Shadowing Practice: We're trying something new... - Learn English Speaking with Video
Creating lesson...
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we are launching a whole new channel there have been video ideas
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that i've pitched
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that don't fully belong on veritasium i've been in those pitch meetings i've seen those i've seen
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that happen but that doesn't mean that the videos shouldn't exist and
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that they they aren't saying something very interesting we need another
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way to tell these stories we have veritasium we have a lot of exciting stories
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that we want to tell same veritasium rigor but this time it's about social science.
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It's about how our complex and constantly changing world works.
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So that's what we're doing.
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We're launching a whole new channel called InGenius.
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You can watch the first few minutes here and
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if you like it come to our channel InGenius and you can watch the rest.
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This $40 hunk of metal rewired the modern world it started a revolution
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that transformed China from being one of the poorest countries in
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the world to a global superpower controlling 30 % of all
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manufacturing it's a story that's never been told before how it
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inspires former spy Yuan Gong to create an island of capitalism in his home council with an invention
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that changes the face of communist China spreading its influence across the world and upending the entire global economy.
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But the story didn't start in China.
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It starts with a frustrated American trucker from North Carolina. In 1937,
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24 -year -old Malcolm McClain is driving his truck full of cotton bales from North Carolina up to Hoboken, New Jersey.
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At port, he waits for his truck to be unloaded
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and waits and waits it's painstakingly slow almost a whole day and that's just his one truck
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he figures what if you took the entire back of the truck
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and just put it directly on the ship the whole thing
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would be over in a matter of minutes instead of hours
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so why don't we put
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that whole body on the truck that's my first thought you
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know the problem is truck drivers can't control how ships are loaded
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so while mclean builds a highly successful trucking empire over the next 20 years he can only stand by
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and watch as the cargo issue gets worse this is the
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log from a 1954 cargo ship the ss warrior 194 582 total things on the ship
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that would all have to be loaded and unloaded by hand by gangs of longshoremen.
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It takes so long.
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It means if you're shipping something, you're paying twice as much for your cargo to be stuck at port than actually traveling on a ship.
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And it makes your cargo vulnerable to another problem.
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The New York and New Jersey waterfronts in the 50s are dominated by the Genovese and Gambino Mafia families.
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Corruption, racketeering, and theft are endemic.
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More than $13 million of cargo is estimated to have been stolen just from those ports over a three -year period.
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That's more than $180 million in today's money.
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The upshot is, the process is so expensive that in most cases, selling internationally just isn't worth it.
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So, most consumer products stay local.
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Make locally, sell locally.
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So in 1955, McLean decides to act.
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He's convinced his old idea of detachable truck trailers is the solution.
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So McClain does something drastic.
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He sells his 20 -year -old trucking empire and gambles everything on an ocean shipping company,
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despite the fact that he has zero experience in the field.
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But to turn his idea into reality, he needs someone who can actually build the container of his dreams.
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He hears about 35 -year -old engineer Keith Tantlinger.
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Tantlinger, based out in Spokane, Washington, who has built a transportable metal box and even been tinkering with trying to stack it.
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Tantlinger's reasoning is similar to McLean.
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Rather than waste precious ship space with the truck or the wheels,
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just transport the cargo in the box from the truck to the ship in one seamless move.
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McLean flies Tantlinger down to his headquarters in Alabama
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and immediately gets him working on containers that will fit onto a converted World War II oil tanker that he just bought.
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McLean renames the ship the SS Ideal X, ideal for the ideal form of transportation and X for experimentation.
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It was the SpaceX of the 1950s.
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And in many ways, Malcolm McLean is the Elon Musk of his day.
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Thank you.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “We're trying something new..”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: truck, ship, Mclean, cargo, Veritasium. This video has 47 sentences and 720 words to shadow. The speech runs for 4:58. The speaker talks at a steady 145 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. Only 80% 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 |
|---|---|---|
| cargo noun | /ˈkɑɹɡoʊ/ | Freight carried by a ship, aircraft, or motor vehicle. |
| ideal adjective | /aɪˈdi(ə)l/ | Pertaining to ideas, or to a given idea. |
| pitch noun | /pɪt͡ʃ/ | A throw; a toss; a cast, as of something from the hand. |
| locally adverb | /ˈləʊkəli/ | With respect to place; in place. |
| container noun | /kənˈteɪ.nəɹ/ | An item in which objects, materials or data can be stored or transported. |
| steal verb | /stiːl/ | To take illegally, or without the owner's permission, something owned by someone else without intending to return it. |
| belong verb | /bɪˈlɒŋ/ | To have its proper place. |
| headquarters noun | /ˈhɛdˌk(w)ɔɹ.tɚz/ | The military installation from which troops are commanded and orders are issued; the military unit consisting of a commander and his support staff. |
| corruption noun | /kəˈɹʌpʃən/ | The act of corrupting or of impairing integrity, virtue, or moral principle; the state of being corrupted or debased; loss of purity or integrity. |
| cotton noun | /ˈkɑt.n̩/ | A soft, fibrous, usually white substance consisting of fine hairs, especially the substance around the seeds of a plant of genus Gossypium. |
| communist noun | /ˈkɑ.mjə.nɪst/ | An advocate of a society based on the common ownership of property; a proponent of communism. |
| trailer noun | /ˈtɹeɪlɚ/ | Someone who or something that trails (follows behind); something that is trailing. |
| estimate noun | /ˈɛs.tɪ.mət/ | A rough calculation or assessment of the value, size, or cost of something. |
| convince verb | /kənˈvɪns/ | To make someone believe, or feel sure about something, especially by using logic, argument or evidence. |
| vulnerable adjective | /ˈvʌln(ə)ɹəbl̩/ | More or most likely to be exposed to the chance of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally. |
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 | been told · be unloaded · are loaded |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have been · i've pitched · i've been |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 16 contractions and reduced forms, such as I've, don't, we're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: corruption /kəˈɹʌpʃən/, invention /ɪnˈvɛnʃən/, experimentation /ɪkˌspɛɹ.ə.mənˈteɪ.ʃən/, upshot /ˈʌpʃɑt/
- Long words — get the stress right: capitalism /ˈkæp.ə.təlˌɪzm̩/, experimentation /ɪkˌspɛɹ.ə.mənˈteɪ.ʃən/, painstakingly /ˈpeɪnˌsteɪkɪŋli/, transportable /tɹænsˈpɔɹtəbəl/
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 cargo, ideal, pitch.
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.