Shadowing Practice: The World's Best Automatic Transmission - How Autos Became Cool Again - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Hello everyone and welcome.

In this video we are talking about how automatic transmissions became cool again

and I say again because I assume at some point they were considered cool

because of how popular they have become just over the years.

I mean so many vehicles no more manual transmission we're moving on to automatic

and now we have other options like dual clutch

and we also have CVTs as well as the manual transmission

but what seems to be the case is that the automatic transmission isn't going anywhere.

So if we go back to the 2002 BMW 7 Series, this was the first production core to have a six -speed automatic,

and by automatic in this video I'm talking about a planetary gear set and using a torque converter, the slush box,

which isn't that thrilling of a name and so you know why would why would a slush box ever be cool, but today, today I do believe they are.

So back in 2001 when the 2002 7 Series was introduced

that was the first six -speed automatic transmission and that's kind of crazy

because you know that's not all that long ago

and six speeds today are kind of irrelevant we've got eight

speeds nine speeds ten speeds i don't know infinite speeds with the cvt

so we have so many speeds now in different transmissions

but we also have dual clutch transmission

so in 2003 volkswagen was like we don't need to do

this automatic planetary torque converter nonsense dual clutch is the way to go

so they introduced the DSG in Europe with the Volkswagen Golf R32

so this is the first production car to have it

and it didn't have a torque converter and

so you know you had quicker shifts you didn't have the efficiency losses associated with a torque converter

and you had very direct driving feel because you don't have

that torque converter and so you know perhaps DCT at the time seemed like the future

and still in many scenarios you know it's still relevant it does have quick shifts for sports cars

but you know for everyday vehicles

and even for sporty cars the automatic transmission has remained relevant how in the world has it done

that you know 15 years later after

that DCT was introduced we still have very cool automatic transmissions

and the DCT did not replace everything well I am sitting inside of the BMW X7, and this has an eight -speed automatic transmission.

It's the ZF 8HP, a newer variant of it, so there's various variants of the 8HP,

and this is one of the newer ones in this brand new BMW X7, and the 8HP by ZF, or ZF, if you want to say ZF,

I'm going to say ZF because it sounds a little fancier, even though I still say Corvette Z06 and Z for every other reference that uses the letter Z.

Anyways, it's ZF, that's how you say it, and so it's the ZF 8 HP.

Now, this transmission has changed, in my opinion, the automatic, you know, revolution.

So the automatic is cool again purely because of this 8 -speed ZF transmission.

And you might think, okay, this BMW has a 4 .4 liter twin -twin -scroll turbocharged engine, 456 horsepower, tons of torque.

Why wouldn't you pair that with something super sporty like a dual -clutch transmission?

And yet you don't need it this eight -speed automatic with a planetary gear set

and a torque converter you know in my opinion it does just as well as a dual clutch performance wise

but BMW isn't the only company using this transmission

so I pulled over to read you a very quick list of cars

which are using the ZF eight -speed

and it might not at first seem like these cars should be using a regular old Planetary Automatic, Aston Martin Vanquish, Alfa Romeo Giulia,

Jaguar F -Type, BMW, pretty much every BMW, pretty much every Rolls -Royce,

Jeep Trackhawk, Dodge Hellcat, Bentley Continental GT, Lamborghini Urus, Toyota Supra, Land Rover, Maserati, the Supras of Z4, Ram trucks even use this.

According to car and driver in 2017 they built 3 .5 million 8 HP transmissions for various manufacturers.

So everybody is using these things.

Well why is everyone using it?

Well in 2015 I got the opportunity to find out.

It was my first time driving a vehicle with this transmission

that I was aware of at least

and it was in the Jaguar F -Type R and when I drove the car I didn't know what transmission it had.

I had no clue but I knew that I loved the transmission

because it was very smooth

and it was very fast in fact I thought it was a dual clutch transmission

and then I went home and I googled it

and said what transmission does this have

and I found out it was the ZF8 speed and

so then I went and did a little text overlay on the video

and said this is the best automatic I've ever driven

because I thought it was a dual clutch I thought it was shifting as quickly as a dual clutch

and it felt as direct when you were in gear like a dual clutch

and so you know what what have they done here and

so from a driving perspective you know there's two things that I really care about in a transmission.

Is it quick to shift? and is it smooth so

that includes the response time of

when you ask it to shift as well as how long does it actually take to execute

and then you know is it smooth in shifting and in this vehicle

truthfully if you have passengers in the car

and you're just sitting here selecting through the gears on the

uh with the paddle shifters here they're not going to know you're shifting gears you can barely barely feel it

so the shift quality is insanely good the shifting is

so smooth and it's extremely fast

so you know it does both things from a driving perspective

that I think you want in a transmission

but from an engineering standpoint you know shift times

and shift quality as far as how smooth it is that's not all

that matters there's many things that matter in a transmission

so cost of course is critically important

when designing anything efficiency of course is very important to engineers size is very important

because it has to fit within vehicles

And then of course the weight of it is important

that correlates with efficiency if it's giant and heavy Even

if it does work efficiently as far as the losses through the transmission No one cares

because it's too big and too heavy.

So speaking of size and weight What's really impressive is that

if it was able to keep the size of it The

length of it is the exact same as the 6 -speed

that it replaces So it can be packaged in the same vehicle

and you can just put in that 8 -speed transmission rather than the six -speed

and it takes up no more space and it does

that with 2 .8 less kilograms

so you get more gears in the same amount of space

that weighs less I mean that is just incredible from an engineering standpoint okay

so what about efficiency efficiency is obviously important here

and one of the cool things about this transmission there's five

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shifting elements within it in order to select the different gears so there's three clutches and there's two brakes, and so you use a combination of any three of those,

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whether that's two brakes and one clutch, just three clutches and no brakes, one brake and two clutches, whatever it may be, that's how you select each gear.

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And so what that means is that any one given gear, you only have two elements which are open, which are going to give you those parasitic drag losses.

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So the less elements you have open, the less drag losses you will have, and so the more efficient that transmission is going to be.

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They also claim that they have a 98 % or better gear set efficiency, so the actual losses through a gear set is less than 2%,

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and in fact for first gear and for sixth gear, it's essentially just a locked up direct drive, so you have zero gear set efficiency losses in first gear and in sixth gear.

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They've also stated that between 500 RPM and 3 ,000 RPM, so that's that region where if you're trying to drive efficiently,

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you're probably going to be within that RPM region they have dropped the losses, the efficiency losses, by 50 % versus the 6 -speed transmission.

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So they've really improved that.

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So what does this all add up to?

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Well, they have 6 % better fuel economy, 6 % fewer emissions, purely from switching a transmission.

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So if a transmission alone can give you 6 % better fuel economy and emissions, I mean, that is pretty wild.

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That's a huge improvement and certainly worth doing.

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So same size, less weight, more gears, more efficient what about shift times

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so in many cases it's actually twice as fast to shift gears versus the six speed

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that it replaces i mean that's incredible improvement whether that's from

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you know second gear to eighth gear from seventh gear down to third gear

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and so you know there's kind of three ways

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that they they worked to do this so there's optimization from the shifting itself

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so you have the command when either i touch this paddle

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and say hey i want to downshift there's the command and

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so it has to process that information

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and then it has to actually execute this shift so it sends

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that hydraulic fluid to the correct brakes

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and the correct clutches in order to execute the shift

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so they've optimized that you know minimizing the amount of flow how

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that pressure works out the processing time required to interpret

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when do i need to shift gears or

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when you push your foot down on the throttle pedal then there's also the fact

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that you have more gears

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so eight gears versus six gears it means the steps can be smaller

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so if you're dropping the engine let's say you're downshifting

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and you're dropping the engine from 5 ,000 down to 4

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,000 rpm rather than from 5 ,000 down to 3 ,000

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rpm obviously it takes less time to drop less rpm

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so just a simple way of having more gears means the shifts are probably going to be quicker

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and then finally you know using the engine to help out

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so in this case you know on a downshift you're going

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to blip the throttle a little bit to help get the

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engine up to speed on an upshift what you're going to do is kind of kill the engine so

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that it drops down The engine RPM drops down very quickly

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to whatever speed it needs to be at to match the next gear But overall, I mean it is incredible how quick

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and how smooth this thing is able to change gears I mean I'm in comfort mode here.

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Let's put it in sports

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So it actually you know it's a little bit more aggressive with shifts

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and even still you barely feel it And it is so fast to do it.

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It is unbelievable How quick this thing is able to shift gears alright, but what about all the downsides of a torque converter

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because that's kind of the big player here as far as efficiency losses.

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If you have that torque converter spinning up and you're just putting heat into a fluid, you're losing, you know, power and energy that could otherwise be used to propel you forward.

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So less wheel horsepower versus a dual clutch, less efficiency versus a dual clutch.

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But the thing is modern torque converters

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and modern transmissions have been designed to maximize the region at which the torque converter is locked up.

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So once it's locked up, you get that very good you know direct feel of

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when you put your foot down it doesn't feel like you

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know this kind of slushy sloppy mechanism it's very direct in what you ask for

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and what you get and

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so that's really only occurring where you have slip in the torque converter at very low speeds

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and so why do they do this well it's actually advantageous

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if you've driven a dual clutch transmission below five miles per

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hour you've probably felt the vibration the roughness the harshness it kind of is lurchy

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because it wants to collapse those clutches rather than have them slipping

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so if you've ever driven a dual clutch at very low speeds you notice you know it doesn't have

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that smoothness that you get with a torque converter

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so there's an advantage from an acceleration standpoint from a smoothness standpoint from a stop using

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that torque converter and having slip the other advantage of course is having the torque multiplication

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that torque converters provide

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so you have torque multiplication you're able to get a better launch from a stop

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so from a stop a traditional automatic is better than a dual clutch

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because you're able to have torque multiplication

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and it's smoother once you start going you want to lock up

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that torque converter so you have the direct feel

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and then use you know the modern technology

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that we have now to have very quick shifts occur

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so it really is kind of the best of all worlds

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and in fact the Aston Martin CEO was like it's cheaper it's lighter

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and it's quicker than dual clutch transmission why would i put a dual clutch transmission in my cars i mean

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that is just such a crazy endorsement

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and sure eston martin's aren't meant to be all out performance

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and there's a reason why mclaren is still using dual clutch transmissions

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but there's also a very good reason why this eight speed zf transmission is literally everywhere

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because it is such a good transmission and it does everything

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so well and the shift quality i mean it's it's unparalleled in the automatic world It really is.

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It is so good to shift gears, so smooth, and there's nothing else,

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no other automatic that I have driven that's been anywhere close to the quality of shifts that this thing has.

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Now, personally, of course, I would prefer everything came with a manual transmission.

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I would always opt for the manual if it was offered, but I cannot fault manufacturers for choosing to use this ZF 8 -speed,

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and it's awesome that it's so prevalent and so common within the industry now, and that there's so many cars that you can get with it,

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because it truly is an exceptional, exceptional transmission.

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So thank you all so much for watching, and if you have any questions or comments, of course, feel free to leave those below.

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This speaking lesson is built on the video “The World's Best Automatic Transmission - How Autos Became Cool Again”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: transmission, gear, speed, torque, shift. This video has 188 sentences and 2492 words to shadow. The speech runs for 12:44. The speaker talks fast, about 196 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

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

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
transmission noun	/tɹænsˈmɪʃən/	The act of transmitting, e.g. data (signals) or electric power.
gear noun	/ɡɪɚ/	Equipment or paraphernalia, especially that used for an athletic endeavor.
clutch noun	/ˈklʌt͡ʃ/	The claw of a predatory animal or bird.
torque noun	/tɔɹk/	A rotational or twisting effect of a force; a moment of force, defined for measurement purposes as an equivalent straight line force multiplied by the distance…
automatic adjective	/ˌɔː.təˈmæt.ɪk/	Capable of operating without external control or intervention.
dual adjective	/ˈdul/	Characterized by having two (usually equivalent) components.
efficiency noun	/ɪˈfɪʃ.ən.si/	The extent to which a resource is used for the intended purpose.
smooth adjective	/smuːð/	Having a texture that lacks friction. Not rough.
versus	/ˈvɝsəs/	Against; in opposition to.
manual noun	/ˈmæn.j(u)əl/	Synonym of handbook.
brake noun	/bɹeɪk/	A device used to slow or stop the motion of a wheel, or of a vehicle, usually by friction (although other resistive forces, such as electromagnetic fields or…
standpoint noun	/ˈstændpɔɪnt/	A point of view; a perspective.
planetary adjective	/ˈplænɪˌtɛəri/	Of, or relating to planets, or the orbital motion of planets.
element noun	/ˈɛləmənt/	One of the simplest or essential parts or principles of which anything consists, or upon which the constitution or fundamental powers of anything are based.
select verb	/sɪˈlɛkt/	To choose one or more elements of a set, especially a set of options.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
lock up verb	/ˌlɒk ˈʌp/	To imprison or incarcerate (someone).
drop down verb		To sail, move, or row down a coast, or down a river to the sea.
find out verb		To discover, as by asking or investigating.
add up to verb		To have a particular effect in combination.
go back to verb		To stem from; to originate in.
help out verb		To provide assistance.
take up verb		To pick up.
work out verb	/ˌwɝk ˈaʊt/	To calculate.

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	have become · has remained · has changed
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	were considered · was introduced · can be packaged

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 40 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, don't, didn't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: smooth /smuːð/, sixth /sɪksθ/, seventh /ˈsɛvənθ/, eighth /eɪtθ/, thrill /θɹɪl/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: transmission /tɹænsˈmɪʃən/, efficiency /ɪˈfɪʃ.ən.si/, efficient /ɪˈfɪʃənt/, exceptional /ɪkˈsɛpʃənəl/, emission /ɪˈmɪʃ.ən/
Long words — get the stress right: automatic /ˌɔː.təˈmæt.ɪk/, efficiency /ɪˈfɪʃ.ən.si/, planetary /ˈplænɪˌtɛəri/, manufacturer /ˌmænjʊˈfæktʃəɹə/, exceptional /ɪkˈsɛpʃənəl/

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 transmission, gear, clutch.

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 World's Best Automatic Transmission - How Autos Became Cool Again - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

Key vocabulary in this video

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Grammar in this video

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?