Shadowing Practice: Penguins Go MONTHS Without Feeding! | Wild Bites | BBC Earth Kids - Learn English Speaking with Video
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48 sentences
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There are around 20 species of penguin in the world ranging from the littlest
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which is shorter than the bowling pin at 30 centimeters from head to toe through to the iconic Emperor penguin
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which grows to four feet tall that's high enough to look over a tennis net without even standing on tiptoes.
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These birds are seriously well adapted to life in the ocean where they are masters of their environment,
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but out of the water they're not quite so masterful.
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In this video we're going to meet some of our favorite clumsy feathered friends
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and we're going to find out lots of amazing facts about these seriously chilled birds.
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Everyone knows most penguins like to keep cool, but they don't all come from the South Pole.
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You can actually find penguins in some really hot places too, like Australia, Africa and even in the Galapagos Islands, right on the equator.
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One place you'll never find penguins is the North Pole, so penguins and polar bears don't ever cross paths, except on Christmas cards.
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It may also surprise you that penguins can fly.
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Well, kind of, they just can't do it in the air.
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But when you see them underwater, you can see that they aren't so clumsy after all.
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Their wings become flippers, and their streamlined bodies become just like torpedoes, so they can truly fly through the water.
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like other birds penguins are also covered with feathers
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but their feathers have evolved to form a very dense layer of insulation to keep them nice
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and toasty just like a wetsuit
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but why do penguins have bare feet well because their bodies are kept
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so warm by their feathers
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and a layer of fatty blubber too the circulation in their feet is used to keep them from burning up
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If they're too hot, they pump blood into their feet to cool down, and if they're too cold, they send just enough blood to their feet to stop them from freezing.
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Clever, eh?
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Despite living in a freezer, penguins prefer to eat fresh food.
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They love fish, but they also eat squid, crabs, and tiny little shrimps called krill, too.
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When penguins are at sea, they can travel huge distances looking for food, but like Like all birds, they have to lay eggs to have babies, and they can't do that in the ocean.
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All penguins breed in colonies called rookeries, and some of them can be massive and very stinky too.
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Penguin poo is called guano, and there's no shortage of that around here.
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The biggest penguin rookeries are found around the Antarctic, and some are home to hundreds of thousands of birds.
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But with so many mouths to feed, penguins often have to travel up to 900 miles looking for
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food for their ridiculously cute chicks that's like traveling the length of the united kingdom just to pick up dinner
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but nothing compares to the dedication of these emperor penguins
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which breed in one of the most extreme places on earth
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the antarctic ice shelf some will walk up to 75 miles from the open water just to find the colony
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and and when they get tired of walking they toboggan on their bellies.
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The female lays just one egg and transfers it straight away to the male, who incubates it on his feet while mum goes back to the ocean to feed.
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These poor penguins have to endure one of the coldest places on earth, where the temperature drops to minus 40 degrees centigrade.
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To keep warm they form a cosy huddle, where they constantly trudge around to stop themselves from freezing.
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They even rotate so nobody gets stuck on the outside for too long.
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When the female eventually comes back, two months later, the male will not have eaten for 120 days and will have lost half of his body weight.
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Mum then takes over caring for the newly hatched chick and Dad can at last go get some food.
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He's weak with hunger so he must be careful, especially when he returns to the water which which is home to leopard seals and killer whales,
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both of which have a taste for penguins.
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But there is a much greater danger to the survival of these endearing birds.
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Climate change is putting penguins in peril.
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In 2016, the world's second largest emperor penguin colony was wiped out after an ice shelf in Antarctica collapsed.
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this was a devastating blow for one of the world's most
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lovable animals acting to reduce carbon emissions to protect our polar regions will mean
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that these penguins can always have a seriously cool place to live
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This A2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Penguins Go MONTHS Without Feeding!”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: penguin, birds, feet, feathers, emperor. This video has 48 sentences and 769 words to shadow. The speech runs for 5:08. The speaker talks at a natural 150 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 81% 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
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| penguin noun | /ˈpɛŋ.ɡwɪn/ | Any of several flightless sea birds, of the family Spheniscidae within the order Sphenisciformes, found in the Southern Hemisphere, marked by their usual… |
| feather noun | /ˈfɛðə/ | A branching, hair-like structure that grows on the bodies of birds, used for flight, swimming, protection and display. |
| emperor noun | /ˈɛmp(ə)ɹə/ | The male monarch or ruler of an empire. |
| colony noun | /ˈkɔl.ə.ni/ | A geographical area under the remote control of a country; especially to extract resources or exploit labor from that area. |
| layer noun | /ˈleɪ̯ɚ/ | A single thickness of some material covering a surface. |
| freeze verb | /ˈfɹiːz/ | Especially of a liquid, to become solid due to low temperature. |
| breed verb | /ˈbɹiːd/ | To give birth to; to be the native place of. |
| chick noun | /t͡ʃɪk/ | A young bird. |
| shelf noun | /ʃɛlf/ | A flat, rigid structure, fixed at right angles to a wall or forming a part of a cabinet, desk, etc., and used to display, store, or support objects. |
| polar adjective | /ˈpoʊlɚ/ | Of, relating to, measured from, or referred to a geographic pole (the North Pole or South Pole); within the Arctic or Antarctic circles. |
| killer noun | /ˈkɪlɚ/ | One who or that which kills. |
| egg noun | /ɛɡ/ | An approximately spherical or ellipsoidal body produced by birds, insects, reptiles, and other animals, often housing an embryo within a membrane or shell… |
| compare verb | /kəmˈpɛɚ/ | To assess the similarities and differences between two or more things [“to compare X with Y”]. Having made the comparison of X with Y, one might have found it… |
| newly adverb | /ˈnuli/ | Very recently/lately; in the immediate past. |
| survival noun | /sɚˈvaɪ.vəl/ | The fact or act of surviving; continued existence or life. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| burn up verb | To catch fire and burn until destroyed. | |
| come back verb | To return to a place. | |
| cool down verb | /kuːl ˈdaʊn/ | To become cooler; to be reduced in temperature. |
| find out verb | To discover, as by asking or investigating. | |
| go back to verb | To stem from; to originate in. | |
| look over verb | To check quickly; to make a brief or cursory visual inspection of. | |
| pick up verb | To lift; to grasp and raise. | |
| take over verb | To assume control of something, such as a business or enterprise, and sometimes by force. |
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 | are also covered · are kept · is called |
| Superlatives the -est / the most … — the top or bottom of a group | the littlest · The biggest · the most extreme |
| Future with “will” will + verb — a decision, promise or prediction | you'll never find · will walk · will not have |
| Obligation: must / have to / need to saying that something is necessary | have to lay · have to travel · have to endure |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 11 contractions and reduced forms, such as they're, can't, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: shelf /ʃɛlf/, circulation /ˌsɝkjʊˈleɪʃən/, dedication /ˌdɛdɪˈkeɪʃən/, shortage /ˈʃɔː(ɹ)tɪd͡ʒ/, shrimp /ʃɹɪmp/
- Long words — get the stress right: circulation /ˌsɝkjʊˈleɪʃən/, dedication /ˌdɛdɪˈkeɪʃən/, underwater /ʌndɚˈwɔtəɹ/, insulation /ˌɪnsəˈleɪʃən/, ridiculously /ɹɪˈdɪk.jə.ləs.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 penguin, feather, emperor.
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.