
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They are going to be loaded with radiation, supernovas, interstellar objects ripping around and smashing into things.
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It could be that the middle of nowhere is actually the center of life as we know it.
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Which would mean that these aren't voids, they are just islands of civilization.
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Now if you want to get really weird, there's no better place to go than the edge of the universe itself.
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We can begin that journey by clicking the box on screen right now.
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このレッスンの語彙とスピーキングのポイント
このC1レベルのスピーキングレッスンは、動画「You Live Inside a Cosmic Hole... And there's a problem」を教材にしています。 繰り返し出てくる語は次のとおりです：universe, gravity, hole, void, galaxies。 この動画には、シャドーイング用の文が143文、単語が2225語あります。 音声の長さは12:48です。 話す速さは1分あたり約174語で、日常会話に近い自然なペースです。 単語の84%は英語の頻出3,000語に含まれます。残りは練習の前に確認しておきましょう。
この動画の重要語彙
動画の中で特に難しい単語15語を、発音と意味つきで紹介します。
| 単語 | 発音 | 意味 |
|---|---|---|
| attractor 名詞 | アトラクター | |
| cosmic 形容詞 | /ˈkɑz.mɪk/ | 宇宙の |
| dense 形容詞 | /ˈdɛns/ | 濃い, 密 |
| cosmos 名詞 | /ˈkɑzməs/ | コスモス, 宇宙 |
| accessory 名詞 | /əkˈsɛs.(ə.)ɹi/ | アクセサリー, 持ち物 |
| spiral 名詞 | /ˈspaɪɹəl/ | 渦巻, 渦巻線 |
| oppose 動詞 | /əˈpoʊz/ | 阻む, 阻止する |
| coincidence 名詞 | /kəʊˈɪnsɪdəns/ | 一致, 偶然 |
| dimensional 形容詞 | /daɪˈmɛn.ʃə.nəl/ | -次元の |
| blanket 名詞 | /ˈblæŋ.kɪt/ | 毛布 |
| invisible 形容詞 | /ɪnˈvɪzəb(ə)l/ | 目に見えない, 不可視の |
| accumulate 動詞 | /əˈkjuːmjʊˌleɪt/ | 積む |
| anomaly 名詞 | /əˈnɑ.mə.li/ | 例外 |
| bruise 名詞 | /bɹuz/ | あざ |
| collide 動詞 | /kəˈlaɪd/ | 衝突する, 打つかる |
動画に出てくる句動詞
| 単語 | 発音 | 意味 |
|---|---|---|
| fall down 動詞 | /fɔl ˈdaʊn/ | 落ちる |
| get off 動詞 | 降りる | |
| stick out 動詞 | 突き出る |
繰り返し練習したい文
動画に出てくる短く完結した文です。日常会話でそのまま使えます。
- That's what keeps it close to us.
- It's stuck in the hole with us.
- Were we rejected by the other galaxies?
- Are we the misfits of the cosmos?
- Our hole isn't anywhere near as dark.
この動画の文法
話し手がよく使っている文型を、動画の実際の表現とともに紹介します。
| 文型 | 動画での表現 |
|---|---|
| 受動態 be + 過去分詞 — 誰がするかより、何が起きるかに焦点を当てる | are still caught · being pulled · is powered |
| 現在完了形 have/has + 過去分詞 — 過去の出来事が今も関係している | you've discovered · we've seen · we've noticed |
| 関係詞節 who / which + 節 — 人や物について情報を加える | brain, which is · emptiness, which is · hole, which is |
注意したい発音
話し手はwe're, they're, we'veなど、短縮形や弱形を20回使っています。聞こえたとおりの短い形で発音しましょう。
- 「sh」と「zh」の音: dimensional /daɪˈmɛn.ʃə.nəl/, gravitational /ˌɡɹævɪˈteɪʃənəl/, visualize /ˈvɪʒuəˌlaɪz/, projection /pɹəˈd͡ʒɛkʃən/, collision /kəˈlɪʒn̩/
- 長い単語（アクセントの位置に注意）: accessory /əkˈsɛs.(ə.)ɹi/, coincidence /kəʊˈɪnsɪdəns/, dimensional /daɪˈmɛn.ʃə.nəl/, invisible /ɪnˈvɪzəb(ə)l/, accumulate /əˈkjuːmjʊˌleɪt/
この動画での練習方法
- まず声を出さずに動画を最後まで聞き、知らない単語をメモします。
- まず0.75倍速で一文ずつシャドーイングし、慣れてきたら通常の速度に戻します。
- 自分の声を録音して元の音声と比べます。attractor, cosmic, denseなどの単語に特に注意しましょう。
シャドーイングとは？英語上達に効果的な理由
シャドーイング（Shadowing）は、もともとプロの通訳者養成プログラムで開発された言語学習法で、多言語習得者として知られるDr. Alexander Arguelles によって広く普及されました。方法はシンプルですが非常に効果的：ネイティブスピーカーの英語を聞きながら、1〜2秒の遅延で声に出してすぐに繰り返す——まるで「影（shadow）」のように話者を追いかけます。文法ドリルや受動的なリスニングと異なり、シャドーイングは脳と口の筋肉が同時にリアルタイムで英語を処理・再現することを強制します。研究により、発音精度、抑揚、リズム、連音、リスニング力、そして会話の流暢さが大幅に向上することが確認されています。IELTSスピーキング対策や自然な英語コミュニケーションを目指す方に特におすすめです。