Практика Shadowing: What's The Most Expensive Thing Ever? - Изучайте разговорный английский по видео

Создание урока...
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If you saved a billion dollars every single day for your entire life,
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you still wouldn't come close to affording the most expensive thing ever.
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But to find out what that is, we'll be going on a journey through the most valuable things in existence, all starting with you.
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The raw ingredients needed to make a human cost only $152,000, but if that's out of budget you could just boil down a pig,
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because chemically you're pretty much the same, they're just slightly tastier.
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Since you're already fully assembled, the government officially values you at 14.2 million.
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And they're lowballing you, because if someone hypothetically harvested all your organs, they could make 45 million.
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You're pretty expensive.
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But to find the most expensive thing ever, we need to look at much costlier items, with the next being a well-known painting that became famous for all the wrong reasons.
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It's 1503 in Italy.
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A rich silk merchant goes up to a painter and says, Could you make me a painting of my wife?
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Sure.
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Give me like, uh, like two weeks.
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Leonardo da Vinci never fully finished that painting, but he actually sold it right before he died to the king of France.
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And it stayed in the bedrooms of powerful guys until ending up at a museum where no one cared.
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Until it got stolen, then found, then taken on a PR campaign, and now this 30-inch plank of wood smeared with colored oil is valued at $1 billion.
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But nature's greatest work of art was found by complete accident.
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Sir Thomas Major Cullinan dug a hole in the ground and filled it with Africans to mine rocks for him.
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And in 1905, a diamond was found.
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And it happened to be the biggest diamond ever.
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colorless, zero imperfections, the most chemically perfect rock produced by the planet.
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And the guy who found it was this guy, the mine's manager.
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He was just going for a stroll
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when he randomly saw it in the wall and he got a nice check for it.
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Then the rock got cut up and shipped in a literal postal box to more white people.
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The total value of this rock is estimated at $2 billion, making it the most expensive luxury item ever thanks to its rarity and prestige.
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But the most expensive land ever is something you would never expect.
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France.
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Owned all this land in 1803, and the United States wanted a little piece of it.
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So they went over to France with 10 million dollars and said, Can we buy a little piece of your land?
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France's leader and conqueror of Europe, Napoleon, was like, How about you pay me 15 million?
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For the whole thing.
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Y-yes?
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The Louisiana Purchase doubled the size of the United States at the cost of 4 cents per acre.
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This land today is worth thousands per acre, making it widely considered the single greatest land purchase in history.
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As long as you don't ask the people originally living there.
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But the Louisiana Purchase wasn't the most expensive in history.
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There was a piece of land that cost way more than the entire American Midwest, and it's this.
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This plot of land with a parking lot that cost 3 billion dollars.
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Why did this parking lot cost more than a fifth of the United States?
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Well back then, the Louisiana Purchase was a gamble on an uncharted frontier.
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This modern-day plot of land in the center of one of
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the most valuable financial districts on earth where the government artificially restricts the land supply was just a much safer investment.
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Land is valued for its potential, but the houses we put on top of the land are somehow even more expensive.
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In 2019, a finance guy spent $240 million on a high-altitude hollow brick in New York City that he doesn't even live in.
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All these buildings are half empty
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because the rich people buying them are just treating them as investments
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If they actually needed a place to stay they would just do what the richest guy in India did
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and spend two billion dollars Erecting their own personal monument
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that has a dark secret This is Antilia the most expensive
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private residence in the world valued today at 4.6 billion It
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has a 168 car garage three helipads a snow room
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and the entire thing was built on an orphanage And if you're wondering where the orphans went, the house also has 600 servants.
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There are investments, there are status symbols, but the most expensive house ever is the hardest to truly value.
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Its purchase price?
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21,000 pounds in 1761.
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When King George III bought Buckingham House, it was just a little shack for him to store his wife.
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But after a few hundred years of renovations and millions in state funding, it became a 775 room palace.
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Its value is estimated at 4.9 billion pounds, but this is just a guess based on its prime location and historical significance.
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To find something more valuable than any house, we just need to scale up to the most impressive and disastrous structures in the world.
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Megaprojects The US Interstate Highway System is the most expensive megaproject in history, costing an inflation adjusted $634 billion.
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But it was worth it.
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For every $1 of that cost, it's returned $6 in economic output.
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This project had a clear problem, a clear plan, and a clear result.
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Pretty straightforward.
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In 2021, Saudi Arabia started building a 110-mile line-shaped city made out of Empire State building tall glass mirrors.
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It was supposed to cost $500 billion and be done by 2030.
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But now the date is maybe 2080, and the cost is maybe 8.8 trillion.
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The line will be the most expensive megaproject ever, if it actually gets built. If.
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45 Mount Everest's above all of this is the International Space Station, the most expensive single object ever built by humans.
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But its cost is the least impressive thing about it.
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See legendary megaprojects like the pyramids represent what one civilization could do.
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The ISS represents what every civilization together could do.
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It took hundreds of thousands of experts from all over the world to manufacture parts
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that fit together perfectly when assembled in an empty void that would kill a human in 90 seconds.
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This is the greatest masterpiece ever built by humans, and it shows what can be accomplished when the world comes together.
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But it's way more costly when the world comes apart.
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War is pretty expensive.
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The American Civil War cost so much that to fund it, the government had to invent paper money and the federal income tax.
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God damn it!
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World War I cost so much that Germany was still paying it off until 2010, and World War II was the most expensive conflict in history.
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The full global cost of this war has never been calculated, but it involved every major power devoting a majority of their entire economy to destruction.
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By the end of the war, 70 million were dead, a majority being civilians, and most of the involved countries were in shambles.
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Military spending as a percentage of GDP has never come close to World War 2 level since, and if it ever does, we probably won't be aware.
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War is pretty expensive.
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World War 2 military spending was 25 trillion in today's dollars, but the cost of its destruction is unknown.
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All the things in this video have value for different reasons, but the most expensive thing ever is the most unusual.
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Every single particle has an antiparticle with an opposite charge.
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When they touch, they annihilate and release energy.
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A single gram of antimatter could release more energy than three Hiroshima bombs.
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Bananas.
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Every 75 minutes, an atom in a banana decays, producing one single particle of antimatter.
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But the particle is so small that if you had one banana for every human that has ever existed,
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you would have to wait 97 times the age of the universe to produce one gram of antimatter.
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But that still wouldn't work, because the banana antimatter particles only exist for 125 picoseconds, which is one billionth of a blink.
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The only way to make a meaningful amount of antimatter is
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by firing tiny particles at almost the speed of light into a metal rod, then catching the debris in a vacuum.
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There's currently only one facility that does this, and in its entire existence, it's made less than 10 billionths of a gram of antimatter,
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which would make enough energy to power a light bulb for 4 hours.
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Antimatter could be the most efficient energy source ever, and studying it could answer questions about how the universe was formed.
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But it's so difficult to make that NASA estimates one gram would cost 62.5 trillion.
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But if we ever somehow managed to get a gram of antimatter, wouldn't the most expensive thing be whoever owns the antimatter?
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Which would probably be a country, maybe the United States, which is already worth 180 trillion.
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But then, the Earth is worth 5 quadrillion.
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And now that we're in space, there are asteroids floating around with quintillions worth of gold and platinum, and the sun is made of gas worth 30 no-nillion.
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The universe is filled with an infinite amount of wealth, all of which we got for free.

Лексика и советы по произношению к этому уроку

Этот урок разговорной практики уровня B2 построен на видео «What's The Most Expensive Thing Ever?». Чаще всего повторяются слова: expensive, cost, land, antimatter, billion. В этом видео 106 предложений и 1526 слов для шедоуинга. Речь длится 9:28. Говорящий говорит в естественном темпе, около 161 слов в минуту, близком к повседневной речи. 84% слов входят в 3000 самых частых слов английского языка; остальные стоит разобрать перед занятием.

Ключевая лексика этого видео

Самые сложные слова из видео (15), с произношением и значением:

СловоПроизношениеЗначение
antimatter существительное/ˈæn.tiˌmæt.ɚ/антивещество́, антимате́рия
gram существительное/ˈɡɹæm/грамм
particle существительное/ˈpɑɹtək(ə)l/части́ца, крупи́ца
banana существительное/bəˈnænə/бана́н, бана́новое де́рево
billionth существительное/ˈbɪl.i.ənθ/миллиа́рдный
chemically наречие/ˈkɛm.ɪ.kli/хими́чески
assemble глагол/əˈsɛm.bəl/собира́ть, собра́ть
costly прилагательное/ˈkɒst.li/дорогосто́ящий, дорого́й
acre существительное/ˈeɪ.kɚ/акр
civilization существительное/ˌsɪv.ɪ.laɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/цивилиза́ция, культу́ра
annihilate глагол/əˈnaɪ.ə.leɪt/уничтожа́ть, уничто́жить
antiparticle существительное/ˈæntiˌpɑ(ɹ)tɪkəl/античасти́ца
artificially наречиеиску́сственно
colourless прилагательное/ˈkʌlə(ɹ).ləs/бесцве́тный
conqueror существительное/ˈkɑŋˌkɚ.ɚ/завоева́тель, завоева́тельница

Фразовые глаголы, которые вы услышите

СловоЗначение
boil down глаголсжать, свести́
cut up глаголразрезать
find out глаголузнава́ть, узна́ть

Грамматика в этом видео

Конструкции, которые говорящий использует чаще всего, с точными словами из видео:

КонструкцияВ видео
Условные предложения if + предложение, will/would + глагол — условие и его результатif it ever does, we probably won't be
Пассивный залог be + причастие прошедшего времени — важно, что происходит, а не кто это делаетis valued · was found · is estimated
Present Perfect have/has + причастие прошедшего времени — прошлое действие, важное сейчасhas never been calculated · has never come · has ever existed
Придаточные определительные who / which + предложение — уточнение о человеке или предметеguy who found · picoseconds, which is · States, which is

Произношение, на которое стоит обратить внимание

Говорящий использует 15 сокращённых и редуцированных форм, например you're, wouldn't, they're. Произносите их коротко, так, как слышите.

  • Звуки «sh» и «zh»: civilization /ˌsɪv.ɪ.laɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/, imperfection /ɪmpɚˈfɛkʃən/, shambles /ˈʃæmbəlz/, renovation /ɹɛnəˈveɪʃən/, accomplish /əˈkɑm.plɪʃ/
  • Длинные слова — следите за ударением: antimatter /ˈæn.tiˌmæt.ɚ/, civilization /ˌsɪv.ɪ.laɪˈzeɪ.ʃən/, annihilate /əˈnaɪ.ə.leɪt/, antiparticle /ˈæntiˌpɑ(ɹ)tɪkəl/, imperfection /ɪmpɚˈfɛkʃən/

Звуки, трудные для русскоязычных:

  • /h/ — лёгкий выдох, а не русское «х»: helipad /ˈhɛ.liˌpæd/, hollow /ˈhɑloʊ/, harvest /ˈhɑɹ.vəst/
  • Звонкие согласные в конце слова — не оглушайте их: helipad /ˈhɛ.liˌpæd/, orphanage /ˈɔː(ɹ)fənɪd͡ʒ/, picosecond /ˈpiː.kəʊˌsɛk.ənd/, shambles /ˈʃæmbəlz/, asteroid /ˈæst(ə)ɹɔɪd/

Как заниматься с этим видео

  1. Прослушайте всё видео один раз молча и выпишите незнакомые слова.
  2. Начните со скорости 0,75×, повторяйте предложение за предложением и вернитесь к обычной скорости, когда станет легко.
  3. Запишите себя и сравните с оригиналом, обращая внимание на такие слова, как antimatter, gram, particle.

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.

Техника шедоуинга: читать полное пошаговое руководство →