Shadowing Practice: What's The Most Expensive Thing Ever? - Learn English Speaking with Video
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If you saved a billion dollars every single day for your entire life,
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you still wouldn't come close to affording the most expensive thing ever.
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But to find out what that is, we'll be going on a journey through the most valuable things in existence, all starting with you.
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The raw ingredients needed to make a human cost only $152,000, but if that's out of budget you could just boil down a pig,
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because chemically you're pretty much the same, they're just slightly tastier.
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Since you're already fully assembled, the government officially values you at 14.2 million.
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And they're lowballing you, because if someone hypothetically harvested all your organs, they could make 45 million.
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You're pretty expensive.
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But to find the most expensive thing ever, we need to look at much costlier items, with the next being a well-known painting that became famous for all the wrong reasons.
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It's 1503 in Italy.
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A rich silk merchant goes up to a painter and says, Could you make me a painting of my wife?
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Sure.
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Give me like, uh, like two weeks.
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Leonardo da Vinci never fully finished that painting, but he actually sold it right before he died to the king of France.
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And it stayed in the bedrooms of powerful guys until ending up at a museum where no one cared.
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Until it got stolen, then found, then taken on a PR campaign, and now this 30-inch plank of wood smeared with colored oil is valued at $1 billion.
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But nature's greatest work of art was found by complete accident.
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Sir Thomas Major Cullinan dug a hole in the ground and filled it with Africans to mine rocks for him.
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And in 1905, a diamond was found.
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And it happened to be the biggest diamond ever.
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colorless, zero imperfections, the most chemically perfect rock produced by the planet.
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And the guy who found it was this guy, the mine's manager.
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He was just going for a stroll
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when he randomly saw it in the wall and he got a nice check for it.
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Then the rock got cut up and shipped in a literal postal box to more white people.
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The total value of this rock is estimated at $2 billion, making it the most expensive luxury item ever thanks to its rarity and prestige.
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But the most expensive land ever is something you would never expect.
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France.
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Owned all this land in 1803, and the United States wanted a little piece of it.
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So they went over to France with 10 million dollars and said, Can we buy a little piece of your land?
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France's leader and conqueror of Europe, Napoleon, was like, How about you pay me 15 million?
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For the whole thing.
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Y-yes?
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The Louisiana Purchase doubled the size of the United States at the cost of 4 cents per acre.
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This land today is worth thousands per acre, making it widely considered the single greatest land purchase in history.
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As long as you don't ask the people originally living there.
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But the Louisiana Purchase wasn't the most expensive in history.
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There was a piece of land that cost way more than the entire American Midwest, and it's this.
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This plot of land with a parking lot that cost 3 billion dollars.
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Why did this parking lot cost more than a fifth of the United States?
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Well back then, the Louisiana Purchase was a gamble on an uncharted frontier.
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This modern-day plot of land in the center of one of
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the most valuable financial districts on earth where the government artificially restricts the land supply was just a much safer investment.
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Land is valued for its potential, but the houses we put on top of the land are somehow even more expensive.
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In 2019, a finance guy spent $240 million on a high-altitude hollow brick in New York City that he doesn't even live in.
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All these buildings are half empty
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because the rich people buying them are just treating them as investments
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If they actually needed a place to stay they would just do what the richest guy in India did
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and spend two billion dollars Erecting their own personal monument
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that has a dark secret This is Antilia the most expensive
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private residence in the world valued today at 4.6 billion It
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has a 168 car garage three helipads a snow room
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and the entire thing was built on an orphanage And if you're wondering where the orphans went, the house also has 600 servants.
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There are investments, there are status symbols, but the most expensive house ever is the hardest to truly value.
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Its purchase price?
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21,000 pounds in 1761.
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When King George III bought Buckingham House, it was just a little shack for him to store his wife.
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But after a few hundred years of renovations and millions in state funding, it became a 775 room palace.
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Its value is estimated at 4.9 billion pounds, but this is just a guess based on its prime location and historical significance.
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To find something more valuable than any house, we just need to scale up to the most impressive and disastrous structures in the world.
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Megaprojects The US Interstate Highway System is the most expensive megaproject in history, costing an inflation adjusted $634 billion.
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But it was worth it.
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For every $1 of that cost, it's returned $6 in economic output.
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This project had a clear problem, a clear plan, and a clear result.
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Pretty straightforward.
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In 2021, Saudi Arabia started building a 110-mile line-shaped city made out of Empire State building tall glass mirrors.
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It was supposed to cost $500 billion and be done by 2030.
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But now the date is maybe 2080, and the cost is maybe 8.8 trillion.
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The line will be the most expensive megaproject ever, if it actually gets built. If.
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45 Mount Everest's above all of this is the International Space Station, the most expensive single object ever built by humans.
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But its cost is the least impressive thing about it.
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See legendary megaprojects like the pyramids represent what one civilization could do.
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The ISS represents what every civilization together could do.
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It took hundreds of thousands of experts from all over the world to manufacture parts
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that fit together perfectly when assembled in an empty void that would kill a human in 90 seconds.
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This is the greatest masterpiece ever built by humans, and it shows what can be accomplished when the world comes together.
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But it's way more costly when the world comes apart.
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War is pretty expensive.
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The American Civil War cost so much that to fund it, the government had to invent paper money and the federal income tax.
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God damn it!
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World War I cost so much that Germany was still paying it off until 2010, and World War II was the most expensive conflict in history.
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The full global cost of this war has never been calculated, but it involved every major power devoting a majority of their entire economy to destruction.
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By the end of the war, 70 million were dead, a majority being civilians, and most of the involved countries were in shambles.
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Military spending as a percentage of GDP has never come close to World War 2 level since, and if it ever does, we probably won't be aware.
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War is pretty expensive.
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World War 2 military spending was 25 trillion in today's dollars, but the cost of its destruction is unknown.
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All the things in this video have value for different reasons, but the most expensive thing ever is the most unusual.
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Every single particle has an antiparticle with an opposite charge.
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When they touch, they annihilate and release energy.
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A single gram of antimatter could release more energy than three Hiroshima bombs.
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Bananas.
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Every 75 minutes, an atom in a banana decays, producing one single particle of antimatter.
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But the particle is so small that if you had one banana for every human that has ever existed,
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you would have to wait 97 times the age of the universe to produce one gram of antimatter.
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But that still wouldn't work, because the banana antimatter particles only exist for 125 picoseconds, which is one billionth of a blink.
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The only way to make a meaningful amount of antimatter is
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by firing tiny particles at almost the speed of light into a metal rod, then catching the debris in a vacuum.
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There's currently only one facility that does this, and in its entire existence, it's made less than 10 billionths of a gram of antimatter,
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which would make enough energy to power a light bulb for 4 hours.
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Antimatter could be the most efficient energy source ever, and studying it could answer questions about how the universe was formed.
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But it's so difficult to make that NASA estimates one gram would cost 62.5 trillion.
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But if we ever somehow managed to get a gram of antimatter, wouldn't the most expensive thing be whoever owns the antimatter?
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Which would probably be a country, maybe the United States, which is already worth 180 trillion.
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But then, the Earth is worth 5 quadrillion.
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And now that we're in space, there are asteroids floating around with quintillions worth of gold and platinum, and the sun is made of gas worth 30 no-nillion.
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The universe is filled with an infinite amount of wealth, all of which we got for free.
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Woordenschat en spreektips bij deze les
Deze spreekles op niveau B2 is gebaseerd op de video “What's The Most Expensive Thing Ever?”. Deze woorden komen het vaakst terug: expensive, cost, land, antimatter, billion. Deze video bevat 106 zinnen en 1526 woorden om na te spreken. Het gesproken deel duurt 9:28. De spreker praat in een natuurlijk tempo van ongeveer 161 woorden per minuut, dicht bij een alledaags gesprek. 84% van de woorden hoort bij de 3.000 meest gebruikte Engelse woorden; de rest kun je beter vooraf bekijken.
Belangrijke woorden in deze video
De 15 moeilijkste woorden uit de video, met uitspraak en betekenis:
| Woord | Uitspraak | Betekenis |
|---|---|---|
| antimatter zelfstandig naamwoord | /ˈæn.tiˌmæt.ɚ/ | antimaterie |
| gram zelfstandig naamwoord | /ˈɡɹæm/ | gram |
| particle zelfstandig naamwoord | /ˈpɑɹtək(ə)l/ | deeltje, partikel |
| banana zelfstandig naamwoord | /bəˈnænə/ | banaan, pisang |
| assemble werkwoord | /əˈsɛm.bəl/ | in elkaar zetten |
| costly bijvoeglijk naamwoord | /ˈkɒst.li/ | prijzig, duur |
| civilization zelfstandig naamwoord | /ˌsɪv.ɪ.laɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/ | beschaving |
| annihilate werkwoord | /əˈnaɪ.ə.leɪt/ | vernietigen |
| antiparticle zelfstandig naamwoord | /ˈæntiˌpɑ(ɹ)tɪkəl/ | antideeltje |
| colourless bijvoeglijk naamwoord | /ˈkʌlə(ɹ).ləs/ | kleurloos |
| conqueror zelfstandig naamwoord | /ˈkɑŋˌkɚ.ɚ/ | overwinnaar, veroveraar |
| hypothetically bijwoord | hypothetisch | |
| imperfection zelfstandig naamwoord | /ɪmpɚˈfɛkʃən/ | imperfectie, onvolmaaktheid |
| orphanage zelfstandig naamwoord | /ˈɔː(ɹ)fənɪd͡ʒ/ | weeshuis, kindertehuis |
| picosecond zelfstandig naamwoord | /ˈpiː.kəʊˌsɛk.ənd/ | picoseconde |
Phrasal verbs die je zult horen
| Woord | Uitspraak | Betekenis |
|---|---|---|
| come together werkwoord | /ˈkʌm tʊˈɡɛðɚ/ | bijeenkomen, samenkomen |
| find out werkwoord | ontdekken, onderzoeken |
Grammatica in deze video
De structuren die de spreker het meest gebruikt, met de exacte woorden uit de video:
| Structuur | In de video |
|---|---|
| Voorwaardelijke zinnen if + zin, will/would + werkwoord — een voorwaarde en het gevolg | if it ever does, we probably won't be |
| Lijdende vorm be + voltooid deelwoord — het gaat om wat er gebeurt, niet om wie het doet | is valued · was found · is estimated |
| Present perfect have/has + voltooid deelwoord — iets uit het verleden dat nu nog telt | has never been calculated · has never come · has ever existed |
| Betrekkelijke bijzinnen who / which + zin — extra informatie over een persoon of ding | guy who found · picoseconds, which is · States, which is |
Uitspraak om op te letten
De spreker gebruikt 15 samentrekkingen en verkorte vormen, zoals you're, wouldn't, they're. Spreek ze kort uit, zoals je ze hoort.
- De klanken “sh” en “zh”: civilization /ˌsɪv.ɪ.laɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/, imperfection /ɪmpɚˈfɛkʃən/, shambles /ˈʃæmbəlz/, renovation /ɹɛnəˈveɪʃən/, accomplish /əˈkɑm.plɪʃ/
- Lange woorden — let op de klemtoon: antimatter /ˈæn.tiˌmæt.ɚ/, civilization /ˌsɪv.ɪ.laɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/, annihilate /əˈnaɪ.ə.leɪt/, antiparticle /ˈæntiˌpɑ(ɹ)tɪkəl/, imperfection /ɪmpɚˈfɛkʃən/
Klanken die Nederlandstaligen lastig vinden:
- Stemhebbende eindmedeklinker — /b/, /d/, /g/, /z/, /v/ niet verscherpen: helipad /ˈhɛ.liˌpæd/, orphanage /ˈɔː(ɹ)fənɪd͡ʒ/, picosecond /ˈpiː.kəʊˌsɛk.ənd/, shambles /ˈʃæmbəlz/, asteroid /ˈæst(ə)ɹɔɪd/
- /æ/ — opener dan de Nederlandse “e”: antimatter /ˈæn.tiˌmæt.ɚ/, gram /ˈɡɹæm/, banana /bəˈnænə/, antiparticle /ˈæntiˌpɑ(ɹ)tɪkəl/, helipad /ˈhɛ.liˌpæd/
- /g/ — een harde plofklank, geen Nederlandse “g”: gram /ˈɡɹæm/, ingredient /ɪnˈɡɹiːdi.ənt/, gamble /ˈɡæm.bəl/, organ /ˈɔːɡən/, significance /sɪɡˈnɪfɪkəns/
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 antimatter, gram, particle.
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.