Shadowing Practice: Could You Spend $1 Trillion? - Learn English Speaking with Video

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You just got one trillion dollars.
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Not a million.
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Not a billion.
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A trillion.
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But there's a catch.
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You need to spend all of it in the next 24 hours or you lose everything.
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This should be easy.
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First, you need a new car.
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Go to your local exotic dealership and buy yourself a Lambo.
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And a Ferrari.
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And a McLaren.
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You know what?
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Just buy up the entire dealership.
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Now, you have the 12 million dollar garage of your dreams.
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there's one small problem.
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In order to spend a trillion dollars in 24 hours, you would need to buy out that entire dealership every single second.
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You need to think bigger.
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Let's hire a hundred people to track down the hundred most expensive yachts and buy them for us.
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And let's throw in a million dollar bonus for each mercenary.
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That'll be around a 40 billion dollar check, but let's also buy the biggest cruise ship of all time for two bill and fill it up to maximum capacity, paying for everyone's tickets and tossing in a Rolex too.
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Let's make use of this ship's basketball court by buying up every single NBA team and having them battle it out.
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Then let's get Snoop Dogg, Katy Perry, Justin Bieber
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and Beyonce to perform for us before sending them off to the International Space Station on a SpaceX rocket
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that costs 55 million per passenger.
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Now that you're hanging with rich people, you need a status symbol.
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You could buy the world's most expensive art piece for half a billion, but why would you do that
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when you could just buy the entire Metropolitan Museum of Art for a hundred bill
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and then we could go over to- Transaction failed.
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There's no way we're already out of money.
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Yeah, we still have 800 billion
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The Metropolitan Museum is an educational institution whose assets are held for the public benefit
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and are not owned by you You know what forget about the Met
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The entirety of New York City is worth around 1.3 trillion.
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There are currently
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33,210 vacant units available So let's hire 33,000 people to snatch those up for us
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and of course throw in a hundred K Commission But here's something you need to think about.
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The most expensive real estate purchase in US history was this 240 million dollar concrete brick.
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That might sound like a lot of money, but you spending 240 million is like an average person spending 60 dollars.
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I think instead of buying houses, you should build a mega project.
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The sky is truly your limit.
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You can build your project wherever you want.
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If there's people in the way, buy them out with your pocket change.
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Or maybe try the Saudi Arabia method and relocate them into a graveyard.
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Actually, I think the Middle East is exactly where we need to go, so let's buy one Gulfstream G650 for each day of the year and fly across the world.
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Welcome to the Arabian Peninsula, where people will build literally anything.
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The world's biggest picture frame, the world's largest clock, the massivist cube,
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the tallest structure ever, man-made sinking islands shaped after the world map from memory.
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These are cool.
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Let's build an even bigger artificial island for 20 billion.
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Of course, we can't forget about labor costs, so for that let's budget in 10 dollars.
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Then let's buy every single one of those mega projects I just showed you for a total donation of 101 billion, 292 million, and 10 dollars to our Middle Eastern boys.
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But while you're here, take a look at the Burj Khalifa, the current tallest building in the world.
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If you were to stack one dollar bills to the very top, the tower would be worth 7.58 million.
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You still need to spend 87,000 times that.
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A stack so high it would go past the International Space Station.
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If you ever want to spend this money, you need to stop thinking in real estate and start thinking in 51st state.
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Do you see where I'm going with this?
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BUY A COUNTRY!
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In 2010, the country of Liechtenstein put itself on Airbnb at 70 grand a night.
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This is literally nothing.
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You can't be looking at countries hoeing themselves out for pennies.
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You need the ultimate prize.
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Somewhere cooler.
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Somewhere strategic.
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Let's buy Greenland.
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Based on the market price of its mineral reserves, the world's biggest island has a price tag of around 200 billion.
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We can afford that, but there's one small thing in our way.
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During Trump's first term when he proposed the conquest of Greenland, the country dismissed the idea as completely ridiculous and firmly stated that Greenland is not for sale.
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Huh.
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Let's buy an F-35 for 80 million dollars.
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Fuck it.
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Two F-35s.
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Three.
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Ten.
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A hundred.
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Two aircraft carriers, three destroyer ships, one ballistic missile submarine, 57,000 Blackwater soldiers, one for every citizen of Greenland.
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Now Now we have a $50 billion makeshift military and it looks like Greenland's for sale after all.
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But by this point in your trillionaire spending spree, people are starting to take notice.
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Your exploits might not have hit TikTok yet, but rumblings are beginning behind closed governmental doors.
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Luckily for you, there's not much politicians can say once you own them.
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Buy a politician.
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We got Trump here for $1.5 billion.
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Kamala is almost $2 billion, but you do get a free Joe Biden.
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Let's buy up both of those and every sitting member of the Senate
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and House for a grand total of $7.2 billion for the entirety of American politics.
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This is a great deal, but there's a catch.
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Money influences politics, but it doesn't always decide it.
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I mean, look at the presidential race.
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Democrats outspent Republicans and still lost.
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More recently, Elon dropped millions of dollars campaigning for an election in Wisconsin, only to find out that no longer works when everyone hates you.
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Even BlackRock doesn't always get what they want.
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A trillion dollars gives you access to almost everything, but culture and public perception are things that are not for sale.
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Just kidding.
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Let's buy every single media company.
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The Washington Post, Time Magazine, The New York Times, Comcast, Fox.
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Global ad spend for an entire year is around one trillion.
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That averages to three bill a day.
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So let's run one week straight of propaganda and we should be good.
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But if you're still getting heat, there's one final method you can use.
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A donation a day keeps the guillotine away.
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It's time for philanthropy.
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There are a lot of causes to choose from, but you should start off with the people most in need.
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The US government.
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America is currently 36 trillion dollars broker than a homeless person.
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That number is increasing by 2 trillion a year.
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Luckily, we now have you.
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220 billion honestly isn't gonna do much, but it's definitely gonna help.
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Assuming of course that the US government efficiently manages a quarter trillion dollar cash injection.
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You might be wondering how you're gonna send the money.
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And the answer is pay.gov, an official website where you can make donations to the US government to reduce the public debt.
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So let's just enter in your $220 billion right here and… Well,
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turns out the maximum amount the treasury accepts is only $1 million.
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You just bought the government a bag of screws from Lockheed Martin.
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Maybe your money will put a bigger dent into medical debt.
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See unlike the government, broke people dying of cancer aren't allowed to print more money to pay off their crippling obligations.
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Instead, their unpaid debts get sold off to collections for pennies on the dollar.
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But because of this discount, charities like Undue Medical Debt can erase $100 worth of debt for every $1 donation they receive.
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And with that ratio, you could wipe out all the medical debt in the US for just $2.2 billion.
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But what about World Hunger?
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The UN estimated it would take $40 billion each year to end World Hunger by 2030.
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We could afford that.
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Next, how about we help out malnourished and starving college students.
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Student loan debt in the US totals 1.777 trillion, with the government loaning out 87.2 billion a year.
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But before we try to attack this, there's a slight problem.
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Once universities catch wind that trillionaire Jesus is bailing out their victims, they'll probably just jack up their prices.
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On top of
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that, paying off loans might be seen as unfair to older generations who had to pay their way through college
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and pick themselves up by their bootstraps.
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Turns out philanthropy isn't as easy as it seems.
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It's not easy.
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Building Amazon was not easy.
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Philanthropy is very similar.
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It's really hard.
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I agree with Jeff here.
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Let's just buy another $500 million yacht.
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That's enough philanthropy for today.
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You still have $60 billion left, and I think I know how to spend it.
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It might be semi-cheating, but hear me out.
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37% of Americans can't afford an unexpected purchase over $400.
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Being a trillionaire, your passive income earns you $400 every 0.126 seconds.
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The median net worth under 35 is $39,000.
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As a trillionaire, you could exchange your toilet paper with rolls of $39,000 bills for your entire lifetime
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and it wouldn't put a dent in your finances.
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A trillion dollars gives you horizons incomprehensible to the normal paycheck to paycheck living human.
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Even after your spending spree, you still have so much money left that it gives you too many options.
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You could launch space programs, clean up the ocean, fund institutions.
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24 hours just isn't enough time for this much fun.
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So let's buy more time.
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Make yourself a trust, and safely store your money in it.
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Now, all of those humanity shifting endeavors, you can sleep on them.
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On the world's most expensive bed.

What You'll Practice in This Lesson

Ever wondered what it’d be like to spend $1 trillion in a day? This video’s wild scenario is perfect for practicing conversational English—you’ll follow fast-paced, playful storytelling while picking up casual phrases and vivid vocabulary. Whether you’re using a shadowing site, app, or just repeating aloud, this lesson helps you match natural speed and tone, making it great for learning English with videos.

Key Vocabulary & Phrases

  • Exotic dealership: A store selling rare, luxury cars (e.g., "He bought a Lambo from the exotic dealership").
  • Status symbol: An item that shows wealth or social standing (e.g., "A private jet is a classic status symbol").
  • Mega project: A very large, ambitious construction or business plan (e.g., "Building an artificial island is a mega project").
  • Pocket change: A small amount of money (e.g., "Buying that yacht was pocket change for him").
  • "The sky is your limit": There are no restrictions on what you can achieve (e.g., "With $1 trillion, the sky is your limit").

Practice Tips for Shadowing

This video’s tone is energetic and conversational, with quick shifts between ideas—perfect for shadowing! Start by listening once to get the story flow. Then, use a shadowing app or site to pause and repeat short chunks (like the part about buying yachts or building islands). Focus on matching the speaker’s excitement: emphasize words like "trillion," "biggest," and "mega project" to mimic natural stress. If you struggle with speed, slow the video down first, then gradually speed up. Remember, shadow speak isn’t just about words—it’s about capturing the playful vibe. Keep practicing, and you’ll nail the rhythm in no time!

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.