Shadowing Practice: The surprising pattern behind color names around the world - Learn English Speaking with Video
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If I showed you this paint chip and asked you to tell me what color it is, what would you say?
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How about this one, and this one?
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You probably said blue, purple, and brown, but if your native language is Wobe from Côte d 'Ivoire,
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you probably would have used one word for all three.
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That's because not all languages have the same number of basic color categories.
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In English we have 11, Russian has 12, but some languages like Wobbe only have three
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and researchers have found that if a language only has three or four basic colors
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They can usually predict what those will be So how do they do it?
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As you would expect different languages have different words for colors
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But what interests researchers isn't those simple translations.
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It's the question of which colors get names at all
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Because as much as we think of colors in categories, the truth is that color is a spectrum.
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It's not obvious why we should have a basic color term for this color, but not this one.
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And until the 1960s, it was widely believed by anthropologists that cultures would just choose from the spectrum randomly.
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But in 1969, two
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Berkeley researchers, Paul Kay and Brent Berlin, published a book challenging that assumption.
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They had asked 20 people who spoke different languages to look at these 330 color chips
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and categorize each of them by their basic color term.
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And they found hints of a universal pattern.
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If a language had six basic color words, they were always for black or dark, white or light, red, green, yellow, and blue.
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If it had four terms, they were for black, white, red, and then either green or yellow.
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If it had only three, they were always for black, white, and red.
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It's suggested that as languages develop, they create color names in a certain order first black and white, then red, then green and yellow,
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then blue, then others like brown, purple, pink, orange, and gray.
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The theory was revolutionary.
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They weren't the first researchers interested in the question of how we name colors.
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In 1858, William Gladstone, who would later become a four -term British Prime Minister, published a book on the ancient
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Greek works of Homer.
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He was struck by the fact that there weren't many colors at all in the text,
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and when there were, Homer would use the same word for, quote, colors which, according to us, are essentially different.
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He used the same word for purple to describe blood, a dark cloud, a wave,
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and a rainbow, and he referred to the sea as wine -looking.
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Gladstone didn't find any references to blue or orange at all.
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Some researchers took this and other ancient writings to wrongly speculate that earlier societies were colorblind.
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Later in the 19th century, an anthropologist named W .H .R.
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Rivers went on an expedition to Papua New Guinea, where he found that some tribes only had words for red,
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white, and black, while others had additional words for blue and green.
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An expedition to investigate the cultures on a remote group of islands in the Torres Straits between Australia and New Guinea.
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His brief was to investigate the mental characteristics of the islanders." He claims
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that the number of color terms in a population was related to their,
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quote, "...intellectual and cultural development." And he used his findings to claim that Papuans were less physically evolved than Europeans.
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Berlin and Kay didn't make those racist claims, but their color hierarchy attracted a lot of criticism.
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For one thing, critics pointed out that the study used a small sample size — 20 people,
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all of whom were bilingual English speakers, not monolingual native speakers.
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And almost all of the languages were from industrialized societies, hardly the best portrait of the entire world.
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But it also had to do with defining what a basic color term is.
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In the Yele language in Papua New Guinea, for example, there are only basic color terms for black, white, and red.
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But there's a broad vocabulary of everyday objects, like the sky, ashes, and tree sap,
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that are used as color comparisons that cover almost all English color words.
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There are also languages like Hanuno 'o, from the Philippines, where a word can communicate both color and a physical feeling.
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They have four basic terms to describe color, but they're on a spectrum of light vs. dark, strength vs. weakness, and wetness vs. dryness.
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Those kinds of languages don't fit neatly into a color chip identification test.
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But by the late 1970s, Berlin and Kay had a response for the critics.
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They called it the World Color Survey.
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They conducted the same labeling test on over 2 ,600 native speakers of 110 unwritten languages from non -industrialized societies.
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They found that with some tweaks, the color hierarchy still checked out.
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83 % of the languages fit into the hierarchy.
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And when they averaged the center point of where each speaker labeled each of their language's colors, they wound up with a sort of heat map.
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Those clusters matched pretty closely to the English speaker's averages, which are labeled here.
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Here's how Paul Kaye puts it.
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It just turns out that most languages make cuts in the same place.
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Some languages make fewer cuts than others.
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So, these color stages are widespread throughout the world, but why?
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Why would a word for red come before a word for blue?
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Some have speculated that the stages correspond to the salience of the color in the natural environment.
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Red is in blood and in dirt.
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Blue on the other hand was fairly scarce before manufacturing.
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Recently, cognitive science researchers have explored this question by running computer simulations of how language evolves through conversations between people.
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The simulations presented artificial agents with multiple colors at a time, and through a series of simple negotiations,
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those agents developed shared labels for the different colors.
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And the order in which those labels emerged?
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First, reddish tones, then green, and yellow, then blue, then orange.
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It matched the original stages pretty closely.
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And it suggests that there's something about the colors themselves that leads to this hierarchy.
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Red is fundamentally more distinct than the other colors.
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So what does all this mean?
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Why does it matter?
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Well, it tells us that despite our many differences across cultures and societies,
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there is something universal about how humans try to make sense of the world.
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Thank you.
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Woordenschat en spreektips bij deze les
Deze spreekles is gebaseerd op de video “The surprising pattern behind color names around the world”. Deze woorden komen het vaakst terug: color, language, word, blue, term. Deze video bevat 66 zinnen en 1058 woorden om na te spreken. Het gesproken deel duurt 6:22. De spreker praat in een natuurlijk tempo van ongeveer 166 woorden per minuut, dicht bij een alledaags gesprek. Slechts 79% van de woorden hoort bij de 3.000 meest gebruikte Engelse woorden, dus de woordenschat is pittig.
Belangrijke woorden in deze video
15 woorden uit de video die het leren waard zijn, met uitspraak en betekenis:
| Woord | Uitspraak | Betekenis |
|---|---|---|
| researcher zelfstandig naamwoord | /ˈɹiˌsɝ.t͡ʃɚ/ | onderzoeker |
| label zelfstandig naamwoord | /ˈleɪ.bəl/ | etiket, label |
| hierarchy zelfstandig naamwoord | /ˈhaɪ.ə.ɹɑː(ɹ).ki/ | hiërarchie |
| purple zelfstandig naamwoord | /ˈpɝ.pl̩/ | paars, purper |
| chip zelfstandig naamwoord | /t͡ʃɪp/ | fiche |
| spectrum zelfstandig naamwoord | /ˈspɛktɹəm/ | spectrum |
| universal bijvoeglijk naamwoord | /ˌjunəˈvɜɹs(ə)l/ | algemeen |
| investigate werkwoord | /ɪnˈvɛs.tə.ɡeɪt/ | onderzoeken, bekijken |
| expedition zelfstandig naamwoord | /ɛkspəˈdɪʃən/ | expeditie |
| critic zelfstandig naamwoord | /ˈkɹɪt.ɪk/ | criticus |
| evolve werkwoord | /ɪˈvɑlv/ | ontwikkelen |
| tone zelfstandig naamwoord | /ˈtəʊn/ | toon, noot |
| everyday bijvoeglijk naamwoord | /ˈɛvɹiˌdeɪ/ | alledaags |
| cloud zelfstandig naamwoord | /ˈklaʊ̯d/ | wolk |
| gray bijvoeglijk naamwoord | /ɡɹeɪ/ | grijs |
Phrasal verbs die je zult horen
| Woord | Betekenis |
|---|---|
| check out werkwoord | onderzoeken |
| point out werkwoord | aanwijzen, aanduiden |
| turn out werkwoord | uitvallen, resulteren |
Grammatica in deze video
De structuren die de spreker het meest gebruikt, met de exacte woorden uit de video:
| Structuur | In de video |
|---|---|
| Present perfect have/has + voltooid deelwoord — iets uit het verleden dat nu nog telt | have found · have speculated · have explored |
| Lijdende vorm be + voltooid deelwoord — het gaat om wat er gebeurt, niet om wie het doet | was struck · are labeled |
| Betrekkelijke bijzinnen who / which + zin — extra informatie over een persoon of ding | people who spoke · averages, which are |
Uitspraak om op te letten
De spreker gebruikt 7 samentrekkingen en verkorte vormen, zoals didn't, weren't, don't. Spreek ze kort uit, zoals je ze hoort.
- De klanken “sh” en “zh”: expedition /ɛkspəˈdɪʃən/, simulation /ˌsɪm.jəˈleɪ.ʃn̩/, essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/, translation /tɹænzˈleɪʃən/, artificial /ˌɑː.tɪˈfɪʃ.əl/
- Lange woorden — let op de klemtoon: hierarchy /ˈhaɪ.ə.ɹɑː(ɹ).ki/, universal /ˌjunəˈvɜɹs(ə)l/, investigate /ɪnˈvɛs.tə.ɡeɪt/, expedition /ɛkspəˈdɪʃən/, essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/
Klanken die Nederlandstaligen lastig vinden:
- Stemhebbende eindmedeklinker — /b/, /d/, /g/, /z/, /v/ niet verscherpen: evolve /ɪˈvɑlv/, cloud /ˈklaʊ̯d/, widespread /ˌwaɪdˈspɹɛd/, cognitive /ˈkɑɡ.nɪ.tɪv/, emerge /ɪˈmɝd͡ʒ/
- /æ/ — opener dan de Nederlandse “e”: translation /tɹænzˈleɪʃən/, attract /əˈtɹækt/, ash /ˈæʃ/, characteristic /ˌkæɹ(ə)ktəˈɹɪstɪk/, randomly /ˈɹændm̩li/
- /g/ — een harde plofklank, geen Nederlandse “g”: investigate /ɪnˈvɛs.tə.ɡeɪt/, gray /ɡɹeɪ/, cognitive /ˈkɑɡ.nɪ.tɪv/, negotiation /nɪˌɡəʊ.ʃiˈeɪ.ʃən/, bilingual /baɪˈlɪŋ.ɡwəl/
Zo oefen je met deze video
- Luister de hele video één keer zonder te spreken en noteer de woorden die je niet kent.
- Begin op 0,75× snelheid, spreek zin voor zin na en ga terug naar normale snelheid zodra het makkelijk gaat.
- Neem jezelf op en vergelijk met het origineel; let daarbij op woorden als researcher, label, hierarchy.
Wat is de Shadowing-techniek?
Shadowing is een wetenschappelijk onderbouwde taalleermethode die oorspronkelijk is ontwikkeld voor professionele tolkentraining en gepopulariseerd door polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. De methode is eenvoudig maar krachtig: je luistert naar native Engelse audio en herhaalt het onmiddellijk hardop — als een schaduw die de spreker volgt met slechts 1–2 seconden vertraging. In tegenstelling tot passief luisteren of grammaticadrills, dwingt shadowing je hersenen en mondspieren om echte spraakpatronen tegelijkertijd te verwerken en te reproduceren. Onderzoek toont aan dat het de uitspraaknauwkeurigheid, intonatie, ritme, verbonden spraak, luisterbegrip en spreekvaardigheid aanzienlijk verbetert — waardoor het een van de meest effectieve methoden is voor IELTS Speaking-voorbereiding en echte Engelse communicatie.