Shadowing Practice: What's the tallest skyscraper anyone can build? - Learn English Speaking with Video
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Hi, it's Doug.
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Have you ever played the game Jenga?
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Some people are able to build some pretty tall towers.
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Like, check out this, the world record.
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This person piled 485 blocks on one single Jenga block.
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That's some amazing balancing skills.
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Someone named Ashley has a question about building things.
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Let's give Ashley a call now.
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Hi, Doug.
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Hi, Ashley.
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I have a question for you.
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What's the tallest skyscraper anyone can build?
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Oh, that's a great question.
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Humans have been trying to build super tall things for a long time.
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Before skyscrapers were invented, pyramids were the tallest objects built on Earth.
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Take a look at this one.
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It's called the Great Pyramid of Giza.
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Builders stacked over 2 million heavy stone blocks to make it that high.
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The pyramid was the tallest human -made thing on Earth for almost 4 ,000 years until this came along.
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This is the Lincoln Cathedral, and it was once over 500 feet tall.
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But then something happened.
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If you've ever built a tower with blocks, you've probably noticed that the taller you build, the harder it gets.
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And that's what happened to the Lincoln Cathedral.
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The tallest part toppled over during a storm.
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It was just too tall.
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When it was built, people just couldn't build things that were very tall yet.
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Before I go on, I'm curious.
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Why couldn't those earlier pyramids and cathedrals be built as high as skyscrapers are today?
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What do you think?
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Now would be a good time to pause the video and discuss.
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Okay, you ready?
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Well, I'm not sure how you answered, but you might think that the earlier buildings weren't made of very strong materials.
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But that's not really what's most important.
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Bricks and stone blocks are incredibly strong.
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It turns out it's the piling up of bricks or stone blocks that creates the problem.
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You see, buildings back then were made by piling bricks or stones on top of each other.
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The taller the building, the more bricks they would use.
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And the more bricks they would use, the heavier the building would get.
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If it got too heavy, it could collapse from its own weight, or it could topple over.
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So the piling up of bricks or stone blocks is what kept people from making really tall buildings.
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Since then, we've figured out how to build even taller buildings, buildings that are way taller than the first pyramids and cathedrals,
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buildings that seem to scrape the sky.
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These buildings, called skyscrapers, are now the tallest human -made objects on Earth, and they don't fall down.
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How is that even possible?
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Well, building a skyscraper involves a totally different way of creating a building.
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Rather than stacking up building blocks, the way they did with pyramids, or the way you do in Jenga,
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it involves giving the building a skeleton or structure on the inside.
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This new way of building led to the first ever skyscraper, the Home Insurance Building in Chicago.
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Instead of building with piled up bricks, it was built with a steel skeleton.
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And since the skeleton was holding the building up, the rest of the building, like walls and windows, could be hung on the steel beams,
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like pictures hang on walls.
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And since those walls didn't need to be made out of piled up bricks anymore, they could be really light.
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At least much less heavy than building materials of the past.
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This changed everything.
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By building with steel skeletons instead of heavy bricks, builders could build taller than ever.
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Now, even with a skeleton, there was another thing that could knock it over.
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Wind.
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A skyscraper is like a giant sail.
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The taller it is, the more wind pushes into it, and those winds can actually knock a skyscraper down.
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So skyscraper builders are constantly trying to find ways to get around this problem, like the builders of this skyscraper did.
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This is one of the tallest skyscrapers in the world.
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You see the shape of the sides?
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Why do you think they built it this way?
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It's all because of the wind.
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The spiral shape helps the wind twist around it instead of crashing into it.
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And take a look at this one.
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You notice the top?
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Some Some skyscrapers are even built with holes in them so that the wind blows straight through.
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Now by inventing new ways to trick the wind,
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we've been able to build from 88 floors to 101 floors to the tallest skyscraper in the world, currently the Burj Khalifa.
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It's 163 floors tall.
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And that brings us back to our question.
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How tall can a skyscraper be?
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Well, no one really knows for sure how tall, but we are sure of this.
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We can build a lot higher than the skyscrapers we have today.
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In fact, builders in Japan are planning to build a skyscraper that's one mile tall.
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It's called the Sky Mile Tower, and when it's finished, it will be more than 10 times the height of the Great Pyramid of Giza.
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That's twice as tall as the tallest skyscraper we have now.
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That's all for this week's question.
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Thanks Ashley for asking it.
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Now with Valentine's Day coming up, I picked out three questions from the question jar that all have something to do with the heart.
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When this video is done playing, you'll get to vote on one.
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You can choose from, does your heart grow?
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Which animal has the biggest heart?
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Or what's inside your heart?
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So submit your vote when the video's over.
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I want to hear from all of you watching.
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There are mysteries all around us.
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Stay curious and see you next week.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This speaking lesson is built on the video “What's the tallest skyscraper anyone can build?”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: skyscraper, tall, build, bricks, tallest. This video has 72 sentences and 945 words to shadow. The speech runs for 6:02. The speaker talks at a natural 157 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 83% 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 |
|---|---|---|
| brick noun | /ˈbɹɪk/ | A hardened rectangular block of mud, clay etc., used for building. |
| pyramid noun | /ˈpɪɹ.ə.mɪd/ | An ancient massive construction with a square or rectangular base and four triangular sides meeting in an apex, such as those built as tombs in Egypt or as… |
| pile noun | /paɪl/ | A mass of things heaped together; a heap. |
| builder noun | /ˈbɪl.dəɹ/ | One who builds or constructs things. |
| skeleton noun | /ˈskɛlətən/ | The system that provides support to an organism, where in vertebrates it is internal and consists of bones and cartilage, and external in some other animals. |
| curious adjective | /ˈkjʊɹ.i.əs/ | Tending to ask questions, or to want to explore or investigate; inquisitive; (with a negative connotation) nosy, prying. |
| knock verb | /nɑk/ | To rap one's knuckles against something, especially wood. |
| involve verb | /ɪnˈvɑlv/ | To have (something) as a component or a related part; to comprise, to include. |
| stack noun | /stæk/ | A large pile of hay, grain, straw, or the like, larger at the bottom than the top, sometimes covered with thatch. |
| cathedral noun | /kəˈθiːdɹəl/ | The principal church serving as the office (and some as place of residence) of an archdiocese's/a diocese's archbishop/bishop which is symbolized by an… |
| invent verb | /ɪnˈvɛnt/ | To design a new process or mechanism. |
| trick noun | /ˈtɹɪk/ | Something designed to fool, dupe, outsmart, mislead or swindle. |
| mystery noun | /ˈmɪs.t(ə.)ɹi/ | Something secret or unexplainable; an unknown. |
| skill noun | /skɪl/ | A capacity to do something well; a technique, an ability, usually acquired or learned, as opposed to abilities that are regarded as innate. |
| incredibly adverb | /ɪŋˈkɹɛdɪbli/ | In an incredible manner; not to be believed. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| pile up verb | To form a pile, stack, or heap. | |
| build up verb | To erect; to construct. | |
| check out verb | To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.). | |
| come along verb | To accompany. | |
| come up verb | To emerge or become known, especially unexpectedly. | |
| fall down verb | /fɔl ˈdaʊn/ | To fall to the ground. To collapse. |
| figure out verb | To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce. | |
| get around verb | To move to the other side of (something, such as an obstruction) by deviating from a direct course or following a curved path. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- What's the tallest skyscraper anyone can build?
- What do you think?
- You see the shape of the sides?
- Why do you think they built it this way?
- You notice the top?
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 invented · was built · be built |
| Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now | Have you ever played · you've ever built · we've figured |
| Superlatives the -est / the most … — the top or bottom of a group | the tallest · the biggest |
| Comparatives -er than / more … than — comparing two things | taller than · less heavy than · higher than |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 13 contractions and reduced forms, such as couldn't, I'm, we've. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like brick, pyramid, pile.
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.