Shadowing Practice: I Got a Pet Dinosaur (kinda) - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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Apparently, there's this rare species of lizard that not only looks like a dinosaur, but acts just like one.
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The name of it is a thrilled dragon, and it looks very deadly.
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But despite how dangerous it looks, I found this website that sells legal exotic animals, including this dinosaur, for $800.
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So yeah, basically, I'm gonna buy this, build it at home, and try to keep it as a pet.
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And I don't know how hard that is gonna be because as you've already seen this thing is
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Literally that that thing's a demon.
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I mean look at that But anyways, let's just buy this thing
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and in this video I'll be judging how good of a
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pet a dinosaur actually is by doing stuff like taking it outside like a dog Yeah, this video is crazy.
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But before any of that I first have to wait for it to be delivered
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which is going to take about a week So in the meantime, let's build this thing its dream home with everything it could possibly want and to do that Well, I've got a lot of stuff.
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I first put together the glass enclosure to build the dream home inside of.
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And anyways, now it's time to actually build the dream home
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and to do that there's five steps starting with creating the background.
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To create the background, I sprayed a ton of foam all along the glass
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so I could stick a ton of wood to it.
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You see, I'm basically recreating a forest in here since that's where frilled dragons live in the wild.
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And to complete the forest look, I covered it in a ton of dirt and wood chips so it'd look nice and natural, you know.
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As you can see this tank is already looking very very beautiful
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and natural with all that wood and dirt But it's also looking a bit brown and lifeless too.
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So let's get to doing some more stuff starting with the
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floor Now I know I was just complaining about everything being brown
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but to make the floor we do got to use some brown dirt
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So yeah the cheapest way to get a bunch of quality
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dirt is to use one of these compressed coconut fiber bricks Which may not seem like a lot of dirt, but if we add a huge tub of water to it well Now it's a lot of dirt.
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Finally, I mixed in a bunch of other types of ground stuff because that's what forest floors got, you know?
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Alright, this is starting to look almost like a forest, but we're still missing some key things.
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So let's move on to step three, plants and decorations.
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Now first of all, I've got two different types of moss
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which to start I'll use carpet moss which comes conveniently packaged in this box.
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Now I always thought moss was just like dead grass or something, but it's actually an alive organism that over time is gonna grow and overtake the entire terrarium.
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Pretty cool.
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And I also spread a different type of moss around to add a little bit more variety in this tank.
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Now this moss is absolutely fantastical, you know, it really brings the whole thing to life.
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But I'm gonna need way more plants if I'm gonna make this thing look like the dinosaur's actual habitat, which means I'm gonna go get some actual plants with leaves and flowers on them and stuff like that.
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Yeah.
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So of course I got in my car to go to the best plant store in town.
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Bro, which
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if you see my channel before you already know where I'm
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going baby place your item I had some people shaming me
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for going to Walmart for plants in a previous video
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But clearly you guys don't understand the fantastical selection of plants they got I mean look at all these
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Thanks Walmart for all these good plants
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So I got a couple small plants and I also got one big one
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that should make the dinosaur nice and happy and
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while I was walking around There I also saw they had some plant Lego sets
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which you know I like Lego of course I bought some, baby.
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When I got home, I figured I should just build the Lego set real quick to see how those plants look.
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So I put that all together, and then I put each of the plants inside of the enclosure and check these out.
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Yo, this looks so cool.
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I'm just kidding.
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This actually looks pretty stupid.
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I don't know why I spent $50 on this.
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Get this trash out of here.
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Instead, I of course got out the plants I bought and planted them around the tank.
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There we go, this tank is starting to come together well now.
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But in order to complete the decorations, I need to add a huge piece of wood
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that goes diagonally from the bottom of the tank to the top of the tank, so that the dinosaur will be able to have easy access to the heat lamp that will be at the top.
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And this is the only wood I have right now, definitely not enough to get to the top.
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So in order to get some more wood, I went outside to find some.
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Okay, so I basically just need to get some sort of branch that's nice and thick and long, and that's kind of too thin.
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I need something that's not gonna snap under the pressure of the dinosaur, and yeah, that kind of sucks too.
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But oh, this one actually looks pretty good.
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Look at this, it's my hand kind of wraps around it.
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That's good thickness.
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So I went inside and grabbed the biggest knife from my kitchen, and I got to sign.
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This should only take like 30 minutes.
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I'll be done soon.
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Eventually, I was able to get this fantastical piece of wood that would work perfectly.
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So I quickly hosed it down to remove dirt and insects and stuff and brought it back inside.
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After breaking it down so it would fit I put it in place
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and covered the bottom with some more wood and boom the decorations are Complete in here, but of course I'm not just gonna leave the tank like
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this We've got a first added some technologies to make this
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the best enclosure ever starting with some water Technologies the first water technology I got is this little box
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which is actually an automatic humidifier You see for all dragons
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need the humidity in their enclosure to be pretty high
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and basically this well You know it humidifies the enclosure by spraying water everywhere nice second water technology.
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I got is extremely high-tech It's a water bowl.
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Yeah, so you know the dinosaur can get a drink of water and stuff
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Now even though I added in this amazing water dish Frildragons
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actually never drink from it actually just use it as a bathroom Yeah, so to allow the dinosaur to actually get a drink of
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water I got up this water pump put it in a container of water
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and linked it up with some tubing now
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when I turn it on It creates this nice little flow of water
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which frilled dragons will actually drink from well Now there's just
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one more thing to build before I add the frilled dragon in
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and that is And basically what
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that means is I need to recreate the Sun in this enclosure to do
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that I got a heavy-duty heat lamp and an expensive top-quality UV bulb
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that recreates the same UV rays at the sun does I also got another lamp with a high-intensity heat bulb
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because frilled dragons like it to be extremely hot in their
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homes To test the temperature I hooked up a thermometer
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and as you can see it reached up to 100 degrees in the basking spot, which is perfect.
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Finally, I put a bit of aluminum foil on top to keep the heat and humidity inside Okay, well the frilled dragons home is now complete
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and well It's time to add it inside
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and the next day I got a notification on my phone saying the package was ready for pickup
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So I drove out to FedEx.
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All right, so I just got back from FedEx and I just picked up this box, which is probably the frilled dragon.
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I mean, it says live animal.
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Hopefully it didn't give me the wrong package.
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But anyways, I'm gonna take this thing inside and put it in the cage and oh, nope, there's some chickens right there.
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Bruh.
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I might gotta show these guys to the dinosaur.
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They're gonna be good friends.
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But before I do anything like that, let's just start by opening up this box.
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Oh my gosh, I can kinda see the dinosaur right now and well, it's definitely a dinosaur.
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Now that I have the frilled dragon, I'm gonna find out if dinosaurs are actually good pets by doing stuff like feeding it, taking it outside, and even more.
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But first, let's get this guy in the enclosure.
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Now, this may not look like a dinosaur just yet, but that's because its thing on its neck only comes out on special occasions.
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But trust me, I will be showing you exactly what it looks like later in the video.
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Okay, well, the dinosaur is in its enclosure right now, and honestly, I'm still scared to get within a five-foot radius of this thing.
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Like, I have no idea if this is as ferocious as those videos made it out to be, But, uh, I guess we're gonna find out.
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For now, I already know this guy is very hungry and thirsty from spending a day in that shipping container.
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And as you can see, his water bowl is already messed up because he was, like, jumping around and pooping in there like I thought he would.
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So to give him a drink of water, I turned my water pump on a very low setting, which made little drops of water fall above the dinosaur.
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Immediately, he started to stick out his tongue and take little sips of it, which is actually pretty cool to watch.
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Then, he just started to bask in it like he was taking a shower.
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Dang, maybe this guy isn't as ferocious as I thought.
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He actually looks pretty chill right now.
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What?
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Now, to feed the furled dragon, I asked the guy I bought it from which insect is the dinosaur's favorite.
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And he said crickets are one of the best.
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So, I got a bag of some pretty big crickets.
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Bruh, what are these guys all running around in here for?
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It's not like you guys gonna escape.
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They're just jumping around.
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Are you guys stupid?
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And literally immediately after I put a bunch of them in, the dinosaur started to go crazy, as you can see jumping all around the enclosure to get a nice juicy meal.
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And to show you just how cool it is when the frilled dragon hunts, I hired a professional nature documentary narrator to tell you what's going on.
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Look at this.
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In this small, recreated, prehistoric world, a cricket enjoys a quiet meal of moss.
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But nearby, the frilled dragon, a creature with roots deep in ancient history, has spotted the movement.
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Suddenly, the dragon's head snaps towards the cricket.
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In an instant, it leaps forward, jaws closing around the cricket with precision.
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The cricket's meal is cut short, now being completely devoured by one of nature's best hunters.
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Now as you can see, that was very cool, and the dinosaur is a very good hunter.
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So to rank how good of a pet this dinosaur is, I'm gonna rank a bunch of different factors, and because it was super cool watching this guy drink and eat,
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I'm gonna give Care a 9 out of 10.
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Yeah, 9 out of 10.
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That's a pretty good score.
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Good job, bro.
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Factor that goes into a pet being good is how friendly it is and whether
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or not I let you handle it now dogs are the perfect example of this You know they're super fluffy
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and nice and they pretty much never bite you But for dragons on the other hand Yeah, I mean based off the videos I've seen they are not friendly at all.
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All right.
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This is the moment of truth I'm gonna figure out
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if this guy's gonna let me hold him
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and to make sure I don't get bit I've got some hand protection as you can see.
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I'm just gonna go start by trying to pet him.
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Okay, there we go Okay, we're petting him, and it seems like he's chill with that.
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I'm just gonna be very gentle.
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Oh!
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Okay, I got very scared there for a second but
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so yeah i was too scared to pick him up with my hand
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so i just picked up the log he was sitting on
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there you go good boy good boy okay we're doing it okay
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so we're just gonna start by putting him on the kitchen table let's see stay right there
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and there we go look at him
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when he's out of his cage he's doing good he's just sitting there dang
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but he's actually being a good boy
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and the craziest thing is is you see the frill on his neck it hasn't even come out Yeah, so usually they put the frill out on their neck when they're super angry,
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but this guy he doesn't even put it out once He's like super chill with me.
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So he's just letting me pet him.
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He's a good boy, bro And since the dinosaur was doing
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so good just chilling inside I decided I would try
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and bring him outside to let him explore the world and I'm outside with the frilled dragon Look at this.
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He's just basking in the Sun.
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This is awesome.
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It's actually pretty cool He's like blending in with the log.
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I'm pretty sure he does that to avoid any birds of prey.
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He's normally in the wild They're like scared of birds attacking them, but right now he's just blending in with the log He's not even scared at all
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and like I said I was going to show the frilled
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dragon to the chickens I don't want him to get too stressed out, but I'm just gonna kind of let him see the chickens and see him over there Yeah, yeah, you see the chickens aren't they so cool?
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Oh, they look pretty scared and oh, okay.
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They're just running away Yeah, I think they're scared of them Okay I'm just gonna bring him back inside
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that actually went very well and the dinosaur didn't even get mad at me once
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but to be fair I was too scared to hold him
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so because of that I'm giving friendliness a seven out of ten
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And now for the final thing
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that determines how good a pet is is to seize the reaction of my mom So yeah, I'm gonna show it to my mom, but real quick I just want to let you know
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that only 5% of people are actually subscribed
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And I know every youtuber says this and I said the same thing last video, but it is a real statistic So please just subscribe if you like this video.
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Thank you very much mom.
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Can you come in?
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Have you seen my new pet?
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All right, so the lizard is in this giant enclosure right here.
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Do you see it?
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Yeah, so yes, basically right there and And, uh, or do you know what kind of lizard it is, though?
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It looks like a little dinosaur.
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A dinosaur, yeah.
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Yeah.
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That's the, that's why I got it.
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It looks like a dinosaur.
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And guess how much it costs?
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Hmm.
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I don't know.
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It costs $800.
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No, it did not.
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It costs $800.
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That's not even funny.
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It did, but this is the new addition to the family.
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All right.
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What's the name?
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It doesn't have a name.
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Oh, Mr. Prehistoric.
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You want to name him Mr. Prehistoric?
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Mr. Prehistoric.
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That's a stupid name.
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So what are you rated out of 10?
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You're pretty cool for historic 10 10 out of 10 10 out of 10.
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Okay, bye thanks So she actually ended up liking it
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and gave it a 10 out of 10
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That means the average score for the pet dinosaur is 8.7 out of 10
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So that means this is actually a very very good pet I recommend it to anybody
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that can afford it which is nobody because who's gonna spend $800 on the lizard?
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Anyways, I know I said
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that the dinosaur would be showing his neck frill a lot in this video
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Which he hasn't yet so to try
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and make him do it I got a scary picture on my phone and showed it to him and
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He didn't really care so I tried getting another picture of a bird predator this time which Yeah, he didn't care about that either.
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So sorry guys.
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I lied.
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Mr Prehistoric is not going to show his role in this video
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But that is a good thing anyways because it means he likes me
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and he isn't stressed at all So thank you everybody for watching today.
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We figured out that dinosaurs are actually very good pets.
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It's pretty cool Yeah, make sure you subscribe click the video on the screen and yeah, bye.
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He's a good boy.
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He's a good boy.
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You're a good boy, bro.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B1 speaking lesson is built on the video “I Got a Pet Dinosaur”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: dinosaur, dragon, pet, plant. This video has 230 sentences and 2956 words to shadow. The speech runs for 13:13. The speaker talks fast, about 224 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. 82% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| dinosaur noun | /ˈdaɪnəsoɹ/ | Those animals of the clade Dinosauria that existed during the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods and are now extinct. |
| frill noun | /fɹɪl/ | A strip of pleated fabric or paper used as decoration or trim. |
| enclosure noun | /ɛnˈkloʊʒəɹ/ | Something that is enclosed, i.e. inserted into a letter or similar package. |
| scare verb | /skɛɚ/ | To frighten, terrify, startle, especially in a minor way. |
| dirt noun | /dɝt/ | Soil or earth. |
| moss noun | /mɔs/ | Any of various small, green, seedless plants growing on the ground or on the surfaces of trees, stones, etc.; now specifically, a plant of the phylum Bryophyta… |
| prehistoric adjective | /ˌpɹiː.hɪsˈtoɹ.ɪk/ | Of or relating to the epoch before written record. |
| anyways adverb | /ˈɛn.iˌweɪz/ | Anyway, anyhow, in any case. |
| recreate verb | /ˈɹɛk.ɹi.eɪt/ | To give new life, energy or encouragement (to); to refresh, enliven. |
| lizard noun | /ˈlɪzɚd/ | Any reptile of the order Squamata that is not a snake or mosasaur—typically characterised by a rounded torso, a short neck with an elevated head, a long tail… |
| chill verb | /tʃɪl/ | To lower the temperature of something; to cool. |
| bask verb | /bæsk/ | To bathe in warmth; to be exposed to pleasant heat. |
| fantastical adjective | /fænˈtæstɪkəl/ | Of or pertaining to fantasy. |
| decoration noun | /ˌdɛkəˈɹeɪʃən/ | The act of adorning, embellishing, or honoring; ornamentation. |
| subscribe verb | /səbˈskɹaɪb/ | To write (one’s name) at the bottom of a document; to sign (one's name). |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| figure out verb | To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce. | |
| find out verb | To discover, as by asking or investigating. | |
| jump around verb | To move erratically by jumping. | |
| pick up verb | To lift; to grasp and raise. | |
| come out verb | /ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/ | To be discovered; to be revealed. |
| come together verb | /ˈkʌm tʊˈɡɛðɚ/ | To assemble; to congregate; to combine. |
| end up verb | To bring to a conclusion. | |
| get out verb | To leave or escape. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- Hopefully it didn't give me the wrong package.
- It's not like you guys gonna escape.
- Are you guys stupid?
- I'm just gonna be very gentle.
- Have you seen my new pet?
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | be delivered · be done · is already messed |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | you've already seen · has spotted · I've seen |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | habitat, which means · spot, which is · box, which is |
| Superlatives the -est / the most … — the top or bottom of a group | the cheapest · the best · the biggest |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 89 contractions and reduced forms, such as gonna, I'm, they're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: thermometer /θɚˈmɑ.mɪ.tɚ/, thrill /θɹɪl/, thirsty /ˈθɝs.ti/, thickness /ˈθɪknəs/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: enclosure /ɛnˈkloʊʒəɹ/, decoration /ˌdɛkəˈɹeɪʃən/, ferocious /fəˈɹoʊʃəs/, gosh /ɡɑːʃ/, notification /ˌnoʊtɪfɪˈkeɪʃn̩/
- Long words — get the stress right: prehistoric /ˌpɹiː.hɪsˈtoɹ.ɪk/, fantastical /fænˈtæstɪkəl/, decoration /ˌdɛkəˈɹeɪʃən/, humidity /hjuːˈmɪd.ə.ti/, diagonally /daɪˈæɡ.nə.li/
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 dinosaur, frill, enclosure.
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.