Shadowing Practice: What If Gravity Got 1% Stronger Every Second? - Learn English Speaking with Video

Choose a practice mode

Each mode opens a full-screen practice room.

258 sentences

If sentences are too short or too long, click Edit to adjust them.

Earth's gravity is increasing.

It's getting 1 % more forceful every second.

After only 10 seconds, your head feels too heavy, and your arms and legs are sluggish.

100 seconds later, gravity is twice as strong as normal.

It hurts to walk.

Buildings start buckling under the increased strain.

Two minutes, and you're getting lightheaded.

You're going to black out soon your heart isn't able to pump blood to your brain.

Fifteen minutes later, everything is dead.

And that's just the beginning.

How long until Earth becomes a star?

Or the biggest object in the Universe?

And if Earth keeps growing, does the Universe eventually collapse?

Imagine this gravity is increasing at a rate of 1 % per second,

and only 10 seconds in, everything already feels different.

You're 10 % heavier, and it happens so suddenly you can already feel it.

Your phone feels oddly heavy in your hand.

Lifting your arm feels strange.

Walking feels like trudging through sand.

And you can feel your heart working harder.

It takes extra effort to breathe.

After 30 seconds, gravity is 30 % higher than normal, or 1 .3G.

G for gravity, 1G being normal 100 % gravity, and 1 .3 being 30 % more than normal.

Machines weren't designed to operate here.

Gears and elevators begin binding as their load sensors trip emergency brakes

and cars creak and groan as their suspension is stretched to the max.

Everyday things you take for granted start to break.

Your car won't be undriveable just yet, but airplanes that are built to defy a single G of gravity, they're starting to have problems.

Commercial passenger jets only use about 70 -85 % of their full power on takeoff,

and that leaves a comfortable margin of 15 % to 30 % remaining thrust.

But when gravity is suddenly 30 % higher, the aircraft and everything on it weigh 30 % more.

So that extra weight eats up all the extra power the aircraft has built in.

Now thousands of flights are taking off or landing somewhere at any given moment.

Every aircraft landing instantly crushes its landing here.

And every flight trying to get off the ground, as they max out their engine capacity, any big jet trying to take off in this extra gravity

is going to speed off the end of the runway without getting off the ground.

At 50 seconds, gravity is now 50 % higher than normal.

You now weigh one and a half times your regular weight.

No amount of sit -ups is going to change that.

You can still walk, but it takes real effort.

It's like the feeling you'd get at takeoff if any of those flights could get off the ground.

But it's all over your body, and it's getting stronger.

And this gravity storm is starting to affect the city around you.

Look around.

You'll see balconies sag and windows fracture.

Cracks appear in foundations, and bridges creak under the extra force.

Okay, 100 seconds now, and we're feeling a full 2G, double our current gravity.

Now, thinking about gravity literally crushing us is terrifying, but honestly, sometimes everyday life feels like it's doing that already.

I used to have this problem where trying to figure out my money felt like a massive crushing weight.

I'd be sitting there juggling three different banking apps, a credit card portal and a messy spreadsheet just to see

if i was actually saving anything it was exhausting that's where monarch comes in monarch is a personal finance platform

that does the heavy lifting for you and what i really appreciate is

that it's completely private

and ad free you're the customer not the product it securely syncs with over 13 000 institutions bringing your checking,

credit cards, investments, and your net worth into one seriously clean dashboard.

It uses flexible budgeting, so it separates your fixed bills from your flexible everyday spending,

so you know exactly what you can actually spend without stressing out.

It even has AI -powered insights that can explain your money trends in plain English.

And if you manage money with a partner, the couple's ready shared view is a total lifesaver.

You both see the exact same dashboard, which honestly stops so many awkward money arguments before they even happen.

So if getting a clearer picture of your own finances sounds like a weight off your shoulders, you need to try this out.

Start your free trial and get 50 % off your first year of the Monarch core tier.

Use the link in the description or use code WHATIF50 at checkout.

Getting a clear view of your finances doesn't have to weigh on you like an ever -intensifying earth.

Big thanks to Monarch for partnering with us.

Now, speaking of heavy things, let's get back to the episode.

Now, despite birds' agility in the air, at 2Gs, it would be impossible for most birds to take flight.

And once they're airborne, most birds aren't designed to carry extra weight.

Now, some big predators, like eagles, can lift 30 to 100 % of their own body weight,

so they'd be able to stay flying longer but as gravity increases, whole flocks of birds would be dropping down to the ground,

exhausted by their own extra weight.

For you, as the seconds tick by and gravity inches past two Gs, even standing is getting hard.

It feels like you're wearing a huge backpack that's crushing you.

Your hip and knee joints are straining with the extra force of your weight.

Walking is becoming very difficult, painful even.

It's like slogging through stiff, wet mud.

Now you have to move twice your normal weight with the same amount of muscle mass.

Your joints haven't evolved to withstand these kind of continuous pressures.

Your heart is working overtime to pump blood through your body.

You've got brain fog.

Not enough blood and oxygen are getting to your brain.

But worse than that, buildings are starting to fail structurally.

Yeah, the mega buildings fall first.

If you're in a big city, you better run, if you still can.

As they begin to distort, these towering walls of glass shed their exteriors,

with windows exploding, raining shattered glass down like a deadly cloudburst.

And between 2 and 3 Gs, most of these soaring wonders are crumbling into the streets and onto the smaller buildings below.

You need to get out of here quick, but at this point, even driving away would be a challenge.

As you gun your car's engine, your tires pop under the extra weight.

The suspension system lifting your car up snaps and collapses.

Even if the engine could handle twice the weight it was designed for, you're scraping along the ground on rapidly deforming rims.

You'd grind to a roaring halt in the middle of the street.

After 200 seconds, just under four minutes, gravity is now at 3G, three times what you're feeling right now.

Every big suspension bridge on Earth is tearing itself apart.

Their massive braided cables are unraveling and snapping.

The energy released sends these steel whips recoiling for kilometers, cutting down everything in their path.

Bridge decks detach and crash down.

All around the world, at any given time, there are about 20 ,000 aircraft in the air.

Including passengers and crew, there can be over one million people up in the sky.

100

But with this much gravity exerted on everything, aircraft are so heavy that they can't fly anymore.

101

They just don't have enough power to maintain the speed needed to generate the lift to keep them airborne.

102

Now, if they haven't already fallen out of the air and happened to be near an airport during this gravity storm, some planes could try to land.

103

But landing with over three times their normal weight would be a disaster.

104

The minimum airspeed required to keep the aircraft airborne while approaching the airport will suddenly be vastly increased.

105

And if they do manage to make it to the runway, they'd be coming down harder than any aircraft was ever designed to survive.

106

A fully loaded Boeing 777 weighs 350 ,000 kilograms.

107

Now it weighs over 1 million kilograms.

108

Touching down fast and heavy, the landing gear will instantly collapse.

109

The entire aircraft will shred itself on the tarmac, disintegrating on impact fact.

110

If you're lucky, you're traveling by boat.

111

Despite the increased gravity, boats are still floating because they float by displacement.

112

The increased weight of the boat would be counteracted by the increased weight of the water they displace,

113

so the two factors would cancel each other out but Everything on the boat would be heavier, and the structure would be stressed by the extra weight.

114

A sailboat would still float, but the rigging would eventually become too heavy.

115

The structural design would become overloaded and collapse, and waves would be heavier.

116

Eventually, one simple wave would be enough to crush a hull.

117

Container ships would snap in half and break apart due to the massive increase in the weight of their cargo.

118

They wouldn't be able to handle the extra stress along their enormous length.

119

But surviving plane crashes and collapsing, crushing infrastructure would only prolong your life by minutes.

120

At around 300 seconds, gravity reaches four times normal.

121

As you might imagine, your circulatory system is finely tuned to operate in one G of gravity.

122

Your heart pumps about 7 ,500 liters of blood a day.

123

That's five liters every minute.

124

And it has to pump that blood from the heart through a 97 ,000 kilometer long network of vessels,

125

spread out over a vertical rise of anywhere between one and a half meters to two meters, depending on your height.

126

This system has a built -in capacity for short -term extreme situations, but at a constant 4 Gs,

127

your heart no longer moves your blood properly.

128

You just can't keep up.

129

Your blood now moves away from your brain and your lungs and pools in your lower extremities.

130

You try to fight it, but your arms and legs are useless.

131

You feel like they're made of cement.

132

Your heart strains and it begins to fail.

133

Everything starts to get blurry.

134

Your lung muscles are also stressed by the weight of your chest.

135

You struggle to breathe.

136

By 400 seconds, you're getting close to seven minutes now, and gravity is passing 5 Gs.

137

And all along, this new gravity has been pulling on the landscape and Earth itself.

138

Areas already susceptible to landslides experience more and more catastrophic slides, even with only slight increases in gravity.

139

Mountains that have been quietly eroding for millions of years crack along fault lines and collapse.

140

Peaks that have stood for millions of years crumble into the valleys below them.

141

Glaciers pick up speed, grinding downhill, flowing faster and faster, and then break up spectacularly.

142

Every peak, hill and landmass is stretched and squashed, flatter and flatter.

143

On an even bigger scale, remember that Earth's continents are huge puzzle pieces of rocky material floating on a hot semi -liquid mantle.

144

Well, the increased levels of gravity would be pulling these floating islands down with incredible force, driving them into the soft mantle.

145

As the masses rearranged themselves, the Earth's crust would crack open, and volcanic activity would spread across the globe.

146

At 900 seconds, now 15 minutes into this nightmare, gravity is 10 times normal.

147

Anything with a circulatory system, every mammal and sea creature is dead.

148

But even now, not all life is gone.

149

There are still some single -celled bacteria and viruses surviving.

150

Life at the microscopic level continues for a while.

151

This is the miniscule aquatic tardigrade, the creature voted most likely to survive an apocalypse.

152

These tiny and strangely cute water bears,

153

as they're nicknamed, can survive punishing conditions that would kill almost every other creature.

154

They can dehydrate completely and survive extreme droughts.

155

They've even got special proteins that protect their cells from radiation.

156

They can survive in the vacuum of space, being frozen to just above absolute zero, or literally being boiled.

157

And they can also survive extreme pressures.

158

In fact, tardigrades can handle pressure six times greater than the ocean's deepest trenches.

159

Eventually though, the tardigrade loses its battle and is crushed alongside everything else.

160

Now it might feel like the end of everything,

161

but it's really only the beginning of what a 1 % per second increase in gravity will do.

162

Extreme gravity isn't done with us yet.

163

By the 45 -minute mark, Earth's gravity.. is now equal to the gravity on the surface of the Sun.

164

It's hard to imagine the force required to crush down something as solid and unyielding as a continent.

165

From space, land masses would now look like an oil slick, slowly spreading itself out over the Earth, and then disappearing.

166

Every bit of material on Earth would be pulled toward the lowest point possible.

167

Ocean trenches would fill in,

168

whole continents break up and slide below sea level until nothing stands above a perfectly level, smooth surface.

169

You see, even under tremendous gravitational pull, water is still lighter than rock, so the Earth would, for a time,

170

become a smooth ball covered entirely by a shallow sea.

171

And not even really that shallow there's enough water on Earth

172

that this even sea spread all the way around the globe would still be between two and three kilometers deep.

173

It's two miles deep.

174

Now a few hours later it's a different story.

175

So far Earth has been increasing its gravity by one percent every second but how?

176

Well gravity can increase in two different ways.

177

The size of Earth can grow increasing its mass and its gravitational force,

178

or Earth can remain the same size and just its density increases.

179

But density has an upper limit, so even if we replaced all of Earth with some of the heaviest known metals,

180

like nickel or iron, we'd only get an Earth with double the gravity.

181

So to increase Earth's gravity by more than double, there needs to be more Earth needs to expand in size.

182

Just under 9 hours into this mess, Earth has reached the mass of Jupiter.

183

It's not as big as Jupiter, since Jupiter is a gas giant and Earth is a much denser, rocky planet.

184

At 412 ,992 seconds ,

185

our bigger and heavier Earth contains the mass of more than 13 Jupiters.

186

Its gravity is enormous, and the materials deep within the core are beginning to transform under incredible pressure.

187

The mass threshold is crossed anywhere between 13 and 80 Jupiters.

188

The heavy hydrogen inside our planet, known as deuterium, starts to fuse.

189

Intense energy is released, and Earth ignites.

190

We become a brown dwarf, a cool -burning celestial object.

191

No longer a planet, but not yet a star.

192

It takes a whopping 30 .8 days to truly shine.

193

Now, Earth is 26 ,612 times as massive as it once was.

194

And it's going to change radically again.

195

At this size, hydrogen atoms are forced together by the pressure.

196

Earth explodes with the energy of a continuous fusion reaction.

197

But the gravity is so strong that it holds the power of the explosion together in a massive fireball.

198

Congratulations, kid.

199

You're a star.

200

Impressive.

201

But on a universal scale, this isn't the upper limit.

202

This Earth star is still tiny.

203

At this stage, it's only about 8 % the mass of the Sun, so it's not even close.

204

Because the Sun is an absolute monster.

205

Compared to us, it has 330 ,000 times our mass.

206

It might seem like a small ball in the sky, but you could push 1 .3 million Earths inside its volume.

207

Yeah, the Sun holds 99 .86 % of the mass of everything in the Solar System.

208

It's going to take over a year of increasing Earth's mass

209

by 1 % per second for it to get to the mass of the Sun.

210

Then, in another two years, the Earth star is three times the mass of the Sun.

211

It takes a minimum mass of three of our Suns to create a black hole.

212

But for a living star, the pressure of the gas and heat from the constant fusion reaction keeps it from collapsing and becoming a black hole,

213

even at that size, and larger.

214

Active stars can be between two and three hundred times the size of the Sun and still not collapse into black holes.

215

The current record holder is R136A1 at over 300 times the size of the Sun.

216

It burns at 45 ,700 degrees Celsius, eight times as hot as the Sun.

217

Black holes are usually formed after spectacular supernova, when a star runs out of fuel and collapses in on itself.

218

Burning enormous amounts of hydrogen takes tens of millions of years.

219

But our Earth star continues to increase rapidly in gravity and mass by 1 % per second.

220

So it's going to reach the size of the largest star in the universe within a mere 300 years,

221

which is really just a blink of an eye in the lives of stars, and long before it gets anywhere near burning out.

222

Pushing the mass of a living, fully -fueled star past this limit will test the theoretical boundaries of star physics itself.

223

As our Earth star gains mass, it's going to burn hotter and faster.

224

As it passes the upper limits of star mass,

225

it'll either explode spectacularly, or the force of gravity will overcome the force of its fusion reaction, and it'll collapse in on itself,

226

creating a massive black hole.

227

At this point, the most massive and possibly the brightest star in existence goes out, like a light bulb being flicked off.

228

But even this isn't the end.

229

Black holes also have mass.

230

They vary in size and can continue growing.

231

And our black hole, once known as Earth, is still growing at 1 % per second.

232

But it's going to have to grow a lot to catch up to some of the bigger objects in the Universe.

233

So far, it's just like a fleck of dust.

234

It'll take black hole Earth, an almost incomprehensible 60 billion years of this 1 % per second growth,

235

to reach the size of the biggest black hole known to science.

236

TUN 618 is so big it challenges our understanding of the Universe.

237

It has the mass of 60 billion suns.

238

It's a two -week journey for light to cross it at the speed of light.

239

It's so massive that there hasn't been enough time for something this massive and this old to have formed.

240

By our understanding of the laws of physics, it shouldn't exist.

241

But it does.

242

But there's something even bigger.

243

It's going to be another one

244

and a half trillion years before black hole Earth grows to the mass of the entire Milky Way galaxy.

245

And scaling up monumentally, if our black hole continued to grow at the same steady rate of 1 % per second,

246

it would take 79 .6 sextillion years to reach the mass of the observable universe.

247

And that's 5 .77 trillion times the current age of the universe.

248

But if black hole Earth never stops growing, does the universe itself run out of time?

249

If our ever -growing Earth, once a planet, then a star, and now a black hole,

250

never stops growing, will it finally be defeated by the limitations of space and time itself?

251

Who wins out?

252

Forever increasing gravity or a forever increasing universe?

253

Best guesses say no, you're never going to cause the collapse of the universe.

254

You just can't grow fast enough to overcome all that space being created between you and the rest of the expanding universe.

255

Now, gravity increasing 1 % per second is only one way for Earth to be obliterated.

256

But there are way more ways that the Earth could be destroyed.

257

And if you'd like to see which of them is most likely, click on the video on screen right now and find out

258

which of these 12 things could destroy Earth because 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

Scan QR

Download on theApp Store Get it onGoogle Play

📺 Same Channel

✨ Recommend Video

45 sentences

What Happens To Your Body When You Start Exercising Regularly | The Human Body

Daily ConversationWorking Adults

72 sentences

Why Pilots Think Differently Than Everyone Else

Daily ConversationWorking Adults

134

16 sentences

Can Earth Run Out of Water?

Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults

316 sentences

The Terrifying World of Giant Insects: What Was Earth Like During the Carboniferous Period?

Daily ConversationWorking Adults

41 sentences

Why are airplanes slower than they used to be Alex Gendler

Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults

24 sentences

How Long Can You Balance a Pencil?

Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults

73 sentences

Superfluid Dark Matter

Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults

14 sentences

What If Gravity Was 10% Stronger?

University StudentsWorking Adults

410 sentences

I Stayed in Earth’s Deadliest Hotel

Daily ConversationWorking Adults

66 sentences

5 "Impossible" Things That Can Happen On Other Planets

Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults

Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This speaking lesson is built on the video “What If Gravity Got 1% Stronger Every Second?”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: gravity, earth, mass, weight, star. This video has 258 sentences and 3257 words to shadow. The speech runs for 24:35. The speaker talks at a steady 133 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. 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

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

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
gravity noun	/ˈɡɹævɪti/	Of an activity such as a ceremony, a person's conduct, etc.: the quality of being deeply serious and solemn, especially in a dignified manner; seriousness…
collapse verb	/kəˈlæps/	To break apart and fall down suddenly; to cave in.
crush verb	/kɹʌʃ/	To press between two hard objects; to squeeze so as to alter the natural shape or integrity, or to force together into a mass.
weigh verb	/weɪ/	To determine the weight of an object.
float verb	/fləʊt/	To be supported by a fluid of greater density (than the object).
monarch noun	/ˈmɑnɚk/	The ruler of an absolute monarchy or the head of state of a constitutional monarchy.
everyday adjective	/ˈɛvɹiˌdeɪ/	Appropriate for ordinary use, rather than for special occasions.
crack noun	/kɹæk/	A thin and usually jagged space opened in a previously solid material.
pump noun	/pʌmp/	A device for moving or compressing a liquid or gas.
enormous adjective	/ɪˈnɔː.məs/	Extremely large; greatly exceeding the common size, extent, etc.
suspension noun	/səˈspɛnʃən/	The act of suspending, or the state of being suspended.
continent noun	/ˈkɑntɪnənt/	One of the main contiguous landmasses, separated by water or geological features, on the surface of a planet, sometimes including its continental shelves and…
fusion noun	/ˈfjuː.ʒən/	The act of merging separate things, or the result thereof.
hydrogen noun	/ˈhaɪdɹəd͡ʒ(ə)n/	The lightest chemical element (symbol H), with an atomic number of 1 and atomic weight of 1.008.
airborne adjective		In or carried by the air.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Meaning
get off verb	To move from being on top of (something) to not being on top of it.
break up verb	To break or separate into pieces.
break apart verb	To dismantle something into its base components.
burn out verb	To destroy by fire.
come down verb	To descend, fall down, collapse.
cut down verb	To cut downward.
drive away verb	To force someone or something to leave
eat up verb	To consume completely.

Sentences worth repeating

Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:

Two minutes, and you're getting lightheaded.
You'll see balconies sag and windows fracture.
If you're lucky, you're traveling by boat.
You just can't keep up.
You feel like they're made of cement.

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Present perfect continuous have/has been + -ing — an action that started earlier and is still going on	has been pulling · has been increasing
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	weren't designed · is stretched · are built
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	has built · haven't evolved · haven't already fallen

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 48 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, isn't, they're. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “th” sounds: smooth /smuːð/, breathe /bɹiːð/, threshold /ˈθɹɛʃ(h)oʊld/, theoretical /ˌθi.əˈɹɛt.ɪ.kəl/
The “sh” and “zh” sounds: crush /kɹʌʃ/, suspension /səˈspɛnʃən/, fusion /ˈfjuː.ʒən/, shallow /ˈʃæloʊ/, congratulations /kənˌɡɹæt͡ʃəˈleɪʃ(ə)nz/
Long words — get the stress right: continuous /kənˈtɪn.juː.əs/, universal /ˌjunəˈvɜɹs(ə)l/, infrastructure /ˈɪnfɹəˌstɹʌkt͡ʃə/, congratulations /kənˌɡɹæt͡ʃəˈleɪʃ(ə)nz/, radiation /ˌɹeɪ.diˈeɪ.ʃən/

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 gravity, collapse, crush.

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: What If Gravity Got 1% Stronger Every Second? - Learn English Speaking with Video

Choose a practice mode

Download App

What If a Needle Hit The Earth At The Speed Of Light?

Earth Becomes a Moon | What If Saturn Took Over?

What If Megalodon Fought a 13-Meter Titanoboa in the Swamp?

8 Ancient Animals Scarier Than Dinosaurs

You Are Alive to Watch the Space Station Fall From the Sky

What If a Megalodon Shark Fought the Kraken?

What If the Kraken Was Real?

What If you Could See the 4th Dimension?

What If Russia Started World War 3?

What If You Were Swallowed ALIVE by a 60-Foot Sperm Whale?

What If | Channel Trailer | An Epic Exploration Of Possibilities

What If the Megalodon Shark Fought the Leviathan Whale?

What If the Megalodon Shark Fought the Mosasaurus?

What If the Mosasaurus Never Went Extinct?

What If The Megalodon Never Stopped Evolving?

What Happened After the DEADLIEST Asteroid Hit Earth?

What If We Had To Rebuild Human Society From Scratch?

What If We Built Vertical Farms?

What If You Lived on Mars 1 Billion Years Ago?

What If Dinosaurs Never Stopped Evolving for 66 Million Years?

What Happens To Your Body When You Start Exercising Regularly | The Human Body

Why Pilots Think Differently Than Everyone Else

Can Earth Run Out of Water?

The Terrifying World of Giant Insects: What Was Earth Like During the Carboniferous Period?

Why are airplanes slower than they used to be Alex Gendler

How Long Can You Balance a Pencil?

Superfluid Dark Matter

What If Gravity Was 10% Stronger?

I Stayed in Earth’s Deadliest Hotel

5 "Impossible" Things That Can Happen On Other Planets

Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

Key vocabulary in this video

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Sentences worth repeating

Grammar in this video

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?