Shadowing Practice: Echolocation: How Dolphins and Bats See with Sound - Learn English Speaking with Video
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34 sentences
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1
Okay, we're rolling! And look, the bats are already out!
2
Right on cue. They're hunting by sound, not sight.
3
But I can't hear a thing. Are they silent?
4
Far from it. They're screaming, just above your range.
5
Screaming? Then how on earth don't they deafen themselves?
6
Tiny middle-ear muscles clamp down with every single call.
7
Every single call? That's absurdly precise!
8
Near prey, it's up to two hundred calls a second!
9
Wait, is that the buzzing on the detector?
10
Exactly. We call it the feeding buzz.
11
Poor moths. They don't stand a chance, do they?
12
Don't write them off. Many moths can hear bat calls.
13
And tiger moths click back! Some can actually jam the sonar!
14
An insect waging electronic warfare? No way!
15
Well... often the clicks just warn that they taste foul.
16
Right, from bats to dolphins! Same trick underwater?
17
Same principle, different plumbing. They click with nasal phonic lips.
18
And that bulge on the forehead? Is that the speaker?
19
Spot on. It's the melon, a fatty acoustic lens.
20
The melon. Biologists really are terrible at naming things.
21
Wait till you hear they listen through their jaw.
22
Through their jaw? You're pulling my leg!
23
Honestly, the lower jaw is packed with fat that channels echoes.
24
So could a dolphin basically see my skeleton?
25
Um, sort of... more a rough sketch than an X-ray.
26
But bats and dolphins aren't remotely related, are they?
27
That's the beauty of it! Evolution solved it twice!
28
Even a hearing gene, prestin, shifted in parallel in both.
29
The same genetic tweaks? In a bat and a dolphin?
30
Okay, confession... I tried clicking in my kitchen earlier.
31
And? Did you find the fridge?
32
Mostly I found the door frame. With my face.
33
Keep practising. In expert human echolocators, the visual cortex lights up.
34
Right, viewers, get clicking! Just mind the door frames!
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This C2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Echolocation: How Dolphins and Bats See with Sound”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: bat, dolphin, moths, jaw, click. This video has 34 sentences and 308 words to shadow. The speech runs for 2:16. The speaker talks at a steady 136 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. Only 69% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding. 17 of its 34 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 |
|---|---|---|
| dolphin noun | /ˈdɑlf.ɪn/ | A carnivorous cetacean, typically with a beak-like snout, famed for their intelligence and occasional willingness to approach humans. |
| moth noun | /mɔθ/ | Any flying insect of the order Lepidoptera not in the superfamily Papilionoidea, most species of which are nocturnal and can be distinguished from butterflies… |
| melon noun | /ˈmɛlən/ | Genus Cucumis, the true melon (including various cultigens like honeydew and cantaloupes), the horned melon, and others. |
| buzz noun | /bʌz/ | A continuous humming noise, as of bees; a confused murmur, as of general conversation in low tones. |
| absurdly adverb | /æbˈsɝd.li/ | In an absurd fashion. |
| deafen verb | /ˈdɛfən/ | To make deaf, either temporarily or permanently. |
| echolocator noun | An organism capable of echolocation. | |
| phonic adjective | /ˈfɑn.ɪk/ | Of or pertaining to sound; of the nature of sound; acoustic. |
| prestin noun | A protein in the hairs of the inner ear | |
| practise verb | /ˈpɹæktɪs/ | To repeat (an activity) as a way of improving one's skill in that activity. |
| plumbing noun | /ˈplʌmɪŋ/ | The pipes, together with the joints, tanks, stopcocks, taps, and other fixtures of a water, gas, or sewage system in a house or other building. |
| cortex noun | /ˈkɔɹtɛks/ | The outer layer of an internal organ or body structure, such as the kidney or the brain. |
| detector noun | /dɪˈtɛktə(ɹ)/ | A device capable of registering a specific substance or physical phenomenon, and that optionally sounds an alarm or triggers a warning. |
| remotely adverb | /ɹɪˈmoʊtli/ | At a distance, far away. |
| insect noun | /ˈɪn.sɛkt/ | An arthropod (in the Insecta class) characterized by six legs, up to four wings, and a chitinous exoskeleton. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| light up verb | To illuminate, to bring light to something, to brighten. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- They're screaming, just above your range.
- Then how on earth don't they deafen themselves?
- They don't stand a chance, do they?
- Did you find the fridge?
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 9 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, they're, aren't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like dolphin, moth, melon.
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.