EZ Shadow
Thumbnail of Why gold is so valuable 6 Minute English

Why gold is so valuable 6 Minute English

IntermediateBritish accentPodcast6 min

Shadow this video one sentence at a time: listen, say it back, and get a score for every word.

Practice this video Watch on YouTube

Hard words

The longest, least common words in this video. Say them slowly before you start.

Transcript: 80 sentences

Tap a sentence to start the drill right there.

  1. 0:00 Hi Phil.
  2. 0:01 Hi Georgie.
  3. 0:02 I've got a question for you.
  4. 0:04 Do you own anything made of gold?
  5. 0:08 Well, at the moment I'm wearing a lot of gold-coloured jewellery, but I'm not sure exactly how much of it is made of gold.
  6. 0:16 OK.
  7. 0:16 I don't think I own anything made of gold.
  8. 0:20 Beyond jewellery and other personal items, gold is bought and sold by investors and banks.
  9. 0:26 The price of gold has always gone up and down, but in 2026 it reached its highest ever price.
  10. 0:33 In this episode of 6 Minute English, we'll be talking about how gold became a valuable investment and asking the question, why do people buy gold?
  11. 0:46 Let's start with our quiz question, Georgie.
  12. 0:49 Gold is a metal that's extracted or dug up from under the ground in mines.
  13. 0:55 But how much gold has been extracted from the earth?
  14. 1:01 Is it: a) over 50,000 tonnes, b) over 100,000 tonnes,
  15. 1:09 or c) over 200,000 tonnes?
  16. 1:13 Phil, I have absolutely no idea, but I'm going to go with c) 200,000 tonnes.
  17. 1:19 OK.
  18. 1:19 Well, we'll give you the answer at the end of the programme.
  19. 1:23 OK Phil.
  20. 1:23 So, we've been using gold for thousands of years, but why and how did it start?
  21. 1:29 Well, before money was paper or plastic or just numbers in your bank account, a lot of it was actually gold.
  22. 1:37 And experts have discovered gold in coins that are thought to have been made in the 6th Century BC.
  23. 1:44 So, gold coins were made and they were used because the metal was much easier to carry and trade than things like cattle or timber.
  24. 1:53 OK.
  25. 1:53 But now our money isn't literally made of gold, so why is gold valuable?
  26. 1:58 It's a good question, but even though it isn't money, gold is still a financial asset, and an asset is something valuable that could be sold for money.
  27. 2:08 And people buy gold in times of crisis because it's thought of as a safe investment.
  28. 2:14 Let's listen to expert Suki Cooper explaining more to the BBC World Service.
  29. 2:20 Gold is a safe haven because it's not connected to one particular government or one particular economy or one particular market, so the fact that it's neutral means
  30. 2:30 it's an asset that's perceived to be a store of value over a longer term.
  31. 2:34 Suki describes gold as a safe haven, and a safe haven means something or somewhere that's protected from harm or danger, or in financial terms, from a fall in value.
  32. 2:46 Yes, Suki explains that, unlike dollars or pounds for example, gold is not connected to a particular country.
  33. 2:53 It's neutral.
  34. 2:54 And Georgie, because we get gold from mines, there's more or less a fixed amount.
  35. 3:00 Unlike paper money, you can't just print more, as Catherine Schenk, professor of economic and social history, explains.
  36. 3:07 It can't be created and fabricated out of thin air through alchemy, and so this, sort of, controls the supply and sustains an underlying value behind the demand for gold.
  37. 3:17 Catherine explains that gold can't be created out of thin air, an expression meaning making something from nothing.
  38. 3:25 As Catherine says, we don't make gold through alchemy.
  39. 3:29 Alchemy is an ancient kind of chemistry that attempted to do impossible things, like turn ordinary metals into gold.
  40. 3:37 And because we can't just magically make more gold, when lots of people want to buy gold, the price increases.
  41. 3:45 OK.
  42. 3:46 Understood.
  43. 3:47 Now, Phil, at the start of this programme, you said that gold prices hit an all-time high in early 2026.
  44. 3:54 So, what's going on?
  45. 3:56 Well, we mentioned that the price of gold increases in times of crisis because government banks want to buy more of it.
  46. 4:04 And there has been a series of world events that have made government banks want to buy more gold, for example the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East, and in politics too,
  47. 4:15 for example the US imposing tariffs on international products.
  48. 4:19 But since that peak in January, the price has dropped a bit.
  49. 4:23 OK.
  50. 4:23 And does the fall in the price of gold mean that people won't want to invest in it in the future?
  51. 4:29 No.
  52. 4:30 It's likely that the price will go up again.
  53. 4:33 Experts believe that gold will always be an attractive investment during uncertain times.
  54. 4:39 Let's hear from market strategist John Reade.
  55. 4:43 So much of the world we live in now is ethereal.
  56. 4:46 It's...
  57. 4:47 it's virtual, it's online, it disappears, whereas gold is something solid, something dependable and, you know, maybe something a little bit old fashioned.
  58. 4:57 And maybe it's a hankering for traditional values rather than what is super modern and super changeable.
  59. 5:03 John says that much of the modern world is ethereal, meaning it doesn't seem real.
  60. 5:08 And in this ethereal world, people have a hankering for something that's solid and real, like gold.
  61. 5:15 And the expression 'a hankering for' means a strong desire for something.
  62. 5:20 OK.
  63. 5:20 Phil, I think it's time for the answer to your quiz question.
  64. 5:24 OK.
  65. 5:25 Well, I asked how much gold has been mined from the ground to date.
  66. 5:30 I said 200,000 tonnes.
  67. 5:33 And that is the correct answer!
  68. 5:36 OK.
  69. 5:36 Let's recap the vocabulary we learnt in this programme, starting with 'asset'.
  70. 5:41 And an asset is something of financial value that can be sold for money.
  71. 5:46 A safe haven is something or somewhere protected from harm or loss.
  72. 5:50 To make something out of thin air is an expression meaning to make something from nothing.
  73. 5:56 Alchemy is a kind of ancient chemistry that attempted to do impossible things, like making gold from ordinary metals.
  74. 6:04 If something is ethereal, it doesn't seem real.
  75. 6:07 And if you have a hankering for something, you have a strong desire for it.
  76. 6:12 Once again, our six minutes are up, and if you have a hankering for more practice, test what you've learned with the worksheet on our website.
  77. 6:19 That's bbclearningenglish.com.
  78. 6:22 Thank you for joining us.
  79. 6:24 Goodbye.
  80. 6:24 Goodbye!

More Intermediate videos