Shadowing Practice: The Beginning of Everything -- The Big Bang - Learn English Speaking with Video

Choose a practice mode

Each mode opens a full-screen practice room.

71 sentences

If sentences are too short or too long, click Edit to adjust them.

The beginning of everything, the Big Bang.

The idea that the universe was suddenly born and is not infinite.

Up to the middle of the 20th century, most scientists thought of the universe as infinite and ageless.

Until Einstein's theory of relativity gave us a better understanding of gravity

and Edwin Hubble discovered that galaxies are moving apart from one another in a way that fits previous predictions.

In 1964, by accident, cosmic background radiation was discovered, a relic of the early universe,

which together with other observational evidence made the Big Bang the accepted theory in science.

Since then, improved technology like the Hubble telescope has given us a pretty good picture of the Big Bang

and the structure of the cosmos.

Recent observations even seem to suggest that

The expansion of the universe is accelerating.

But how did this

Big Bang work?

How can something come from nothing?

Let's explore what we know.

We can ignore the beginning part for now.

First of all, the Big Bang was not an explosion.

It was all space, stretching everywhere, all at once.

The universe started very, very, very small and quickly expanded to the size of a football.

The universe didn't expand into anything, space was just expanding into itself.

The universe cannot expand into anything because the universe has no borders, there is by definition no outside the universe.

The universe is all there is.

In this hot, dense environment, energy manifested itself in particles that existed only for the tiniest glimpses of time.

From gluons, pairs of quarks were created, which destroyed one another, perhaps after giving off more gluons.

These found other short -lived quarks to interact with, forming new quark pairs and gluons again.

Matter and energy were not just theoretically equivalent, it was so hot, they were practically the same stuff.

Somewhere around this time, matter won over antimatter.

Today, we're left with almost all matter and nearly no antimatter at all.

Somehow, 1 billion and 1 matter particles were formed for every 1 billion particles of antimatter.

Instead of one massive ultimate force in the universe, there were now several refined versions of it acting under different rules.

By now, the universe has stretched to a billion kilometers in diameter, which leads to a decrease in temperature.

The cycle of quarks being born and converted back to energy suddenly stops.

From now on we work with what we have.

Quarks begin forming new particles, hadrons, like protons and neutrons.

There are many many combinations of quarks that can form all sorts of hadrons

but only very few are reasonably stable for any length of time.

Please take a moment to appreciate that by now only one second has passed since the beginning of everything.

The universe

which has grown to 100 billion kilometers is now cold enough

to allow most of the neutrons to decay into protons

and form the first atom hydrogen imagine the universe at this

point as an extremely hot soup 10 billion degrees celsius filled with countless particles

and energy over the next few minutes things cooled

and settled down very fast atoms formed out of hadrons and electrons making for a stable and electrically neutral environment.

Some call this period the Dark Age because there were no stars

and the hydrogen gas didn't allow visible light to move around.

But what's the meaning of visible light anyway when there's nothing alive yet that could have eyes?

When the hydrogen gas clumped together after millions of years and gravity put it under great pressure, stars and galaxies began to form.

Their radiation dissolved the stable hydrogen gas into a plasma that still permeates the universe today and allows visible light to pass.

Finally, there was light.

Okay, but what about the part we didn't talk about?

What happened right at the beginning?

This part can be defined as the Big Bang.

We don't know at all what happened here.

At this point, our tools break down.

Natural laws stop making sense.

Time itself becomes wibbly -wobbly.

To understand what happened here, we need a theory that unifies Einstein's relativity and quantum mechanics, something countless scientists are working on right now.

But this leaves us with lots of unanswered questions.

Were there universes before our own?

Is this the first and only universe?

What started the Big Bang?

Or did it just occur naturally based on laws we don't understand yet?

We don't know, and maybe we never will.

But what we do know is that the universe as we know it started here and gave birth to particles,

galaxies, stars, the Earth and you.

Since we ourselves are made of dead stars, we are not separate from the universe.

We are part of it.

You could even say that we are the universe's way of experiencing itself.

So let's keep on experiencing it until there are no more questions to ask.

Thank you.

Download App

Everything you need to speak fluently

AI PronunciationScore every sentence

IPA PracticeMaster every sound

VocabularyBuild your word bank

Vocab GameLearn while playing

Scan QR

Download on theApp Store Get it onGoogle Play

Same Channel

FOR YOU

Recommend Video

508 sentences

Einstein and the Theory of Relativity | HD |

Daily ConversationUniversity Students

402 sentences

Before We Became the Last Humans:The Lost Species That Once Shared Our World|Prehistoric Documentary

Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults

14 sentences

Whatever thought creates is reality | Krishnamurti

Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults

298 sentences

GENERAL CHEMISTRY explained in 19 Minutes

Daily ConversationUniversity Students

68 sentences

Optimistic Nihilism

Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults

47 sentences

We Found Galaxies Too Old for the Universe

Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults

149 sentences

The Bloody Origins of the Number Zero

Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults

119 sentences

Mathematics and Physics | Lesson 2 | Understanding the Connection

Daily ConversationUniversity Students

623 sentences

How evolution works, in 54 minutes | Sean B. Carroll: Full Interview

Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults

159 sentences

Intro to History of Science: Crash Course History of Science #1

Daily ConversationHigh School StudentsUniversity Students

234 sentences

The Philosophy of Rick Sanchez

Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults

684 sentences

The Most Likely Place to Find Aliens

Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults

Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This speaking lesson is built on the video “The Beginning of Everything -- The Big Bang”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: universe, Bang, quark, particles, billion. This video has 58 sentences and 827 words to shadow. The speech runs for 5:54. The speaker talks at a steady 140 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. 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

15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
particle noun	/ˈpɑɹtək(ə)l/	A very small piece of matter, a fragment; especially, the smallest possible part of something.
expand verb	/ɪkˈspænd/	To change (something) from a smaller form or size to a larger one; to spread out or lay open.
hydrogen noun	/ˈhaɪdɹəd͡ʒ(ə)n/	The lightest chemical element (symbol H), with an atomic number of 1 and atomic weight of 1.008.
stable noun	/ˈsteɪ.bəl/	A building, wing or dependency set apart and adapted for lodging and feeding (and training) ungulates, especially horses.
visible adjective	/ˈvɪzɪb(ə)l/	Able to be seen.
galaxy noun	/ˈɡæl.ək.si/	Any of the collections of many millions or billions of stars, galactic dust, black holes, etc. existing as independent and coherent systems, of which there are…
discover verb	/dɪˈskʌvə/	To find or learn something for the first time.
stretch verb	/stɹɛt͡ʃ/	To lengthen by pulling.
radiation noun	/ˌɹeɪ.diˈeɪ.ʃən/	The shooting forth of anything from a point or surface, like diverging rays of light.
gravity noun	/ˈɡɹævɪti/	Of an activity such as a ceremony, a person's conduct, etc.: the quality of being deeply serious and solemn, especially in a dignified manner; seriousness…
scientist noun	/ˈsaɪəntəst/	One whose activities make use of the scientific method to answer questions regarding the measurable universe. A scientist may be involved in original research…
infinite adjective	/ˈɪnfɪnɪt/	Indefinably large, countlessly great; immense.
countless adjective	/ˈkaʊntləs/	Synonym of uncountable.
atom noun	/ˈætəm/	The smallest possible amount of matter which still retains its identity as a chemical element, now known to consist of a nucleus surrounded by electrons.
ignore verb	/ɪɡˈnɔː/	To deliberately not listen or pay attention to.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
break down verb		To stop functioning.
give off verb	/ɡɪv ɒf/	To emit; to produce and send forth; to come across in some manner.
move around verb		To relocate to new homes repeatedly; to not live in any one place for long.
settle down verb		To make or become quiet and calm after a period of disturbance or restlessness.
win over verb		To persuade someone, gain someone's support, or make someone understand the truth or validity of something.

Sentences worth repeating

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

Let’s explore what we know.
We don’t know at all what happened here.
Were there universes before our own?
We don’t know, and maybe we never will.

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	was discovered · were created · were formed
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	has given · has stretched · has passed

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 7 contractions and reduced forms, such as didn't, don't, we're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “sh” and “zh” sounds: radiation /ˌɹeɪ.diˈeɪ.ʃən/, explosion /ɛkˈsploʊ.ʒən/, observation /ˌɑbzɚˈveɪʃn̩/, prediction /pɹɪˈdɪkʃən/, combinations /kɑmbɪˈneɪʃənz/
Long words — get the stress right: radiation /ˌɹeɪ.diˈeɪ.ʃən/, naturally /ˈnæt͡ʃ.(ə.)ɹə.li/, practically /ˈpɹæk.tɪ.k(ə.)li/, diameter /daɪˈæmɪdɚ/, reasonably /ˈɹiː.zən.ə.bli/

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 particle, expand, hydrogen.

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: The Beginning of Everything -- The Big Bang - Learn English Speaking with Video

Choose a practice mode

Download App

Queen Ant Clones Another Species

How Caffeine Works

Your Skeleton Is Electric

Could Humans Evolve Flight?

You Will Only Like Half of This Video

Would You Upload Your Mind?

Your Brain on Magic Mushrooms

Why Ebola Keeps Coming Back

Let’s Steal a New Moon

What Happens AFTER Nuclear War?

3 Reasons Why Nuclear Energy Is Awesome! 3/3

What Falling in Love Does to You

YOU Own the Moon. And Mars. And Venus.

What Is Life? Is Death Real?

How Antidepressants Work

Your Brain Peaked at Birth

We Won’t Explore the Galaxy...

Dozens of Nukes Are Missing. Why? HOW?

How ADHD Medication Works

Something Travels Faster than Light

Einstein and the Theory of Relativity | HD |

Before We Became the Last Humans:The Lost Species That Once Shared Our World|Prehistoric Documentary

Whatever thought creates is reality | Krishnamurti

GENERAL CHEMISTRY explained in 19 Minutes

Optimistic Nihilism

We Found Galaxies Too Old for the Universe

The Bloody Origins of the Number Zero

Mathematics and Physics | Lesson 2 | Understanding the Connection

How evolution works, in 54 minutes | Sean B. Carroll: Full Interview

Intro to History of Science: Crash Course History of Science #1

The Philosophy of Rick Sanchez

The Most Likely Place to Find Aliens

Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

Key vocabulary in this video

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Sentences worth repeating

Grammar in this video

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?