Shadowing Practice: Can trees save the planet? | DW Documentary - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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Forests are essential to life on Earth.
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They are home to 80% of plant and land animal species and regulate the water cycle.
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They capture and store a large part of our CO2 emissions, which are the major cause of climate change.
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But the forests are in peril.
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continues and droughts and wildfires are becoming more and more severe.
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But this ecological crisis could have an almost miraculous solution.
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Hi, I'm Sion.
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Hi, I'm Beverly.
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And I'm Gervais.
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And together with our friends, we are going to show you how to...
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...bride a tree!
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In the last decade or
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so I started to hear a lot more in the news media about planting trees
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and growing trees as a sort of solution to a lot of problems that people were facing in the world.
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Planting trees is always the perfect photo opportunity.
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photos stay in the public eye long after the photographer has left.
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Today we will be planting 20 million trees.
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Two billion trees.
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It's part of our plan for a clean, green future.
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Today I'm pleased to announce the United States will join one trillion trees initiative.
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Trees are really popular because people really like nature in general.
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And planting a tree is an investment in a better future.
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But I also think that there is a hype and there is a kind of dark side to this tree planting.
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Planting a tree is easy and inexpensive and seemingly the perfect ecological gesture.
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But is it really a panacea for our planet?
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Could widespread tree planting do more harm than good?
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It's a 21st century trend.
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To combat the threats to our forests, countries are vying to make the most impressive promises.
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More than 140 governments pledged to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030 at the UN Climate Conference in Glasgow in 2021.
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Let's work together, not just to protect the forests, but also to ensure that the forests return.
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Thank you very much.
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Thank you so much.
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China and Brazil have made some of the most ambitious commitments to forest restoration.
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But many of these plans promote the expansion of monocultures.
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Simon Lewis and his team have investigated what lies behind these pledges.
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There has been a big focus on forest restoration.
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And when I looked at these pledges that countries were making,
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I saw that many of them were not the kind of restoration that people had in mind of beautiful,
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high biodiversity, permanently protected forests.
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They were commercial plantations to grow fast-growing crops, cut them down after a few years,
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and pass those trees to the pulp and paper industry.
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And that's not reforestation that people have in their minds when they see these campaigns to say, let's plant trees.
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Industrial plantations are growing worldwide, driven by global demand and by public policies favoring their expansion.
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Matthew Fagan is the first scientist to map this phenomenon.
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A lot of my work is around mapping forests, understanding why forests are changing and looking at the human landscapes that surround them and affect them.
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We gathered up a lot of satellite images.
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We gathered up a lot of publicly available data and where tree plantations are and tried to track a tree plantation expansion.
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They were everywhere.
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Between 1990 and 2000, it grew by like 50%.
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China has doubled its tree cover in 40 years, primarily by planting vast monocultures of temperate tree species.
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India, same thing on a tropical scale.
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Their area and their dominance and their replacement of natural forest has been growing like this in recent years.
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What is the significance of these huge industrial tree plantations?
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Brazil is home to some of the world's largest, but most are monocultures grown for pulp.
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Susano is one of the world's leading pulp producers.
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Its operation covers an area the size of Belgium.
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Douglas Lazareti leads the group's forestry operations, including the tree nursery.
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We are here at the Trexlagoas nursery with a capacity of 35 million seedlings per year.
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That seems like a lot,
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but the number of seedlings you see here is just what Suzano plants every day in Brazil.
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We plant about 1.2 million trees a day.
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This is a eucalyptus seedling, the basis of our entire production cycle.
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It grows very fast.
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This little seedling, just over 30 centimeters tall, will grow into a tree over 25 meters tall in six years six years.
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Eucalyptus is one of the most productive trees in the plant world.
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It originated in Australia and is now cloned by the millions from these mother plants.
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After six months in the nursery,
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3,000 seedlings are transplanted by machine each hour.
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This unparalleled productivity helps meet the exploding global demand.
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Paper consumption, especially for packing material, has increased enormously in the last 10 years.
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Packing material requires cellulose pulp.
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The more pulp we consume, the more plantations we need.
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The eucalyptus monocultures have grown particularly in Bahia State in northeastern Brazil.
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Only about one tenth remains of the original forest, the Mata Atlantica.
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Indigenous communities say that eucalyptus plantations have been spreading ever further into their ancestral lands.
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I'm Manjee Patashaw.
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My name is Manjee Patashaw.
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I'm the village chief of Rio do Caí.
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Manjee means mucusu, a fish found in the Caí River.
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The Patachaux strive for balance with the environment, the water, the flora and fauna, the balance of good living.
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The Patachaux lived in the region long before the Portuguese settlers arrived 500 years ago.
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They are in conflict with the eucalyptus owners, whom they accuse of encroaching on their territory.
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Eucalyptus.
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We have suffered all kinds of attacks and massacres since the colonial period.
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One of the worst massacres we are now facing is the planting of eucalyptus trees on indigenous lands.
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We see
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the eucalyptus monoculture as a green desert.
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The earth turns to sand.
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There's no moisture.
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Nothing germinates here.
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There's no hummus, no seeds, no saplings.
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No native trees of the Mata Atlantica, which provide food, water and life.
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There's only eucalyptus, which brings death.
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Many maps and international statistics do not distinguish between industrial plantations and natural forests.
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But scientifically speaking, they differ greatly.
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Culturally, to a lot of people, a tree is a tree.
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It doesn't really occur to them that it matters what kind of tree.
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And so I think there's just a lot of, you know, does it really matter, the difference between a forest and a plantation?
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Is this really grave?
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It's a forest.
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What do we mean by forest?
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Is a forest just the trees?
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No, it's a habitat, it's an ecosystem.
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So you have vines and shrubs and wildlife and mushrooms and all sorts of things that make up a forest.
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Whereas a tree plantation is typically a monoculture with a purpose.
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And everything else in the forest is unneeded for that purpose.
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The traditional patasho way of life is now confined to a few patches of ancient forest rich in endemic tree
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and plant species trees.
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This tree is called the jueirana and we extract seeds from it for handicrafts.
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We use the We use the Jueirana to build our fishing canoes.
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We sustain our culture from the Jueirana.
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This is the Tupamirim.
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We use it to make our arrows, to defend our territory against the ranchers and the militia.
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We do it our way, not with firearms, but with the power of the maraca and our strength from the forest.
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Here, on this land, This land is full of life.
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It has different roots and saps with healing powers.
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It's wet.
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This is the real forest.
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This is what we need, not the dry land of the eucalyptus.
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This is the real land, that's what we need, not the eucalyptus dry land.
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alarming to us.
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The Cerrado is one of the ecosystems under threat from tree planting.
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It is South America's largest savanna and habitat for 5% of the world's biodiversity.
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Giselda Durigan specializes in this little-known biome.
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The Cerrado has been less studied than the forests,
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but we now know that the Cerrado holds more known plant species than the Amazon rainforest than the Amazon rainforest.
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One out of every seven plant species in the Cerrado is a tree.
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The others are grasses, herbs, shrubs and subshrubs.
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The biodiversity of the Brazilian savannah does not lie in the trees, but in all the other small plants in the territory.
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These open environments predate human existence by a very long time.
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They are not just degraded forests.
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This balance between tree cover and grass cover is the very essence of a savanna.
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The Cerrado is home to the headwaters of eight of Brazil's major river basins.
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That's the gold mine of water that supplies practically the entire country.
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Eucalyptus could threaten Brazil's water supply.
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Its rapid growth rate requires enormous water consumption.
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There are now 1,000 eucalyptus trees per hectare here, with roots drawing water from 12 meters deep.
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You don't need to be a math whiz to work out
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that a eucalyptus draws an enormous amount of water from the ground from the ground.
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The water table is gradually dropping.
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It's already deep in the savannah, but it's going to drop even further.
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It's not uncommon for springs to dry up.
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During periods of extreme drought,
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I've seen thousands of hectares of forest plantations where every single tree has died because the entire system ran out of water.
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Eucalyptus is one of the world's most commonly planted trees.
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Between it and pine and acacia, you have the kind of the three big.
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Eucalyptus is fast growing.
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It's relatively tolerant.
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The only problem is that it tends to catch fire.
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UN experts predict a 50% increase in uncontrolled wildfires by the end of the century due to climate change.
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Portugal has been the European country hardest hit by fires since the 2000s.
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It also has the world's highest eucalyptus density.
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10% of its land is covered by this highly flammable tree.
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Yet the state continued to encourage its planting until just a few years ago.
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In 2017, the country experienced the worst fires in its recent history.
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In Pedro Gó Grande, 66 people lost their lives in a mega fire that quickly spread through eucalyptus and pine plantations.
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In June 2017, something happened that we never dreamed could happen in this area.
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It was extremely hot that day, right from dawn, with strong winds.
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We realized that if there was the slightest spark or a small campfire, it could be disastrous.
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And that's exactly what happened.
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Around 2 or 3 p.m a fire broke out.
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Everything went wrong that day.
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Let's go.
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Let's go.
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He's up there.
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Let's go.
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I'm coming here.
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I'm coming to the car.
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Let's go.
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Let's go.
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Let's go.
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Let's go.
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Let's go.
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The fire got more intense and spread so quickly that people began to panic.
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It created conditions.
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People were in panic.
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Our experience with previous fires was nothing like what happened that day.
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Some people locked themselves in their homes because they thought it was safer.
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José Pais is a forest engineer and a village native.
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This forest, which is home to a dozen species of trees, is one of the few to have resisted the fire.
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The gold-striped salamander is only found in Portugal and Galicia.
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Its skin always has to stay moist.
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It would die in a eucalyptus forest.
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There isn't enough moisture, the soil isn't soft enough, and there's no cover.
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Its skin always has to be protected.
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Here we can see what happened during the fire.
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Many square kilometers burned, except for this patch in the middle, which didn't.
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Why?
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It has different trees.
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This shows that even in the worst fire, single trees may not survive.
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But if they are in a mixed forest, they don't burn.
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These trees resisted the fire, slowed the flames, reduced their intensity and temperature, and protected the trees behind them from burning.
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Forests like this make all the difference.
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After a devastating wildfire,
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the villages of Frojan in northwestern Spain decided to replace the eucalyptus trees surrounding their village with native trees.
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Does anyone know how to use a chainsaw?
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There's one here that's not being used.
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Joam Evans launched the De-Eucalyptus Brigades together with the village and the Verdejaia environmental organization.
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There are 40 volunteers here and we're going to remove the eucalyptus.
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to preserve what little native forest is left.
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A few oaks, a few chestnuts.
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And next winter, plant new trees and restore this entire area.
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We say that underneath every eucalyptus stands an oak.
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A native forest.
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It's hard work.
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We peel off the bark until we get to this white, moist part where the sap is.
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and fungi can get in through the cuts we make, and we hope this will kill the trees, because otherwise they'll just grow right back.
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The brigades formed after the fires.
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Everyone felt helpless.
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The communities, the owners, the administration all blamed each other.
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But there seemed to be nothing that people could do themselves.
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The brigades created a space for positive action, where people could take charge.
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They could step in with their own hands, their work and their initiative to improve the situation.
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On the first day of spring, the brigade planted saplings on cleared land.
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Only local species like oak, cork oak and chestnut.
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When you pull on the tree, it shouldn't come out.
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Perfect, it's solid.
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It's leaning a bit, but it'll straighten up.
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It looks horrible.
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For people like us who live here year-round, The change is really spectacular.
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In 2017 this village was completely surrounded by plantations.
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You can hardly tell the seasons apart from the landscape.
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Now you can see the change of seasons just by looking out the window at the colours of the vegetation.
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We also feel safer during the dry summer nights, when a strong north-easterly wind blew.
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We used to worry that a fire might break out in the night.
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Now we're more confident that won't happen.
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And if it does, we'll be able to contain it without putting our homes or our own safety at risk.
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The brigades now have around 1,500 active members in Galicia and in Portugal.
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They show that, faced with the advance of industrial plantations, it is possible to restore natural ecosystems for greater resistance to climate change.
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More and more NGOs have proposed replanting forests to slow climate change.
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In the last decade or so,
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many organizations have taken on tree planting as either a part of their program or as a primary goal of their program.
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There's many new organizations that have been created.
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One, two, three, trees!
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It has to do with social media.
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It also has to do with the perception
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that it's a valuable solution for climate change and climate change has become more of a concern.
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Climate change is mainly caused by the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere due to human activity.
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Half of our CO2 emissions are already captured by the oceans and forests, the Earth's primary carbon sinks.
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For NGOs involved in reforestation, planting additional trees helps combat climate change by absorbing even more carbon.
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A lot of organizations are promoting tree planting as a sort of easy win
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and something they can fundraise around and something that will bring a lot of benefits to the world.
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The German Plant for the Planet NGO also sees tree planting as a way to mitigate climate change.
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Its goal is to plant a trillion trees.
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This is the story of how a simple idea turned into a global movement which created confidence and optimism.
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The idea?
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Planting trees to fight the climate crisis.
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The movement?
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Plant for the Planet.
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The confidence, with the help of many and the right tools, we can fight the climate crisis.
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The Plant for the Planet movement does not plant monocultures, but real forests with diverse species.
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Founded by a nine-year-old boy, this popular NGO has received support from numerous celebrities since its creation.
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The organization was founded by a boy named Felix Finkbeiner and his father, who is a successful businessman.
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And Felix was a very idealistic boy
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and he got the kids in his school to plant trees to benefit the local area
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and then they started scaling it up for climate change purposes.
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Did you learn about photosynthesis at school?
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And it works like this.
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Trees absorb CO2.
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Carbon, the sea, stays in the tree.
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The tree gives off the oxygen, which we breathe in.
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Felix Finkbeiner kind of became this beautiful kid spokesman for environmentalism.
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And he was invited to give an address to the United Nations.
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And he and his dad were flying from Germany to New York.
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And they said, well, what goal should we say?
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They were writing the speech on the plane.
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Let's say something really ambitious.
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How about a trillion trees?
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It is now time that we work together.
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If we combine our forces, old and young, rich and poor, and together, we can plant a trillion trees.
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We can start a trillion tree campaign.
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A trillion trees to save the climate.
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This catchy slogan played a major role in the growth of Felix Finkbeiner's NGO,
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although the idea initially lacked a scientific basis.
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A trillion trees would cover an area the size of the United States.
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But planted where?
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And how would it affect the climate?
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Plants for the planet backed the work of a young biologist named Tom Crowther in hopes of gaining scientific backing.
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Life is all about embracing the challenge.
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Tom Crowther is a professor of ecology in Zurich.
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His research focuses on the forest's potential to capture the 300 gigatons of carbon
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that have accumulated in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution.
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If we want to capture the 300 gigatons that already exists, we're going to need an immensely powerful system.
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And the most powerful system we've got to date is this, the natural system.
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These are the 0.9 billion hectares of degraded lands, Places where trees could naturally exist, but they don't.
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If we were to restore ecosystems across all of those lands, there would be an additional trillion trees in that area.
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And they would store a staggering 205 gigatons of carbon.
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He published a shocking study in the journal Science in 2019.
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Area for extra tree restoration potential is far greater than we could have ever imagined.
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His research claims that not only is plant for the planet's goal of restoring a trillion trees achievable, but it would be the best solution for the climate change crisis.
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Our recent research shows that if we achieved that, we could capture a huge chunk, maybe even two thirds of the excess carbon that's remaining in the atmosphere because of human activity.
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That makes forest restoration by far the biggest climate change solution that we have today.
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Media coverage of the study was huge.
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In Climate Watch, a new study is suggesting that the best way to fight climate change is through trees.
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The research posted in the journal Science says planting billions of trees could remove nearly 25% of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
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The United Nations, the World Economic Forum, the World Wildlife Foundation and other NGOs took up the idea.
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Leading Silicon Valley entrepreneurs also joined in.
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The world is in a climate emergency.
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Now is the time to put the trees back on the planet.
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Let's plant one trillion trees.
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The next year, Tom Crowther and Felix Finkbeiner were invited to the World Economic Forum in Davos.
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We are incredibly excited that, you know, nine years after we first tried convincing the world to plant a trillion trees, a trillion trees, this, I think, is truly starting now.
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So that's absolutely fantastic.
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A trillion trees to save the climate.
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A nice idea, but it unleashed the greatest scientific debate in recent years.
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How they got to that number was problematic.
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It was problematic in a few different ways.
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First, they made some pretty simple errors in how they estimated carbon.
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They were off by 50% right out the gate.
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And there were no less than, I think, 150 scientists signing on to three different responses to that paper saying, you got the math wrong.
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And I think that's what made a lot of scientists uncomfortable, because that's not the proper way to do science.
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We need to be more conservative before we make bold statements.
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There's a famous saying, with great claims, great proof is required.
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A lot of these places where they're saying we can plant
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trees are places where it's actually a bad idea to plant trees.
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So for example, they were saying we should plant trees in the boreal or sub-arctic zone.
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Many of those places are white a lot of the year because there's snow on the ground.
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And we all know that white reflects heat.
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And if you plant trees there, they'll be dark a lot of the year.
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So if you make the earth darker, you make it hotter.
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They assumed that everywhere could be reforested.
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Some places like the world's savannahs are not appropriate locations for trees.
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They have their own biodiversity, their own ecosystem.
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And they assumed that before forest restoration, there was no carbon on the land or in the soil.
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And that's clearly not correct.
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Forests are not the only terrestrial ecosystems to capture and store carbon.
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The Cerrado savanna in Brazil is sometimes described as an inverted forest.
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It stores seven times more carbon underground than on the surface.
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This little plant has such a big root.
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It weighs 20 times as much as the part above ground.
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This plant is three years old, but the root is about 50.
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This plant is three years old, but the root is about 50.
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Here the biomass stays underground.
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Its incredible regeneration means that this root will sprout again if I bury it.
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Ecosystems with grasses are very effective at sequestering carbon underground, both within the plants and through root regeneration.
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These fine grass roots are abundant in the Cerrado and are constantly being renewed.
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Every time a root dies, it breaks down into carbon, which is stored in the soil.
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That is why the soil of the Cerrado contains a huge amount of carbon that you don't find in forests.
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There are many places where trees should be planted, and others that urgently need forest restoration,
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but there are also places where trees are actually harmful.
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They would destroy what's already there." According to leading savannah specialists,
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Crowther's forecasts for carbon storage are five times too optimistic.
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But beyond the math, the scientific community deemed his study dangerously misleading.
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Back in 2019, the world woke up to headlines saying trees and planting trees was the best solution to climate change.
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In fact, anyone thinking about this for more than a few minutes would realize that's not correct.
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The best solution to climate change is to not explore and burn more oil, coal and gas.
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To keep global warming well below 2 degrees, the International Panel on Climate Change recommends reaching carbon neutrality by 2050.
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We should then not emit more greenhouse gases than ecosystems can absorb
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and then can be offset by technical processes that remove CO2.
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Most large companies are not yet legally required to reduce their CO2 emissions, but the pressure to decarbonize is growing.
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Since the Paris Climate Agreement in 2015, CO2 offsetting has become increasingly important.
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At Air France, we understand the effects our business has on the environment, and we want to do more.
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Where we cannot yet reduce our impact, we will offset it.
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To offset the CO2 they emit, companies can finance forestry projects that will capture this carbon dioxide elsewhere.
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It's a new argument for tree planting while continuing to pollute the environment.
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Many companies have tried to offset their emissions.
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trees is one of the most visible methods.
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Companies can turn to the timber industry for tree planting.
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Brazil's Suzano, one of the world's leading pulp and paper makers, is one of the major players driving the expansion of monocultures.
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As part of its CO2 offset program, the company is now planting eucalyptus on behalf of polluting companies.
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Julio Nathalanza oversees this new business sector.
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The eucalyptus is a fantastic tree.
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Let's estimate the carbon volume in this forest.
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I'll measure here.
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One meter.
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That's a meter and a half.
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Now I'll measure the diameter.
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With the diameter and the height, we can estimate the volume of stored carbon.
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We can estimate the carbon stock it has.
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Susano will sell this stored CO2 in the form of carbon credits.
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Companies
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that buy these credits will deduct the carbon captured by these eucalyptus from their emissions as a kind of right to pollute.
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Carbon credits are units of exchange.
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A company that wants to improve its carbon footprint can use this method to finance another company
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that removes CO2 from the atmosphere.
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One carbon credit corresponds to one ton of CO2 that has been removed from the atmosphere.
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The time frame is at the heart of the criticism of carbon offsets and credits.
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One of the commonest scams of carbon credits is that you have a tree planting scheme.
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and the credits are sold based on timeline of tree growth.
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And then you sell the credits from that ten years, but in year 11 you cut all the trees down, and all that carbon goes into the atmosphere or into pulp and paper products.
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And you're buying credits that you think are permanently sequestering carbon out of the atmosphere and onto the land, but you're not.
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You're buying a credit that's ended up in a piece of paper that someone wrote on and then threw away.
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It goes and decomposes and that carbon goes back into the atmosphere.
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Carbon offsets are the modern equivalent of medieval indulgences.
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You could pay your way out of sinning.
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And in modern society, when you're feeling guilty by the environment, you're sinning, and really you want to pay your way out of it, right?
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You want to do a good deed, you want to plant a tree, So sure, I'll set my flight for a dollar.
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The problem is when you really start poking at these projects, they're all made up.
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Their estimates are overly rosy.
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The follow-up is nothing.
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And there's probably, I'd say, of the 80% organizations, are not doing really thorough jobs.
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Planting trees has become an excuse for not changing anything.
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In 2020, Total Anongi announced its first carbon offset project.
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40,000 hectares of acacia on the savannahs of Bateke Plateau in the Republic of Congo.
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Yet another tree monoculture in a developing country.
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The company claims this project will capture 10 million tons of CO2, or just 2% of its annual emissions.
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It's a great pleasure and honor for Total Energy
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and the Prime Minister to inaugurate this project on the day the Republic celebrates Arbor Day.
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This year's motto is, let's all plant trees to sequester carbon and combat climate change.
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To make the land available to Total, the Congolese government evicted the farmers without consultation,
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in return for a few euros in compensation.
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Hundreds suddenly found themselves without a way to make a living.
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We were working in the fields.
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Suddenly we saw tractors and wondered what was going on.
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We went home, but when we came back the next day, we saw that they had ploughed all the fields.
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They told us bluntly that we could no longer work there.
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It was their land now.
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Local communities dependent on gathering crops were denied access to the project area.
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I can't even afford salt fish.
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I'm starving.
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Where am I supposed to get the money for food?
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I've even lost the fields that used to feed me.
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Years after the project was launched, the local population continues to suffer from an operation controlled from above.
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Who took the land that people lived off?
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Did they give it to white people?
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Where are we supposed to farm now?
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These trees are no good to us.
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They just line their pockets.
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But they've made our lives harder.
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Total came here to destroy us.
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Faced with the scandal, Total Honorgie was forced to offer compensation to those affected.
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But four years later, the amounts were disappointing, and many had not received anything.
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A Catholic NGO is helping the farmers fight for their rights.
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Okay.
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Last week, I met with you all here to sign the contract.
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There was a debate between those who wanted to sign and those who didn't.
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Those who signed, please raise your hands.
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I signed.
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I thought they would give me back as much land as I had before.
430
They said if I signed, they would give me back four hectares.
431
Right after I signed, they took the document, read it, and said I only had a claim to one hectare.
432
How am I supposed to raise my children?
433
I signed without knowing what I was signing.
434
I don't speak French or Lingala.
435
When you signed, did you get a copy of the document?
436
You signed documents and did not receive a copy?
437
From an administrative standpoint, this is extremely serious.
438
The police and the gendarmerie were there.
439
No more debate within the community.
440
When matters affect the community, we do not involve the police, the gendarmerie, the subprefect or the mayor.
441
Total has just sown disorder all along. Do you all understand?
442
Do not sign any more documents without reading them first.
443
And always get a copy.
444
Too many projects have massively violated human rights.
445
Even now, in many countries of the global south, like Congo, Tanzania and Uganda,
446
we're seeing large-scale displacement and land grabs.
447
Project leaders tell them to tighten their belts and reduce their emissions
448
so that the global north can go on emitting with a clear conscience.
449
What do you want to do, Pierre?
450
Planting trees is not a miracle solution to the ecological crisis, but it's not a bad gesture in itself,
451
if we plant the right species in the right place for the right reasons.
452
We're often tempted to contribute to planting programs, but how do we know these projects won't do more harm than good?
453
I'm very pro getting into nature and getting your hands dirty and interacting with nature.
454
And some of that will involve some tree planting.
455
My advice if you're thinking about tree planting,
456
I think on the one hand it makes sense to be involved in the thing that's closest to where you live.
457
Because that's where you'll get most enjoyment and that's where you can probably have a big impact.
458
Because you care about your local environment long term because that's your life and your location.
459
And then I think on the other hand, it's important to help communities who really want to protect forests.
460
There are indigenous communities across the global south who are desperate
461
for finance to be able to protect their own territories from encroachment by loggers and plantation owners.
462
Many of these indigenous peoples groups manage those areas remarkably well,
463
more impressively than often a group of scientists could do, or an international NGO.
464
Because those people, they know those places better than anyone else.
465
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Why Practice Speaking with This Video?
Want to boost your english speaking practice while learning about a hot global topic? This video is perfect! It mixes casual conversation ("Hi, I'm Sion...") with expert insights, giving you real-world context for talking about climate change, ecology, and current events. Plus, the mix of accents (from Sion, Beverly, and scientists) helps you get used to different ways English is spoken. Use a shadowing app to mimic the speakers—repeat their phrases, pace, and tone. It’s like having a language partner who’s also teaching you about the planet! Shadow speak with this video, and you’ll not only improve your fluency but also learn to discuss important issues confidently.
Grammar & Expressions in Context
Let’s break down key phrases to level up your English:
- "Forests are essential to life on Earth." The structure "X is essential to Y" is great for emphasizing importance. Try it: "A good breakfast is essential to a productive day."
- "Could widespread tree planting do more harm than good?" The "could + verb" form here asks a hypothetical question—perfect for debates. Practice: "Could working from home do more good than harm for families?"
- "China has doubled its tree cover in 40 years." "Has doubled" uses the present perfect to show a result over time. Use it to talk about progress: "My city has doubled its bike lanes in 10 years."
These phrases are common in discussions, so mastering them with shadowspeak will make your speech sound natural.
Common Pronunciation Traps
Watch out for these tricky words in the video:
- "Monocultures" (muh-NAH-kuhl-cherz). The stress is on the second syllable—don’t say "MON-oh-cul-tures"! Repeat it with a shadowing app to get the rhythm right.
- "Pledges" (PLEJ-iz). The "dge" sound is soft, like "edge." Avoid pronouncing it as "PLEDS-iz."
- "Phenomenon" (fuh-NAH-muh-non). This word has four syllables—take it slow. The video’s scientists say it clearly, so shadow speak along to nail the pronunciation.
Learning English with videos like this helps you spot these traps and fix them. Keep practicing, and soon you’ll speak like a pro!
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result | if it does, we'll be · if you plant trees there, they'll be · if I signed, they would give |
| Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on | has been growing · have been spreading |
| “Used to” used to + verb — a past habit or state that is no longer true | used to worry · used to feed |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | has left · have made · have investigated |
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.