Shadowing Practice: Top Notch 3: Unit 5: Lesson 3: Describe natural disasters - Learn English Speaking with Video
Choose a practice mode
Each mode opens a full-screen practice room.
38 sentences
If sentences are too short or too long, click Edit to adjust them.
1
Page 56.
2
Before you read.
3
Exercise A.
4
Vocabulary.
5
Adjectives of severity.
6
Read and listen.
7
Now listen again and repeat.
8
Mild Moderate Severe Deadly
9
Catastrophic Page 56 Reading Read and listen.
10
Earthquakes Earthquakes are among the deadliest natural disasters, causing the largest numbers of casualties,
11
the highest death tolls, and the greatest destruction.
12
In 1556, in China, the deadliest earthquake in history killed 830,000 people.
13
But many other earthquakes have caused the deaths of more than 100,000 people, and it is not unusual even in modern times for an
14
earthquake death toll to reach 20,000 to 30,000 people with hundreds of thousands left homeless and with countless injured.
15
The floodwaters of the 2004 tsunami in Sumatra, which killed over 200,000 people, were caused by a catastrophic earthquake.
16
There are four factors that affect the casualty rate and economic impact of earthquakes.
17
magnitude, location, quality of construction of buildings, and timing.
18
Magnitude.
19
The magnitude, or strength, of an earthquake is measured on the Richter scale,
20
ranging from 1 to 10 with 10 being the greatest earthquakes over 6 on the Richter scale are often deadly
21
and those over 8 are generally catastrophic causing terrible damage
22
location a severe earthquake
23
that is located far from population centers does not cause the same damage as a less severe one
24
that occurs in the middle of a city.
25
As an example, in 1960, the strongest earthquake ever recorded, 9.5 magnitude on the Richter scale,
26
struck in the Pacific Ocean near the Chilean coastline, destroying buildings, killing over 2,000,
27
and injuring another 3,000 in regional cities near the coast.
28
If this quake had struck a city directly, it would have been catastrophic, and hundreds of thousands might have been killed.
29
Similarly, in Alaska in 1964, a magnitude 9.2 quake hit an area with few people,
30
and the death toll was 117.
31
Quality of Construction
32
Modern building construction techniques can lessen the death toll
33
and economic impact of a moderate earthquake that would otherwise cause severe destruction of older-style buildings.
34
In 2010, a terrible earthquake in Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti, caused the destruction of a tremendous number of the city's buildings, mostly due to poor construction.
35
In contrast, an even stronger earthquake later that year in Chile caused less destruction because of that country's use of earthquake-resistant construction.
36
Timing Finally, the time of occurrence of an earthquake can affect the number of deaths and casualties.
37
Earthquakes that occur in the night, when people are indoors, usually cause a greater death toll than ones that occur when people are outdoors.
38
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
Same Channel
FOR YOU
Recommend Video
B14
22 sentences
Reading Explorer Foundation, Unit-10 Tornado Terror
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepHigh School Students
B24
64 sentences
Vol 2 - test 3 - section 3
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepCambridge Exam Prep
B23
35 sentences
READING EXPLORER 2 Unit 3A Was King Tut Murdered
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepCambridge Exam Prep
B24
10 sentences
Venezuela quakes cause major damage | Vietnam Today
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
B15
31 sentences
Do Humans Cause Natural Disasters? | Explained | English Subtitles | Beginners | Simplified
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepHigh School Students
B286
21 sentences
"Nothing is left": Nepal's survivors confront ruins after catastrophic floods
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
B223
7 sentences
How To Keep a Skyscraper From Falling Over
American AccentIELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
B24
112 sentences
Contemporary Topics 2 Unit 9 PUBLIC HEALTH Global epidemic
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepBusiness English
C12
198 sentences
C1 Most Comprehensive Advanced Vocabulary for IELTS, TOEFL, and PTE Exams
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepCambridge Exam Prep
B14
103 sentences
English News for Beginners with Subtitles, BBC English Learning Videos, News Podcasts Today
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepDaily Conversation
C12
139 sentences
Believers, is this a prophecy unfolding?
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
B21
200 sentences
✪ IELTS Speaking Task 2 Band 9: TOP 10 Common Ielts Speaking Topics in Exam SECTION 3
IELTS PrepCambridge Exam PrepHigh School Students
Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Top Notch 3: Unit 5: Lesson 3: Describe natural disasters”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: earthquake, magnitude, toll, construction, catastrophic. This video has 38 sentences and 407 words to shadow. The speech runs for 3:53. The speaker talks slowly, about 105 words per minute, so there is time to copy every sound. Only 76% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| earthquake noun | /ˈɝθkweɪk/ | A shaking of the ground, caused by volcanic activity or movement around geologic faults. |
| magnitude noun | /ˈmæɡnɪtjuːd/ | The absolute or relative size, extent or importance of something. |
| catastrophic adjective | /ˌkætəˈstɹɑfɪk/ | Of or pertaining to a catastrophe. |
| casualty noun | /ˈkæʒu.əlti/ | Something that happens by chance, especially an unfortunate event; an accident, a disaster. |
| deadliest adjective | Causing the greatest number of deaths | |
| injure verb | /ˈɪn.d͡ʒɚ/ | To wound or cause physical harm to a living creature. |
| quake verb | /kweɪk/ | To tremble or shake. |
| deadly adjective | /ˈdɛdli/ | Causing death; lethal. |
| adjective noun | /ˈæd͡ʒ.ɪk.tɪv/ | A word that modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes a noun’s referent. |
| floodwaters noun | The waters of a flood | |
| lessen verb | /ˈlɛsən/ | To make less; to diminish; to reduce. |
| coastline noun | The shape, outline, or boundary of a coast. (The term coastline is generally used to describe the approximate boundaries at relatively large spatial scales.) | |
| tsunami noun | /(t)suːˈnɑːmi/ | A very large and destructive wave, generally caused by a tremendous disturbance in the ocean, such as an undersea earthquake or volcanic eruption; often a… |
| indoors adverb | /ɪnˈdɔɹz/ | Inside, into, or within a building. |
| severity noun | /səˈvɛɹ.ə.ti/ | The state of being severe. |
Pronunciation to watch
- Long words — get the stress right: catastrophic /ˌkætəˈstɹɑfɪk/, casualty /ˈkæʒu.əlti/, severity /səˈvɛɹ.ə.ti/, vocabulary /vəˈkæb.jə.lə.ɹi/
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 earthquake, magnitude, catastrophic.
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.