Shadowing Practice: The Last Star in the Universe – Red Dwarfs Explained - Learn English Speaking with Video
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One day the last star will die and the universe will turn dark forever.
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It will probably be a red dwarf, a tiny kind of star that's also one of our best bets to find alien life
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and might be the last home of humanity before the universe becomes uninhabitable.
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So what do we know about them and why are they our last hope?
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At least 70% of stars in the universe are red dwarfs.
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They are the tiniest stars out there, with only about 7-50% of the mass of our Sun.
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Not that much bigger than our planet Jupiter, which is still huge though.
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They are also very dim.
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It's impossible to see them with the naked eye.
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You've never seen one in the night sky.
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Even with all our technology, we can only clearly observe red dwarfs in our neighborhood.
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Approximately 20 of the 30 stars close to Earth are red dwarfs.
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Like all stars, red dwarfs fuse hydrogen into helium.
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But while more massive stars accumulate all the fuse helium in their cores, red dwarfs stay convective, meaning that the helium and hydrogen constantly mix.
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So they use up their fuel incredibly slowly before they're extinguished.
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Red dwarfs burn so slowly that their average lifespan is between 1 and 10 trillion years.
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By comparison, the Sun will survive for another 5 billion years.
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Because the universe is only 13.75 billion years old, not a single red dwarf has reached later development stages.
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Every single one of the trillions that exist is still a baby.
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Speaking of babies, the smallest star in the entire universe is also a red dwarf, because small red dwarfs are right on the verge of being a star at all,
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just a tiny bit less hydrogen, and they are mere brown dwarfs, failed stars that cannot sustain a fusion reaction for long.
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So what about aliens, or a new home for humanity?
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Since our sun will die one day, we'll eventually need to look for a new home.
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And where there are habitable planets, there might also be aliens.
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The Kepler Space Observatory found
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that at least half of all red dwarfs host rock planets between half and four times the mass of our Earth.
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Many of them are in the habitable zone, the area around a star where water can be liquid.
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But since red dwarfs burn at relatively cold temperatures, a planet would need to be really close to be hospitable, probably as close as Mercury to our Sun, or even closer.
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Which brings with it all kinds of problems.
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For example, a planet this close to a star would probably be tidally locked, meaning the same side would always face it.
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This side would be incredibly hot, while the shadow side would be frozen, which makes it hard for life to develop.
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Although a planet with a big enough ocean might be able to distribute the star's energy and create some kind of stability.
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All the gravitational forces of the red dwarf could squeeze the planet
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and heat it up so much that it might lose all its water over time.
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These planets could end up like Venus, a hot, burning hell.
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Another problem is that many red dwarfs vary in their energy output.
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They can be covered in star spots that can dim their emitted light by up to 40% for months, which would cause oceans on planets to freeze over.
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At other times they can emit powerful solar flares, sudden outbursts of energy incredibly powerful.
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These red dwarfs can double their brightness in minutes, which could strip away sizeable portions of a planet's atmosphere and burn it, rendering it sterile.
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On the other hand, their extremely long lifespan is a big plus.
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A red dwarf with just moderate levels of activity could be an amazing place for a planet that hosts life.
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Life on Earth has existed for about 4 billion years, and we have about a billion years left before the Sun becomes so hot that complex life on Earth will become impossible.
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We will either die out or leave Earth and look for a new home.
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We could build a civilization for potentially trillions of years around a red dwarf with the right conditions.
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About 5% of the red dwarfs in the Milky Way may host habitable, roughly Earth-sized planets.
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That would be more than 4 billion in total.
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But life may not even need a planet like Earth.
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Candidates for life around a red dwarf may be the moons of gas giants or so called super earths, really massive rocky planets.
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All in all there are an estimated 60 billion potentially habitable planets around red dwarfs and that's in the Milky Way alone.
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So red dwarfs might become really important for our survival in the future.
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But everything has to die at some point, even red dwarfs.
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When in trillions of years the life of the last red dwarf in the universe is about to end, it will not be a very spectacular event.
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As its hydrogen runs out it shrinks, becoming a blue dwarf burning out completely.
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After its fuel is spent, it's transformed into a white dwarf, an object about as small as Earth,
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packed very densely and made of degenerate gases, mostly of helium-4 nuclei.
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no more source of energy, it will cool extremely slowly over trillions of years until it becomes its final form, a cold, black dwarf.
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White and black dwarfs are so fascinating that they deserve their own video.
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Anyway, it's going to be a long time before the last stars in the universe vanish.
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It's kind of uplifting to know that if humanity succeeds in venturing into space, we have plenty of time before the universe turns out the lights.
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Our videos are made thanks to your support on Patreon.com.
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If you want to help us make more of them, we really appreciate your support.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This C1 speaking lesson is built on the video “The Last Star in the Universe – Red Dwarfs Explained”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: dwarf, planet, star, Earth, universe. This video has 61 sentences and 976 words to shadow. The speech runs for 5:45. The speaker talks at a natural 170 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 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
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| habitable adjective | /ˈhæbɪtəbəl/ | Safe and comfortable, where humans, or other animals, can live; fit for habitation. |
| helium noun | /ˈhiː.li.əm/ | The second-lightest chemical element (symbol He), with an atomic number of 2 and atomic weight of 4.002602, a colorless, odorless and inert noble gas. |
| hydrogen noun | /ˈhaɪdɹəd͡ʒ(ə)n/ | The lightest chemical element (symbol H), with an atomic number of 1 and atomic weight of 1.008. |
| emit verb | /iˈmɪt/ | To send out or give off. |
| lifespan noun | /ˈlaɪf.spæn/ | The length of time for which an organism lives. |
| fuse noun | /fjuːz/ | A wick or cord used to convey flame to gunpowder, a bomb, or similar explosive. |
| accumulate verb | /əˈkjuːmjʊˌleɪt/ | To heap up in a mass; to pile up; to collect or bring together (either literally or figuratively), often gradually and without active intent. |
| convective adjective | /kənˈvɛk.tɪv/ | Of, pertaining to, or employing convection; convectional |
| degenerate adjective | /dɪˈd͡ʒɛnəɹɪt/ | Having deteriorated, degraded or fallen from normal, coherent, balanced and desirable to undesirable and typically abnormal. |
| densely adverb | /ˈdɛnsli/ | In a dense manner. |
| extinguish verb | /ɪkˈstɪŋ.ɡwɪʃ/ | To stop (fire, etc.) from burning; also, to stop (light, etc.) from shining; to put out, to quench. |
| fascinate verb | /ˈfæsɪneɪt/ | To evoke an intense interest or attraction in someone. |
| gravitational adjective | /ˌɡɹævɪˈteɪʃənəl/ | Pertaining to, or caused by, gravity or gravitation. |
| hospitable adjective | /hɑsˈpɪtəbl̩/ | cordial and generous towards guests |
| outburst verb | /ˌaʊ̯tˈbɝst/ | To burst out. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| burn out verb | To destroy by fire. |
| die out verb | To become extinct. |
| end up verb | To bring to a conclusion. |
| run out verb | To use up or consume all |
| turn out verb | To end up; to result. |
| use up verb | To consume, deplete, expend, or exhaust. |
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 | would be frozen · can be covered · is spent |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | You've never seen · has reached · has existed |
| Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing | Jupiter, which is · frozen, which makes |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 3 contractions and reduced forms, such as they're, we'll, you've. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: extinguish /ɪkˈstɪŋ.ɡwɪʃ/, gravitational /ˌɡɹævɪˈteɪʃənəl/, vanish /ˈvænɪʃ/, civilization /ˌsɪv.ɪ.laɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/, fusion /ˈfjuː.ʒən/
- Long words — get the stress right: habitable /ˈhæbɪtəbəl/, accumulate /əˈkjuːmjʊˌleɪt/, degenerate /dɪˈd͡ʒɛnəɹɪt/, gravitational /ˌɡɹævɪˈteɪʃənəl/, uninhabitable /ˌʌnɪnˈhæbɪtəbəl/
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 habitable, helium, 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.