Learn Australian English in this interview episode of the Aussie English Podcast where I chat to Dana Catherwood from Can Learn English about why you should learn Canadian English.
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AE 496 – Interview: Why You Should Learn Canadian English with Dana Catherwood
Hey, guys. How’s it going? Welcome to this Aussie English interview today.
Today, I have a special one for you guys. As we spoke about recently in that Walking with Pete episode where I was chatting to you about the future directions of Aussie English the podcast and, I guess, business in general, I have tried to sort of strike out and obviously interview more people from overseas, and this interview is hopefully going to be not the first one, I guess, ’cause I’ve done quite a few people from overseas, but one of the first ones more recently, I guess, heading in that direction of interviewing people from overseas, and today I get to interview an amazing girl from Canada.
So, this is Dana from Can Learn English, and we talk all about what it’s like in Canada as an immigrant going there, learning English, the differences between Australian English and Canadian English. I kind of just get to know her and try and have a natural conversation where we talk about these things. Right? So, without any further ado, guys, hopefully are going to enjoy this interview, and if you are interested in learning Canadian English, this is definitely the interview for you, guys. Okay? So, let’s go next.
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Hey, guys! Welcome to this episode of Aussie English! today I have another interview episode for you, guys and I am here with Dana from Can Learn English at canlearnenglish.com so, Dana welcome to the Aussie English podcast.
Thank you so much for having me!
That’s awesome to have you. I think you might be the first Canadian on the podcast so, congratulations!
I reckon there’s not many Canadians are there usually so…
What’s the population of Canada? I’m always wondering if Australia is bigger or smaller.
Yeah, about 35 million now.
You’re like a third bigger than us then… damn. Little brother.
Really?
Yeah, we’re like barely 25.
Well, you’re way down there so we’re hard to get to.
Yeah exactly. Can you tell me your story? You’re currently living in Switzerland. You’re from Canada and you teach Canadian English. So, I heard about this through… I heard about this through Justin, who I interviewed recently, and he was like man you got to chat to Dana. She teaches Canadian English like you teach Australian English. How on earth did you end up doing what you’re doing where you’re doing it?
Yeah well what happened was is I moved to Brazil in 2016 and that’s when I really started teaching English full time. And I was kind of combining it with teaching kids and then I was also teaching adults and most the adults that were coming to me in Brazil were preparing to go to Canada.
No kidding.
So, yeah, pretty much all of them had some type of connection to Canada or wanted to go to Canada. And then one of my students was like oh Dana can you please start a YouTube channel because I watch…you know, he named a bunch of youtubers that he watches he is like there is no one really there from Canada and that’s where I want to go and I’d like to learn more about Canadian culture and learn your accent more and just things about Canada so, you need to start one. so, I did, and then I started my YouTube channel Can Learn English and I already had a website for my teaching business, but that kind of turned more into a blog. I got on Instagram and stuff so yeah, it’s been pretty fun.
How did you end up in Brazil like that seems like a random place and you’re in Switzerland?
My partner’s half Brazilian. So, we went down there for…
Man, my fiancée is from Brazil.
So, you are learning Portuguese then?
Exatamente, eu to falando Portugues cada dia (“Exactly, I’m speaking Portuguese each day”). I’m speaking every day.
Oh awesome!
That’s so crazy!
Portuguese is very hard, very, very difficult. I mean, I can understand a lot more than I can speak.
That’s my position as well. But that’s always the case, right? As soon as you get to intermediate/advance in a language it’s almost like… I hate this the beginnings of starting a new language because you sort of like you can say so much more than you can hear because people throw it at you and you’re just like… overwhelmed. And then all of a sudden though the listening takes off and you’re just like, all of a sudden, I can’t reply.
Like a sophisticatedly as I would like to reply to these things.
And there’s like, there’s holes where you can’t completely understand what someone is saying, but like certain words you have no idea what they mean, but within the context that must kind of mean this.
That happened to me recently where I live with three other Brazilians as well as my fiancée, like…
You’re basically living in Brazil…
Exactly, we moved into this house we had to move houses and I was like Can you see if you can find a Brazilian one? Like online on Facebook? And we can go there and I’ll just like learn Portuguese this year and she’s like yeah, yeah, yeah, no worries. So, we moved here, anyway, they showed me recently a song by a band called o Rappa, like the rap. It’s called Rodo Cotidiano and it’s like this amazing song and I thought I loved the song we’re listening to it, didn’t understand anything. Try to translate it and I was just blown away by like the metaphors the expressions and just like I just know nothing. I can talk to these guys for hours about my day and hobbies, but as soon as it gets to something advanced I was like…no.
Now. Yeah, and right now a lot of the conversations that Brazilians have leaned towards politics because they’re having an election in October, so in the point it’s like…Complete check out, just like, nothing. I will listen for the sake of listening, but I do not understand.
That’s the worst, they did that recently to me where they had a few beers and then all of a sudden, they just went crazy chatting about politics and I’m like I just can’t even… I have nothing to add and I am physically incapable of keeping up with this conversation.
Yeah.
Crazy.
So, you were in Brazil teaching English living there with your partner?
Yeah.
And then for how long was that and how did you end up in Switzerland?
We were there for about a year and a half and he’s also Swiss. So, this why we’re in Switzerland.
Damn, best of both words. Which part of Switzerland is he from? Which languages does he speak?
The German speaking part of Switzerland. German is the next hurdle for me.
Holly molly. Man, I’ll have to put you in touch with my friend Shannon because it’s such a… it’s such a small world she was in…. She was in Germany for eight years and then moved to Colombia for six months and then was like actually I want to go to Brazil, moved to Brazil ended up falling in love with a guy and marrying him, being there for two years and so now she’s like fluent in Portuguese, fluent German and just moved back to America and is teaching English in Portuguese on Facebook. So, it’s just… Brazil, man. They’re attacking everyone, they’re getting all the English teachers.
Yeah. You know, and that was the thing. It’s very hard to just like move to Brazil. Like as a non-Brazilian and someone without any visa. So, there’s not a whole lot of native English teachers there.
Yeah.
So, when they find someone, you know, you’re just completely busy. When you’re teaching in Brazil it’s kind of like a little bit of a novelty.
That was so crazy. So, what was the thing that made you want to teach English? Were you doing this from a very young age after high school or something or was it something you fell into?
It was something I really… I really fell into. I was working actually in business in sales and marketing for many, many years and then we moved to Brazil and I said you know, let’s try the teaching and I absolutely loved it. I had always done and been involved with kids and that was really what, you know, I had done a lot of… swimming instructor and I’d done all that kind of teaching other things, so I said let’s start teaching English they started doing that and I loved it.
That’s so funny. It was the same sort of story for me where. Similar to you I was I was studying something completely different at the time, started learning a foreign language and I had friends who were asking me…you told me about this podcast you were listening to in French, is there an equivalent for Australian in English? And I was looking couldn’t find anything and that’s how I began, I was like oh I know how to podcast, I used to be on a podcast so, just tinker away and create some materials for you and then it was so satisfying helping people on a daily basis and getting that sort of… the constant replies and e-mails and comments just thank you, can you do this? and that that really felt like I was actually helping and making a difference as opposed to doing science behind a desk every day. Do you miss business at all?
Yeah, not really. That’s funny that you say science because I actually did a science degree as well. It worked in a lab for a little bit, so we have very similar stories.
That’s it!
I don’t really miss it too much because like, you know, with YouTube and Instagram and I’m running a course in November for my students that there is a lot of business and stuff involved that you do still have to do.
Yes, exactly.
The other side of teaching which is not teaching it’s more…
That’s so good though that you obviously had that background because I kind of had to dive in the deep end and just to learn all the business stuff online and just make it up as I went along.
Oh yeah, super challenging…like I’ve…podcasts and YouTube videos. I’m sure you’re the same…
Which do you prefer too? And how did you decide which platforms to use with regards to say Instagram, YouTube, Facebook podcasts all of that sort of stuff? Was there a clear one at the beginning you just said I’m going to do this or…?
So, I did YouTube at first, I was like, you know, we can just make some videos on YouTube. I’m pretty comfortable in front of a camera doesn’t really bother me too much, but there’s so like I’m kind of shiny object syndrome where, you know, and it’s like oh Instagram is really interesting and then…you know, I’ve been think thinking about a podcast as well, but I do kinda right now focusing on teaching my materials within my courses and stuff like that and then possibly we’ll do that later. You know, there are so many platforms to help people learn. So fun…
I know I feel like… my dad used to tell me this story about a baboon he used to work at the zoo as an educator there and he said there was a baboon and they used to put all of these coconuts in the baboon’s enclosure and the baboon would try and pick them all up but they’d always put in one extra that he couldn’t hold so he would constantly be dropping one as soon as he picked up the other one. And I felt like that kind of thing with social media quite often where I’ve got like YouTube and Instagram, Facebook and the podcast that it feels like this constant juggling act where a ball is always falling to the ground and you like ahhhh…
I’m sure like you can even take that into when you’re learning a language, you could sit there and focus so much on like your listening skills because maybe that’s a little fun and then you’re speaking falls behind and then, you know, reading maybe isn’t so good and writing. So you kind of have to learn how to incorporate everything and give everything the time that it needs, right?
Exactly. So, can you tell me more about Canada and what are the things about Canada that make it a better place to migrate than America or Australia or New Zealand or Great Britain? What are the pros and cons?
I think right now there’s a lot of process, especially compared to America, because you know what’s going on in the U.S. Donald Trump and his anti-immigration policy. Canada has always been very opposite to that, like diversity is really a pillar of our identity within Canada. And so we’re opening up our doors for immigration more so than ever before and especially more so now than the Americans. We have a really neat immigration policy that I think helps, you know, make our diversity work so well it’s based on a point system. So, unlike the US where usually if you have a family connection or if you’re married or your brother’s American somehow you can, you know, immigrate through family ties, whereas in Canada it’s a point system so you get points on your education, your language ability, where you want to go in Canada. So, if you’re willing to go to maybe a place that’s a little more rural that doesn’t have a huge population you could earn more points…it’s I’m not an expert this is just what I know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah…
Basic, you know, don’t take my word but that’s kind of the general thing of how the immigration policy works so, it’s really, really neat because you get some really well-educated people that want to be part of Canadian society. They have good language skills and can contribute.
So, which are the places too people should try to go? Which areas of Canada are the ones that you would recommend people go or maybe the ones that most people try to go to?
Yeah. Like I think all across Canada is a great place to migrate. I don’t think that one is better than the other. A lot of people prefer Toronto or Vancouver. That’s kind of like the two that people know. And so, they’re like I’ll go to Toronto or Vancouver. These are very expensive cities. Vancouver is one of the most expensive in the world, Toronto is very expensive. So, as long as people understand that when they’re moving there there’s going to be some larger costs than if they were to move to a smaller city or to somewhere, you know, less populated. And a lot of people that do go, you know, will study at a college and, you know, get a little bit of a Canadian education and then go on to start working, so yeah…
So, with regards to learning Canadian English, what are your suggestions? If I’ve got listeners right now listening to this podcast or watching this video, who are… wherever they are in the world they thinking about going to Canada or learning more about Canada. even migrating there, what is a way in which they can they can learn Canadian English? What are the difficult or different unique aspects of Canadian English?
It’s kind of a vague term Canadian English because it’s very similar to the American, we have a very similar to the American accent, the Northern American accent a lot of people have a hard time, just, I’m even sure yourself, have a hard time distinguishing if it’s a Canadian or an American.
Oh that’s the Australian New Zealand accent problem, right? We can here it really well, but you know others can’t and it’s the same thing I’m always like to ”say about, say about” she’s Canadian, got it!
Yeah. It’s always about. Even when I’m watching YouTube videos. I can tell if the content creator is Canadian or any subject. Pretty much as soon as they say ”about” I’m like ….
So can you say that first? Can you say those words? Can you do an American accent version, than the Canadian version at all?
No, I can’t do an American accent, but like you could say ”what about the house?” that would be like… because the OU sound.
What about the house? Yeah. What about the house? is how I would say.
What about the house? Is the OU is distinct, we say it differently.
Yeah. It sounds like that: “What about, what about the house”. I mean, that’s what exaggerating it.
Yeah, Yeah. And so, there’s not a whole lot of differences. There’s a few spelling differences, we kind of mashed together the British spelling with the American spellings, so for instance we spell colour, with an OU, labour with an OU, we don’t use the… like ‘organize’, we tend to use the Z and not an S. So, we have… and ‘Program’ it doesn’t have that ME at the end, like in England they spell it P R O G R A M M E.
See, that’s so funny because we suffer from the same kind of issue especially using computers. Anytime we get a computer like my Mac is constantly correcting me into American English. And it’s happened for so long that it screwed up my… I get the average one, I can understand okay you know like ISE what I’ll use instead of IZE or OUR r instead of OR, but then quite often you have words like program and I’ll be like… oh no. Is this with just one M or two Ms and a E. It’s so funny how that’s kind of leached into other areas of being way short of the dialects.
Yeah. Yeah. Especially anyone who moved, you know, away from Britain they kind of adopted their own spelling and then we kind of… because Canada is part of the Commonwealth and we kind of kept our ties to England, but we severed them a little bit. It’s just kind of weird how it turned out with spellings, but that’s kind of the main difference with the Americans. Same spelling and then pronunciation things, but then a lot of times I think students, you know, they can get more excited about learning especially if they’re going to Canada from a Canadian teacher. I think for them it kind of gives them a little step inside Canada. You know, they get to learn about it, they can ask questions. So, that’s really what I try to give my students.
And is there a big range of expressions or slang that differs from the U.S? and even accents too…I know that there’s the Newfoundland that accents that’s totally different, right, from Vancouver accent.
Yeah, I know, you would find that like I would sound very similar someone for Vancouver. There’s not a whole lot of accent difference. We have a little bit of like a rural accent. People that don’t live inside the city sound… yeah, really, really small, like you barely notice that accent differs, the differences than in Canada. And then slang, there are some slang words, like we add “ey” to the end of every sentence too.
Yeah? As in just saying that daradarara “ey?”.
Dadadada… it’s cold out, ey? Yeah, super cold!
So, that would kind of be what we would do. yeah, there’s a bit… I have a YouTube video on it, I can send you the link…
Yeah, definitely do, and that’s something there that pattern kind of happens every now and then in different dialects. If you go, in Australia, right? I’m from the south and if you go up to the north into a state called Queensland they do that, they have that sort of habit of putting hey, on the end of every sentence, so like ”it’s hot today, hey?” Would you like to go to the beach, hey?” so you know they’ll do that quite a lot and so it’s funny how those..
Interesting…
That’s our big one. I stopped saying it when I lived in Ireland because everyone would be like ”oh hahaha Canadian, that’s so cool”, so I stopped.
Well, that’s the funny thing too, any time I’ve been overseas I notice my accent…. I think it goes up and I like overdo it or it drops down because people are having trouble understanding me and I have to really enunciate and pronounce my words clearly and how do you find that, being in Switzerland now, how have you found your English, has that changed at all? or even after being in Brazil, did you find yourself changing at all?
To be honest, I think… you know. when you’re spending most of your time speaking to native English speakers, I think you’re just kind of… you start making some mistakes that they make sometimes. And I know a lot of other teachers say that that happens, you know, you start to kind of…”how do they say that? What happened there?”
Well, you used to what’s familiar, right? and that happens to me with Portuguese and French, after… especially when you are heavily learning them and watching TV shows, suddenly all use the same patterns, but I’ll say them in English but just with English words and then I’ll be like Wait… that doesn’t…. that’s how you would normally say that.
Yeah. I know, this happens in Germany people put like verbs at the end of the sentence and you can kind of… the word order gets all kind of funny. But, you know, I’m really lucky in this place a lot of people speak very, very, very well in English so it’s not too difficult we tend to get round in English so I’m thankful for that.
And so, what are you doing currently to learn German? If you, you know, you’re used to teaching English, have you found that the way in which you go about learning German is completely different from how people would learn English or is it effectively the exact same thing?
I think when you’re an adult and you start at like zero, it’s a little different, because a lot of people who are learning they’ve had like a little bit of English through their schooling. Most children know a little bit of English now and then they grow up, you know, you do learn it. and starting from absolutely nothing.
Never had any exposure or anything like that.
Nothing. You know, I’ve got a few work books and just trying to possibly get myself up past a one and two and then I can get into like… taking a course here.
Do you recommend doing that?
I think for me for the… for motivation I’ll go to school and do a little course, I might do something online and I still have to kind of research and see what is out there in terms of learning.
Yeah.
I didn’t do anything, I took an online course in Portuguese and that helped me a lot. So, I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, it’s called The Semantica Portuguese…
Yeah, I have, I have heard of it.
Yeah, I took that one so that helped me a lot and there was lots of video lessons and activities and stuff and it kind of jumpstarted me and then the exposure.
And is it something you’ve always interested in learning languages or was that just something that kind of fell in your lap?
Yeah, nothing it’s like I’m forced to do it. You can’t get around in Brazil unless you can speak a little bit of basic Portuguese.
So, was your husband like that, though, or partner when you guys got together was he like so… you were going to do Brazil first and then we’re going to Switzerland.
So, yeah, that’s how it played out. So, you know, and I got to Brazil and I had like zero, nothing in Portuguese and just kind of was on Duolingo, was on on YouTube all the time, was taking this course and then I would chat a lot with my Uber drivers when I was driving to make lessons. Yeah, yeah, it’s like it’s kind of a safe zone cause you get to get out of the car in 30 minutes and yeah I don’t have to ever talk to these people again.
I can make a fool of myself and no one will know.
So, I think that’s kind of what I did and it was it was a cool experience and I never…Canada is a bilingual country, people speak French and English, I don’t speak French. I learned French in school, but I grew up so far away from any French speaking area that, you know, it’s not uncommon for people to be fluent in where I’m from.
That always blew my mind. I’ve been to Canada once when I was a kid and my cousins lived with my uncle and aunty in Vancouver and I remember we went and everything was in French and English and I was like What? I thought that Canada was an English-speaking country. Can you tell us a bit about, I don’t know a brief history of how that came about and what people expect if they come to Canada with regards to the two languages? And I almost said ‘the both languages’, the two languages*.
The two languages. Yeah, so we have…. officially it’s a bilingual country. So, you can interact with the government on any level in either French or English. All services are provided in both languages. Any materials, the websites you see are both in French and English. We have a French speaking province that’s entirely French, province of Quebec. And then a small part of a neighboring province has a lot of French speaking communities and basically, you know, way back in history you had the French settlers, you had the English settlers and was, you know, a bit of a fight over who would reign, but as it turns out we have both languages in Canada and in government. For example, it would be required that people speak both.
No kidding.
Every time our prime minister speaks both languages or switch between the two. In like if he’s doing like a press conference, he’ll be speaking both. You’ll get a translation and then from a young age in school, about grade 4 or more about 10 we start learning French for about five or six years and then you can stop and most of us do and don’t really think about it ever again. Unfortunately. I think in English speaking, at least for myself, I didn’t like this was the complaint at school. It’s like, well, so why do we have to learn French? Like, you know? Yeah. That’s kind of the attitude.
Doesn’t everyone just speak English?
Yeah, because the people do speak English, you know, so I wish that maybe I had had more of a… I liked it more and I stick more with it but I couldn’t.
Well, you’re in Switzerland. You never know, you might be able to just find somewhere that’s close to the border between where those two languages are in the country and they smash those two out as well.
It did help me with Portuguese, so I must say, having a Latin language and understanding that they change the way the verbs change and conjugation and things like that, that really helped. So, it wasn’t completely useless, it was more… it helped me later on, you know?
Oh brilliant. And so, with regards to learning Canadian English, what sort of advice would you have for students if they are in their own country right now, what’s the best way, obviously going over to Can Learn English.com to get started and Can Learn English on Facebook or YouTube, but are there specific TV shows or books or things they should keep an eye out for that would be a bit of a boost?
Yeah, they can watch Canadian TV, there’s a bunch of comedians, I have a blog post about it, I can send you a link and put it in your show notes if you want.
Yeah, do it.
I list some Canadian TV shows that they can watch. they can… you know. always the news is a really good idea. You can watch the news from anywhere in the world. You know, you can pick a Canadian news channels, that helps a lot.
I know, YouTube is wonderful for that, right? You can get ABC News Australia streamed on their 24 hours a day, there are news channels in the US doing the same, I’m sure Canada as well. So, someone needs to put together a page or something that just has all these different dialects of English as YouTube channels, so that they can just stream them and switch between them.
They can all just stream all the news, because I think the news is great, it’s kind of a very understandable type of English and they can get in touch with kind of current events that are going on in the country and things like that. And Canadian news is always really cute and funny because it always tells the stories and there’s always this really sweet story at the end, you know, about a bear, who, I don’t know, visited someone in their back yard.
That it, there’s always like death, sad stuff and then at the end it’s like he’s a happy cat video!
Yeah, basically. A cat running for mayor or something like silly. So… It’s not a totally different thing.
Are there any other main big differences between say Canadian culture and American culture or anywhere else? Are there things that people should be aware of or consider before coming to Canada or would give them a bit of a boost as well, if they meet someone and they’re like ”yeah, I know this thing so I get you!”
Yeah, that’s a really good question, I have to think about that. I know one…. like there are big differences between Canadian and American culture and it’s just really good to like…know that. You know, don’t think you can just blend the two together, because we absolutely hate it, we are… I guess, we probably have like maybe a little sibling syndrome and ”we’re here too, you were too!” so we don’t like to be confused with Americans, and kind of like… you know, we have a very different government, we have a lot of social policies and we’re very proud of our free health care, so… A lot of the issues that are going on in America, we’re like you dealt with those like forever ago. Those aren’t a problem for us. You know, what’s going on? So, I guess you have to just be when you’re in Canada, be really mindful that people are very multicultural. We’re really uncomfortable with any type of like prejudice or racism or anything like that.
So, you know, it’s a very inclusive place.
And what are the guns like? I take that you guys are a bit more strict on that, right?
I think maybe in some places, but I don’t know anybody with a gun, so…
Anything else that you wanted to mention before we finish up then?
I don’t know, I think that’s it, I really liked it…Thanks for inviting me onto the podcast. I love your stuff. It’s really cool. I thought that you were doing, you know, Aussie English, I’m doing Canadian English it was great that we were able to connect, it was awesome.
I know. I’m so happy. Anyway, where can people find you, then?
Can Learn English.com, that’s my website. You can search Can Learn English on YouTube and Can Learn English on Instagram. And then I have a Facebook page as well and I have a group, so, if anybody wants… is moving to Canada and they want to join the group it’s called ‘Talking to Canada’, but you can find these links on my website and stuff so…
Oh brilliant, I’ll put them all in the show notes as well as the transcript so that you, guys, can them easily.
Awesome, Dana from Can Learn English, thank you so much for joining me today.
Thank you.
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All right, guys. So, I hope you enjoy that interview.
Remember that you can find out more about Dana on her website CanLearnEnglish.com. You can obviously search “Can Learn English” on Facebook, on YouTube, on Instagram, and you will find her accounts. The accounts will also be in the transcript today. So, if you would like to learn more about her, what she does, how she teaches, and maybe just more about Canadian English, go to CanLearnEnglish.com. Big thanks once again, Dana. I hope to have you on again in the future. And I will see you guys soon. Catch ya!
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AE 419: High Fat Breakfasts & Minimalism
Learn Australian English in this episode of the Aussie English where I take you through my daily routine of eating a high fat breakfast, set up my work station, and my interest in minimalism.
AE 419: High-fat Breakfasts & Minimalism
Morning, guys! (I) thought I would show you or give you a little window into what I do for breakfast. So, I guess, first and foremost, I wake up in the morning and I use this little puppy, this is a coffee machine, an espresso machine, to make myself a view for coffee using all the espresso gear here. I’m a bit of a coffee snob you could say.
And then, beyond that, when I start having food in the morning, I really like to have low carb, high fat foods. So, at the moment, what I’ve got here is I’ve got some cauliflower and some carrot that I’ve grated up. So, grated this up using a greater. I use this to make it very fine sort of like a little rice, a little bit of rice. Really small pieces. They’re easy to cook. Very quick to cook. I fry that up here. And here, I have some bacon, and I’ve cooked that in coconut oil. (I) absolutely love coconut oil. So, many uses for that stuff. So, I thought I would give you a little look. I also like to use Himalayan salt. This is pink salt from the Himalayas. It’s got a lot of minerals in it. A lot of, you know, good natural stuff in it for you as opposed to just using iodine salt. The standard white stuff. And then, I guess, on top of that I put cheese. I put some cheese on top of that too.
So, I have to remember too, not to put sauce on, because yesterday, I put some of this sauce on it thinking, “Oh, yeah, it’s not that bad”, but in the mornings, I want to have high fat, high protein, lots of veggies, but really low carbs. I don’t want to have many, many carbs. So, things like rice and red, sugars, and sauces like this. When I turned it around and realised what I’d done, it’s actually almost 60 % sugar. 57 grams of sugar for every hundred grams of sauce. I’m an idiot. That was a massive face palm.
So, why do I do this? I guess, I should tell you. The point of having high fat, high protein in the morning is that your glucose levels have dropped overnight, which is your sugars, the carbs that cause glucose to go up in your blood. Your brain obviously uses this for energy. But your brain can use fat for energy as well. These are called ketones. Okay. And if you have fat and glucose at the same time, your body will choose to use glucose over the fat, your insulin levels will rise as a result of the glucose in order for your body to be able to use that glucose, and insulin, when insulin is high, it causes your body to store any fat that you’ve consumed as fat on your body. Okay. And so, that is why having a high fat meal is really good as long as the carbs are low so that the insulin doesn’t go up and cause you to store that fat, because now, with my high fat breakfast, there’s no carbs, there’s no glucose, there’s nothing else for my body to use except for the fat in this meal. So, I thought I would give you a bit of an insight there, guys, tell you a little bit about what I do for my meals in the morning.
I normally have high fat, high protein. I normally fast. So, I’ll wait until about 11 or 12, then I’ll eat breakfast at 11 or 12, and then maybe at four I’ll have some snacks. You know, I might have some nuts, some berries. I might have a little bit of dark chocolate. And then, after that, in the evening, is when I will have things like bread. Okay. That’s when I’ll have high carb, low fat. So, I switch it over, because then in the evening my glucose will go up, my insulin will go up, and I don’t want to have high fat, because the fat will be stored on my body. So, there you go, guys. A little bit about my diet and how my meals are organised during the day, and obviously, I have a lot of coffee during the day as well. You know, normally two or three of those.
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(Have) you guys come to steal my food. You guys going to hold me up, (and) take my food, huh? (A) little bit hot. That’s what I’m talking about, guys. That is what I’m talking about. Who doesn’t like cheese?
I should probably show you, guys, the set up currently, and I’ll tell you my little secret addiction right now. So, okay, I’m having my little lunch here and you can see that, as is usual with me, everything is very well organised. I have put everything in its proper place. That’s a total lie. I’ve just put everything on the table here, but this is where I am set up. This is my workstation at the moment, where I work.
So, I’ve got the lunch here, got a Pepsi Max, as usual, my computer here, and my little addiction, at the moment, I don’t know if you can see this, I’ll see if I can show you, are these tiny houses videos, where people get little tours of these tiny houses. So, I’m really getting into that at the moment, and I think Quel’s starting to get sick of it, but I have a real, real interest in these people who change their lives up, they sell what they have, they’re really minimalistic. They don’t have a lot of possessions, and they buy incredibly small houses. Usually, they’ll actually make these houses themselves.
So, I’m really starting to get into this minimalism stuff and cherishing the few things that you have and making the most of a lot less. Okay. So, I’d love to know what you guys think about that sort of movement in today’s culture, right? It seems like a lot of people are starting to get over, they’re starting to lose interest in, having a lot of stuff and having a lot of things. People are starting to push back against this and sell everything they have, or at least all of the excess stuff that they have, and start cherishing a lot fewer things, you know, a lot fewer things.
So, yeah, I thought I would give you a little tour here. This is my daily office, right? I kind of chill out here. I have my food and my drink. Sometimes I sit on the couch here and put my computer on this chair. (I’m) staying here whilst my friends are away, and I am taking care of their dogs who tend to do this sort of funny stuff. This is Jack right here. He’s the one who was sitting with me the other day in the podcast. He seems to love pushing these cushions… he pushes the cushions off the couch and then puts his head under the cushions whilst sitting in front of the light here coming through directly into his eyes. So, he is a very funny and quirky dog. And the other dog that I have here is Elly, and she is a lot more calm, chilled out, and relaxed. She just chills out under my workbench here all day as I am working away.
So, there you go, guys. This is sort of a little window into my daily life. I hope you like this video. Let me know again what you think down below in a comment and I’ll try and make more like these in the future if you enjoy them. So, peace out, guys.
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Ep069: Like A Native – Pete’s Place = Pete’s
In this episode of Like A Native I teach you guys how native speakers of English often drop words like, place, home, house after a possessive noun or name + ‘s.
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Ep069: Like a native – Pete’s [place] = Pete’s
Hey guys! Welcome tot his episode of Aussie English. I’m going to rename these I think now. So, there’s going to be some of these episodes where I’m teaching you things that aren’t necessarily the exact pronunciation of a word and they aren’t exactly the most interesting expressions. Although, you could argue that they are expressions to some degree. But I’m going to rename them “Like A Native”. So, these sorts of phrases and words that you would say like a native, I’m going to make these episodes so that you guys, if you want to speak like a native, or if you just want to understand natives, I’ll teach you things that they say and do often as natives.
So, today’s episode is going to be how natives will often reduce ah… phrases along the lines of, “Pete’s place”, to just “Pete’s”, or “His place” to “his”, “My place” to “Mine”, “Your place” to “Yours”, “Jane’s place” to “Jane’s”. Any time we’re talking about a person’s home, a person’s house, a person’s place of residence, there, there home, etc, we will often just refer to it as the person’s. So, we won’t actually say the noun afterwards. We won’t say words like “house”, “home” or “place” after the person’s name, or after the possessive pronoun, we’ll just say the possessive pronoun such as “mine”, “Yours”, “his”, “Hers”, “Ours”, “Theirs” or we’ll just say there name plus an “‘s”. So, “Pete’s”, “Jane’s”, “George’s”, um… “Geoffrey’s”, etc.
So, what are some examples guys? So, for instance, I could say, “I’m going to Pete’s place for lunch”. “I’m going to Pete’s place for lunch”. So, it’s like I’m going to his house for lunch, his home for lunch, where he lives. I’m going there for lunch. You’ll often hear this change to just, “I’m going to Pete’s for lunch”. So, you just drop the place, home, house, whatever it is, you just say “Pete’s”. So, the “Pete” with an “’s”. “Pete’s for lunch”. “I’m going to Pete’s for lunch”.
“I might head to Pete’s place later”. So, this would become, “I might head to Pete’s later”.
“Kids you’re going to Grandma and Grandpa’s house this weekend.” and often you’ll just drop that “house” and say, “Kid’s you’re going to grandma and grandpa’s this weekend.”
We’re staying at his home for the night.” You’ll drop “Home” and you’ll say. ”We’re staying at his for the night.”
Or, the last example could be, “He’s going to her place later.” And you could just say, “He’s going to hers later”.
So, yeah. If you’re using someone’s name, so “Peter’s place”, you’ll just drop the “place” and say “Peter’s”. However, if you’re using pronouns such as “my” or “Mine”, “your” or “Yours” you have to switch between the possessive determiner such as, “my, your, his, her, our, their” and use the possessive pronoun such as, “mine, yours, his, hers, ours, theirs”. Don’t get too bogged down in the grammar here guys. But I did want to mention it in case you wanted to go away and look this up. And when I say the… the phrase “bogged down”, “to be bogged”. “B-O-G-G-E-D”, “Bogged”. “Bogged down”, “To be bogged”, it means to get your car stuck in the mud. So, if you’re driving your car and it gets its wheels caught up in the mud, or the sand, any kind of substrate or dirt, soil, sand, mud, whatever it is, if your car gets stuck that’s “getting bogged”. And, “bogged down” is like it’s sinking into the mud. And if I say that metaphorically with regards to something like “Getting bogged down in grammar”, or “Getting bogged down in the details”, it means getting stuck, or thinking about too much, thinking about in detail, really focusing on the grammar, focusing on these details. So, when I say, “Don’t get bogged down”, it means don’t focus too much, don’t… don’t get stuck on, don’t worry too much about the details or the grammar here for this example.
Anyway, let’s do a little switching substitution drill where I’m going to say, for example, the first sentence, “Pete’s heading to my place”, “Pete’s heading to my place”, and I want you to try and change the sentence to use the possessive pronoun where you would change the sentence to “Pete’s heading to mine”. Instead of “Pete’s heading to my place” you say, “Pete’s heading to mine”. So listen and repeat after me.
Pete’s heading to my place.
Pete’s heading to mine.
Pete’s heading to your place.
Pete’s heading to yours.
Pete’s heading to his place.
Pete’s heading to his.
Pete’s heading to her place.
Pete’s heading to hers.
Pete’s heading to our place.
Pete’s heading to ours.
Pete’s heading to their place.
Pete’s heading to theirs.
Tonight, Jane’s coming to my place.
Tonight, Jane’s coming to mine.
Tonight, Jane’s coming to your place.
Tonight, Jane’s coming to yours.
Tonight, Jane’s coming to his place.
Tonight, Jane’s coming to his.
Tonight, Jane’s coming to her place.
Tonight, Jane’s coming to hers.
Tonight, Jane’s coming to our place.
Tonight, Jane’s coming to ours.
Tonight, Jane’s coming to their place.
Tonight, Jane’s coming to theirs.
So, we’ll just do a few more with names and then the “’s” and then we’ll finish up guys.
I’m going to Pete’s place for lunch.
I’m going to Pete’s for lunch.
I’m going to Jane’s place this evening.
I’m going to Jane’s this evening.
I’m going to John’s place this arvo.
I’m going to John’s this arvo.
So, that was the episode for today guys. I hope you’re enjoying it, I hope this is helping you guys learn to understand spoken English as spoken by natives, and if you are interested in speaking like a native I hope it’s really helping with that as well. Anyway, [I’m] trying to keep these episodes brief so you can listen multiple times without listening to a lot of intro and outro speech, so I’ll cut it there and chat to you guys soon. All the best!
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Traveling With Pete E01: Point Lonsdale
Learn Australian English in this Aussie English episode of Traveling With Pete I take you guys to Point Lonsdale whilst also teaching you a bunch of English slang terms like YOU’VE GOT BUCKLEY’S CHANCE, DODGEY, SKETCHY, SHONKY and CHOCKAS/CHOCKABLOCK.
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Traveling With Pete E01: Point Lonsdale
What’s up guys? Welcome to this episode of, I guess, Driving Around With Pete. So, welcome to Aussie English. Today I’m going to sort of go for a bit of a cruise, go for a bit of a drive, and I’ll hopefully show you a bit of the coast down near Ocean Grove.
So, we’re in Ocean Grove at the moment where I currently… well I don’t currently live here, where my parents currently live. And I grew up down here. And so, I came down this weekend to get a massage, to see my folks, to see my sister and her boyfriend, and had dinner with them last night, and had a nice barbie on the deck, on the balcony of the back of the house. So, we had sausages, veggies, dad cooked up some onions and mushrooms and stuff, we had salad, some snags. And SNAG is the slang word in Australia for a sausage. A sausage that’s been cooked on a barbecue is A SNAG. And a BARBIE is obviously short, or a slang term, for a barbecue. So, yeah, we had a nice little BARBIE last night, had a few beers on the deck, on the balcony, hung out and just had a good yarn, had a good chat, had good times in general.
And then, today I went out this morning down to a café near the beach down near 7W. We’ve got signs all along the beaches along the coast here, and they all have different numbers sort of to tell you how far west or how far east of the bay you are. And so, because we’re on the west side the numbers all end with a W after the number obviously for these beaches. So, 7W is seven beaches west of the bay. And if you’re on the east side of the bay obviously the numbers would all be whatever number E. So, east of the bay. So, at the moment, anyway, we’re going to go get some petrol from the SERVO. So, we’re going to get some PETO from the SERVO if I use some Australian slang. PETO is slang for petrol, PETO, and SERVO is slang for service station or petrol station, but we call them a SERVO in Australia. So, we’re going to the SERVO to get some PETO, you’re going to the service station to get some petrol.
And I just have to make sure that there are no cars coming when I come out of this intersection. What’s some more slang that I can teach you guys? So, I’m going to have to do a UEY, a UEY, in a sec to go to the service station back there. So, I’m going to have to do a UEY, and a UEY is an Australian slang term for U-turn, a U-turn. And so, U-turn is obviously to do a turn in the car as I’m about to do as we go around the roundabout. A U-turn is to effectively do a 180. So, you’re turning in the shape of a U. And so, we just shorten that to a UEY. So, I’m turning in now to go get some petrol at the service station, at the SERVO, (to) get some PETO.
And then, we’ll go for a cruise, we’ll go check out some of the local towns around here. I might take you to some of the beaches. The weather’s not the best, but hopefully you guys will be able to see some of the just different locations around here, I guess. And I’ve just realised that there’s no entry to the petrol station from the entry that I just took into the supermarket here. So, I have to go around the back and enter through this side. So, (I) had to do another UEY, effectively, (I) had to turn around again, anyway.
So, as you guys can probably see here we’re at the service station. To give you an idea of what a SERVO is, obviously it’s where you get petrol and you’ve got options up the top here Unleaded 91, Vortex 95. So, those two are different kinds of petrol, and I think the 91 and 95 refers to the quality. So, the higher the number the better the quality. And then you’ve got diesel. So, most petrol stations here in Australia are going to have unleaded petrol, diesel, and gas. So, yeah, a bit of boring information for you there guys.
I might also add here, guys, you can see the ad there a special for two different drinks for $5 down on the lefthand side, and that’s an ad for Woolworths. And Woolworths is a chain of supermarkets all throughout Australia, and they’re often referred to as just WOOLIES, as WOOLIES. So, W-O-O-L-I-E-S, WOOLIES. That’s something you’re going to hear and see all throughout Australia. So, that’s just another slang term to teach you guys, WOOLIES.
So, I’ve brought you down here to Point Lonsdale, and at the moment we’re at the lighthouse. So, let’s go have an explore and see what we can find. Got to unplug all of my stuff here. Lock the car. Let’s go for a walk. So, as you can see the lighthouse is behind me, and we’ll go check out this sign, have a look. So, what does it say here. So, I guess I’ll just read out this sign for you guys. This is sitting here in front of the lighthouse.
“The voyage to Queenscliff on the paddle steamers lasted about 3 hours. At the end of the journey passengers disembarked and luggage was loaded onto a great trolley to be pushed to the other end of the Queenscliff pier. There waiting on the dusty roadway would be half a dozen horse-drawn carriages, the drivers loading competing for business. “‘Ere y’are, Point Lonsdale.” Our luggage would go on the roof. The 3 miles from Queenscliff to Point Lonsdale would take well over an hour, perhaps two, since there were many stops along the way to drop people staying at one of Point Lonsdale’s many great houses.”
So, let’s go for a walk up and check out this lighthouse. It’s massive, massive, massive. You can get tours here, and I think there’s a walk around the lighthouse. We’ll go check it out. But also, I think the lighthouse is mainly just used for weather nowadays, (it’s a) weather station. So, there’s all these bits of equipment at the top here at the lighthouse used for checking out the weather.
So, it’s definitely a beautiful view up here of the surrounding bay, and you can see the pier behind me, and there’s even a little shack here. And I’ll turn it around and show you a video of the footage (scenery*) around here.
So, I was just reading this sign, guys, behind me here, and it turns out that even I get to learn things from time to time. There’s a saying in Australian English, “You’ve got Buckley’s chance!” or “You’ve got close to Buckley’s chance!”, and I was reading on this sign the person from which that expression originates William Buckley, apparently he was a convict who was born in England, he was convicted, so, he was taken to court for some kind of crime and effectively imprisoned and brought out to Australia as a convict.
And I’m sure many of you will know that Australia was founded on convicts or on prisoners where they were forced to come out here and become the new, I guess, group of English people living here. So, they were forced to be the colonisers, the people who colonised the country of Australia at the time.
And so, I was reading on that sign that he came out here in the early 1800s and as soon as he got here he actually escaped. And so, he went into the bush and was living with the local people, the Wathaurong people, I think. And it was over in Sorrento that this happened, and Sorrento’s on the other side of the bay here. It’s a pretty popular destination. Anyway, so, he escaped, he lived with the Wathaurong local people, (he) learnt the languages and eventually was pardoned by, I think, the governor here in Victoria, and actually became, I think it was a constable and an interpreter for the Wathaurong people. And unfortunately the Wathaurong people, or at least full blood Wathaurong people died out in the late 1800s, I think 1885.
Anyway, so this expression, “You’ve got Buckley’s”, “To have Buckley’s”, it’s to have the same chance as Buckley. I guess it’s surviving. So, when he escaped he obviously probably didn’t have a great chance of survival, because, well, obviously there weren’t the same facilities that we have today in Australia. And so, he had to survive in the wild. He had to try and obviously join up with the aboriginal tribes and somehow not be, you know, killed or ostracised by them, and he managed to do it and he survived.
So, you can use this expression though today, “You’ve got Buckley’s”, to mean you’ve got a very low chance or something. So, you could ask someone a favour, you could say, “Hey, mate, can you… can you lend me $50?”, and if they said to you in response, “Dude, you’ve got Buckley’s, mate.”, that effectively means, “No. You’ve got no chance of getting that money from me.” So, you’ve got a very very slim chance but really if you say, “You’ve got Buckley’s”, it’s the idea of the chances are so slim they might as well be impossible.
So, another one could be, “Do you think I’m going to make this shot from the other side of the golf course? I’m going to have a swing of the golf ball and I’ll get a hole-in-one. What do you think my odds are? What do you think my chances are that I’ll get that?”. Someone could say to you, “Dude, you’ve got Buckley’s chance. You’ve got Buckley’s chance.” And it’s just, “You’ve got no hope. No chance. It’s not going to happen. It’s impossible. You’ve got Buckley’s chance, mate. You’ve got Buckley’s.”.
And so, obviously, that can be lengthened to the full, “You’ve got Buckley’s chance!”, which is the common way of saying it today, but it can also be shortened to just, “You’ve got Buckley’s. You’ve got Buckley’s.”.
Anyway, that’s just a little bit of history that I thought I would tie in there about this area, this lighthouse.
He lived in a cave as well for a little while. There’s a cave that’s around the cove here apparently that he lived in for a few months and subsisted in on just shellfish. So, he was only eaten shellfish. TO SUBSIST means to survive or to live. (It) tends to be off the land. So, to be able to food from your surrounding area and SUBSIST. So, you could be a subsistence farmer, for example, where you SUBSIST off what you can grow, off the things you can farm in that area.
And so, it’s uncertain whether or not he actually did live in that cave, or at least the cave that’s marked out as Buckley’s Cave, but apparently around this area there’s a cave. So, I might go have an explore and see if I can find it and show you guys a video of it if and when I find it. Anyway.
You’ve got to check out the rock formations around here. I’m going to get into this little cave here. All of this stuff is limestone. So, limestone is made up of sand, sediment from the ocean. So, like the sand that’s on the ground here slowly building up. Limestone is built up over millions and millions of years and it’s just layer after layer after layer of sand, shellfish and all the other little animals and stuff that get stuck in there. And the reason you get these really really cool lines is because different layers of limestone are obviously different densities, they’re different strengths, and they erode at different speeds. And so, you’ll have these holes like this, these little layers that obviously erode a lot quicker from wind, from water, and thus dig deep into the rock. You get these layers. And then there’s these other layers that are obviously eroding a lot slower. And so, you have these insane shapes that actually form over millennia, and even these things, like you can see a fossil up here of a… some kind of shellfish or worm that’s grown through the layer here that’s then later been fossilised. You can see the hole here. And it’s left this track from millions and millions and millions of years ago.
And so, I just love coming to these areas around Australia, but around the beach anyway, where you get to see some really ancient rocks, some ancient landscapes, and it just BLOWS MY MIND. And if you guys remember the expression TO BLOW YOUR MIND, if I’ve done that before, TO BLOW YOUR MIND is kind of like to make you just think, to make you be in awe of something, to just really surprise you. So, this stuff, these ancient rocks, and being able to come along and see fossils in them from millions and millions of years ago BLOWS MY MIND in that it’s just astonishing to me, it makes me think, it makes me wonder, it’s incredible.
And you can see, there’s some amazing stuff up here. Let’s see if I can point to it. Up here where you can actually see the bottom of, let’s see if I can get my hand in the right spot here, the bottom of this rock has completely eroded out, but there are all these little divots and holes and crevices left from the animals that were living in that layer at the time. And so, it just blows my mind how old this stuff is, and that I’m effectively sitting underneath what was once beaches, beaches, beaches with wave upon wave crashing down and, you know, these layers building up.
So, anyway, that’s just something I thought of showing you guys here as it really is some beautiful scenery around Point Lonsdale here. And I’ll give you a view, let’s see if I can do it behind me, of the ocean behind me. So, it’s just a beautiful beautiful spot. If you guys ever come down to Geelong or down to Victoria I really really recommend coming down to Point Lonsdale and just checking out the cliffs here, checking out the beach, having a little look at the history. And I mean, the history for us it’s only a few hundred years obviously. It dates back to maybe the 1800s, maybe a bit earlier around here obviously as we were talking about Buckley earlier who was out here in the late 1700s/early 1800s. But yeah, there’s some amazing stuff to see here even though it is relatively recent compared to other parts of the world.
I might add too guys that we’re actually at the mouth of the bay. So, if you walk around, the area just over over here across the ocean is about 2kms, maybe, give or take, so thereabouts, 2kms from here to the other side. And this side is obviously the Geelong side, the Bellarine Peninsula side, and on the other side is the Mornington Peninsula. And so, you’ve actually got, if I can guide my hand correctly, Sorrento around here, and that’s where the ferries go from Queenscliff to the other side of the bay.
And so, it is pretty amazing to think, at least for me personally, that side of the bay is only maybe 2 (or) 3kms away and yet I’ve never been there. It’s that close, but because it’s so far in terms of having to get there, if I want to drive or take the ferry, I’ve never actually been there. So, this is the entrance, the very entrance, to Port Phillip Bay. So, if I guide my hand up this way, Melbourne is actually up there about 75kms inland. And it’s just this small small opening at the front of the bay that all of the water comes in, all of the ships to the Melbourne port come in through this very little channel. And at the moment you can see the water’s actually moving out, and you can see that the tide’s going out over here in the bay.
So, anyway, (I) just thought I would show you that. And I guess something else cool that I’ve just noticed is a bunker from World War II, I believe. I think it’s World War II. So, we have them setup on either side of the bay here that were used to protect the opening of this bay. Anyway, (that’s a) World War II bunker.
Alright, so my guess is that Buckley’s cave is somewhere along the coast here further down. I might go do it another day as I want to go (and) show you a few other things guys. But yeah, this is Point Lonsdale, and the Point Lonsdale pier, the Point Lonsdale lighthouse. It’s absolutely beautiful. I definitely recommend you guys come down and check it out at some point.
Alright, so I’m walking along the beach here and there was another bunker that you may have just seen. And I noticed some graffiti in it from, it looks like it’s been dated, 1992. So, it just goes to show the random stuff that you find. So, I’m going to climb up in this bunker because this graffiti is actually a really cool slang term in Australian English, and it’s probably back to front* here. So, anyway, it reads DODGEY (or DODGY), D-O-D-G-E-Y, DODGEY. And so, if I sit down here on the little window outside of the bunker, let’s see if I can get DODGEY in the background, probably not, but DODGEY just means to be unsafe, not very well-made. SHONKY is another word. DODGEY.
So, if someone is DODGEY they’re a bit shady, they’re not trustworthy. If you think of someone as DODGEY that’s how I would use it. So, if this guy… if someone was unreliable, untrustworthy, they might be a friend, they might not be a friend, but if you use the word DODGEY it would mean that someone shouldn’t trust that person. They’re not reliable. If you use it on, say, machinery like if you’ve got a DODGEY car that would mean that it breaks down sometimes or it’s not reliable, again. It’s that idea of it not being a reliably well functioning car or piece of machinery, whatever it is that you want to talk about. If it’s DODGEY it just doesn’t work as well as it should, as efficiently as it should, as it’s supposed to. It may work most of the time, but every now and then it breaks down, it doesn’t work when you need it to 100% of the time. And so, you can just use that phrase DODGEY. DODGEY, DODGEY, DODGEY.
And, this is definitely the kind of phrase that I would use a lot in Australian English. So, whether explaining a person or explaining a car or an item or some kind of object. You could also use it to explain situations.
So, imagine that you want to go for a walk, say, along a cliff edge like this, and there’s a path, but there’s no rail, there’s no safety rail. And so, as you’re about to walk out on the path you could say well that looks a little DODGEY, as in it doesn’t look safe, the path doesn’t look reliable, it looks like I could get injured. We might be able to do it safely but because it looks DODGEY I think I’d prefer not to do it. It doesn’t look 100% safe, it looks about SKETCHY.
So, there’s another one, SKETCHY, SHONKY and DODGEY. These are all Australian English terms you can use to pretty much mean the same thing. They might be (have*) subtle differences that I might go over in the future, but for now SKETCHY, DODGEY and SHONKY are all ways of explaining things that are unreliable, that a person is untrustworthy or unreliable, you know, they’re a bit SKETCHY, they’re a bit DODGEY, they’re a bit SHONKY, or objects or situations, again, that are a bit that’s… that doesn’t little safe, it doesn’t look reliable, it’s a bit DODGEY. That path looks a bit DODGEY. It’s a bit SHONKY. I wouldn’t trust it. Just be careful.
So, anyway, that’s just some more slang that I thought of off the top of my head as I was walking around, and I guess that’s the basic idea of these videos guys. It’s just TO WING IT. TO WING IT and make it up as I go along and see what we can come up with, what we can find, and (to) continue helping you guys with your Australian English. (I’ll) chat to you in a sec.
Here’s probably a good example of SHODDY, SHONKY, DODGEY, SKETCHY. The way out of this bunker is a little bit DODGEY. There’s no stairs, it looks a bit SKETCHY. I’m going to have to take care, (I) don’t want to get injured. So, there you go, another one.
So, there you go guys. That was just a cheeky little look at Point Lonsdale and the Point Lonsdale lighthouse. We might go for a little cruise now where I can show you the main street of Point Lonsdale. And I might make this one a video instead of a time-lapse just so that I can sort of chat to you guys and commentate at the same time about stuff.
So, (I’m) just driving down past, I guess, THE MAIN DRAG in Point Lonsdale. And THE MAIN DRAG is usually the main street. So, imagine like a drag race where two cars are driving or racing against one another in a straight line down a road. Often we use THE MAIN DRAG to refer to the main street, sort of a straight line that goes through a town or city. THE MAIN DRAG. THE MAIN DRAG of Melbourne would probably be Swanston Street. And I’ve forgotten the name of this street here in Point Lonsdale, but yeah, this is THE MAIN DRAG.
So, it’s obviously a pretty quiet nice seaside town. This is what I’m pretty used to down here where I grew up. So, I grew up in Ocean Grove, which is the next town along, along the coast, and it was very similar to Point Lonsdale where it’s just very chill, very relaxed. There’s a lot of holidaymakers who come down particularly at this time of year. So, you’ll see a lot of people, a lot of cars come down from the cities and the population tends to boom a little bit where you’ll probably have two or three times the number of people in these little coastal towns. I remember specifically Ocean Grove, there used to be a population of maybe 10-15,000 all year round that live in that part of the town, but then during summer or school holidays you would have massive massive amounts of people come down holidaying whether they were staying in camping areas or caravan parks, etc. or if they were renting out houses. So, quite often you would have people come down and rent houses to stay down here during these periods, and they’d just go to the beach every day, you know, they’d have parties. It was a pretty beautiful place to grow up, to be honest, and I guess I’m appreciating it more and more now that I live in Melbourne, the big city, as to just how relaxed and lovely these sort of coastal towns are, and why so many people came down.
So, I remember that growing up in Ocean Grove I used to always complain about the number of tourists that came down. And getting back to, I guess, the amount of people. So, you would have maybe 10-15,000 people that lived in Ocean Grove all year round and then during summer that would boost, that would increase up to like 50-70,000 people, and maybe it’s even more nowadays.
So, I remember going down to the main beach during summertime and you would not be able to find somewhere to put you towel. There would be that many people on the beach that there was no space and, you know, you would go out in the water, you would go for a boogieboard or a bodyboard, or maybe even a surf, maybe a bodysurf, maybe just a swim, maybe a paddle, and there would just be no room. There would be so so many people at the beach, you know, holidaymakers as well as just locals that there was just no room.
And, I guess, I could use an Australian slang term to explain that situation where you would refer to that as CHOCKABLOCK or just CHOCKA, CHOCKAS, meaning that there was a lot, a lot, a lot of people. So, to quickly sum up what CHOCKAS or CHOCKABLOCK or CHOCKA-FULL means, you would use that phrase in Australian English to mean a lot of or incredibly full. So, if there are a lot of people down at the beach taking up space, and you can’t really find anywhere to sit, you can’t get in the water and go for a swim then you can refer to that beach as being CHOCKABLOCK FULL of people. The beach is absolutely CHOCKAS FULL of people. The beach is CHOCKAS. There’s just a shit load, a heap, a ton of people down at the beach here. So, yeah, that’s one little Australian slang term that you guys can practice.
I’ve tried to fill in quite a few Australian slang terms today in this little Point Lonsdale edition. So, I hope you guys are enjoying it. I hope you guys like the sort of way that I’ve set it up where I’m trying to show you a bit of Australia at the same time as teach you English, teach you guys Australia English but also just teach you standard English and chat to you as if you guys were here with me in the car. You know, chat to you as if you were a good friend of mine. I’m not really changing how I would speak at all when I chat to you guys. I’m just doing my thing, I’m just talking like usual, and trying to share a bit of Australia with you.
So, let’s see if we can find our way through this little part of Point Lonsdale. Hopefully, I’m going in the right direction. I haven’t been down here. So, I thought it would be kind of cool to go for a little drive and show you guys, I guess, the backstreets of these small surf towns.
So, Point Lonsdale was one where I used to come here all the time, because one of my best friends from high school actually lived in a big house across the road from the beach. And so, we would always come down here after school or on weekends and hang out with him, and go to the beach, and just have parties at his house. But yeah, that was a lot of fun.
But Point Lonsdale is definitely a very stereo(typical), stereotypical town for this part of Australia, definitely down the coast here. So, if you guys come down to Geelong, most of you, especially if you’re tourists in Australia or you’re traveling in Australia or even working, but you’re here, you’re probably going to come down to Geelong in order to go to Torquay, which is that really really famous surfing town down near Geelong, past Geelong on the coast. And then you’re probably going to turn right once you et to Torquay, as opposed to left, which is the way you’d come to get here, you’d turn and go down the coast in order to go down The Great Ocean Road. So, if you come down here to see The Great Ocean Road, first and foremost, I definitely recommend that you go down The Great Ocean Road and you check out Airey’s Inlet and the great… what am I wanting to say? The Twelve Apostles, and all the sites down there. It’s an absolutely beautiful beautiful part of Victoria. So, I definitely recommend you go down there. But then also there are places that are kind of tucked away, hidden away, that don’t necessarily have the same kind of big tourist attractions that pull a lot of people, but I would argue are also pretty interesting and worth coming to see, like Point Lonsdale, like Ocean Grove, Barwon Heads, and Queenscliff, that will give you a real snapshot, will give you a real idea of what this part of Victoria’s like for the rest of us. So, for all of, you know, the Australians who live around this area. You’ll get to see what our day to day life is. Whereas, if you go down The Great Ocean Road you’re probably not going to really get a good handle of what it’s like to be an Australian who lives in this area. Although, you’ll get to see some amazing things like koalas, like that part of Australia, the coastline, and all these crazy geological features like The Twelve Apostles down there.
But yeah, so, I love, I love these little streets where a lot of people obviously live in the houses on either side of it. But you have these tea trees and banksia trees and gumtrees sort of on each side of the road, especially, as you can see on the left here. The tea trees, they are all over the place here in this part of Victoria. So, this is definitely very nostalgic for me as someone who grew up in this area, whenever I come down here and see these trees it reminds me of what I think of as home and where I grew up.
So, I guess we’ll just keep driving around. I might just go home after this and put all these videos up, and edit this for you guys. And definitely let me know what you think, because I’m wanting to do more travel related stuff like this, guys, where I get to show you bits of Australia whilst also obviously teaching you English and just chatting to you guys. Teaching you slang words, teaching you all sorts of expressions that come to mind, that I think of, that suddenly appear when I’m talking and explaining them to you guys. As you probably know by now that’s kind of my style where I don’t really want to set things up as a very organised class where I go through incredibly specific basic aspects of English. I’m more interested in kind of hanging out with you guys, spending time with you guys, chatting to you guys, and just explaining words and expressions that come up that I think you guys might have difficulty with or may not be familiar with, that you may not already know well as they could be Australian slang terms or strange idiomatic expression terms that I use that are common for me to use that may not otherwise be incredibly common for you as someone learning English.
Anyway, so this is THE MAIN DRAG, I guess, again, on the way back to Ocean Grove. So, it’s just another straight line street that goes and heads back to the town that I’m from. I might chuck it onto a time-lapse here guys where you can watch me do this trip in probably something like 5 or 10 seconds. Anyway, I’ll see you in a sec guys.
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