Get the app

Shadowing practice: Europe's toughest airport landing used to be a lot harder

Listen to the line, then say it out loud
Line 1

Full transcript

  1. Funschal Airport on the island of Madeira is one of the most difficult places in Europe to land a commercial plane.0:00
  2. It wasn't easy to build a runway here back in the 1960s.0:05
  3. Madeira is basically one huge mountain just sticking out of the Atlantic Ocean.0:08
  4. There isn't any part of this island flat enough for long enough that it can support a runway.0:12
  5. But with a lot of earth moving it was possible for them to build one short runway.0:16
  6. Enough for the relatively lightweight aircraft of the day.0:20
  7. And then European tourism and the package holiday boom started and planes kept getting bigger.0:23
  8. The runway was extended another 200 meters in the 70s but it still wasn't enough.0:29
  9. There was nowhere to extend to.0:33
  10. There was another bit of cliff a few hundred meters to the east that could technically be flattened.0:35
  11. But between there and the existing runway there was nothing but air.0:39
  12. The only option was to build a bridge.0:43
Show all 57 lines Show fewer lines
  1. Big enough, wide enough and strong enough somehow to handle a fully loaded airliner landing on it.0:45
  2. Basically to put most of a runway up on stilts.0:51
  3. So that's what they did.0:55
  4. I came to Madeira in 1995 to build this work.0:57
  5. It was one of the 40 engineers who worked here at the same time.1:02
  6. The last engineer came here.1:05
  7. So I was here approximately nine years old.1:07
  8. At the end I went straight to the project.1:10
  9. The idea was to build this structure in a very armed way.1:13
  10. That increased more than a thousand meters on the runway.1:17
  11. The existing runway was a high runway.1:20
  12. It had a higher cut to the ground where the runway could be extended.1:24
  13. So what we had to do was to build a gigantic structure here in terms of land.1:29
  14. That couldn't be built on material.1:34
  15. The pillars are all the same.1:37
  16. The slabs are all the same.1:38
  17. The beams are all the same.1:40
  18. So what are the great challenges?1:41
  19. It's exactly the first time.1:44
  20. To make the first pillar, the first beam, the first beam.1:47
  21. And from there, we could maintain a final discussion.1:51
  22. It's only when you get underneath the runway and stand up close that you realise the sheer scale of this.1:56
  23. It's unlike any other space I've ever been in.2:01
  24. There's a whole boat yard under here, a go -kart track.2:03
  25. The noise you can hear is industry.2:05
  26. There's more than 30 meters between each of these pillars.2:07
  27. The tallest ones are more than 50 meters high.2:10
  28. Just the base of each pillar is taller than I am.2:12
  29. The foundations go far down into the ground.2:15
  30. This whole area had to be flattened and stabilised.2:17
  31. So it could stand up to the weight.2:20
  32. On its own, a runway on stilts shouldn't make a landing more difficult.3:01
  33. A runway is a runway, right?3:05
  34. The difficulty comes from what's around and under it.3:07
  35. The mountains cause fast, gusting winds.3:10
  36. And the approach path has a late, low turn that requires special training.3:12
  37. And pilots aren't even allowed to start that training until they've had 200 hours flying the type of aircraft they'll be landing here.3:16
  38. In the airport documentation, there's a line that says pilots should watch the wind indicators on the runway.3:22
  39. Because occasionally, they will indicate wind from opposite directions.3:27
  40. To be clear, this is safe.3:31
  41. There hasn't been an incident on this runway in nearly half a century.3:33
  42. For most passengers, this is just a normal landing at a normal airport.3:36
  43. Or at worst, a bit of a bumpy, turbulent landing.3:40
  44. And the reason for that is a lot of pilot training.3:42
  45. And some very big civil engineering.3:45

British English pronunciation practice with a Tom Scott documentary on Madeira's runway

This clip is narrated by Tom Scott in a clear British accent, which makes it a solid pick for british english pronunciation practice. It runs at 218 words per minute, faster than 75% of the catalogue, so shadowing it keeps your mouth working rather than waiting around between words.

The subject is Funchal Airport on Madeira, a runway that had to be extended out over a bridge because, as the narrator puts it, "Madeira is basically one huge mountain just sticking out of the Atlantic Ocean." At B2 the vocabulary stays concrete and visual: pillars, beams, slabs, cliffs, stilts, so you can follow the engineering story while keeping your attention on your own speech.

It also switches speaker partway through, from Tom Scott's narration into an engineer's account of building the structure. That shift in rhythm and register is useful english listening practice on its own, separate from the parts you shadow aloud.

The language in this Madeira runway clip: english speaking practice worth slowing down for

A few lines here reward a second and third pass before you try to speak english fluently at the narrator's own speed.

  • "There isn't any part of this island flat enough for long enough that it can support a runway." One long sentence with no internal pause marked, flat and long land on almost equal stress. Practising it teaches you to keep a sentence moving without gasping for breath halfway through.
  • "The only option was to build a bridge." A short, flat statement right after a long one. The pitch drops on bridge and stays down, a clean falling intonation to copy for any sentence that lands on its final noun.
  • "It's only when you get underneath the runway and stand up close that you realise the sheer scale of this." The clause splits around that you realise, so the stress you're aiming for sits on scale, not on realise itself, worth noticing since it's easy to over stress the wrong word here.

A line by line plan for shadowing the Madeira bridge story

Work this one in three short passes rather than trying to shadow all 57 lines cold.

  • Start on line 3, "Madeira is basically one huge mountain just sticking out of the Atlantic Ocean," and repeat it alone until the stress on mountain and Atlantic feels automatic.
  • Take line 12, "The only option was to build a bridge," next. It is short enough to shadow the whole line in one breath, so use it to lock in the falling pitch at the end.
  • Move to line 34, the long one about standing underneath the runway, and break it at the that you realise split before trying it whole.
  • Once those three sit comfortably, run lines 1 through 15 straight through at the clip's own 218 words per minute. That block covers the setup before the speaker changes, so it stays one consistent voice to shadow against.
  • Finish by listening once more without speaking, just to catch how the register shifts when the engineer's voice takes over.
Download on the App Store