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Podcast Episodes Transcripts Walking With Pete

AE 471 – WWP: A Reality Check

By pete — 7 months ago
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Learn Australian English in this Walking With Pete episode of the Aussie English Podcast where I talk about my recent reality check.

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AE 471 – WWP: A Reality Check

Man, it’s cold! Cold, cold, cold. How are you guys going? It’s time for another Walking with Pete episode, and I’m just getting in to the car. Just let me get rid of my chewing gum. Turn the car on. Let’s go for a drive.

There’s a few things I want to chat to you about today, though. So hopefully it’s going to be an interesting and thoughtful episode.

Let me reverse up here and not run over the birds behind the car. So, it’s currently sunset-ish. It’s about 430pm in the afternoon and Kel’s have to work late at the embassy, late for her, I guess.

So, normally, she finishes work at like probably 3 o’clock. I think it’s a Brazilian thing where they tend to finish work earlier in the day. And so, everyone leaves the embassy by 3:00, they turn the alarm on, so she has to be out of the building even if she wanted to stay longer and work. So, but, I think there is something like one person has to stay behind every single week for that week in order to make sure that if anyone shows up, there’s someone there to help them. I don’t know what the deal is exactly, but this week it’s her job, apparently, to stay until about 5 o’clock. So, and, I think, by that time, buses and transport, public transport, around here tends to get incredibly busy, and so she’s wanting to come and grab her.

So, I’m doing that, but I thought I would talk to you guys today about what I’ve been up to this week, Portuguese and photography, and a little bit of, you know, the ups and downs of language learning or of, you know, trying to pursue any kind of endeavor that you’re trying to improve at, right? Whether you’re trying to become good photography, at a sport like soccer or tennis or karate, you know, it could be anything. Any time you’re trying to achieve something, there’s always ups and downs. Anytime you’re trying to master something, there’s always ups and downs, and I think it’s… There are lots of parallels between a lot of different hobbies and endeavours that we try and master, and it’s… I’ve noticed a lot of it with photography and language learning specifically at the moment where… a lot of ups and downs. I’ll have nights where at the moment I’m speaking a lot of Portuguese, especially with the housemates, and obviously my fiancée Kel who’s from Brazil. We’re always talking in Portuguese, and it’s funny when you had the same set of people and when you speak English with them you’re the one at the top of the English speaking hierarchy, right? Anytime we’re speaking English, obviously, I’m the only native English speaker. So, I am the best, quote/unquote, best English speaker in that group when we’re chatting in English. But as soon as we switch to Portuguese, the tables turn, and I am now at the very, very bottom of the hierarchy with regards to capability of speaking Portuguese. So, now, you switch from top to bottom on a dime, incredibly quickly. So, we’ll be chatting away in Portuguese. I’m at the bottom. You know, I’m the limiting factor. I’m the one who wants to slow down the conversation, who’s constantly thinking of what I’m trying to say, who can’t think of the correct words, who says things awkwardly, and then as soon as we switch to English, it’s the other way around. I mean, the other guys are a lot better at English than I am Portuguese, but still, they’re the ones if anyone is… who are limiting the conversation.

So, I guess, that was one thing that I’ve noticed that has been really funny is that I’ve had to get used to being the person at the very bottom pretty much all the time, because we’re always speaking in Portuguese. So, that’s been sort of a humbling experience, but it’s been really good too, because it drives me to want to improve. So, that’s something worth talking about.

When you… It’s the same thing I noticed in jiujitsu and in a lot of other endeavors that I’ve tried to sort of master over the years. It’s so much better when you don’t get comfortable with being at the top of the hierarchy. Right? So, of a hierarchy of competency in whatever it is that you’re trying to become competent at: karate, jujitsu, soccer. It’s always good to try and surround yourself with people who better than you at that thing, because it pushes you to want to be better yourself. And so, I really, really like the fact that with my Portuguese I’m not… I’m not surrounded by people who are as good as me or worse than me. I’m surrounded by people who are native speakers. And so, I’m constantly trying to work my butt off and really hard to be able to, you know, get closer to where their level is with regards to Portuguese. and I think it’s also really important too, when you think about this in terms of people that you spend time with, if you want to be a really productive person and you have a lot of projects and things that you’re working on, and you want to get a lot out of life, it’s always really good to think about the people you spend time with, because, I can’t remember where I first heard it or who came up with this or, you know, where it originated from, but I’ve heard quite a few times in a few different places that you are the average of the five closest people in your life. So, the five people that you spend most time with are going to have a huge impact on the person that you become, right? So, if you spend your time all day hanging out with people who, say, dropkicks, they don’t work, they do drugs, they’re very lazy, they don’t work hard on anything, even though they don’t work, you know, whether it’s a hobby or… they don’t pursue self-improvement, they are they don’t pursue curiosity, you’re not going to feel driven to do those things, you know? Whether or not you would under other circumstances want to do that, if you’re spending the majority of your time with people who aren’t interested in pursuing excellence in some sort of area, who aren’t interested in pursuing that curiosity, who aren’t interested in learning, who aren’t interested in being motivated and following a discipline, you’re going to end up ultimately diminishing your abilities or the possibilities that you would have it being someone you could potentially be.

Whereas, if you spend your time surrounded by people who are constantly working hard, who are constantly driven, constantly motivated, always looking to improve, always looking to develop themselves, then as a result, whether or not you like it, you’re going to be a better version of you as well because of the effect that those people will have on you, you know?

Like, if you go to a party and everyone’s drinking it’s hard to not also drink, right? You don’t want to be the person who sticks out and doesn’t do what everyone else does. And the same thing goes for, say, if all of your mates want to go to the gym, it’s hard to be the one guy who says, nah, I don’t feel like working out, because you suddenly feel guilty, right? You feel like a loser. You want to do what everyone else is doing.

And so, that I’ve noticed too happens with pretty much anything. If you want to be…. if you want to be someone who achieves a lot of things, surround yourself with other people who achieve a lot of things, and it may be brutal at times, especially if you have family members or friends that are sort of diminishing your capabilities, but you kind of have to think about what it is that you want, you know, and if… you know, I’ve had to do that a few times that I’ve had to cut off a few friends. Anyway, I’m getting side tracked.

But I’ve noticed that with Kel, at least recently, my fiancée. She is always working hard now, because she’s always seeing me work really hard. I mean, and that’s not to say she wasn’t working hard beforehand, but I feel like it’s good that she gets motivated when I’m motivated to study or to do something, and she’ll see me doing it and she’ll be like, oh, damn! I need to go and work on something whether it’s watching a video on YouTube about how to do photography or whether it’s studying more English or reading an English book and then asking me questions about it when she sees me learning Portuguese. I love the fact that she feeds off my passion, and as a result, when I see her working hard it, makes me feed off her passion and her determination and her discipline. And so, yeah, I’ve noticed that a lot recently where both of us… who knows who started, who was the first person to kind of do something in front of the other person that got this whole process kick started, but I’ve definitely noticed that recently that all the people I’m surrounding myself with at the moment are driving me to want to be a better version of myself and work harder.

Anyway, that was sort of a tangent, I guess. It’s sort of related to languages, but that’s what I’ve been up to with Portuguese recently. I’ve really been working on it a lot and I’ve noticed some really big… some really big improvements, mainly in fluency. I haven’t really noticed my vocabulary developing a whole lot, although, I hope it has been, and I guess, that’s something else worth talking about.

I noticed that with photography, though, recently as well, I’ve been going to the same place repeatedly, probably every day, every second day, maybe four times a week at the moment. I’m going to this reserve nearby and there is… it’s pretty big, there’s a lot of kangaroos, echidnas, wallabies, all kinds of animals. We took some really good photos of some scorpions and some frogs the other day, which was really cool.

But, I’m going there a lot and taking a lot of photos, and it gets harder, because you keep going to the same place so it gets harder and harder to come up with ideas about what to take photos of, specifically if you’re trying to take photos of the same thing, right? If I’m taking photos of kangaroos all the time, it gets harder and harder to come up with ideas. But as a result, it forces me to try and… to try and come up with new ideas and to try and improve what I’m already doing. And the same thing with landscape. The landscape doesn’t change, but the way you see it and the angles that you get and the… you kind of get forced to really try and improve how you’re taking photos when you have to take the photos are the same things all the time. I think that really applies to languages as well, right? If you coming to talk about the same things all the time, you’re going to develop pretty quickly. You don’t want to just be constantly changing what you’re confronting, because then you don’t really dig down deep and you have to improve at a specific set of skills within that thing that you’re trying to improve, right?

If you constantly have to talk about the same stuff in English you’re going to get really good at talking about that stuff compared with if you are constantly talking about something new all the time. Although, both things have a place, right. You don’t want to get too bored that you don’t want to take photos of something or you don’t get to speak in English, but you also want to change it up a bit so that you have fun and you also want to practice those things.

But I noticed that with photography. I’ve taken a lot of photos recently and I kept thinking, they’re all crap, they’re horrible, I’m not doing very well. But then I would get home and Kel would sit down next to me and we’d be going through these photos sorting out the ones that I’ve taken, and you see them again in a different light, and you’re like, some of these are actually good, and some of these are better than they were that are… compared to the ones that I took last time, and you start noticing improvement when you get that… a chance to kind of look at the photos you’re taking.

And I think it’s the same with language. I’ve noticed that with Portuguese at least. I’m constantly feeling like I’m not speaking very well. And I think we get stuck like that, because, we get… we’re a bit negative, right? Humans tend to be pretty negative where they’re focused on what they’re doing wrong more so than the things that they’re doing right. You know? It’s pretty rare for you to give yourself a pat on the back for something you did right, but it’s pretty common that we chastise ourselves, that we are hard on ourselves, that we are nasty to ourselves when we don’t get things 100 percent right.

And so, that happened in photography photography recently, where I had been taking a lot of photos and at the time I may feel really disappointed with my results, a little disenfranchised, like I’m useless, like I’m hopeless, but then later on when I get to sort of sit down and analyse things, I’ll see, okay, I’m actually improving. I can sort of tell that some of these photos are a lot better than they were a month ago or a week ago.

And it’s the same with Portuguese. I’ve noticed that I keep feeling like I’m not doing very well and that the conversation sticks, and then I’ll chat to Kel about that, and she’ll say later that night, well, Pete, you spoke for five hours today in the car whilst we drove, you know, down to the beach and you talked about all of these complex issues. You weren’t perfect, but you couldn’t do that a month ago, you couldn’t do that two months ago. And so, it’s nice to have a reality check. And I guess, that’s the thing at the end of the day, a reality check. Maybe that will be the theme of this episode.

It’s good to have a reality check sometimes and just have someone else step in and be able to tell you that you’re doing the right thing, that you’re improving, you’re doing well, but also yourself be able to step back and not criticise yourself too harshly and give yourself a break and have a reality check and say, you know, I may not be where I want to be, which hopefully, you’ll never be there, right? You want to constantly be improving and constantly aiming to be better at who you are or what you can do right now, but you don’t want to get into a pattern of being hard on yourself all the time, right? You don’t want to always be 100 percent whip and no carrot, right?

If you’re the person who is trying to reward a horse who’s pulling a cart you’ve got… You can either feed the horse and try and get the cart to move or you can try beating the horse to get the cart to move, right? So, you can use positive feedback, which would be giving them the carrot positive incentive, or you can use negative feedback, which would be beating them with a whip and giving them a, you know, negative incentive to get moving.

You have to try and become the kind of person who gives yourself more positive feedback, hopefully, mostly, if not completely, positive feedback all the time than negative feedback. And this is something that I have to try and develop in myself constantly and remind myself when I’m feeling very self-critical and down on myself and I’m not seeing the results that I expect of myself, I have to remind myself to be nicer to who I am to be nice… because we’re the voice in our head, right?

We are the person we have to spend all of our time with, the voice in our head, and you don’t want to spend all your time with someone who is horrible, right? You don’t want to spend time with someone who hates you, who treats you horribly, and I had to… I was chatting to cal about this recently, she was constantly berating herself and being down low self and critical of her own photography and her own English, and I was saying, would you say this to me if I came to you and said, my photography sucks! I hate my photos! I’m horrible! I can’t take photos at all! Or, I hate my Portuguese! I’m horrible! I can’t speak Portuguese at all! Would you say to me the same things that you’re currently saying to yourself or about yourself? And she said, no! I would never say that. I would never say that you were horrible. And then I said to her, well, why would you say to yourself? If you wouldn’t say that kind of stuff to your best friend, to your fiancé, to your husband, to your parents, to your children, why would you say to yourself? Why would you say to yourself?

So, that was something I got out of a book recently called 12 Rules For Life by Jordan Peterson. And I can’t remember, which rule that was, but one of them was treat yourself like you’re your best friend. At least, I think that’s what one of them was. It was, like, treat yourself like you’re someone that you’re friends with. Don’t be so hard on yourself. Be nice to yourself. Find reasons to say positive things about yourself, because I think we constantly get stuck in a sort of cycle of negative feedback to ourselves, like, we know what we could be and we’re not there yet and we get disappointed, but we definitely need to spend more time being kind to ourselves.

Anyway, guys, I’ve been ranting for a while now. I covered a few different topics in there. I hope you get something out of it. It’s of cathartic and nice for me to just be able to talk about these issues and my own, you know… things that are going on in my head, my own problems, the kinds of things that I’m trying to work through, especially, with trying to improve at these endeavors. My personal endeavors of trying to improve my languages, trying to improve my teaching on English, trying to improve my photography skills, my relationships with people.

And so, I guess, I would love for you to leave this podcast episode thinking about, how do you treat yourself? Do you treat yourself like someone you’re friends with or do you treat yourself like someone you don’t really like, that, you know, are you horrible to yourself at times?

So, with that guys, I hope you have an amazing day and I’ll chat to you soon. All the best.


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    AE 299 – Expression: To Cross That Bridge When You Come To It

    By pete — 2 years ago

    Learn Australian English in this Expression episode of Aussie English where I teach you to use TO CROSS THAT BRIDGE WHEN YOU COME TO IT like a native!

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    AE 299 – Expression: To Cross That Bridge When You Come To It

    Morning guys.

    How’s it going? How have you been? What you been up to? What you’ve been up to?

    That’s a really good greeting in Australian English. What you been up to? What have you been up to?

    “What have you been up to?” meaning “what have you been doing?”.

    How has your week been going? I hope you guys have been well. I finally had my final presentation for the PhD.

    So, I spent all week, well all the fortnight really, the last two weeks, putting that together practicing it, rehearsing it.

    And then, yesterday, the day before yesterday, on Thursday, I got to present in front of the University.

    That said, there weren’t that many people there. It was probably a small room of about 20 people.

    It was pretty good. It took about, you know, 30 or 40 minutes for me to get through my 96 slides in my Power Point presentation for these guys.

    But, yeah, (I) felt really good. We had pizza afterwards. I hung around with everyone there for a bit.

    And then, (I) had to jump back home and give some private lessons.

    So, it was a good day except for the fact that it pissed down rain.

    So, it was raining cats and dogs as we had to walk from the Museum over to the University.

    So, the University requires me to give my final presentation in the University or at the university, although I am based at the Museum.

    So, I’m normally at the Museum because my supervisor is based at the museum.

    That’s where he works. And so, I work there with him.

    But I am enrolled through Melbourne University.

    Anyway, so, aside from that, last night we went out. So, it was a big party with the lab that I work in.

    So, all the people that I work with who are also students studying at the Museum.

    We went out to a place called The Napier Hotel. N-A-P-I-E-R. And that is in Fitzroy.

    So, for anyone living in Melbourne or planning to visit Melbourne, I really recommend going to the Napier, N-A-P-I-E-R, in Fitzroy, because they have the most amazing parmas.

    So, “parma” is an Australian slang term for parmigiana. I’m probably saying that incorrectly.

    Basically, a parma is a dish, a certain food, where you get… you usually get a salad, some chips, and you’ll get a chicken breast that’s been cooked in crumbs.

    And then it usually has ham on top with cheese on top of that with tomato sauce on it as well.

    Forgive me, my alarm just went off.

    So, parmas are one of my favourite meals to go out and have in Australian pubs.

    The Napier is an Australian pub.

    This is one of these stereotypical Australian meals that you’ll find if you go out and about in Australia.

    And so, the reason the one at The Napier is so good is because they use smoked kangaroo.

    So, that may come as a bit of a shock to some of you guys, but we can eat kangaroo in Australia.

    They are actually a pest species.

    There’s way way way too many of them because of all the farming that we do.

    They breed like crazy. Anyway, we can eat them. We have them often at restaurants.

    You can get them at Woolworths, which is a supermarket chain.

    But, the Napier’s so good because it’s smoked kangaroo that they use instead of ham.

    Anyway, these parmas are huge. They’re about the size of your head. Really really really good good food.

    On top of that, we drank a whole heap of beer.

    Definitely more than I should have drunk, but I made it home in the end.

    I, you know, walked home through the streets after hanging out with all of my friends, and we all parted ways, and (I) came home and pretty much got straight into bed.

    So, I got home, walked through the door, and hit the sack. I hit the hay.

    I went to bed pretty much straight away. So, that’s been my week.

    That’s been my last evening. I am now sitting here in front of my computer chatting to you guys with a coffee.

    So, (I’m) trying to sort of, hopefully, cleanse a little bit today, and be a little more healthy.

    I might go get a salad for lunch. Anyway, today’s going to be an awesome episode, guys.

    Let’s get into it.

    So, today’s expression is “to cross a bridge” or “to cross that bridge when you come to it”.

    “To cross that bridge when you come to it”. As usual guys, let’s just get into it.

    Let’s define the words in the expression to cross that bridge or to cross a bridge when you come to it.

    So, “to cross”, “to cross something”, this is to traverse something, to pass over something.

    To go from one place to another place to cross something.

    So, you could cross a river if you use a bridge to literally go across the river.

    You cross the river. You could cross an ocean if you were in a boat. You could cross the ocean by sailing.

    Or you could be in a plane and you could fly over the ocean, to cross it.

    You could cross the ocean by flying over it. So, that’s the verb “to cross”.

    “A bridge.” “A bridge” is a structure for walking, for driving, for riding across to pass over something usually a road or a river, a building, a path.

    A bridge is a structure for crossing something else, for going over something else. A bridge.

    “To come to”, “to come to something” is to arrive at something.

    So, “to come to a stop” is to arrive at a stop. “To come to a place” is to arrive at a place.

    So, I could say, “Today, I have come to this beach to go for a swim. I have arrived at this beach to go for a swim”.

    “To come to” is to arrive at.

    As usual, let’s go through and define the expression, guys.

    So, if you say to someone, “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” or you tell them that they need to cross that bridge when they come to it, it means that they need to solve that problem when and if it arises.

    So, it’s a metaphor for solving a problem, for overcoming an obstacle when and if it arrives, when and if it happens.

    So, “we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it” will mean that we’ll worry about, quite literally, crossing that bridge, we’ll worry about going over that bridge, when we get to the bridge, when we arrive at the bridge.

    But figuratively, if we use this as a metaphor, it means that we will solve that problem, we will overcome that obstacle, whatever the obstacle or whatever the problem is, when we get to it, when we arrive at it, when we come to it.

    So, to cross the bridge when we come to it is to solve a problem when it happens.

    As usual, let’s talk about some examples of how we would use this expression in everyday life guys.

    Examples:

    1.

    So, imagine, number one, that you are going on a road trip. You’re going on a road trip around Australia.

    So, maybe you’re driving from Perth all the way east to Victoria, to Melbourne, where I live.

    And then, you’re going to drive all the way north up the east coast of Australia to Cairns.

    And that’s thousands and thousands of kilometres.

    I think it be about 12,000 kilometres to do those two legs of that trip.

    To drive from Perth to Melbourne. The first leg.

    And then, to drive the second leg from Melbourne to Cairns.

    So, it’s a huge road trip that you’ve got planned, and you have an old car.

    So, the car’s a bit of a bomb. You’re worried the car’s going to break down.

    It’s going to stop functioning. So, that something in the engine is going to go wrong.

    Maybe something will break. A cable will break. Maybe the radiator will blow.

    Something’s going to happen and the car’s going to break down. This is what you’re worried about.

    If you say to someone, “What happens if the car breaks down?”, the other person could say to you “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

    And they’re saying that meaning, “We will worry about that problem when it happens. We’ll worry about overcoming that obstacle, the obstacle of the car breaking down, if it happens, when it happens. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

    2.

    Number two. Imagine you’re planning a surprise birthday for your mother, for your mum.

    So, you want to plan this awesome epic surprise birthday with all your relatives, with all of her friends, with all of the gifts.

    You’re going to cook up a barbie.

    You’re going to have a whole bunch of food. It’s going to be an amazing party.

    But your mother hates surprises. She absolutely hates surprises.

    So if someone said to you, “Oh man! What happens when she gets here and she freaks out, she gets angry because it’s a surprise and you know your mother hates surprises?”

    You could say, “Well, if she gets angry about it we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. You can cross that bridge when you come to it. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. We’ll worry about this problem, we’ll worry about the obstacle that is mum getting angry about this surprise birthday party, when and if it happens. We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.“

    3.

    So, the last example, example number three, is that you are worried about an upcoming exam for an incredibly difficult subject that you are studying at university.

    So, I imagine that you’re studying something like, at least for me, maths.

    I was awful at maths as a kid, and I was awful at university, and I still am awful at maths.

    Imagine that you’re studying for an exam that you need to pass in order to continue studying, and you’re incredibly worried that you’re going to fail it.

    Maybe you say to someone, “Oh, I’ve got to study for this exam. I have to go and complete it. I have to get at least this score. I’m really worried that if I don’t I’m going to get thrown out of university.”

    Someone could say to you, “Look, just do your best. You’ve still got several weeks to study. Do your best. See how you go, and if things go badly we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. We will cross that bridge when we come to it. We’ll worry about that obstacle or that problem when and if it happens. You can cross that bridge when you come to it.”

    So, as usual guys, let’s go in, let’s dive in, let’s do a listen and repeat exercise where you guys can practice your pronunciation.

    So, listen and repeat after me, guys, and try to sound exactly like I do as a native English speaker.

    Let’s go.

    Listen and repeat:

    To cross.
    To cross.

    That bridge.
    That bridge.

    To cross that bridge.
    To cross that bridge.

    To cross that bridge when you come to it.
    To cross that bridge when you come to it.

    I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.
    You’ll cross that bridge when you come to it.
    He’ll cross that bridge when he comes to it.
    She’ll cross that bridge when she comes to it.
    We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.
    They’ll cross that bridge when they come to it.
    It will cross that bridge when it comes to it.

    Good job, guys. Good job.

    So, now as usual, let’s have a little quick chat about pronunciation and connected speech, guys, and how it relates to the expression “To cross that bridge when you come to it”.

    In this one, I want you to notice that when we say “To_w_it”, “To_w_it”, “To_w_it” we join the two vowels that “-o” and the “i-“, “To_w_it”, with a W-sound.

    So, this happens all the time in English.

    And this, again, is not just Australian English. This is all forms of English.

    When we have two vowels either side of one another, one at the end of a word, for instance “to”, and the other at the start of a word, in this case “it”, we link them.

    And we’ll link them with either a “Weh” sound, a W sound, “Weh”, or a “Yeh” sound, a Y sound, a “Yeh”.

    So, in this case, it’s a W. It’s a W sound. “To_w_it”.

    So, listen and repeat after me, guys. I’m going to say “To_w_it” five times.

    Practice your pronunciation, and then we’ll go through the listen and repeat exercise one more time so that you can practice this pronunciation and connected speech tip.

    Let’s go.

    Listen and repeat:

    To_w_it.
    To_w_it.
    To_w_it.
    To_w_it.
    To_w_it.

    I’ll cross that bridge when I come to_w_it.
    You’ll cross that bridge when you come to_w_it.
    He’ll cross that bridge when he comes to_w_it.
    She’ll cross that bridge when she comes to_w_it.
    We’ll cross that bridge when we come to_w_it.
    They’ll cross that bridge when they come to_w_it.
    It’ll cross that bridge when it comes to_w_it.

    Great job guys. Great job.

    Remember, that as usual, as I always go over at the end here, if you want to sign up to be a member go over to www.TheAussieEnglishPodcast.com, and click on Learn English Faster.

    You can sign up and become an Aussie English supporter straight away, you can become a member, and you can get access to all the bonus content for this episode, as well as all the previous expression episodes.

    So, the bonus content includes MP3s, a more thorough PDF of the transcript, and you get access to all of these exercises that are designed to teach you to speak English and to understand English just like a native speaker.

    So, we go through substitution and phrasal verb exercises, we go through pronunciation in connected speech exercises, grammar exercises, slang exercises, listening comprehension exercises, everything that you need to take your English to the next level faster.

    Aside from that, guys, if you want to support Aussie English you can become a patron on the Aussie English Patreon page.

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    You can choose the amount that you wish to donate. It happens on a monthly basis.

    So, you can donate anything from one dollar each month in order to support me creating this content for you guys.

    So, you can donate one dollar. You can donate more than a dollar if you choose.

    It’s totally up to you guys.

    But it is a way for you to support me directly and to be a deeper part of the Aussie English community.

    So, thank you to all the current patrons on there.

    It means the world to me that you guys are supporting me (to) create this content to help everyone learn Australian English.

    Anyway, guys I hope you have a great week. Keep practicing your English.

    Keep practicing speaking, reading, listening, and writing.

    Keep at it, and I’ll chat to you soon.

    See ya guys!


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    Podcast Episodes Pronunciation Transcripts

    Pronunciation: Contracting WOULD onto THIS, THAT, THESE & THOSE

    By pete — 2 years ago

    Learn Australian English in this Pronunciation episode of Aussie English where I teach you how contracting WOULD onto THIS, THAT, THESE and THOSE is easy.

    Get the Premium PDF transcript here: [sdm_download id=”1919″ fancy=”0″]

    Pronunciation: Contracting WOULD onto THIS, THAT, THESE & THOSE

    Hey guys! Welcome to this episode of Aussie English. In this episode, as you will no doubt know, we’re going to be working on contracting the auxiliary verb WOULD onto several demonstrative pronouns. And without getting too crazy grammar wise, demonstrative pronouns are just THIS, THAT in the singular form and THESE and THOSE in the plural form.

    As, I’ve said before, WOULD is an auxiliary verb that can be used in several different ways in English whether it’s the Present Tense “I would like to do something”, whether it’s the (Conditional*) Past Tense, “I would have done something.”, or whether it’s that repeated past tense, “When I was young I would always get the bus to school.”

    It can be used in a bunch of different ways but you’ll learn that with time. Don’t worry too much about perfecting these things. Just keep listening, keep practicing, keep speaking, and keep improving.

    So, in this episode, like the last episode, we’ll just focus on WOULD in the Conditional Present Tense because this is probably the most common way that you guys are going to be using this.

    I would go

    I would see

    I would be

    Or

    This would go

    This would be

    This would see

    If we’re using DEMONSTRATIVE PRONOUNS.

    And so, we’ll just start with a basic listen and repeat exercise guys with these four demonstrative pronouns. I’ll repeat each one of them five times and I’ll say the uncontracted form first and the contracted for second.

    So, let’s get started.

     

    Listen and repeat:

    This would – This’d x 5

    That would – That’d x 5

    These would – These’d x 5

    Those would – Those’d x 5

     

    *Note: these contractions are spoken and not written unless in verb informal situations like messaging friends on social media or via text message on your phone. THIS’D, THAT’D, THESE’D and THOSE’D would never be written formally.

    So, as we’ve gone over in previous episode guys, I’ve written each of these sentences for this substitution exercise out with a noun added in brackets. So, the noun is added straight after the demonstrative pronoun. So, if you read the transcript you will see THIS and then a noun. And I’ve done this so that you guys can better imagine what I’m talking about, because the whole reason that we use THIS, THAT, THESE and THOSE, the demonstrative pronouns, in English is because whoever it is that is having this conversation has agreed or has obviously made it understood what they’re talking about. So, if I’m talking about a cat and it’s THIS cat right in front of me I can just ditch the noun “cat” and just start saying THIS, THIS, THIS, THIS. So, I’m not constantly repeating myself. And so, all of these sentences, I’ve obviously dropped the noun, I’ve removed the noun, so that you’re contracting the word WOULD directly onto the demonstrative pronoun. So, instead of, for example, saying THIS DRESS WOULD and saying THIS DRESS’D, you’re practicing saying THIS WOULD and THIS’D.

    Anyway, long story short, if you don’t understand these sentences from just listening go and read the transcript and in brackets after each one of these demonstrative pronouns is a noun to give you better context for what each of these sentences means. So, that you can imagine in your head what I’m talking about as I’m speaking.

    And so, let’s just dive into it guys. Let’s get started, and let’s practice improving your contraction skills.

     

    Substitution exercise:

    1. This [dress] would look good on you.

    ___________________________________________________

    1. That [car] would be incredibly fast.

    ___________________________________________________

    1. These [shoes] would help you run faster.

    ___________________________________________________

    1. Those [dogs] would have to be ours.

    ___________________________________________________

    1. This [house] would cost a fortune.

    ___________________________________________________

    1. That [idea] would never work.

    ___________________________________________________

    1. These [computers] would work if they were plugged in.

    ___________________________________________________

    1. Those [books] would change your life if you read them.

    ___________________________________________________

    1. This [wallet] would be mine.

    ___________________________________________________

    1. That [woman] would be his wife.

    ___________________________________________________

    1. I don’t think these [pants] would fit me.

    ___________________________________________________

    1. See if those [earrings] would look better.

    ___________________________________________________

    1. This [news] would change everything.

    ___________________________________________________

    1. Knowing that [secret] would devastate her.

    ___________________________________________________

    1. Swallowing these [pills] would kill you.

    ___________________________________________________

    1. Those [chickens] would run away if they could.

    ___________________________________________________

     

    See all answers in the Answer Section of the PDF transcript.

     

    And so, guys, I know that I’m saying these sentences in a sort of slow and weird way. I’m emphasising the contractions because when I speak as a native quite often these contractions are very subtle, and I’ve been chatting to a few people I’ve been giving lessons to and who have listened to the podcast, and a few of them have said that it’s incredibly difficult to hear when I’m making these contractions. So, I thought that I would add in a few lessons here where I really really try and emphasise that “ed” sound after a lot of these words. I’m not going to do it in every single one, because I think that just one or two lessons here and there will give you the idea. But yeah, it’s one of those things where when you’re practicing I really recommend overdoing it overemphasising it, you know, saying it where it does sound strange but that you’re doing it correctly with perfect technique, if you will, if you want to talk technique wise. And so, when you speak quickly, it’ll just be natural and it’ll be really subtle.

    So, for example here, if I was to read the first sentence again, “This would look good one you” and say, we’re talking about a dress. So, “This dress would look good on you”. If I was to say, “This would look good on you” but contracted, and I said it quickly like a native, I’d say, “This’d look good on you”, “This’d look good on you”. But I feel that if I say these sentences too quickly you’re going to really miss what I’m trying to get at, and the most important thing in all of these is showing you guys how to really work that contraction of these words and pronounce them correctly so that when you do it slowly you get it right, and when you speed up and start speaking more quickly as you get better at this you’ll change it and it’ll become more and more and more subtle. So, you’ll get better at it that way.

    Anyway, I won’t waffle on too much, I won’t talk too much, I just wanted to sort of go over why in this episode I am talking a little more slowly and emphasising the “ed” sound. THIS’D, THAT’D, THESE’D, THOSE’D.

    And just now, I just thought, as one way of practicing these things, whatever the contraction is that you’re working (on), if you really really want to practice it well and just do reps (i.e. repetitions) on your own in your bedroom, you know, just repeat the thing multiple times, make them bounce. Make them bounce off that last syllable of the word. So, you would’ve heard me THIS’D instead of THIS’D. Really practicing that bouncing, the THIS’D, THAT’D, THESE’D, THOSE’D. And it will probably work with any of these contractions.

    Anyway, guys, I’ll leave it there and I’ll see you guys in the next episode. All the best!

    Get the Premium PDF transcript here: [sdm_download id=”1919″ fancy=”0″]

     

    If you wish to support me and the many hours of hard work I put into The Aussie English Podcast then please consider donating a few dollars a month via Patreon! The more support I get, the more I can work on The Aussie English Podcast!

    Check out all the other recent Pronunciation episodes below!

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