Shadowing Practice: Cunk's Best One-Interview Experts - Part 1 - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
1
So, is this the actual Doomsday book?
2
This is the actual Doomsday book, yes.
3
And it's usually under glass, isn't it, this book?
4
Well, usually it's not accessible at all, so it's very rarely on display.
5
So this is really quite a special occasion that we've got it out for you to be able to see it today.
6
So, you're not allowed to touch it?
7
No. I thought that was because of the curse.
8
The curse?
9
Yeah.
10
I heard that there was a curse on it.
11
I've definitely not heard that, so I don't think there's a curse.
12
I thought it was going to be like, you know, Raiders of the Lost Ark?
13
Mm-hm.
14
Where that Nazi gets his face melted off.
15
Yeah, yeah.
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I thought it was going to be like that.
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I'm afraid not.
18
Oh.
19
If we came from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?
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Because some of those monkeys that lived a long time ago turned into other monkeys that we see today, like chimp monkeys and so on.
21
Right.
22
So the monkeys that didn't turn into humans, They must be gutted that they didn't turn into humans.
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Right, sometimes when I watch these past life hypnosis programmes on satellite channels, all the people on those,
24
they're always ladies-in-waiting or gladiators.
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They're never monkeys.
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Why is that?
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Um, probably because they don't actually remember their past lives.
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It's probably not true.
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But I find it easier to believe that I was a lady-in-waiting than a monkey.
30
Well, it's maybe easy to believe that your ancestors were ladies-in-waiting.
31
The monkeys.
32
But I don't see the problem between believing both that your ancestors were ladies-in-waiting a few hundred years ago...
33
No, before that.
34
...and before that were monkeys.
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Monkey ladies-in-waiting.
36
How much money gets made at Christmas?
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All together, I'm sure we spend hundreds of millions of pounds at Christmas.
38
And how big a cot does the church get?
39
The church doesn't get anything.
40
They don't get anything?
41
No, no. The supermarket near me has got about 30 tills.
42
How many tills does Amazon have?
43
They must have loads.
44
They don't have any tills.
45
What?
46
They have a computer.
47
One computer?
48
Yeah, because no-one goes there, do they?
49
They just...
50
I thought they'd still have to wring it through.
51
No, the computer does all that.
52
So there's one man at a computer just going?
53
No, I don't think there's a man.
54
No, no, it just goes automatically.
55
You do that, you're the till.
56
Did the printing press actually change anything of significance?
57
If Gutenberg hadn't invented printing, which meant that ideas could be communicated throughout the world,
58
our culture would not have developed in the same way as it has.
59
So in many ways he has made the world our modern world today.
60
So that's your idea of significant.
61
So how does the Doomsday book compare to a book like The Runaway by Martina Cole?
62
Well I've not read The Runaway by Martina Cole but I think, okay, I think that's a work of fiction So it's a made-up story,
63
whereas Doomsday is recording the land and landholding in England before the Norman Conquest and after the Norman Conquest.
64
It kind of lists who holds land and what's within that land and how much it's worth, and it does that in a lot of detail.
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So Roger holds a land here called, it's just called Mildahope.
66
It's probably going to have a different name now.
67
So how can we free the people living in this book?
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Well, they don't live in the book.
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But their souls are inside the book.
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I don't think that's necessarily true.
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I think this records information about them, but it's not...
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They're not in there.
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It's just, you know, it's just a record about them.
74
It doesn't sort of contain their being or anything like that.
75
We don't need to worry about them.
76
You sure?
77
I'm sure.
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I've got an expert here with me.
79
Or have I?
80
Or am I here?
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Maybe I'm imagining them, or they're imagining me.
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Or am I?
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Hello, philosophy lady.
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Am I here?
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Yes.
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How do you know?
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Well, I can see you, I can probably feel you, I can hear you.
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What a lovely warm hands.
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Thank you.
90
It is possible that I'm dreaming.
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Yeah.
92
Or I could be dreaming too, couldn't I?
93
Oh, you could be dreaming, yes, but you asked me whether you were here.
94
So if you would dream, if I was dreaming, that wouldn't have happened?
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No, if you were dreaming, that wouldn't have happened.
96
If I were dreaming, then my belief that you are here might be false.
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Right.
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And unless I can tell that I'm not dreaming, therefore, it's possible that you're not here.
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Yeah.
100
But if we both sort of nip ourselves...
101
Well, the trouble with nipping yourself like that is you might dream that as well.
102
I mean, any test you can do to see whether you're awake, you could do when you're asleep.
103
Any belief that could be false
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if you were asleep is a belief of whose truth you can't be certain unless you can be certain that you're awake.
105
A lot of revolutions seem to be about poor people overthrowing the rich.
106
Do you think billionaires like Elon Musk should be worried about getting guillotined?
107
I think that the French Revolution certainly made a lot of people who were powerful very, very worried about their existence.
108
I suppose Elon Musk could invent a machine that chops his own head off electronically before the mob arrives.
109
Ah, you know much more about this than I do.
110
I'm just guessing.
111
What is a building?
112
A building is anything that anyone has built.
113
So my shoes are a building?
114
They may not be a building, they're a physical object.
115
I guess a building is also something that people in some way live in or inhabit.
116
Right.
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My nephew makes buildings in Minecraft.
118
How much more does he need to do to be considered a qualified architect?
119
Well, to be a qualified architect in this country, you have to study five years at university and do at least two years in professional practice.
120
And how many of those years would be studying Minecraft?
121
Very few of them.
122
You could continue looking at Minecraft at the same time, but you wouldn't normally use Minecraft as part of an architectural education.
123
Have you thought about just selling celebrities, you know, for their organs?
124
Because I'm sure someone would pay a fortune for, like, John Bishop's kidneys.
125
No, we haven't thought of that, and I think that the comedians do quite a lot for us sometimes that they don't want to do,
126
and I suspect the sale of bodily parts would be slightly more than they or their representatives would.
127
Bit talking point, though, wouldn't it, if you had John Bishop's kidneys?
128
It would be a slightly morbid talking point if John was no longer alive.
129
Mm.
130
I killed John Bishop. Did you?
131
No, no, no, I'm just saying, I killed John Bishop would be an odd talking point.
132
Why did Stone Age people bury all their stuff underground?
133
Were they worried someone might steal it?
134
No, that's how we find it.
135
It wasn't always underground.
136
It was on the top.
137
The reason we find it as archaeologists is that we go out and we dig it up.
138
Oh.
139
How will the world end?
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Well, the sun will run out of fuel in about four billion years or so.
141
And actually, before that, it will begin to swell up, expand.
142
And so we think the Earth will get incinerated Do you think we might be able to do something about it?
143
Stop it being incinerated?
144
Yeah, stop it being incinerated.
145
Or the sun burning the earth.
146
Can't we put it out with a big hose or something?
147
It's an inevitable consequence of the laws of nature.
148
You're pleased with that, are you?
149
You're happy with that.
150
You can live with that.
151
Well, there's nothing I can do.
152
Also, the Andromeda galaxy is going to hit us.
153
The Andromeda galaxy?
154
A whole galaxy is going to hit us?
155
Yeah.
156
On about the same time scale, actually.
157
So as the sun runs out of fuel and expands and incinerates the Earth, a galaxy of 400 billion stars is going to collide with us.
158
You're much gloomier than I expected, cos you're quite smiley.
159
Well, yeah, well, it's quite a long time in the future in the future.
160
Speaking as an expert in architecture, do you ever watch Homes Under the Hammer?
161
No, I don't, no. You don't watch Homes Under the Hammer?
162
I've never seen it, no. You've never seen Homes Under the Hammer?
163
I've never seen Homes Under the Hammer.
164
Why not?
165
You must have heard about it.
166
I haven't heard about it, no. Don't you and the other architects talk about it?
167
It's not a subject that's ever come up, no. I think you'd enjoy it.
168
I think you'd get a lot out of it.
169
I shall go and have a look, yes.
170
Yeah, I think you should.
171
What's the most disgusting thing you've heard someone do with a red nose?
172
Because my mate Paul, he did this party trick that he always does with a red nose,
173
and he put it sort of on his intimate skin, and it sort of tore it and he went septic.
174
Actually, I think that might mean he qualifies for some sort of charity money.
175
That is the first and most disgusting thing I've heard done with the red nose.
176
It's awful, isn't it, to think what people might be doing with them right now.
177
So after the universe ends, there'll be nothing.
178
Depends what you mean by after the universe ends.
179
When it's exploded.
180
Well, it's not going to explode.
181
It's going to, we think.. we think, carry on expanding.
182
Right. And then...
183
Forever.
184
Well, that would be fine, won't it?
185
We need the space.
186
You get to the point that it carries on doing that, then galaxies get ripped apart, and then solar systems get ripped apart, and then even planets get ripped apart,
187
and even atoms get ripped apart.
188
But so what?
189
All the stars will die, even all the black holes that are left, the final sort of endpoints of the most massive stars will evaporate away.
190
So can we, could we fall down a black hole?
191
Yeah, you could fall into one.
192
Is that the same, because I heard that you could be, if, you know, this is one way that the world could end,
193
is that we're all just sucked off through a hole?
194
It's, uh, it's a- I mean, that must be terrible.
195
Can you imagine what it would feel like to be sucked off through a hole?
196
Yeah.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Cunk's Best One-Interview Experts - Part 1”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: monkey, dreaming, heard. This video has 196 sentences and 1820 words to shadow. The speech runs for 10:33. The speaker talks at a natural 173 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 83% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start. 54 of its 196 sentences are questions, so it is good practice for question intonation and short answers.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| monkey noun | /ˈmʌŋki/ | A member of the clade Simiiformes other than those in the clade Hominoidea containing apes, generally (but not universally) distinguished by small size, tails… |
| incinerate verb | /ɪnˈsɪnɚeɪt/ | To destroy by burning. |
| curse noun | /kɝs/ | A supernatural detriment or hindrance; a bane. |
| architect noun | /ˈɑɹ.kɪˌtɛkt/ | A professional who designs buildings or other structures, or who prepares plans and superintends construction. |
| qualify verb | /ˈkwɑ.lɪ.faɪ/ | To describe or characterize something by listing its qualities. |
| ancestor noun | /ˈæn.sɛs.tɚ/ | One from whom a person is descended, whether on the father's or mother's side, at any distance of time; a progenitor; a forefather; a forebear. |
| invent verb | /ɪnˈvɛnt/ | To design a new process or mechanism. |
| explode verb | /ɪkˈsploʊd/ | To fly apart with sudden violent force; to blow up, to burst, to detonate, to go off. |
| kidney noun | /ˈkɪdni/ | An organ in the body that filters the blood, producing urine. |
| awake verb | /əˈweɪk/ | To become conscious after having slept. |
| archaeologist noun | /ˌɑɹ.kiˈɑ.lə.d͡ʒɪst/ | Someone who studies or practises archaeology. |
| collide verb | /kəˈlaɪd/ | To impact directly, especially if violent. |
| electronically adverb | /ˌɛl.ɛkˈtɹɒn.ɪk.li/ | By means of electronics, or of electronic technology. |
| endpoint noun | Either of the two points at the ends of a line segment. | |
| evaporate verb | /ɪˈvæp.ə.ɹeɪt/ | To transition from a liquid state into a gaseous state. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| rip apart verb | To be destroyed due to the malevolent actions of others. | |
| come up verb | To emerge or become known, especially unexpectedly. | |
| fall down verb | /fɔl ˈdaʊn/ | To fall to the ground. To collapse. |
| go out verb | To leave, especially a building. | |
| head off verb | To begin moving away. | |
| make up verb | /ˌmeɪk ˈʌp/ | To constitute, to compose. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- So, you're not allowed to touch it?
- Can't we put it out with a big hose or something?
- You're pleased with that, are you?
- A whole galaxy is going to hit us?
- Don't you and the other architects talk about it?
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 you were dreaming, that wouldn't have |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | I've definitely not heard · has made · I've not read |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | must be gutted · could be communicated · be considered |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 69 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, you're, I'm. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- Long words — get the stress right: archaeologist /ˌɑɹ.kiˈɑ.lə.d͡ʒɪst/, electronically /ˌɛl.ɛkˈtɹɒn.ɪk.li/, evaporate /ɪˈvæp.ə.ɹeɪt/, gladiator /ˈɡlædiˌeɪ̯tə/, supermarket /ˌsupɚˈmɑɹkət/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like monkey, incinerate, curse.
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.