Shadowing Practice: Why Do India And China Have So Many People? - Learn English Speaking with Video
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33 sentences
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Hi, this is Kate from MinuteEarth.
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India and China together are home to over 2 .7 billion people.
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That's as many humans as in the next 20 most populous countries combined, or in the whole other 170 countries in the world.
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Over the last 300 years, India and China each added more than a billion people to their populations — way more than any other country.
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But they have actually been growing at about the same rate as the rest of the world world.
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They have a lot more people today
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because they had a lot more people a few hundred years ago
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when the world began its period of modern and rapid population growth.
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It's like comparing a big bank account and a small one.
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If they both grow at about the same rate over many years, the big one gains a lot more money simply because it started with more.
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So the billion dollar or billion person question is why did India
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and China have so many people when they started their rapid growth?
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We can't know for sure, since so many variables factor into long -term population dynamics.
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But the two most plausible explanations are food and area.
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Having lots of fertile land and good access to fresh water makes it possible to grow lots of food, which in turn makes it possible to nourish a lot of people.
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Even today, the 10 most populated countries in the world all have a relatively large amount of farmland.
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And Asia, and in particular South and East Asia, has tons of farmland, lots of river valleys, and the ability to grow food year -round.
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Plus, domestication of plants and animals essentially started in Asia, giving populations an early leg or wing up.
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As such, Asia's been the most densely populated region of the world for a really long time.
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Area matters too.
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Countries like Pakistan and Bangladesh may be filled with farms and densely populated, But because they're smaller in area than India and China,
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they simply cannot contain as many people.
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Of course, a few other things happened in India and China in the last few thousand years.
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Some of them helped the populations grow, and some of them shrank the populations.
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But through it all, the large and fertile lands of India and China were able to sustain lots of people, such that when the era of modern population growth came around,
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they had a head start.
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Or, rather, a hundred million head start.
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This video was sponsored by the University of Minnesota, where students, faculty, and staff across all fields of study are working to solve the grand challenges facing society.
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The Minnesota Population Center is helping demographic researchers explore past and current trends in world population.
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The Global Landscapes Initiative is working to figure out how to keep feeding the world's growing population without harming the planet.
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And the IPAMS Terra Project integrates global population data with data
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on the environment to better understand how humans transform ecosystems and how ecosystems transform humans.
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Thanks, University of Minnesota.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 33 sentences and 505 words to shadow. The speech runs for 2:53. The speaker talks at a natural 175 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. 87% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| rapid adjective | /ˈɹæp.ɪd/ | Very swift or quick. |
| transform verb | /tɹænsˈfɔɹm/ | To change greatly the appearance or form of. |
| ecosystem noun | /ˈikoʊˌsɪstəm/ | A system formed by an ecological community and its environment that functions as a unit. |
| fertile adjective | /ˈfɝːtəl/ | Of land, etc.: capable of growing abundant crops; productive. |
| harm noun | /hɑːm/ | Physical injury; hurt; damage. |
| compare verb | /kəmˈpɛɚ/ | To assess the similarities and differences between two or more things [“to compare X with Y”]. Having made the comparison of X with Y, one might have found it… |
| explanation noun | /ˌɛkspləˈneɪʃən/ | The act or process of explaining. |
| essentially adverb | /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/ | In essence: by nature. |
| solve verb | /sɒlv/ | To find an answer or solution to a problem or question; to work out. |
| faculty noun | /ˈfæk.əl.ti/ | The academic staff at schools, colleges, universities or not-for-profit research institutes, as opposed to the students or support staff. |
| explore verb | /ɪkˈsploɹ/ | To examine or investigate something systematically. |
| ton noun | /tʌn/ | The short ton of 2000 pounds (about 907 kg), 20 hundredweights of 100 pounds avoirdupois each. |
| combine verb | /kəmˈbaɪn/ | To bring (two or more things or activities) together; to unite. |
| variable adjective | [ˈvæɹ.i.ə.bl̩] | Able to vary or be varied. |
| dynamics noun | /dɑɪˈnæm.ɪks/ | The branch of mechanics that is concerned with the effects of forces on the motion of objects. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| come around verb | /kʌ.məˈɹaʊnd/ | To change one's mind, especially to begin to agree or appreciate what one was reluctant to accept at first. |
| figure out verb | To come to understand; to discover or find a solution; to deduce. |
Pronunciation to watch
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: explanation /ˌɛkspləˈneɪʃən/, essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/, nourish /ˈnʌɹ.ɪʃ/
- Long words — get the stress right: ecosystem /ˈikoʊˌsɪstəm/, explanation /ˌɛkspləˈneɪʃən/, essentially /ɪˈsɛnʃəli/, demographic /ˌdɛm.əˈɡɹæf.ɪk/
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 rapid, transform, ecosystem.
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.