Shadowing Practice: What If the Mosasaurus Never Went Extinct? - Learn English Speaking with Video
Choose a practice mode
Each mode opens a full-screen practice room.
250 sentences
If sentences are too short or too long, click Edit to adjust them.
1
There's a giant, vicious lizard monster lurking in the ocean.
2
It's more massive than any creature that exists today.
3
Say hello to the modern-day Mosasaurus.
4
This creature went extinct 66 million years ago, but what if it evolved to live today?
5
In this episode, we're going to look at the special traits the Mosasaurus would need in order to avoid extinction,
6
and what kind of terrifying beast it would evolve into if it lived in the modern day.
7
A world with modern-day Mosasaurus would change everything.
8
Instead of just shark attacks, stories of random Mosasaurus attacks would be in the news.
9
This ambush predator might attack unsuspecting swimmers who venture a little too far away from shore.
10
And it wouldn't just be the loss of a limb.
11
No, the Mosasaurus is a deadly opportunistic hunter that eats any prey that comes its way.
12
It would hunt you down incredibly fast.
13
Using a quick burst of energy, it would accelerate from 0 to 48 km per hour in just a second.
14
Similar to a crocodile which can suddenly lurch into action.
15
If you were less than 30 meters away from this beast, it would be on you before you could even blink.
16
Propelling it is a super powerful tail fin, just like a shark's.
17
But this tail fin could put the Mosasaurus in jeopardy.
18
In today's world, just like shark fin soup, Mosasaurus tail fin soup would be a specialty dish,
19
sought after by humans who believe in traditional medicine.
20
It wouldn't have any particular properties to make humans superhuman-like, but the myth would persist.
21
Now, given the might of the Mosasaurus, acquiring its tail fin would be a much more difficult feat.
22
Humans could only get one if Mosasaurus washed up dead on shore.
23
Hunting this creature would not be a viable option.
24
If you were ambushed by the Mosasaurus, you'd find yourself caught in its massive double-hinged jaw.
25
Rows of sharp teeth line every part of its mouth.
26
These teeth aren't for chewing food.
27
No, they're used for clamping down and holding prey in place.
28
On that very first bite, the mosasaurus can go right through their prey and kill it.
29
After that, all that's left is for our modern-day mosasaurus to swallow its victim whole.
30
The double hinging of jaws means that they both work independently.
31
Each time the jaw ratchets back, the prey gets pushed in several feet.
32
A six-foot-long sunbather?
33
They'd be swallowed in just a couple of bites.
34
Think you've got a chance of slipping out once you're caught by these jaws?
35
Yeah, that's unfortunately not the case.
36
To prevent wriggling prey from escaping, the Mosasaurus has a third row of teeth that line the upper jaw.
37
This is just a taste of the Mosasaurus' incredible power.
38
Speaking of scary creatures with a mouthful of teeth, how would you like to command some of them in an epic mobile strategy game?
39
Let me tell you about today's sponsor, Warhammer 40,000 Tacticus.
40
This is a fast-paced, turn-based tactical strategy game set in the legendary Warhammer 40,000 universe.
41
In Tacticus, you assemble a team of powerful champions from over 18 factions
42
and lead them into intense skirmishes where your strategy determines the outcome.
43
With 80 plus champions to collect, the possibilities are endless as you master your tactics and dominate the battlefield.
44
I've been playing Tacticus and what I love most is how the game rewards long-term strategy.
45
It's not about rushing through, it's about setting goals, progressing each day and steadily building an unstoppable squad.
46
Plus, with modes like PvE campaigns, PvP battles and guild raids, there's always a new challenge waiting.
47
Want to give it a try?
48
Use the QR code on the screen or the link in the comments.
49
Use the code HelloJan, that stands for January,
50
not my friend Jan, HelloJan to get 2,000 gold and 50 black stones available until February 1st. Now,
51
much like starting a new game, the deadly Mosasaurus had humble beginnings.
52
98 Million Years Ago The Mosasaurus' journey starts with the Agialosaurus.
53
This was a family of monitor lizards who made their way from land and back to water.
54
These lizards were the Mosasaurus' ancestors.
55
They were much smaller, no more than one and a half meters long.
56
Over the next few million years, during the Cretaceous Period, these little guys underwent a rapid evolution,
57
an evolution that spawned about 40 different species of mosasaur.
58
And one in particular emerged much bigger and badder.
59
The Mosasaurus hofmanni, commonly referred to as the Mosasaurus, was the biggest and most ferocious of these species.
60
This creature was 9 to 15 meters in length.
61
That's even longer than the T-Rex.
62
It lived in oceans everywhere around Earth.
63
It would slither around with its long, streamlined body, and its legs were extremely powerful.
64
They transformed into whale-like flippers that would help with swimming and provide stability.
65
As the Mosasaurus evolved and became bigger, older apex predators called Ichthyosaurs went extinct,
66
allowing the Mosasaurus to become even more dominant.
67
Over the 25 million years that the Mosasaurus lived on Earth, they evolved into truly terrifying creatures.
68
They ate sharks, dolphins, sea turtles, and any other creature they could sink their teeth into.
69
They'd even eat their own species.
70
Yeah, the Mosasaurus was a ruthless cannibal when the opportunity was presented.
71
In fact, one mosasaur fossil was discovered with three mosasaur skulls inside of it.
72
Today, we puny humans would just be a light snack for the mosasaurus.
73
To satisfy its voracious appetite, it would go after today's biggest marine animals.
74
Whales would be a favorite, and of course it would have no problem devouring one of its own kind.
75
To do this, it would smash its opponent with its snout.
76
This was a trait of one species of Mosasaur, the Tylosaurus.
77
Tylosauruses had bony growths protecting their front teeth and forming a key part of their reinforced snout.
78
This bony snout would be a valuable trait that our modern-day Mosasaurus would likely have incorporated over multiple waves of evolution.
79
Once it dealt a blow with its snout, the Mosasaurus would begin to devour any massive creature.
80
But how did the Mosasaurus find its prey in the first place?
81
It would smell them out.
82
The Mosasaurus was equipped with a third nifty feature, a forked tongue that it used to smell its prey underwater.
83
This is called chemoreception.
84
The tongue flicks out, gathers odor molecules, and then delivers them to an organ in the mouth that detects prey.
85
This same smelling organ was used to smell out a potential mate.
86
Good luck to that potential mate if it has the wrong smell.
87
It might become dinner instead.
88
If the Mosasaurus were alive today, humans would be in some pretty big trouble.
89
Imagine swimming in the ocean and you let it cut, seeping a tiny bit of blood into the water.
90
The Mosasaurus would smell it and snatch you up in an instant.
91
Deep sea diving might just stop being a thing.
92
How could you predict when the Mosasaurus would come and get you from the depths of the ocean?
93
Now, the Mosasaurus that lived and died 66 million years ago didn't venture into deep ocean waters.
94
But a Mosasaurus that evolves to survive extinction?
95
Well, that one would.
96
To understand why, we have to go back to the catastrophe that wiped out both the dinosaurs and the Mosasaurus
97
and see how the Mosasaurus could have evolved with different traits in order to survive.
98
Traits that would make it particularly deadly in our modern world, 66 million years ago.
99
Alright, let's go back to a time where something completely unexpected happened.
100
Something that would change the course of history.
101
An asteroid came hurtling out of the sky and crashed into the Yucatan Peninsula.
102
An enormous crater was carved into Earth and tsunamis rose into the air.
103
With the heat of the crash, rocks melted, throwing tiny molten particles into the air.
104
This came back down to Earth in the form of hot, deadly shards.
105
Any Mosasaurus poking its head out of the shallow water would have been shredded instantly.
106
A cloud of ash enveloping Earth caused a decade-long impact winter, killing off the majority of plants and animals.
107
Sulfuric acid rained down on the oceans, and 90% of phytoplankton went extinct.
108
In the oceans, the marine ecosystem collapsed.
109
75% of marine animals died out.
110
This was a major problem for Mosasaurus, as their food source was disappearing.
111
But there still was some food out there, mostly in the form of new types of algae popping up.
112
These became a food source for krill and shrimp.
113
So could the Mosasaurus use these as a food source?
114
Well, unfortunately, no. Large predators need large prey, not krill.
115
So the mighty Mosasaurus, which had ruled the oceans for the past 25 million years, went extinct.
116
Could there have been another way for the Mosasaurus to survive?
117
Well, let's look at what features the sea animals who did survive had.
118
Sharks are particularly interesting, because they've lived through many different extinctions.
119
One of the reasons sharks were able to survive this extinction is that they don't just hunt in shallow water.
120
Sharks have the ability to navigate to different parts of the water to find food, from warm waters to the depths of the ocean.
121
Now, being partially warm-blooded helps sharks maintain a higher internal body temperature, allowing them to survive in really cold waters.
122
They also have the ability to move through varying depths of water, increasing their options for food.
123
The Mosasaurus was limited to hunting mostly shallow waters.
124
It was a pretty good swimmer, but it didn't wander too far from the shoreline.
125
Its strength was to make quick bursts of power to make a kill, rather than taking long swims.
126
A Mosasaurus that evolved into a more tapered body and with paddles that were more fin-like would have fared better.
127
This Mosasaurus would have been better able to migrate to different parts of the ocean, covering the waters at a steady pace.
128
Scientists have evidence that the Mosasaurus was already warm-blooded.
129
This will come in handy as its new swimming prowess takes it to different parts of the ocean.
130
Because it's warm-blooded, it can maintain its internal body temperature, even in cold water.
131
Finally, this mosasaurus will need a swim bladder, an adaptation that we'll borrow from deep-sea sharks.
132
This bladder is a gas-filled sac that it can inflate or deflate whenever it likes, allowing it to roam different depths of the ocean.
133
Okay, are we done?
134
Oh, no, we might need one more modification.
135
We need to move the sinuses of the Mosasaurus to be external, you know, like what whales and dolphins have.
136
This is what enables them to dive deep.
137
With external sinuses, there's less of a chance
138
that the Mosasaurus will suffer skull damage from too much compression at the lower depths.
139
Alright, this iteration of the Mosasaurus would have easily survived this mass extinction event.
140
It would have swum deep out into the ocean to hunt prey like sharks.
141
These survival mechanisms would make the Mosasaurus a terror in all parts of the oceans today, and at the same time, a nearly invincible survivor.
142
Our modern-day Mosasaurus would be an incredibly vicious predator.
143
But there's a second, more gentle version that could have evolved as well.
144
To see how a second version of the Mosasaurus might have evolved, we have to go back again, this time to the Paleogene epic,
145
spanning 66 million to 23 million years ago.
146
The extinction event 66 million years ago would have kicked off the first tiny change.
147
Mosasauruses were struggling to find sufficiently large prey.
148
Some might have been less skilled at hunting sharks, some of the largest prey available.
149
Well, these Mosasauruses may have started to suck up smaller fish, swallowing them whole.
150
As they evolved with this diet, there would have been less use for the three rows of sharp teeth
151
that they used to catch and kill larger marine animals.
152
Maybe a subset of these mosasaurus began to evolve into filter feeders.
153
The first transition?
154
Well, possibly a gradual change in skull shape to be more adapted to sucking in rather than chomping on prey.
155
This type of evolutionary change has been seen in whales.
156
Ancient whales had teeth, but a subset of them underwent evolutionary changes, lost their teeth, and became filter feeders.
157
Okay, let's fast forward to 56 million years ago.
158
Temperatures rose in what's called the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum.
159
Massive volcanic eruptions shot tons of carbon dioxide up into the air, causing temperatures to increase by about 8 degrees Celsius.
160
That's 14 degrees Fahrenheit.
161
The North and South Poles felt like the tropics.
162
What would happen with our two different Mosasaurus species during this time?
163
Well, first, let's look at the ferocious Mosasaur.
164
Two different scenarios could play out.
165
One possibility is that the Mosasaurus, a giant reptile that thrived in warm temperatures, would have gotten a massive boost in size.
166
Other reptiles, like crocodiles and turtles, would have thrived as well.
167
This Mosasaurus would have fed on whatever prey was available.
168
Sharks, crocs, turtles.
169
They would have gotten larger and larger, reaching 25 to 30 meters in length.
170
In a second scenario, our Mosasaurus might have found the temperature spike challenging.
171
Ocean waters absorbing more carbon dioxide might have become increasingly acidic.
172
We know a lot of marine life died off during this period.
173
Lucky for our Mosasaurus, it was already adapted to roam in different parts of the ocean.
174
It would have been able to swim in open waters looking for large prey, or it could swim into warmer areas to eat alligators.
175
Okay, let's have a look at our second Mosasaurus, the gentle giant that's also evolving at this time.
176
Its food sources would have been changing.
177
During the temperature spike, algae blooms appeared on the coastal waters, food for marine microorganisms like krill.
178
The gentle giant's signature sharp teeth would have first become narrow and spiky, acting like a type of mesh.
179
And then over time, they would have transformed into a sieve-like structure, enabling the mosasaurus to feed on tiny sea creatures like plankton and krill,
180
filtering them out from the seawater.
181
Now, after this heating event 56 million years ago, temperatures began to cool down, but then rose to their previous levels during the Eocene Optimum.
182
But both our mosasauruses with newly evolved traits would be experts in getting through this hot period.
183
This would be a repeat of what each species had done before.
184
The vicious mosasaurus would swim the oceans and the gentle giant would feed on the krill.
185
34 million years ago.
186
Temperatures on Earth gradually declined until about 34 million years ago.
187
Both species of Mosasaurus would have thrived using their different survival strategies.
188
One would have become a more ruthless killing machine, and the other would have mirrored the evolution of whales, getting large eating plankton and krill.
189
In today's world, the victims of the ruthless Mosasaurus wouldn't just be the casual swimmers and deep sea divers.
190
Smaller fishing boats would get attacked by groups of Mosasaurus.
191
More about why that would be the case in a second.
192
Because of that behavior, the safest commercial operations in the 21st century would be large fishing boats, the ones built like tanks.
193
But even these bruisers would stay clear of the hunting grounds of these gigantic sea monsters.
194
So what would have made the vicious Mosasaurus evolve as pack hunters?
195
This behavior would have been created by a real evolutionary need.
196
The fossil records of Mosasauruses from 66 million years ago don't reveal them to be social creatures.
197
They would regularly engage in big snout fights, battling for dominance.
198
But this nasty behavior may have led to their cooperation over time.
199
To understand why, let's go to the Neogene period, 23 to 2.6 million years ago.
200
During this time, the Megalodon evolved, the biggest shark ever, scarfing down 1,200 kilograms of food a day.
201
The Meg would have been a key rival of our Mosasaurus.
202
Both the Meg and the Mosasaurus would have been competing for baleen whales, the big marine mammals of that time.
203
Maybe in order to compete with the Meg, the Mosasaurus would have opted to be a little more friendly.
204
Maybe instead of fighting with their own species, they would start to team up for the hunt.
205
This need for cooperative behavior would have become solidified even more during the first part of the Quaternary Period, 2.6 million years ago.
206
around 20 periods of glaciation came and went, greatly stressing the environment and its inhabitants.
207
Now, during this time, the baleen whale, the bread and butter of the apex predator diet, was fighting to survive itself.
208
Competition for food would have intensified even more.
209
Now, both the mag and the mosasaurus were fundamentally solitary creatures in adulthood.
210
large, powerful predators usually are.
211
But it's possible that the Mosasauruses that had begun cooperating with each other would have survived better,
212
so this trait would have been favored in new generations.
213
Maybe it would have just been a small pod with two to three members, but enough to cover the center, front and rear during the kill.
214
In this formation, the Mosasaurus can take on any mighty mags, as well as any great white sharks.
215
Hunting in a coordinated way and being part of a social group all require a high degree of intelligence.
216
Mosasauruses would have grown a bigger brain during this period.
217
And the result of this behavioral change?
218
The Mosasaurus would have out-competed the Megalodon for food.
219
The Meg would have gone extinct 2.6 million years ago,
220
maybe earlier, as it would have been fighting both the great white sharks and the newly evolved Mosasaurus for food.
221
the Mosasaurus would have continued to reign supreme, fighting with the sharks to eat the whales.
222
Plus, Mosasaurus pods would have targeted enormous whale sharks and blue whales, especially if they found one swimming by itself.
223
And remember, these Mosasaurus are still cannibals, so they might even go after the gentle giant Mosasaurus that evolved.
224
So how would the gentle giant Mosasaurus have fared during the Ice Ages?
225
well, they would have become even bigger.
226
The gentle giants would have grown exceptionally big during this time, swimming thousands of kilometers to feast on the massive amounts of krill and other nutrients.
227
Today, after the last ice age around 11,000 years ago, the modern-day Mosasaurus would grow massive.
228
The oceans would be teeming with large prey for food.
229
Whales, sharks, dolphins.
230
Its body is adapted to roam far and wide to kill prey, so it becomes larger and larger, a huge predator of the 21st century.
231
OK, this is the Mosasaurus you saw at the start of this episode.
232
40 meters long, 200 tons, the menace of the sea.
233
In contrast, the gentle giant Mosasaurus would be found mostly in the coldest waters of the the Antarctic,
234
far, far away from its evil twin.
235
Governments would debate whether to use systematic methods to kill off these modern-day Moes, but ethicists would weigh in against it,
236
saying that it's our duty to coexist with other species.
237
A consensus would emerge allowing the Mosasaurus its hunting grounds separate from us humans.
238
And the two giant Mosasaurus species would be essential to keeping our modern ocean environment in balance.
239
The vicious Mosasaurus would weed out the weak and sick large marine animals, keeping ocean populations healthy.
240
Similar to sharks, the Mosasaurus would hunt large predators like the grouper, which in turn hunts herbivorous fish.
241
With these populations maintained at the right levels, algae growth is kept in check and coral reefs flourish.
242
And for our safety, as our technology improves, humans would find ways of using sonar to spot these beasts ahead of time,
243
map out where they fish, and plot out other areas for us to hang out.
244
Meanwhile, the fashion industry's never-ending need for lizard skin bags and clothes would result in the targeting of the gentle giant Mosasaurus.
245
They would be hunted to near extinction.
246
Now, as their population dwindled, whales would grow larger and take over their ecological niche.
247
And the day of reckoning is coming because at its size, the vicious Mosasaurus would be consuming so many large marine animals.
248
And the bigger it gets, the more it hunts.
249
Maybe the only way to combat this creature is to pit it against a titanoboa that never went extinct.
250
But that sounds like 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
B24
What If the Megalodon Shark Fought the Leviathan Whale?
University Students
B17
What If the Megalodon Shark Fought the Mosasaurus?
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
B23
What If You Lived on Mars 1 Billion Years Ago?
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B23
What If Dinosaurs Never Stopped Evolving for 66 Million Years?
Daily ConversationUniversity Students
FOR YOU
Recommend Video
B25
5 sentences
Spending a Day on Earth 200 Million Years Ago
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B23
181 sentences
What If the Titanoboa Never Stopped Evolving for 55 Million Years?
Daily ConversationUniversity Students
B21
172 sentences
Why The Entire Ocean Is Terrified of Sperm Whales
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B23
159 sentences
What If Jurassic Park Was Real? THEY ESCAPED
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B2560
16 sentences
What If You Never Slept?
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
148 sentences
The Mosquito Like You've Never Seen It – 3D Animation
University StudentsWorking Adults
B22
112 sentences
Fossils of a Giant Superpredator Found in Antarctica
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B24
38 sentences
Coral Bleaching: A Marine Biologist Explains
American AccentBritish AccentIELTS PrepUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B21
226 sentences
Why Pandas Are Impressively Bad at Existing
IELTS PrepUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B23
358 sentences
What’s Wrong With Eating Humans?
Daily ConversationUniversity StudentsWorking Adults
B23
48 sentences
Hyenas: The Misunderstood Predators (Quiz Edition)
Daily ConversationUniversity Students
Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “What If the Mosasaurus Never Went Extinct?”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: mosasaurus, ocean, shark, prey. This video has 250 sentences and 3418 words to shadow. The speech runs for 23:40. The speaker talks at a steady 144 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. Only 75% 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 |
|---|---|---|
| prey noun | /pɹeɪ/ | That which is or may be seized by animals to be devoured. |
| evolve verb | /ɪˈvɑlv/ | To move (something) in regular procession through a system. |
| whale noun | /ˈweɪl/ | Any large cetacean, usually with the exclusion of dolphins and porpoises. |
| gentle adjective | /ˈd͡ʒɛntl̩/ | Tender and amiable; of a considerate or kindly disposition. |
| predator noun | /ˈpɹɛd.ə.tɚ/ | Any animal or other organism that hunts and kills other nonplant organisms (their prey), primarily for food. |
| krill noun | /kɹɪl/ | Any of several small marine crustacean species of plankton in the order Euphausiacea in the class Malacostraca. |
| trait noun | /tɹeɪt/ | An identifying characteristic, habit or trend. |
| extinct adjective | /ɪkˈstɪŋkt/ | Of feelings, a person's spirit, a state of affairs, etc.: put out, as if like a fire; quenched, suppressed. |
| extinction noun | /ɪkˈstɪŋkʃən/ | The action of making or becoming extinct; annihilation. |
| vicious adjective | /ˈvɪʃəs/ | Violent, destructive and cruel. |
| mosasaur noun | A large extinct marine reptile in the family †Mosasauridae, dominant marine predator of the Cretaceous. Mosasaurs are considered to belong to Squamata, the… | |
| meter noun | /ˈmitəɹ/ | A device that measures things. |
| lizard noun | /ˈlɪzɚd/ | Any reptile of the order Squamata that is not a snake or mosasaur—typically characterised by a rounded torso, a short neck with an elevated head, a long tail… |
| deadly adjective | /ˈdɛdli/ | Causing death; lethal. |
| alga noun | /ˈæl.ɡə/ | Any of many aquatic photosynthetic organisms, including the seaweeds, whose size ranges from a single cell to giant kelps and whose biochemistry and forms are… |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| go back to verb | To stem from; to originate in. | |
| come back verb | To return to a place. | |
| cool down verb | /kuːl ˈdaʊn/ | To become cooler; to be reduced in temperature. |
| die off verb | To suffer a series of deaths; to die one by one; to progressively become extinct. (If a group of plants, animals, or people dies off, the entire group dies… | |
| die out verb | To become extinct. | |
| get through verb | /ɡɛt ˈθɹu/ | To overcome; to endure. |
| go back verb | To return to a place or state after having been there at a previous time. | |
| have out verb | To argue to a conclusion or resolution. |
Grammar in this video
The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:
| Structure | In the video |
|---|---|
| “Used to” used to + verb — a past habit or state that is no longer true | used to smell · used to catch |
| Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it | were ambushed · be swallowed · was presented |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | have incorporated · have been · they've lived |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 18 contractions and reduced forms, such as wouldn't, didn't, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: ruthless /ˈɹuːθləs/, thrive /θɹajv/, myth /mɪθ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: extinction /ɪkˈstɪŋkʃən/, vicious /ˈvɪʃəs/, evolutionary /ˌiː.vəˈluː.ʃən.ɛɹ.i/, shallow /ˈʃæloʊ/, ferocious /fəˈɹoʊʃəs/
- Long words — get the stress right: evolutionary /ˌiː.vəˈluː.ʃən.ɛɹ.i/, inhabitant /ɪnˈhæb.ɪ.tənt/, incorporate /ɪŋˈkɔɹ.pɚ.eɪt/, adaptation /ˌæd.æpˈteɪ.ʃən/, independently /ˌɪndɪˈpɛndəntli/
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 prey, evolve, whale.
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.