Shadowing Practice: The BIGGEST CATCHES! (Part 1) | COMPILATION | River Monsters - Learn English Speaking with Video

Creating lesson...
1
Wait till it comes on.
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Wait, wait, wait, wait.
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Now!
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Now!
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Now!
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Pick it up, pick it up.
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At 2 .30am...
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Your fish aren't there?
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...with the tide high, the line begins to run.
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In the heart.
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No, off.
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It's all right?
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All right.
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Yep.
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Shuffling down.
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At the moment, it just feels like there's a boat on the end.
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It's just a dead weight.
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Just changing the ratio there.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, that's pulling, that's pulling, that's pulling.
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It is coming my way.
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And with nearly 200 yards of line taken in, whatever it is reaches the shore.
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Holy !
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What is it?
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That is huge!
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One of the best fish I've ever seen!
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Like something from 20 ,000 leagues under the sea, it certainly isn't a shark.
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But what on earth is it?
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It's not a shark, but it is an exceptional fish.
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It's just remarkable.
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That is something, isn't it?
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I've never seen anything like this in my life before.
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It's what they call the Queensland Groper.
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This is a monster.
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I mean, it's not the monster I was after, but this is a monster.
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It's been three inches.
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What about the girth?
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Yeah.
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Two foot one.
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Its girth is four foot three inches.
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Four foot three inches.
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This is a protected marine fish normally found on reefs, but they're known to come into river mouths like this on rare occasions.
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Look at that.
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This fish, even Terry and Ben haven't seen anything like this anywhere like this size, so it's just an amazing catch, and particularly from a river.
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All right, just, you know, this thing really is a river monster.
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Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh!
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Ah!
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If this one pulls me over, I'm in real trouble.
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I was nearly tipping forward over that edge because I'm just going a little bit.
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My groin is starting to ache.
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It's a strong fish. That rod's jammed in.
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Such physical stuff.
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Physical work.
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It's coming up.
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Strong fish.
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But I think it's tiring.
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Tiring, tiring.
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There it is.
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There's the fish.
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Good grief.
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My crutch is killing me. And there it is.
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But does it weigh more than 150 pounds?
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For the measure of the beast, that is seven foot one, two, three, four, seven foot four inches and then you open the mouth.
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I can actually hear the echo coming out of the mouth there.
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Hello, hello!
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And I can see its gullet opening and closing.
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If I was so inclined, I could put my fist down there quite easily.
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That is an eating machine.
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The whole thing is nearly eight foot of just solid, rippling muscle.
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If that grabbed hold of your leg, that's an unpleasant enough thought, but if that decided not to let go and you were swimming, you'd be history.
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I'm about 175 pounds on a good day or a bad day, depending on how you look at it.
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This fish could be more than that.
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74 kilos.
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That's about 163 pounds.
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Not quite as big and fat and ugly as I am.
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Instead of running away, it's coming in to check me out.
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I can't imagine what the shark is making of this experience.
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It's gone again.
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With a lot of fish, you see them up on the surface, you see them close in, You think that's it.
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They're nearly done.
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I think this one was just coming up partly out of curiosity.
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What's all this?
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What's happening?
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Now he's checked me out.
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He's not coming anywhere near again.
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Last time the shark brought things to an early end by rolling on the line.
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This one seems set for the long haul two hours It's a different phase of the fight now it was tearing around,
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you know Using speed in the early stages There it is again.
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There it is again.
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There it is again Yeah, it's definitely some tactics going on the speed didn't work.
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So now just a Bit of a war of attrition
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this is punishment two hours into the fight the shark begins
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pulling the boat towards some shallows one to three meters now by now the battle is beginning to attract attention
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this is turning into an event everyone wants to see this shark
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i can see the fish i can see the fish back to two meters
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if my line catches a rock down there it could cut through
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and the shark will be gone we've got to get away from the rocks
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we're still in two meters now i've got a boat full
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of scientists relying on me to get this shark in the
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tension on board is palpable four meters okay i've got right i've got the line
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if it goes it can go without the line catching anybody put
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that line around the right have Have you got the toe straight round?
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Yeah.
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Good, OK, brilliant.
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Got a good hold?
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Yeah.
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OK.
108
This is my biggest catch ever, and two and a half hours is by far my longest fight.
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It's astonishing to think that I've hauled this beast from a river.
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But I was lucky to get it in at all, because it was foul hooked in the side, snagged on a flap of skin between the gill slits.
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The scientists want to know why the sharks are here.
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Right, this is like a sort of timers of the essence.
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And they're actually, they're starting to pump water to irrigate the gills.
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That buys a little bit more time.
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Last year's giant catch was a heavily pregnant female, which led the scientists to assume she was in this river to deliver her two -foot -long pups.
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Our expectation is that this fish, too, is female.
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Three, two, one.
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It's a male!
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Our first catch, and we have answered one of our questions.
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It looks like the Briada River is a place where sharks come to feed.
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Three, two, one.
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Nine and a half feet, and with an estimated weight near 500 pounds,
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he's one of the largest bull sharks ever caught anywhere and I'm returning him back into the river.
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I've just hooked a massive fish.
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Is this the one I'm after?
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I'm going to have to go for a swim.
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I don't know what I'm thinking, apart from being desperate not to lose this fish, regardless of my own safety.
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Wait till it comes on.
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Wait, wait, wait.
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Now!
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Now!
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Now!
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That is a serious -sized gunch.
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That is a man -sized animal.
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That is as big as a person.
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It's bigger than a lot of people around here.
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That is a big fish.
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They do exist, the gunch.
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They do exist.
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Six foot of muscle behind that mouth, and those teeth are just like shark teeth pointing back.
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If that got hold of you, there'd be no getting away.
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When I was diving with Rick, and we were seeing these beasts under the water, and they just look so otherworldly.
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Is it a hallucination?
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Do these things really exist?
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And yes, the goonch does exist.
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It's just the absolute perfect predator, huge mouth on there, huge, huge, huge mouth.
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And if anything just comes down within range of that mouth, it's too late.
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I mean, big as this fish is, the fish that is taking people would be bigger than this.
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I mean, it wouldn't actually need to be more than a couple of feet longer, but that would really give it a bit more weight.
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I mean it would probably weigh twice as much as this
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and you know just the thought of
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that is quite terrifying okay is it off the ground now yes okay 166 161 pounds
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “The BIGGEST CATCHES!”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: fish, shark, foot, mouth, river. This video has 152 sentences and 1273 words to shadow. The speech runs for 9:57. The speaker talks at a steady 128 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. 84% 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:

WordPronunciationMeaning
meter noun/ˈmitəɹ/A device that measures things.
tire verb/ˈtaɪ̯ɚ/To become sleepy or weary.
girth noun/ɡɝθ/A band passed under the belly of an animal, which holds a saddle or a harness saddle in place.
gunch verbTo maneuver one's body while playing, in an attempt to influence the path of the ball.
gill noun/ɡɪl/A breathing organ of fish and other aquatic animals.
haul verb/hɔl/To transport by drawing or pulling, as with horses or oxen, or a motor vehicle.
weigh verb/weɪ/To determine the weight of an object.
astonish verb/əˈstɑnɪʃ/To surprise greatly.
attrition noun/əˈtɹɪʃən/Grinding down or wearing away by friction.
crutch noun/ˈkɹʌt͡ʃ/A device to assist in motion as a cane, especially one that provides support under the arm to reduce weight on a leg.
goonch nounA large catfish of the genus Bagarius, native to India and Southeast Asia.
gullet noun/ˈɡʌl.ɪt/The throat or esophagus.
hallucination noun/həˌluːsɪˈneɪʃən/A sensory perception of something that does not exist, often arising from disorder of the nervous system, as in delirium tremens.
irrigate verb/ˈɪɹəˌɡeɪt/To supply (farmland) with water, by building ditches, pipes, etc.
otherworldly adjective/ˌʌðəɹˈwɜɹl(d)li/Of, concerned with, or preoccupied with a world different from the tangible world, especially a fantasy, imaginary, or mystical world.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

WordMeaning
come up verbTo emerge or become known, especially unexpectedly.
come down verbTo descend, fall down, collapse.
cut through verbTo take a shortcut through.
get away verbTo move away (from).
run away verbTo flee by running.

Sentences worth repeating

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

  • Your fish aren't there?
  • One of the best fish I've ever seen!
  • That is something, isn't it?
  • I've just hooked a massive fish.
  • Is this the one I'm after?

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 30 contractions and reduced forms, such as I'm, I've, they're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

  • The “th” sounds: girth /ɡɝθ/, otherworldly /ˌʌðəɹˈwɜɹl(d)li/
  • The “sh” and “zh” sounds: astonish /əˈstɑnɪʃ/, attrition /əˈtɹɪʃən/, hallucination /həˌluːsɪˈneɪʃən/, shuffle /ˈʃʌfəl/, expectation /ˌɛk.spɛkˈteɪ.ʃən/
  • Long words — get the stress right: hallucination /həˌluːsɪˈneɪʃən/, otherworldly /ˌʌðəɹˈwɜɹl(d)li/, curiosity /ˌkjʊɹ.iˈɑ.sə.ti/, expectation /ˌɛk.spɛkˈteɪ.ʃən/, exceptional /ɪkˈsɛpʃənəl/

How to practise with this video

  1. Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
  2. Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
  3. Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like meter, tire, girth.

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 →