Shadowing Practice: Tesla Unveils 'Flying' Roadster with SpaceX Thrusters - Learn English Speaking with Video

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170 sentences

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I'm sorry.

I don't know.

Well, it worked.

Flying cars are real.

Yeah, well, a friend of mine, Peter Thiel, Once said that the future promised us flying cars, but instead we got 140 characters.

Well, not anymore

That's not the last thing you'll see by the way

To do that we have a suction a fan suction system on the bottom of the car

that can pull up to two G's in order to make the car go upside down.

And then we borrowed some technology from SpaceX to do the rest.

Yeah, I mean, this car really sucks.

This car could suck the chrome off a trailer hitch.

It could suck a tennis ball through a hose pipe.

So, and it could stick upside down.

Now, you might say, like, how often do you want to stick upside down in a car?

Maybe not that often.

But it actually has an actual benefit on the track,

or just driving, where the downforce of the car means you can corner incredibly well.

Like you can corner like it looks like you're braking physics, because the car sticks to the ground so hard.

So acceleration, cornering, it's going to crush every track record that has ever existed.

so yeah i think uh the last time we put roadster uh with spacex we had starman in it

and uh maybe we should check did we do we put anyone in the car phones yeah

i think starman's gonna make an appearance.

I think he went for a little ride.

Any minute now.

Yeah. So, yeah.

Here he is.

No?

Come on.

Anticipation.

He's being coy.

Just to be clear, that is not a real human.

Yeah.

So the car has obviously attitude control thrusters and main thrusters in the rear.

So it can basically fly like a rocket.

And it can do rolls, it can do like crazy gymnastics.

Whatever you want really.

Now I should say that this is not necessarily a safety optimized car.

but it is it takes the fun meter to 11 out of 10

but speaking of fun meter you want to try one let's try something else I mean

that was just a little flight let's do a longer flight alright let's see what we got set up

Oh, my God.

I mean, I've seen a lot of things, but I've never seen that before.

Tony Hawk would be proud, we call that the kickflip.

Yeah.

I think we could have cleared more than our whole fleet.

Yeah, we can go further.

Like, this will be an actual car that's on the roads.

You know, I'm not sure it's necessarily legal in all jurisdictions, but like, there will be such a car that someone can own.

So it's going to be pretty wild that you can have a rocket car.

Yeah, to do that, we have the rockets we borrowed from SpaceX technology.

You talked about the carbon overlay pressure vessels.

I just want to tell everyone, because I'm a spec guy, there's two of them in the car.

They are a total of 600 liters.

It's about 250 kilos of air.

And we have 10 nozzles to do all that work.

and the it's it's using an advanced ultra high pressure air tank

so the car can recharge its air tank

so it's not like you you know you need special propellant

or anything like that it literally is just gonna puff itself up

and and and and be able to do this these maneuvers whenever you'd like well

but why don't we show them the car

so to bring it out

we since we knew the car was going to fly since we knew roadster was going to fly

we looked for some inspiration about flying

and we thought we would lean into the most badass stuff out there sr 71 cars that to transform,

and that led us to the new Roadster.

So I know you get an up -close look at the new Roadster.

Thank you, Andy and Lamar.

Those guys are kicking ass on our engineering team making this all happen.

We can see the car.

Very clean.

It's a nice, clean aesthetic.

Like I said, we leaned into a little bit of some of the aerospace aesthetics.

It's a two -seater.

I'll open it up.

As you can see, two guys got out of it.

We leaned into lightweight as well, so the seats are molded into the chassis.

It's a steer -by -wire system.

So we have a steer -by -wire yoke, steer -by -wire brake, steer -by -wire throttle.

And as we get to the rear of the car, this is where a lot of the action.

You can't see it, but online, in the diffuser area is where the thrusters are,

the fans are, and this is kind of the business end of the car.

But the car can transform because we wanted to make a pretty car, but also a car that could deliver amazing downforce.

So we'll turn the fans off for you.

Sorry, it's a little loud here.

But as Elon said, this car is meant to be the best driver's car.

And to do that, we wanted to break the laws of physics.

We put the fan sucker system on there to give us traction to be able to corner at greater than 2

Gs and accelerate with all the traction that goes beyond the tires, which is typically 1 .6 Gs.

You see here we have two modes we have a high downforce mode

and what the car is in now is a is a low drag mode

and the fan system also has two modes

it can suck the car down at low speed to give us traction

when we need it and at high speed we'll open up the front

and rear parts of the suction system to create even more flow underneath the car yeah

so if the the rear wing has a variable pitch so it can adjust the down force dynamically.

And we'll do it automatically based on what it calculates you need when you're going around the track.

But Elon, how fast did you want to go to zero to 60?

100

I can't remember.

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Well, you've got to break one second.

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Obviously.

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I tested this the other day.

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Can we put it up, guys?

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Can we put the test up?

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Like, this goes fast.

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I don't know.

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We want to

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All right, one second, right?

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You said one second

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Well, I said less than one second

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Oh, shit Hey, guys, we have a car out there, right?

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Don't we have a car out there?

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Can you put it on the max?

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Let's try and be one second.

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do we have a time what was the time guys

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we didn't have a whole lot of room out on the pad

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so we had to cut it short but do we have a live time i'm waiting for it

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well

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while we're getting the live time uh you know i will say

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this elon mentioned the rocket thrusters you can see the the thrust is exiting the back of the four thrusters

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faster than speed of sound

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so you see the mock diamonds it it actually creates over 80 kilonewtons of thrust yeah i mean there's

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that there are cars no and then there's one car that has mock diamonds I think we broke the system.

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We didn't do it in .17 seconds.

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Yeah, okay, that's, yeah, .1 seconds, I think we'd destroy the human if we did that.

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Ah, there you go, there you go.

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.81 seconds.

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.81 seconds.

130

There you go.

131

Nice work.

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We'll do, and we anticipate being able to do better than that.

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I always like the Newton's formula F equals MA as A equals F over M.

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So as you increase force and decrease mass, you get more acceleration.

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So the production call will actually do better than that.

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So we'll just ride the limit of don't detach the retina of the human in the car. So, yeah.

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Well, it is the world's quickest car, production car of zero to 60.

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It'll do a half a mile in the time that other cars can do a quarter mile.

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And I think that's really what we wanted to say today.

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What else we got, anything else?

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No, I mean.

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Tough speed, right?

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Oh yeah, yeah, tough speed, of course, yeah, yeah.

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Great street, evil.

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Yeah, yeah, depends on your street, but it'll be a viable car.

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And, yeah, so we're going to have actually a follow -on demo that's... Or two. Or two. Or four.

147

Multiples.

148

So, I don't know if this is possible or not, but some people may know about Evil Knievel's attempt to jump the Snake River Canyon.

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Let's give it another shot.

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And we thought this was crazy.

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Man, that's going to look nuts.

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We're going to have to go pretty fast to do that.

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Like, really fast.

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We're going to need a running start.

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Yeah, we're going to run a start.

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But yeah, the car can go over 230 miles per hour, hopefully we can get even faster definitely much faster than

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that yeah how fast well I think you've got to go at least

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you got to crack halfway to the speed of sound

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I think okay yeah Mach 0 .5 maybe a little higher

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all right challenge on challenge accepted sir yes where we're going you don't need tires

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So today marks the day that we build the first world's best flying car and the last best driver's car.

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When do you want to get it to customers?

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We entered production in 2028, actually.

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Actually, for real.

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Anything left in your bag?

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I think we might have one more little thing.

167

Should we do it?

168

Yeah, sure.

169

Okay, let's do the last thing. So I

170

don't know. So

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227 sentences

Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This speaking lesson is built on the video “Tesla Unveils 'Flying' Roadster with SpaceX Thrusters”. This video has 170 sentences and 1641 words to shadow. The speech runs for 16:34. The speaker talks slowly, about 99 words per minute, so there is time to copy every sound. 85% 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
wire noun	/ˈwaɪɚ/	Metal formed into a thin, even thread, now usually by being drawn through a hole in a steel die.
suck verb	/sʌk/	To use the mouth and lips to pull in (a liquid, especially milk from the breast).
rocket noun	/ˈɹɑk.ɪt/	A cylindrical projectile that can be fired to a great height through combustion, (specifically) a type of firework of this form, typically exploding with light…
steer verb	/stɪɹ/	To guide the course of a vessel, vehicle, aircraft etc. (by means of a device such as a rudder, paddle, or steering wheel).
lean verb	/ˈliːn/	To incline, deviate, or bend, from a vertical position; to be in a position thus inclining or deviating.
upside noun	/ˈʌpˌsaɪd/	The highest or uppermost side or portion of something.
traction noun	/ˈtɹæk.ʃən/	The act of pulling something along a surface using motive power.
necessarily adverb	/ˌnɛs.əˈsɛɹ.ə.li/	Inevitably; of necessity.
diamond noun	/ˈdaɪ.ə.mənd/	A glimmering glass-like mineral that is an allotrope of carbon in which each atom is surrounded by four others in the form of a tetrahedron.
physics noun	/ˈfɪz.ɪks/	The branch of science concerned with the study of the properties and interactions of space, time, matter and energy.
transform verb	/tɹænsˈfɔɹm/	To change greatly the appearance or form of.
tire verb	/ˈtaɪ̯ɚ/	To become sleepy or weary.
borrow verb	/ˈbɑɹ.oʊ/	To receive (something) from somebody temporarily, expecting to return it.
thrust verb	/θɹʌst/	To make advance with force.
mock verb	/mɑk/	To mimic, to simulate.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
get out of verb		To leave, exit or escape from; to become free of.
go around verb		To move or spread from person to person.
go over verb		To look at carefully; to scrutinize; to analyze.
open up verb		To open.
set up verb	/ˌsɛt ˈʌp/	To make ready for use.

Sentences worth repeating

Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:

Can we put it up, guys?
Can we put the test up?
Don't we have a car out there?
Can you put it on the max?
What else we got, anything else?

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	has ever existed · I've seen
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	are molded · is meant

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 41 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, we're, we'll. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: thrust /θɹʌst/, underneath /ˌʌndɚˈniθ/, aesthetic /ɛsˈθɛ.tɪk/, aesthetics /ɛsˈθɛt.ɪks/, thruster /ˈθɹʌ.stɚ/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: traction /ˈtɹæk.ʃən/, acceleration /əkˌsɛl.əˈɹeɪ.ʃən/, inspiration /ˌɪn.spɪˈɹeɪ.ʃən/, crush /kɹʌʃ/, jurisdiction /d͡ʒʊɹɪsˈdɪkʃən/
Long words — get the stress right: necessarily /ˌnɛs.əˈsɛɹ.ə.li/, acceleration /əkˌsɛl.əˈɹeɪ.ʃən/, inspiration /ˌɪn.spɪˈɹeɪ.ʃən/, incredibly /ɪŋˈkɹɛdɪbli/, jurisdiction /d͡ʒʊɹɪsˈdɪkʃən/

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 wire, suck, rocket.

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.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: Tesla Unveils 'Flying' Roadster with SpaceX Thrusters - Learn English Speaking with Video

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