Shadowing Practice: What If Dinosaurs Never Stopped Evolving for 66 Million Years? - Learn English Speaking with Video
Choose a practice mode
Each mode opens a full-screen practice room.
89 sentences
If sentences are too short or too long, click Edit to adjust them.
1
65 million years ago, dinosaurs ruled the Earth.
2
They dominated each time period they were in, becoming the kings of the animal kingdom.
3
Then suddenly, that all changed.
4
An asteroid came for Earth and wiped all the dinosaurs out, causing them to go extinct.
5
But what if things were different?
6
Time to turn back the clocks over 65 million years to see just what course evolution would have taken
7
if dinosaurs still roamed Earth.
8
In what ways would their bodies have changed over this time?
9
How would they adapt to our planet's changing environment?
10
And would some dinosaurs remain at the top of the food chain?
11
A food chain that now includes you?
12
This is What If?
13
And here's what would happen if dinosaurs never stopped evolving.
14
Before we reimagine the course of evolutionary history,
15
let's explore just what kind of catastrophic series of events could have led to the extinction of
16
so many dinosaur species in the first place.
17
Going back about 66 million years into our planet's past, the Cretaceous Period would be nearing its end.
18
but not before going out with a bang.
19
A big one.
20
No, not that big bang.
21
An asteroid named Chicxulub, with a diameter of about 10 km,
22
hurtled through space and our atmosphere to its final destination around the Yucatan Peninsula in modern-day Mexico.
23
The impact of this giant hunk of space rock released an amount of energy equivalent to about 100 trillion tons of TNT.
24
This explosion was billions of times more powerful than the atomic bombs dropped by the United States in World War II.
25
In the immediate aftermath, it led to massive tsunamis and widespread fires,
26
and filled the atmosphere with so much debris that it blocked the Sun.
27
Temperatures dropped.
28
Food chains were disrupted.
29
As a result, 75% of all life vanished from Earth.
30
Luckily, in our scenario, they'll never know what didn't hit them.
31
When you look back through the evolutionary history of life on Earth, It's important to remember that it's always been a game of survival.
32
And only the fittest species survive.
33
That would mean that of all the dinosaur species that ever existed,
34
not all of them would survive the millions of years of natural selection to still be around today.
35
But let's see if a couple of our most famous prehistoric friends make it through this genetic gauntlet.
36
Starting at the top of the food chain.
37
one of the greatest apex predators of all time, the Tyrannosaurus rex.
38
Many millions of years ago, a T rex would have used some of its highly sophisticated senses to hunt prey.
39
These beasts likely had a range of visions similar to, or better than, hawks and eagles.
40
The science suggests that throughout the T rex's evolution, their sight improved as their facial structure became narrower and their eyes grew larger.
41
After many more millions of years of evolution, their vision might have improved to unfathomable levels.
42
Instead of spotting prey hundreds of meters away, they could see their next meal several kilometers in the distance.
43
But what about other parts of their bodies?
44
Besides their notoriously tiny arms, the T-Rex was a towering figure, standing just under 4 meters tall.
45
Over time, natural selection might have favored T-Rexes with longer, more muscular arms.
46
By now, they might have developed better agility and range of motion to become even more formidable predators.
47
And they wouldn't be the only predators that may have become even more dominant over time.
48
Velociraptors were famous for their speed, agility, and hunting techniques.
49
And they were intelligent, too.
50
Maybe not as bright as movies like Jurassic Park make them seem, but certainly they had a leg up on some of their dumber plant-eating prey.
51
With millions more years of evolution, these creatures would have developed highly advanced hunting techniques.
52
Another thing Hollywood doesn't show you is that evidence suggests that raptors were likely covered in feathers,
53
and that their evolutionary trajectory is very closely linked to the emergence of birds.
54
Imagine over time that these feisty predators evolved to have wings, and could hunt helpless prey, like humans, from the skies.
55
Well, more likely it would be your pets you'd have to worry about.
56
Velociraptors were smaller dinos, only about 45 kg, and less than 2 m in length.
57
But keep an eye on Rufus and Garfield.
58
And maybe on the small children, too.
59
Now, in terms of dinosaurs that already dominated the skies, the aviation skills of pterodactyls would have also continued to develop and improve.
60
By the time they went extinct, these creatures were the largest known flying animals, with wingspans ranging from 2 to 11 meters.
61
Ugh.
62
If they continued to adapt to our planet's changing atmosphere and geographical shifts,
63
well, who's to say these gigantic flying reptiles wouldn't have continued to grow?
64
Can you imagine a day in the park, ruined by the surprise visit of one or more pterodactyls the size of a small building?
65
Now, that's something you'd have to worry about.
66
Not all dinosaurs would have evolved to become bigger, badder predators.
67
Okay, maybe gentle giants like the brontosaurus could have continued growing in size, but they might have developed other features to make them less vulnerable to predators.
68
For example, their skin.
69
Natural selection might have favored those with increasingly thicker outer layers that could withstand the powerful bites of creatures like the T-Rex,
70
or whatever it is the T-Rex would be known as now.
71
Like for the other species, there'd be so many enormous environmental changes between their era and now.
72
The brontosaurus was a herbivore, and as plant species underwent their own evolutionary process,
73
these dinosaurs would likely have developed a more complex digestive system, similar to those of mammals.
74
And this brings up another interesting dilemma.
75
If these creatures never went extinct and kept evolving, uninterrupted by a pesky space rock?
76
Would mammals like you be here today?
77
Yeah, our earliest human ancestors evolved among creatures like mammoths and saber-toothed tigers.
78
But now that we're adding in all these other species, only the fittest would survive.
79
And in that case, human evolution could have taken an entirely different course too.
80
Natural selection would have likely favored genes that would make us smaller and faster to avoid being eaten.
81
And with the possibility that we'd be living among other highly intelligent species like raptors, our social structures might be completely different too.
82
Instead of being the most dominant species on the planet, there's a strong chance we'd have to compete with these other dangerous predators.
83
If at any moment we could be raided by a pack of vicious T-Rexes, would we ever have settled down in one place?
84
Instead of human civilization evolving in great communities, maybe we'd only survive as solitary nomadic hunter-gatherers.
85
Evolution is a mysterious puzzle that only time knows the answers to.
86
If we reverse the course of one event, like the collision of the Chicxulub, there's basically no limit to how different your world could be today.
87
Which makes me wonder, what would happen if an asteroid the same size hit Earth today?
88
Or maybe a bigger asteroid?
89
Well, that's a story for another WHAT IF.
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
B21
What If a Needle Hit The Earth At The Speed Of Light?
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
Earth Becomes a Moon | What If Saturn Took Over?
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B22
What If Megalodon Fought a 13-Meter Titanoboa in the Swamp?
TeensDaily ConversationWorking Adults
B22
8 Ancient Animals Scarier Than Dinosaurs
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B22
You Are Alive to Watch the Space Station Fall From the Sky
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B23
What If a Megalodon Shark Fought the Kraken?
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B21
What If Gravity Got 1% Stronger Every Second?
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B23
What If the Kraken Was Real?
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B23
What If you Could See the 4th Dimension?
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B27
What If Russia Started World War 3?
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B22
What If You Were Swallowed ALIVE by a 60-Foot Sperm Whale?
Daily ConversationWorking Adults
B13
What If | Channel Trailer | An Epic Exploration Of Possibilities
University StudentsWorking Adults
C11
12 Things That Could Destroy Earth
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B24
What If the Megalodon Shark Fought the Leviathan Whale?
University Students
B17
What If the Megalodon Shark Fought the Mosasaurus?
University Students
B23
What If the Mosasaurus Never Went Extinct?
University Students
B24
What If The Megalodon Never Stopped Evolving?
University Students
B21
What Happened After the DEADLIEST Asteroid Hit Earth?
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B23
What If We Had To Rebuild Human Society From Scratch?
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B26
What If We Built Vertical Farms?
IELTS PrepTOEFL PrepUniversity Students
FOR YOU
Recommend Video
B21
623 sentences
How evolution works, in 54 minutes | Sean B. Carroll: Full Interview
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B23
105 sentences
Evolution of Dinosaurs in 10 Minutes
Daily ConversationUniversity Students
B2560
16 sentences
What If You Never Slept?
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B25
5 sentences
Spending a Day on Earth 200 Million Years Ago
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B22
112 sentences
Fossils of a Giant Superpredator Found in Antarctica
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B255
13 sentences
Can We Stop the Extinction?
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
C11
402 sentences
Before We Became the Last Humans:The Lost Species That Once Shared Our World|Prehistoric Documentary
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B23
159 sentences
What If Jurassic Park Was Real? THEY ESCAPED
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B23
82 sentences
What Would Happen If Earth Started to Spin Backwards
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B24
36 sentences
What If The World Went Vegetarian?
Business EnglishDaily ConversationUniversity Students
C11
560 sentences
The Most Dangerous Woman in Science Says We Got the Dinosaur Extinction Totally Wrong
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “What If Dinosaurs Never Stopped Evolving for 66 Million Years?”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: dinosaur, species, predators, evolution, Earth. This video has 89 sentences and 1197 words to shadow. The speech runs for 8:38. The speaker talks at a steady 139 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. Only 79% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding. 14 of its 89 sentences are questions, so it is good practice for question intonation and short answers.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| dinosaur noun | /ˈdaɪnəsoɹ/ | Those animals of the clade Dinosauria that existed during the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous periods and are now extinct. |
| predator noun | /ˈpɹɛd.ə.tɚ/ | Any animal or other organism that hunts and kills other nonplant organisms (their prey), primarily for food. |
| evolve verb | /ɪˈvɑlv/ | To move (something) in regular procession through a system. |
| asteroid noun | /ˈæst(ə)ɹɔɪd/ | A naturally occurring solid object, which is smaller than a planet and a dwarf planet, larger than a meteoroid and not a comet, that orbits a star and often… |
| evolutionary adjective | /ˌiː.vəˈluː.ʃən.ɛɹ.i/ | Of or relating to the biological theory of evolution. |
| prey noun | /pɹeɪ/ | That which is or may be seized by animals to be devoured. |
| extinct adjective | /ɪkˈstɪŋkt/ | Of feelings, a person's spirit, a state of affairs, etc.: put out, as if like a fire; quenched, suppressed. |
| meter noun | /ˈmitəɹ/ | A device that measures things. |
| agility noun | /əˈd͡ʒɪl.ɪ.ti/ | The quality of being agile; the power of moving the limbs quickly and easily; quickness of motion |
| brontosaurus noun | Any member of the genus †Brontosaurus of herbivorous sauropod dinosaurs with whip-like tails, which lived in present-day United States during the Late Jurassic… | |
| mammal noun | /ˈmæməl/ | A vertebrate animal of the class Mammalia, characterized by being warm-blooded, having fur or hair and producing milk with which to feed their young. |
| pterodactyl noun | /ˌtɛɹ.əˈdæk.təl/ | A pterosaur of the genus Pterodactylus. |
| raptor noun | /ˈɹæptɚ/ | One of the dromaeosaurs, a family of carnivorous dinosaurs having tearing claws on the hind legs. |
| velociraptor noun | /vəˌlɒsɪˈɹæptɚ/ | A small agile dinosaur, of the genus Velociraptor, having sickle-shaped claws. It is also thought to have had a feathered coat. Fossils have been found in Late… |
| dominate verb | /ˈdɑ.məˌneɪt/ | To govern, rule or control by superior authority or power. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| bring up verb | To mention. |
| look back verb | To think of (past events) in retrospect (in hindsight). |
| turn back verb | To reverse direction and retrace one's steps. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- How would they adapt to our planet's changing environment?
- A food chain that now includes you?
- Would mammals like you be here today?
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 | were disrupted · were likely covered · would be known |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have changed · it's always been · have developed |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 12 contractions and reduced forms, such as we'd, wouldn't, you'd. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: mammoth /ˈmæməθ/, unfathomable /ˌʌnˈfæð(ə)məb(ə)l/, withstand /wɪðˈstænd/, feather /ˈfɛðə/, aftermath /ˈæf.tɚˌmæθ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: evolutionary /ˌiː.vəˈluː.ʃən.ɛɹ.i/, vanish /ˈvænɪʃ/, extinction /ɪkˈstɪŋkʃən/, vicious /ˈvɪʃəs/, collision /kəˈlɪʒn̩/
- Long words — get the stress right: evolutionary /ˌiː.vəˈluː.ʃən.ɛɹ.i/, agility /əˈd͡ʒɪl.ɪ.ti/, pterodactyl /ˌtɛɹ.əˈdæk.təl/, velociraptor /vəˌlɒsɪˈɹæptɚ/, notoriously /nə(ʊ)ˈtɔː.ɹɪ.əs.li/
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 dinosaur, predator, evolve.
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.