Практика Shadowing: How China is Turning its Deserts Green - Изучайте разговорный английский по видео
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125 предложений
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Beijing 2021.
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Hundreds of flights were cancelled as an apocalyptic orange haze swept the skies.
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This wasn't pollution, it was sand.
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It was a symptom, a consequence of decades of land collapse.
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But China is fighting back with an ambitious project spanning decades known as the Great Green Wall.
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This is the Gobi Desert region in northern China and this is their attempt at turning it green.
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And I say attempt because it's not all going to plan.
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In some areas, the project is failing.
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Trees are dying, soil is drying out and the land is collapsing again.
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But what makes this story so insane is that China isn't just planting a few trees.
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They're attempting one of the largest greening projects in human history.
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A project that began in 1978 and won't be finished until 2050.
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But how do you even fight a desert?
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How do you stop sand from swallowing farmland and cities?
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And how did one of the most ambitious environmental projects ever attempted start to go wrong?
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If China gets this right, it could become the blueprint for saving dry lands everywhere.
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But if they get it wrong, they don't just lose trees, they lose the land itself.
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To understand why China is doing this, you have to understand what desertification actually means.
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Deserts don't expand like people imagine.
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It's not like a line of sand slowly rolling forward.
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It starts with something much smaller.
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A patch of grassland gets overgrazed.
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A hillside gets farmed too hard.
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A drought hits or trees get cut for fuel.
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Once the vegetation disappears, the ground loses its armour.
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The roots of plants stitch the soil together, so when those roots vanish, the soil stops behaving like ground and starts behaving like dust.
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Then the wind arrives, and suddenly the land doesn't just dry out, it literally begins to leave.
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Then, when rain falls, it doesn't soak in.
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It hits hard ground, floods and then tears away even more soil.
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And once that cycle begins, it accelerates.
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Simply explained, that's how deserts formed, and in northern China, it became a national crisis.
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The Gobi Desert, stretching across northern China and southern Mongolia, sits right on the edge of major population and farming regions.
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In the late 1990s and early 2000s, huge dust storms repeatedly swept into northern China.
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And as you saw earlier, Beijing, a city with a population of about 22 million people,
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would literally disappear behind a wall of yellow sky.
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This wasn't weather, it was farmland disintegrating.
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If you're a government watching your land literally blow away, you don't have time to wait.
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And it's fair to say China's response was very ambitious.
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In 1978, China launched a project called the Free Northern Shelter Belt Program, but most people know it by its nickname, China's Great Green Wall.
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And it's genuinely one of the most ambitious environmental projects in human history.
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The goal was to build massive belts of trees and vegetation across northern China, covering the northeast, the northwest and the north central regions.
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It spans 13 provinces and it's planned to run until 2050.
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That's a 72 year plan, 7 years shorter than the average life expectancy in China.
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The theory behind it is quite simple.
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If you want to stop a desert, you don't fight sand, you fight wind.
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Because the wind is what turns land into dust.
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These shelter belts act like giant windbreaks.
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Long corridors of trees and shrubs that slow the wind near the ground, trap sand and protect farmland.
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Even a thin layer of vegetation can massively reduce erosion.
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So China planted, and planted, and planted.
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The estimates vary, but some reports say 50 billion trees have been planted, with others speculating that number could be as high as 100 billion.
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And for a while, it looked like the plan was working.
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China's forest cover increased significantly compared to the 20th century lows, and by Despite the modern era,
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China is often reported as being over 20% forested.
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So the project was a success then?
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Well, not exactly.
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Because a forest isn't just a row of trees, it's an ecosystem.
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Planting trees is easy, but planting the right trees in the right places without destroying the ecosystem underneath is much harder.
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And as you're about to find out, in some regions, China got this wrong, very wrong.
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wrong that a billion trees died.
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But first we need to discuss one of their successful transformations.
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The Lus Plateau is an example of one of the most incredible transformations on Earth.
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The region was once described as one of the most severely eroded landscapes on the planet and it's easy to see why.
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The Lus Plateau is made of Lusse, a fine powdery soil deposited over thousands of years by wind.
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It's extremely fertile, but only if it stays in place.
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Once vegetation is removed, Lusse erodes ridiculously fast.
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Over centuries, huge areas were cleared for farming and grazing, and the result was catastrophic.
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Rain ripped through the soil like a knife carving enormous canyons.
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And the soil didn't disappear, it ended up in China's rivers, especially the Yellow River.
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It became famous for carrying so much sediment that it actually turned a yellowy browny colour.
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People were trapped in a cycle, they needed to farm to survive, but farming destroyed the soil which made survival even harder.
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So China attempted to rebuild the system.
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They banned farming on the steepest slopes, They restricted grazing in key areas.
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They built terraces across hillsides,
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not for aesthetics, but because terraces slow rainwater down letting it soak into the ground instead of ripping the soil away.
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They built check dams to trap sediment.
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They weren't just stopping erosion, they were literally catching the land before it could escape.
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Slowly the landscape began to rebuild itself.
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Grass returned first, then shrubs, then trees.
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World Bank reporting
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and widely cited project summaries have described vegetation cover in the parts of the Luspe Plateau rising from around 17% to 34%.
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The improvement wasn't just environmental either, the social impact was huge.
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Figures often cited estimate 2.5 million people have been lifted out of poverty through the combined ecological and economic transformation.
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The restoration didn't finish with stopping erosion, it also changed what the land could be used for.
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Because today, in parts of northern China, you can now see huge solar farms built on areas that used to be barren and collapsing.
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Land that once blew away in dust storms is now stable enough to generate electricity.
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This project showed that planting trees alone isn't enough, you have to fix the physics of the land.
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A lesson which unfortunately China skipped in some places.
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A mistake which nearly ruined everything.
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Here's the problem.
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If you want a desert to look green quickly, you don't plant a complex ecosystem.
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You plant monocultures, one species, straight lines and fast growing trees.
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They look impressive and they grow fast, making it feel like you're winning.
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However, monocultures are fragile.
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If one disease hits, the entire forest is vulnerable.
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In the year 2000, massive poplar plantations in northern China suffered devastating losses due to disease and pests,
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with some reports claiming losses on the scale of hundreds of millions to over a billion trees.
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That's not a setback, that's a collapse.
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But disease wasn't even the biggest problem.
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The biggest problem was water.
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Many of the areas being planted were never meant to hold dense forests, they were dry lands.
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So when you plant thirsty trees into dry soil, you essentially drain the land.
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Native grasses die, the roots vanish, the soil becomes loose again, and you know by now what happens next.
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In other words, planting trees didn't stop the desert, it made the land even weaker.
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That's why over time China began changing strategy towards something much smarter.
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The final part of this story is so important because it's not just about China, but the future of our planet.
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China realised the goal isn't to destroy the desert, the goal is to stop living land, grasslands, farms and villages from collapsing into dust.
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So instead of focusing on trees, they focused on shrubs, hardy grasses and native drought resistant species.
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One of the simplest methods they used is also one of the smartest, straw checkerboards.
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You literally lay straw in a grid across sand dunes.
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The wind hits the straw, slows down and drops sand.
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The dune stabilises, the shrubs can survive, the grasses return and the soil begins forming again.
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Then, and only then, do trees have a chance.
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It's simple really.
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Slow the wind, catch the sand, hold moisture, and build life from the ground up.
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And that's how parts of China's desert regions have become greener over time.
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China's project proves that the earth isn't fixed.
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Landscapes aren't permanent.
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We assume deserts are forever, but deserts expand and retreat.
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Grasslands collapse and rebuild, and humans are actively shaping in which direction those systems go,
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which is equally hopeful, but also terrifying.
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Because if we can reverse land collapse at this scale, we can also cause it.
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And our future depends on which one we choose.
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If you've enjoyed this video, I'd really appreciate it if you could hit the subscribe button.
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And I'm sure you'll enjoy one of these other two videos on screen now.
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Лексика и советы по произношению к этому уроку
Этот урок разговорной практики уровня B2 построен на видео «How China is Turning its Deserts Green». Чаще всего повторяются слова: China, trees, land, desert, soil. В этом видео 125 предложений и 1543 слов для шедоуинга. Речь длится 10:51. Говорящий держит ровный темп — около 142 слов в минуту, удобный для шедоуинга. Только 77% слов входят в 3000 самых частых слов английского языка, поэтому лексика сложная.
Ключевая лексика этого видео
Самые сложные слова из видео (15), с произношением и значением:
| Слово | Произношение | Значение |
|---|---|---|
| collapse глагол | /kəˈlæps/ | разруша́ться, разру́шиться |
| vegetation существительное | /ˌvɛd͡ʒəˈteɪʃən/ | расти́тельность |
| shrub существительное | /ˈʃɹʌb/ | куста́рник, куст |
| ambitious прилагательное | /æmˈbɪʃ.əs/ | амбицио́зный, честолюби́вый |
| farmland существительное | /ˈfɑːɹmlænd/ | сельскохозя́йственное уго́дье, фе́рмерское уго́дье |
| grassland существительное | луг, сава́нна | |
| erosion существительное | /ɪˈɹəʊʒən/ | эро́зия |
| ecosystem существительное | /ˈikoʊˌsɪstəm/ | экосисте́ма |
| rebuild глагол | /ɹiːˈbɪld/ | перестра́ивать, перестро́ить |
| straw существительное | /stɹɔ/ | соло́мина, соло́минка |
| disappear глагол | /dɪsəˈpɪɹ/ | исчеза́ть, исче́знуть |
| dune существительное | /djuːn/ | дю́на, барха́н |
| erode глагол | /ɪˈɹəʊd/ | эроди́ровать |
| graze глагол | /ɡɹeɪz/ | пасти́ |
| sediment существительное | /ˈsɛd.ɪ.mənt/ | отложе́ние, оса́док |
Фразовые глаголы, которые вы услышите
| Слово | Значение |
|---|---|
| dry out глагол | высу́шивать, вы́сушить |
| slow down глагол | замедля́ть, заме́длить |
| tear away глагол | отрыва́ться, оторва́ться |
Грамматика в этом видео
Конструкции, которые говорящий использует чаще всего, с точными словами из видео:
| Конструкция | В видео |
|---|---|
| Пассивный залог be + причастие прошедшего времени — важно, что происходит, а не кто это делает | were cancelled · won't be finished · have been planted |
| Present Perfect have/has + причастие прошедшего времени — прошлое действие, важное сейчас | have been planted · have described · have been lifted |
Произношение, на которое стоит обратить внимание
Говорящий использует 30 сокращённых и редуцированных форм, например don't, isn't, wasn't. Произносите их коротко, так, как слышите.
- Звуки «th»: aesthetics /ɛsˈθɛt.ɪks/, thirsty /ˈθɝs.ti/, northeast /noːˈθɪjst/, underneath /ˌʌndɚˈniθ/, northwest /nɔɹθˈwɛst/
- Звуки «sh» и «zh»: vegetation /ˌvɛd͡ʒəˈteɪʃən/, shrub /ˈʃɹʌb/, ambitious /æmˈbɪʃ.əs/, erosion /ɪˈɹəʊʒən/, vanish /ˈvænɪʃ/
- Длинные слова — следите за ударением: vegetation /ˌvɛd͡ʒəˈteɪʃən/, ecosystem /ˈikoʊˌsɪstəm/, monoculture /ˈmɒnəˌkʌlt͡ʃə(ɹ)/, apocalyptic /əˈpɒ.kə.lɪp.tɪk/, desertification /dɪˌzɝ.tɪ.fɪˈkeɪ.ʃən/
Звуки, трудные для русскоязычных:
- /w/ — губы округлены, это не /v/: sweep /swiːp/, swallow /ˈswɑ.loʊ/, weaker /ˈwikɚ/, consequence /ˈkɑn.sɪ.kwəns/, northwest /nɔɹθˈwɛst/
- /h/ — лёгкий выдох, а не русское «х»: hillside /ˈhɪlˌsaɪd/, behave /bɪˈheɪv/, hopeful /ˈhoʊpfl̩/, hardy /ˈhɑɹdi/
- Звонкие согласные в конце слова — не оглушайте их: shrub /ˈʃɹʌb/, farmland /ˈfɑːɹmlænd/, rebuild /ɹiːˈbɪld/, erode /ɪˈɹəʊd/, graze /ɡɹeɪz/
Как заниматься с этим видео
- Прослушайте всё видео один раз молча и выпишите незнакомые слова.
- Повторяйте предложение за предложением на обычной скорости, пока ваш ритм не совпадёт с ритмом говорящего.
- Запишите себя и сравните с оригиналом, обращая внимание на такие слова, как collapse, vegetation, shrub.
Что такое техника Shadowing?
Shadowing — это научно обоснованная техника изучения языка, изначально разработанная для подготовки профессиональных переводчиков и популяризированная полиглотом доктором Александром Аргуэльесом. Метод прост, но эффективен: вы слушаете аудио на английском от носителей языка и немедленно повторяете вслух — как тень, следующая за говорящим с задержкой в 1–2 секунды. В отличие от пассивного прослушивания или грамматических упражнений, Shadowing заставляет мозг и мышцы рта одновременно обрабатывать и воспроизводить реальные речевые паттерны. Исследования показывают, что это значительно улучшает точность произношения, интонацию, ритм, связную речь, понимание на слух и беглость речи — что делает его одним из самых эффективных методов для подготовки к IELTS Speaking и реального общения на английском.