Shadowing Practice: Proof of evolution that you can find on your body - Learn English Speaking with Video
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44 sentences
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Your body is a temple, but it's also a museum of natural history.
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Look closely and you'll see parts that aren't there because you need them, but because your animal ancestors did.
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No longer serving their previous function, but not costly enough to have disappeared,
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these remnants of our deep history only make sense within the framework of evolution by natural selection selection.
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With your arm on a flat surface, push your thumb against your pinky and tip your hand slightly up.
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If you see a raised band in the middle of your wrist, you've got a vestigial muscle in your forearm.
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That tendon you see connects to the palmaris longus, a muscle that around 10-15% of people are missing on one or both of their arms.
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It doesn't make them any weaker though.
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There's no difference in grip strength.
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In fact, it's one of the first tendons that surgeons will take out
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so that they can use it in reconstructive and cosmetic surgeries.
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You can find the palmaris longus across mammal species, but it's most developed among those that use their forelimbs to move around.
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In primates, that means the muscle is longer in lemurs and monkeys and shorter in chimps, gorillas, and other apes that don't do a lot of scrambling through trees.
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It's not the only leftover muscle that we've got.
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Look at the three that are attached to our outer ear.
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We can't get much movement out of these muscles, especially compared to some of our mammal relatives who use them to locate the sources of sounds.
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Presumably this would have been quite helpful for early nocturnal mammals.
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In humans, you can still detect the remnants of this adaptation with electrodes.
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In one study, researchers recorded a spike of activity in the ear muscle cells in response to a sudden sound.
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Not enough to move the ear, but detectable.
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And you can probably guess the location of the sound based on these results.
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came from a speaker placed to the left of the study subjects.
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So this is their left ear subconsciously trying and failing to pivot toward the sound.
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You can see another futile effort by our vestigial body parts when you get goosebumps.
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When we're cold, tiny muscles attached to our body hairs contract, pulling the hair upright which causes the surrounding skin to form a bump.
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For our furry mammal relatives, the raised hair increases the amount of space for insulation, helping them stay warm.
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Birds can do this too, you've probably seen a puffy pigeon on a cold day.
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Adrenaline is one of the hormones involved in the body's response to cold temperatures, and it's also part of the fight-or-flight response.
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So it helps some animals appear larger when they're threatened.
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And it may be why surprising and emotional turns in music can give some people goosebumps.
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And then there's our tail.
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At the end of our spine are a set of fused vertebrae.
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Some people have three, some people have five.
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We call it the tailbone.
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It now serves as an anchor for some pelvic muscles, but it's also what's left of our ancestors' tails.
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Every one of us actually had a tail at one point, when the basic body plan is being laid out at around four weeks of gestation.
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Human embryos closely resemble embryos of other vertebrates, and that includes a tail with 10 to 12 developing vertebrae.
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In many other animals, it continues to develop into a proper tail, but in humans and other apes, the cells in the tail are programmed to die a few weeks after they appear.
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Very rarely though, a mutation allows the ancestral blueprint to prevail, and a human baby will be born with a true vestigial tail.
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The most adorable vestigial behavior is the palmar grasp reflex,
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where infants up until they're about six months old have this incredible grasp on whatever you put in their hand.
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There's a similar reflex for their feet.
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I wanted to show you this great piece of footage from the 1930s where they demonstrated this behavior.
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These babies are only one month old and you can see that their inner monkey can support their entire weight.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Proof of evolution that you can find on your body”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: muscle, tail, mammal, vestigial, ear. This video has 44 sentences and 699 words to shadow. The speech runs for 3:50. The speaker talks fast, about 182 words per minute, so expect linked and reduced sounds. Only 78% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| mammal noun | /ˈmæməl/ | A vertebrate animal of the class Mammalia, characterized by being warm-blooded, having fur or hair and producing milk with which to feed their young. |
| vestigial adjective | /vɛˈstɪd͡ʒɪəl/ | Of or pertaining to a vestige or remnant; like a trace from the past. |
| 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. |
| embryo noun | /ˈɛmbɹi.oʊ/ | In the reproductive cycle, the stage after the fertilization of the egg that precedes the development into a fetus. |
| longus noun | /ˈlɔŋ.ɡəs/ | A long muscle in the body. |
| reflex noun | /ˈɹiːflɛks/ | An automatic response to a simple stimulus which does not require mental processing. |
| remnant noun | /ˈɹɛmnənt/ | A small portion remaining of a larger thing or group; part of a former whole. |
| tendon noun | /ˈtɛn.dən/ | A tough band of flexible but inelastic fibrous collagen tissue that connects a muscle with its bony attachment and transmits the force which the muscle exerts. |
| vertebra noun | /ˈvɝ.təb.ɹə/ | Any of the bony or cartilaginous segments which make up the backbone, consisting in some lower vertebrates of several distinct elements which never become… |
| attach verb | /əˈtæt͡ʃ/ | To fasten, to join to (literally and figuratively). |
| grasp verb | /ɡɹæsp/ | To grip; to take hold, particularly with the hand. |
| 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… |
| ancestral adjective | /ænˈsɛs.təɹ.əl/ | Of, pertaining to, derived from, or possessed by, an ancestor or ancestors. |
| blueprint noun | /ˈbluːˌpɹɪnt/ | A type of paper-based reproduction process producing white-on-blue images by means of a photosensitive ferric compound, used primarily for technical and… |
| detectable adjective | /dɪˈtɛktəbəɫ/ | Able to be detected, noticeable. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| move around verb | To relocate to new homes repeatedly; to not live in any one place for long. |
| take out verb | To remove. |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 11 contractions and reduced forms, such as they're, you've, aren't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: threaten /ˈθɹɛt.n̩/, thumb /ˈθʌm/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: gestation /d͡ʒɛsˈteɪʃən/, mutation /mjuˈteɪʃən/, insulation /ˌɪnsəˈleɪʃən/, adaptation /ˌæd.æpˈteɪ.ʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: ancestral /ænˈsɛs.təɹ.əl/, detectable /dɪˈtɛktəbəɫ/, adrenaline /əˈdɹɛnəlɪn/, insulation /ˌɪnsəˈleɪʃən/, adaptation /ˌæd.æpˈteɪ.ʃən/
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 mammal, vestigial, ancestor.
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.