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Is breakfast the most important meal of the day? ⏲️ 6 Minute English

English shadowing practice · 105 sentences · 6:04 long · 972 words

Is breakfast the most important meal of the day? ⏲️ 6 Minute English

About this practice session

This page turns the YouTube video “Is breakfast the most important meal of the day? ⏲️ 6 Minute English” into an English shadowing exercise. The recording is split into 105 short sentences that you can play one at a time, repeat after the speaker and record your own version for automatic pronunciation scoring.

The speaker talks at about 169 words per minute, a fast pace, with an average of 9.3 words per sentence. That makes it best for advanced learners; slow the playback down or loop each sentence at first.

How to practise with this video

  1. Play the first sentence and listen while reading the transcript. Notice the stress, the pauses and where the intonation rises or falls.
  2. Replay it and speak along with the speaker, copying the rhythm rather than reading word by word.
  3. Record yourself straight after the original. ShadowEcho scores each word for accuracy, fluency and completeness.
  4. Compare your recording with the original, retry the words marked in red, then move on to the next sentence.
  5. Practise 10–15 minutes a day. Coming back to the same video after a few days is an easy way to measure progress.

Transcript (English)

  1. Hello, this is 6 Minute English from BBC Learning English.
  2. I'm Georgie. And I'm Phil.
  3. Did you have any breakfast today, Georgie, or did you skip it?
  4. I did have some breakfast.
  5. On the way to the office, I got myself a pastry and a coffee.
  6. What about you?
  7. I had a big bowl of porridge,
  8. but it was at six o'clock this morning so I'm hungry again now.
  9. And you might soon be hungry as well
  10. because we're going to talk about breakfast.
  11. How important is it?
  12. Let's start by hearing from Professor Alexandra Johnstone,
  13. a nutrition scientist who spoke to Ruth Alexander, host
  14. of BBC World Service programme The Food Chain.
  15. I am supporting the meme, breakfast like a king and dine like a pauper.
  16. For you then, breakfast is the most important meal of the day.
  17. I agree. So it's really important, particularly for people who are trying
  18. to maintain a healthy weight and people who are trying to lose weight.
  19. Alexandra says that you should breakfast like a king and dine like a pauper.
  20. Pauper is an old-fashioned word for a very poor person.
  21. The expression means have a big breakfast and a small dinner.
  22. We're going to find out some of the reasons
  23. that Alexandra and other experts recommend doing this.
  24. And as usual, we'll learn some useful new words and phrases.
  25. And remember – you'll find all the vocabulary
  26. and a quiz on our website,
  27. bbclearningenglish.com.
  28. OK. But first I have a question for you, Phil.
  29. According to a recent survey,
  30. which of the following is the most popular breakfast in the UK?
  31. Is it: a) eggs, b) toast, or c) cereal?
  32. Well, I think people like to keep it simple so I'm going to say toast.
  33. OK. Well, we'll find out the answer later in the programme.
  34. Let's hear some reasons for why we should breakfast like a king or queen.
  35. Courtney Peterson, who researches eating behaviours,
  36. explains how the time of day affects how our bodies process food,
  37. on BBC World Service programme The Food Chain.
  38. And so, if you can eat a large breakfast in the morning,
  39. and/or I would even say a large lunch in the morning,
  40. your body's going to be better at metabolising that food.
  41. And what that means is your body is going to actually...
  42. your blood sugar levels won't spike as high, you might burn slightly more fat,
  43. you might burn slightly more calories from eating earlier in the day.
  44. Whereas if you had...
  45. if you eat most of your food later in the day,
  46. your metabolism is actually slower later in the day.
  47. So, for instance, if you ate the same, I don't know, bowl of ice cream
  48. in the morning, the afternoon and the evening,
  49. your blood sugar levels will spike significantly higher
  50. in the afternoon and the evening.
  51. We heard the noun metabolism.
  52. This is a word that refers to the chemical processes in your body,
  53. and we most often use it to talk about those that convert food into energy.
  54. And we also heard the verb form – metabolise.
  55. Courtney talked about blood sugar levels spiking.
  56. A spike is a sharp, pointed shape.
  57. If you see it on a line graph,
  58. it means that something has increased very rapidly.
  59. We often use the noun spike to mean a sudden increase
  60. in a value that is being measured.
  61. The verb spike means to suddenly increase.
  62. We've heard that eating earlier in the day can be healthier for us.
  63. Now, people often don't eat breakfast, sometimes because they don't have time
  64. and sometimes because they're trying to save money.
  65. Let's hear again from Professor Alexandra Johnstone,
  66. talking to BBC World Service's The Food Chain.
  67. Now, breakfast skipping is interesting because
  68. my own work would tend to suggest – and that sort of observational,
  69. large-scale, epidemiological studies would also support this –
  70. that people who have a regular breakfast are actually leaner.
  71. And my own work would tend to suggest that having your largest meal of the day
  72. in the morning period gives you a much better appetite control,
  73. which then means it's much easier to control food intake later in the day.
  74. Alexandra starts by mentioning breakfast skipping.
  75. If you skip something, then you don't do it.
  76. Bad students might skip lessons – they don't go to them.
  77. If you skip a meal, it means that you don't eat it.
  78. We also heard that people who have a regular breakfast are leaner.
  79. If someone is lean, then they're not fat.
  80. And one of the reasons given why people might be leaner
  81. is that they have better appetite control.
  82. Appetite control is where your brain decides how much you should eat.
  83. Thanks, Georgie.
  84. Now, I think it's time that we heard the answer to your question.
  85. Yes it is. OK. I asked:
  86. According to a recent survey, what is the most popular breakfast in the UK?
  87. And I said toast.
  88. ...which was the most popular in London,
  89. but the most popular in the country as a whole was cereal,
  90. and that's according to a survey by a cereal manufacturer.
  91. So, I'm afraid you got it wrong. OK.
  92. Let's recap the vocabulary we've learned, starting with pauper,
  93. which is an old-fashioned word for a very poor person.
  94. When we're talking about data, it spikes when it increases suddenly.
  95. Metabolism refers to the chemical processes
  96. inside your body, especially those which process food.
  97. If you skip something, you miss it – you don't do it.
  98. If someone is lean, then they are not fat.
  99. And finally, appetite control is how your brain decides
  100. how much you should eat.
  101. Once again, our six minutes are up,
  102. but why not head over to our website, bbclearningenglish.com,
  103. to try the quiz and worksheet for this episode?
  104. See you again soon.
  105. Goodbye! Bye!

The original video belongs to its creator: watch it on YouTube.

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