Shadowing Practice: How Does Food Get Delivered to Space? | Space Week | Channel 4 - Learn English Speaking with Video
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43 sentences
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1
Astronauts all love their food.
2
So NASA tried to ensure space food is as much like home cooking as possible.
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That's the experience.
4
Yeah.
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# Bing -bang -bang, bing -bang -ba -bong...
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# The process begins here.
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# Bing -bang -bang, bing -bang -bang...
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# We're making spaghetti with meat sauce.
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It's only when it gets back to the NASA lab, things change.
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Thank you.
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Spaghetti and meat sauce is just one of 250 options that the astronauts can choose from.
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And all of them are forensically prepared.
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We have a database where we maintain the nutritional content of all our products calories, fat, protein, carbohydrate, things like that.
14
The biggest challenge with cooking for space is weight.
15
It costs $10 ,000 to blast each one -pound serving to the astronauts.
16
NASA has a clever way of dealing with the cost.
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by removing 97 % of the water.
18
Freeze drying removes a high percentage of the moisture, so typically when we freeze dry our products, we take them down to about 3%.
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Each portion now weighs just one ounce.
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Cost to transport: $660.
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1300 miles away, an orbital Cygnus resupply module is being out.
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These are the tortillas.
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They're very popular on Orbit.
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Each apple is worth its weight in gold to transport.
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As you can see, we're only sending three apples, so you may think that's unfair because we have six people on orbit.
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They may have to share.
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For this launch, the precious cargo is hand -carried to the site very last bit.
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It's on its way.
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3, 2, 1.
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Less than a kilometer away from us now.
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Two days later, and the groceries are arriving.
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We're getting ready to berth the Cygnus 1 vehicle.
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All right?
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Looks really good.
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Perfect.
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Perfect.
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All right.
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Bonus food.
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including some surprise treats from their family.
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Wow, look at that!
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Tortilla!
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Look at that little tortilla Wow my goodness gracious the greatest hot dog relish in the history of man.
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Oh my gosh, my wife didn't tell me about this.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 42 sentences and 323 words to shadow. The speech runs for 2:57. The speaker talks slowly, about 109 words per minute, so there is time to copy every sound. Only 78% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| bang noun | /ˈbæŋ/ | A sudden percussive noise. |
| bing noun | /bɪŋ/ | A slag heap, i.e. a man-made mound or heap formed with the waste material (slag) as a by-product of coal mining or the shale oil industry. |
| astronaut noun | /ˈæstɹəˌnɔt/ | A member of the crew of a spaceship or other spacecraft that travels beyond Earth's atmosphere, or someone trained to serve that purpose. |
| freeze verb | /ˈfɹiːz/ | Especially of a liquid, to become solid due to low temperature. |
| orbit noun | /ˈɔɹ.bɪt/ | An elliptical movement of an object about a celestial object or Lagrange point, especially a periodic elliptical revolution. |
| percentage noun | /pə(ɹ)ˈsɛntɪd͡ʒ/ | The amount, number or rate of something, regarded as part of a total of 100; a part of a whole. |
| bonus noun | /ˈbəʊ.nəs/ | Something extra that is good; an added benefit. |
| arrive verb | /əˈɹaɪv/ | To reach; to get to a certain place. |
| blast noun | /blæst/ | A violent gust of wind (in windy weather) or apparent wind (around a moving vehicle). |
| pound noun | /ˈpaʊ̯nd/ | A unit of weight in various measurement systems. |
| database noun | /ˈdeɪtəˌbeɪs/ | A collection of (usually) organized information in a regular structure, usually but not necessarily in a machine-readable format accessible by a computer. |
| clever adjective | /ˈklɛv.ɚ/ | Nimble with hands or body; dexterous; skillful; adept. |
| cargo noun | /ˈkɑɹɡoʊ/ | Freight carried by a ship, aircraft, or motor vehicle. |
| unfair adjective | /ʌnˈfɛɚ/ | Not just. |
| goodness noun | /ˈɡʊdnəs/ | The state or characteristic of being good. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| get back to verb | Return to (an activity) |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 5 contractions and reduced forms, such as we're, didn't, they're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: gosh /ɡɑːʃ/, nutritional /njuːˈtɹɪʃ.ə.nəl/, gracious /ˈɡɹeɪʃəs/, relish /ˈɹɛlɪʃ/
- Long words — get the stress right: nutritional /njuːˈtɹɪʃ.ə.nəl/, carbohydrate /kɑɹboʊˈhaɪdɹeɪt/, kilometre /kɪˈlɑmɪtəɹ/
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 bang, bing, astronaut.
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.