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.
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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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AE 398 – Interview: On Celebrating Australia Day & Changing The Date with Ian Smissen
Learn Australian English in this interview episode of the Aussie English Podcast where I interview my father Ian Smissen on celebrating Australia Day & changing the date.
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AE 398 – Interview: On Celebrating Australia Day & Changing The Date with Ian Smissen
G’day, guys! Welcome to this episode of Aussie English. Today, I have yet another interview for you guys. Today’s a special interview, because it’s with my father, it’s with my dad. So, we sat down on Australia Day the other day and we had a bit of a chat about what it was like for him growing up, how he learnt about Australia day in school, how it compares to places like America and the different holidays they have. We kind of talk about patriotism and nationalism in Australia compared to America as well, and how you should celebrate Australia Day if you are from overseas, but you want to take part in that holiday.
So, it’s a good episode today guys. Remember, if you want to study today’s episode you can do so in the Aussie English Classroom and you’ll get a five- maybe a seven-minute excerpt from today’s interview with vocab, a listening comprehension exercise, and we sort of discuss some of the sentences and language that is used in each interview. There’s a whole bunch of other interviews up there at the moment too from the past weeks that you can also study. So, this is a really good way to practice your Aussie English comprehension.
Anyway guys, remember to give that a go, and remember, if you want to sign up for the Aussie English Classroom, if you’re thinking about it, you have until Sunday night this week, so the fourth of February, to sign up at the current rate before the price is increased on Monday. So, if you want to save $17 per month when you sign up for the Aussie English Classroom sign up before Sunday. Anyway, you can give it a go for one dollar for your first month. Get in there and start upgrading your Aussie English.
Anyway, let’s get into today’s interview, guys. Take it away dad.
****
Alright, Dad welcome to the Aussie English podcast.
Hey! Good to be back.
You’ve been on quite a few times. I don’t think I put any of the episodes up. So, I’ll have to see what the order is in the future with this one.
Oh well, so yeah. Hi everyone. Happy to be here if it’s the first time. Happy to be back.
I think that’s going to be probably out early, ’cause we’re going to be talking about Australia Day. So, yeah well, I’ve got three days to get it up.
You’ve got three days to get it up.
So, well I can just… I guess, we should just start with your experience of Australia Day growing up, how you celebrated it, and maybe a bit about the history of it.
Yeah well look, Australia Day for me was just, when I was a kid, was just another public holiday. You don’t see the significance of it as an Australian national celebration when you were a child. It’s just another public holiday. But it always falls in the school holidays anyway. So, it was really just a day that both Mum and Dad were available, and we… you know, it was… often we’d go away for the day or we’d go to the beach or we do something like that. So, mostly it was a family thing, when I was a child. As I was growing up, once I got to be a teenager or a young adult, a lot of it was around another time just to hang out with your mates. The classic Australian… have the Australian barbecue or go to the beach or… used to be back in those days, there was always a cricket match on. The way the scheduling of cricket is done now it’s a bit different. But so, there’s always something to go and do with your friends.
So, what were your fondest memories of that sort of holiday? Was it always related to the beach?
Yeah mostly the beach, because obviously it’s falling in the middle of our summer, and it’s a public holiday, so both parents were available. So, it was a sort of family thing to go to the beach.
And how would you compare it, I guess, to things like July 4th and our perception of that in Australia? Is Australia overly nationalistic or patriotic?
Yeah, there is a patriotic element to it. I think there’s… we’re not as patriotic as the Americans are with regard to some of the symbols like Independence Day, the flag, and those sort of things, but there’s a strong element of that.
It’s the weirdest thing, I think I notice for Australia Day’s probably the only time you’ll see the Australian flag, unless it’s maybe Anzac Day.
Yeah, I mean there are flags on buildings and those sort of things, and, you know, public buildings always have, you know, the Australian flag or the state flag or both, sometimes the Aboriginal flag here or the Aboriginal Torres Strait Island flag, even though Torres Strait Islander have their own know. They identify with the standard sort of black red and yellow one. So, there’s that element. But you’re right. I think, you know, if you go driving around today two or three days before Australia day there’ll be people who’ll have the Australian flag hanging from the aerial on a car and they’ll have it, you know, maybe in the front of the house and things, but, you know, that doesn’t happen as often.
And the funny thing is they take it down pretty much straightaway after, right?
Yeah, it’d go down. So, it’s there for the, you know, celebration of the day rather than it being a sort of nationalistic patriotic thing full-time.
What do you think with that? Digging in and going away from Australia a slightly. Why do you think Americans are so much more patriotic than Australians when, you know, I would imagine both countries have their reasons to be proud of who they are?
Yeah, yeah, and, look, it’s difficult to judge the distinction between patriotism and the symbolism of patriotism. I think most people around the world are patriotic towards their country, but sometimes those symbols of the things that we concentrate on like the flag, the national anthem, national holidays, those sort of things. I think Americans, and you know, apologies to my American friends and relatives.
Who are learning Australian English.
Who are learning Australian English, who will cringe at what I’m about to say, but certainly as a foreigner, a non-American, my impression of American patriotism is it is about the fact that the Americans, 250 years ago, fought for their national identity. They fought to become a country. Which Australia did not.
So, we have not gone through that.
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Australia did not. Australia was a penal settlement originally and we then Federated to become a country by joining the colonies together in to states in one country, which was in 1901. Yeah. So, it’s only 117 years ago that that happened. But we never fought to become a country. We didn’t fight to get rid of the British to become a country, we just did. So, I think there’s that patriotism in most countries, as I said, about people, you know, like the country they live in and they respect the culture and the history and all those sort of things. But in the case of America, I think it is a bit of a sort of national celebration of the fact that they deliberately created a country by fighting for it.
Yeah. It was always weird for me, because, I guess, growing up I never really understood the whole being that proud, you know, of being from a certain country. In Australia, I don’t know… What did you… how do you feel about the average Australian and their sort of opinion of being Australia? Because we just don’t seem to wear it like the Americans seem to or like other countries seem to.
Yeah, look, yeah, you’re right. I think it comes down… it’s almost… it doesn’t… it doesn’t sort of eventuate or does doesn’t show until it counts. And by “it counts”, it may not be something dramatic like a war or something, but Australians are extremely patriotic when it comes to sport. You know, if we’re playing a sport against another country or we go to the Olympics or the World Championships or the Commonwealth Games or any of those sort of things, Australians become very patriotic about wanting Australians to be successful on their behalf. And so, I think that. Whereas, we just tend not to celebrate… overtly celebrate Australia as a country without any particular reason.
Yeah, it is a bit of a peculiar one with regards to that. Why do you think it’s so associated with the beach? Is it just ’cause it’s…
Well yeah, I mean, if you come from… Come from Central Australia or you come from an inland town that isn’t near the beach, then you’re not going to associate that with the beach. If you grew up in a small country town in outback New South Wales, you’re probably going to associate your leisure activities with rural activities that are not related to the beach. It could be going to a dam on a farm or it could be going to a lake, or… if there’s no water around at all, who knows what it would be. But, most of the Australian population live very close to the coast. All of our large cities are on the coast. The two largest cities, which comprise more than a third of the population of the whole country, are focused right on the beach. Melbourne on the bay and Sydney on its own surf beaches. And so, our leisure activities, particularly over summer, which is obviously along school holidays when you’re growing up, are often you go to the beach. The beach is free. It’s fun. People surf, they swim, they lie around in the sand, they play volleyball or cricket, or just hang out with their friends. So, it’s a sort of fun place to be when you’re a child, and as you keep growing up it keeps being one of those things that attracts you.
And so, did you… Did you have a deep understanding of what Australia Day was based on and meant when you were growing up as a kid? Was it taught at school?
No. As a young child, it was sort… ‘taught’ is probably exaggerating the amount of effort that was put into it. I think it was sort of mentioned. And we studied a lot of Australian history, either informally or formally, at primary school, and then if you were doing Australian history, or in fact history, you did Australian history as part of that at high school. But, Australia Day, as such, was not really celebrated from an historic point of view. There wasn’t an understanding of where it came from and those sort of things. And in fact, it’s a funny one, because the current date that we celebrate Australia Day on is celebrating, for want of a better term, or at least it’s recognising, the date that Arthur Philip in the first fleet arrived in Australia and settled, and it wasn’t Australia at the time, it was called New South Wales, which is now a state. So, it became the colony and that colony ended up becoming the state of the country. So, Australia didn’t exist. It wasn’t like we created Australia on that date. It was just a date that Europeans, white English people, celebrated that day. So, our challenge has always been that that has become the national holiday. But Australia Day, as a holiday, was not always on that date. 100 years ago, it was celebrated in July. It has also been celebrated on other days, apparently, as well. And so, the concept of a national holiday to celebrate us as a nation I think is one that is highly laudable and it’s a useful thing to do. We all like to celebrate, we all like a holiday, and celebrating our history and culture as a nation is a good thing to do. Whether that date is the right date is the current argument politically that’s going on around Australia at the moment?
So, can you summarise that, I guess, from both sides at all? Why is it controversial having Australia Day on the 26th of January?
Well, as I said, you know, we celebrate it as the date of the creation of the colony in New South Wales in what is now the city of Sydney. Indigenous people, many indigenous people, call it ‘Invasion Day’, because that’s the day that Europeans came and landed in the country and stayed. There had been Europeans coming here previously, but yeah, they were exploring or they just landed by accident. They hadn’t come to create a home. And Europeans did in the part of the English did the 26th of January in 1788. And so, we are celebrating that date, and it is rightful, a reasonable celebration, for a proportion of the population, but the people who are… the indigenous people and those who identify either as or with indigenous people, feel that it is not an appropriate day to have a holistic view of the celebration of Australia, because for them, it was the day that their culture got invaded and all of the horrendous things that happened to their culture afterwards are not worthy of celebrating on that day. So, that’s one side of that argument. The other side of the argument is that it’s Australia day and therefore it should be celebrated. The challenge we have at the moment is that, and the thing that irritates me particularly among some of the conservative commentators and politicians, is that they are criticising people who are claiming that Australia Day should not be on that day, but conflating that with an argument saying “it’s on Australian, how can you, you know, argue about Australia Day.
…Want to change it?
And as far as I’ve read and seen, nobody is saying we shouldn’t have Australia Day. They’re simply saying it shouldn’t be on that date. And so, the conflating argument is always around, you know, it’s un-Australian to criticise Australia Day. The people who are criticising it are not criticising Australia Day as a concept, they’re criticising having it on that date. And I think we have to look at that argument from both sides, and people will be sensitive no matter which side they look at.
I guess, it’s difficult, isn’t it, when you’ve grown up and it’s tradition, and, you know, it would be like shifting Christmas for some people. And, that’s where… like, I can at least understand, I guess, that side of the argument where it’s not even about what that day may have represented 170-200 years ago, but it’s more about what it represents for them and their lives and their personal history with that day.
Yeah, look, I agree.
That’s hard to suddenly be… You can’t just sort of change Christmas and then be like, “Yay! It’s the fourth of October! I can’t wait for this!”. It would not have the same gravity I feel.
No. You’re right. But the real challenge with it is that there hasn’t been a longstanding set of that date. It’s longer than most people who’re alive. So, you know, you’ve always celebrated Australia Day as the 26th of January. In my memory, I think I always have as well, but it’s not like that was constituted in stone when Australia was created. In 1901, when we federated Australia, we didn’t decide on a national holiday then. We had a national holiday, and we used it, but it’s become the 26th of January after that.
Well that meant nothing to the other colonies, right?
And in fact, Australia Day now is a constituted holiday. It’s written into our laws. It would have to be changed, if we’re no longer going to call it Australia Day and move to another day. But that was very recent. That’s only in the last 30 years or so, I think. You can look up the date. I’m not sure. But I remember it happening. And so, there is this challenge of, do we move day because a few people, and ‘it’s a few’, is there’re still 100,000s, if not millions who object to it, as opposed to those who object to it moving. I suspect that the large majority of people who sit in the middle are not passionate about either side of the argument and don’t really care. And that’s one of the challenges you have when you have the two extremes on both sides of an argument arguing about it but most people don’t care, then it’s really hard to move and make something happen if most people don’t care, because they end up just getting sick of both sides of the argument, because they see them both as extreme.
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So, what advice would you have for listeners or viewers at the moment, if they’re about to celebrate their first Australia Day, how did they do it?
Yeah, I think the best thing about Australia Day is find what do you think of when you think of Australian culture. If you want to be the Aussie okker bloke and sheila, to use some slang, which is probably getting a little bit out of date by now, but, then there are traditional things around the beach and sport and barbecues and hanging out with your friends and doing those sorts of things. But we do that at Christmas. Americans do it at Thanksgiving and Christmas. And there’s all sorts of national holidays around the world and other holidays where people do those sorts of things. So, I think for Australia Day, it is really about doing what you think of when you think of Australia, and I know certainly here, we probably won’t go to a sporting event, but we might go to the beach.
That’s it. That’s about it.
And we’re probably have… either have friends around here for lunch or dinner time or we’ll go to their place or something.
Have a barbie.
We’ll have a barbie, exactly, depending on the weather. But Australian summers, or certainly southern Australian summers being fickle, it looks like it will be quite warm and whatever on Friday, but it may well be, you know, 18 degrees and pouring with rain, which is not exactly barbecue weather, but that’s not going to stop us getting together and having fun.
Oh, awesome. Well, dad, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.
Thanks Pete any time.
No worries. Happy Australia.
Happy Australia Day. Enjoy it, whatever you’re doing.
See ya. guys.
Bye!
****
Alright guys, I hope you enjoy that interview. A special thanks to my father for coming on the podcast. I’ve done quite a few episodes with him recently, although, I haven’t yet uploaded any of them. So, there’s quite a few things that I have chatted to him about, and I am sure that you guys are going to hear from him in the future. He’s one of those guys who seems to have an opinion on everything, but also know a great deal about pretty much everything. So, stay tuned and you’ll probably hear from dad in the future.
Anyway guys, don’t forget to check out the Aussie English Classroom if you want to finish today’s episode as a mini course and learn Australian English a little more in-depth. And remember that you have until Sunday the 4th of February to sign up and save $17 a month. That’s it for me today, and I hope you have an amazing week.
See ya!
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AE 474 – Expression: Bob’s Your Uncle
Learn Australian English in this expression episode of the Aussie English Podcast where I teach you to use the expression BOB’S YOUR UNCLE.
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AE 474 – Expression: Bob’s Your Uncle
Ready to start. How’s it going, guys?
Welcome to this episode of Aussie English, the number one podcast for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English, and I am so glad that you guys are here with me today, whether you are a longtime listener who’s been there since the very beginning, only a few years ago, I think, 2015, or it’s your very first time listening to this podcast, massive thanks to you guys, massive thanks to everyone who supports the podcast, whether it’s on Patreon, whether it’s by the Aussie English Classroom, my online learning environment, or whether it is that you have bought my courses in the past as well. This is how I keep myself going, guys. This is how I earn a crust, keep the lights on, and keep the wheels moving behind Aussie English. So, massive thanks to all of you guys.
So, today, we’re going to be talking about the expression, ‘Bob’s Your Uncle’, ‘Bob’s your uncle’. I wonder if you’ve heard this one before. But before we get into that, we’ll go through the Aussie joke, okay. So, here we go. Play on words. Bit of a pun. I love these pun jokes they’re a bit “punny”, if you get what I mean. I think they’re really useful because they give you an insight into our humor, you know, dumb jokes, but also play on words, right, how to manipulate words in English to make jokes, because they rhyme, because they’re spelled the same, etc. Okay? So, today’s joke:
Why was the cat disqualified from the race? Why was the cat disqualified from the race?
Because he was a “cheetah”. He was a “cheetah’.
Do you get it, guys? Why was the cat disqualified from the race? Because he was a “cheetah”.
A play on words between the word “cheater”, C-H-E-A-T-E-R, meaning someone who breaks the rules in a game in order to win, and the word “cheetah”, C-H-E-E-T-A-H, as in, the cat with spots, the fastest land mammal.
So, today’s expression, as I said, today’s expression is ‘Bob’s your uncle’. This was suggested by me in the Aussie English Classroom. As usual, we voted on this expression in the private Facebook group for members. I think I’m going to have to stop suggesting expressions, because I’ve won a few recently and I want you guys, the members, to be able to get your expressions up there. So, maybe I’ll skip a few weeks from now on, but ‘Bob’s your uncle’.
This is one that I use quite a bit. It’s one that I’ve heard a lot in the past. Let’s go through the definitions, we’ll go through the expression definition, then the origin, a few examples, a listen and repeat exercise, and then talk about coffee in Australia and some interesting facts about coffee.
So, ‘Bob’s Your Uncle’. ‘Bob’s your uncle’ also happens to be a cafe in Melbourne, and this was why I decided to do coffee as the Aussie fact for today. Okay? So, if you’re in Melbourne near Doncaster East, go check out Bob’s Your Uncle Cafe.
Anyway, so there’s a few different things going on here in ‘Bob’s your uncle’.
The first word ‘Bob’. ‘Bob’. This is a common English name and it is short for the name ‘Robert’. Okay? So, you might often meet people called Rob or Robert and their nickname might be Bob. Okay? “G’day Bob”. I think I had a bus driver when I was a kid named Bob.
The ”s’, guys, that is ‘is’ contracted onto Bob, as in “Bob is your uncle”.
‘Your’. I’m sure you guys know what ‘your’ is. ‘Your’ is the possessive pronoun for you. If it’s your thing, your uncle, in this case, it belongs to you. It is yours. Okay. Your uncle.
And ‘uncle’. I’m sure again you’ll know this word. Your uncle is the brother of your mother or father. Okay. And the sister of your mother or father is your aunt. Okay. Uncle and aunt. Uncle and aunt.
So, the expression, I wonder if you’ve heard it. I wonder if you know what it means. ‘Bob’s your uncle’. If someone says it it’s an exclamation, right. “Oh, Bob’s your uncle”. And it means, “and there it is” or “And there you have it”, okay? So, if you hear someone say ‘Bob’s your uncle’ they’re also sort of trying to imply or trying to say, but in a more informal lighthearted way, “There it is”, “There you have it”, “That’s how things are”. Okay.
And the French, you might know the French version of this. You may have heard or seen this in movies, and that is “Et voilà”. So, when someone says “Voilà” it’s kind of like, “There it is”, “There you have it”. You know, they might give you something and say, “Et voilà”, which is the French version of ‘Bob’s your uncle’.
So, the origin of this expression. I was having a poke around online trying to find out where this had come from, and though it isn’t certain where the origin of this expression ‘Bob’s your uncle’ comes from, it is a common theory that the expression arose after a conservative Prime Minister, Robert ‘Bob’ Cecil, appointed his nephew Arthur Balfour as Chief Secretary for Ireland in 1887, an act which was apparently both surprising and very unpopular. You know, anytime you hire a family or get family appointed to a high position in government, that’s a bit of a no no. So, whatever other qualifications this guy Arthur Balfour may have had, ‘Bob’s your uncle’ was seen as the conclusive one, meaning that Bob was his uncle and that was the reason that he got the job. So, he got this job suddenly, there it was, there you have it, Bob’s your uncle. That’s why you got the job, because Bob was his uncle. Anyway. (It) may not be that, but that’s a funny theory nonetheless.
So, let’s go through three examples, guys, of how I would use the expression, ‘Bob’s your uncle’.
Example number one. Okay. In this example, I want you to imagine you are having a dinner party, (it) could be a barbie, (it) could be just a dinner party inside your house. You’re getting friends come over. You’re getting family to come over. There they’re bringing some food, they’re bringing some grub, they’re bringing some grog as well, something to drink, (it) could be soft drinks, but it could also be beer or wine or something. So, everyone’s arrived except for your father. He’s running late. Okay. So, you ring him up on the phone and you’re asking, “Where are you? What are you doing?”, and Bob’s your uncle, he shows up. He suddenly knocks on the door, you answer the door, Bob’s your uncle. There he is. There you have it. He arrives. Ah, there it is. Bob’s your uncle.
Example number two. In this one, I want you to imagine you are a chef, right. You’re a chef trying to explain to a sous chef or someone who’s studying to be a chef how easy it is to make lamingtons. Now lamingtons of this famous Australian… I guess, they’re a dessert, kind of a sweet, and they are sort of like black cubes or rectangular prisms that have coconut all over them. Okay? So, if you haven’t tried a lamington, next time you’re at a cafe or even at the supermarket, buy a lamington, give it a go, (and) let me know you think. So, you’re a chef trying to teach a student how to make lamingtons. You tell them about all the ingredients and the way to put them together, to combine them. So, you know, “Mix up the coconut, the milk, the sugar, the flour. Put it in the oven heated to 180 Celsius, and then Bob’s your uncle, twenty minutes later, you’ve got lamingtons. There you have it. You’ve got Lamingtons. That’s all you need to do. There it is. *Poof*. Bob’s your uncle, you’ve got lamingtons. That’s how you make lamingtons. It’s that easy.”.
Example number three. In this example, I want you to imagine that you are training to be a teacher. So, you’re at university, you’re doing a degree or a diploma in education, you’re really self-conscious, though, you’re filled with a lot of doubt. You don’t know if you’ll make it through, you’re not sure if you’re made of teacher material. You chat to your lecturer or your professor and tell him about your doubts and that you’re worried you’re not going to be the right person to be a teacher. He says, “Don’t be silly. You’ve got this. You can do this. You just have to learn a bit. You have to be training, a bit of hands-on work in the classroom, and then Bob’s your uncle, you’ll be a teacher in no time. So, in no time, in a very short period of time, there you have it, that’s all it is, Bob’s your uncle, you’ll be a teacher. Don’t sweat it. Keep your nose down. Work hard. Bob’s your uncle. You’ll be a great teacher in no time.”.
So, by now guys, I hope you understand the expression, ‘Bob’s your uncle’, ‘Bob’s your uncle’, this is there you have it or and there it is. It’s an exclamation when you’re sort of presenting someone with something or you’re trying to say that something is very easy and quick to sort of do, right. Bob’s your uncle and it’s done. It’s that easy.
So, let’s go through a little lesson and repeat exercise, guys, this is your chance to practice your pronunciation. So, if you just want to work on your English in general, ignore my accent, but say the words after me. But if you try to perfect that Aussie accent and you want a more general Australian accent when you’re speaking English, try and pronounce the words exactly as I do. Okay? Let’s go.
Bob
Bob’s
Bob’s your
Bob’s your uncle x 5Good work. So, now, this was a difficult one for me to work out how to conjugate into a sentence. So, I’ve just used it in front of a sentence, and then I’m using the phrase a verb “to show up”, which means to arrive or appear somewhere, right. I showed up, you showed up, he showed up. It’s in the past tense. Let’s go.
Bob’s your uncle. I showed up.
Bob’s your uncle. You showed up.
Bob’s your uncle. He showed up.
Bob’s your uncle. She showed up.
Bob’s your uncle. We showed up.
Bob’s your uncle. They showed up.
Bob’s your uncle. It showed up.Great job, guys, great job. Remember, if you would like to go into more depth into learning Australian pronunciation, connected speech, intonation, all of that sort of stuff, get into the Aussie English Classroom at theAussieEnglishClassroom.com. There’ll be a link in this transcript, but you can also obviously search it online if that’s easier.
Now, there are loads of courses, and obviously, today’s expression episode will be a course in the Aussie English Classroom. It will come with extra videos for the pronunciation, specifically here, and how to connect the words that… the specific difficult things that I’m trying to pronounce here in Australian English. This is a kind of the tricks and tips and secrets to sounding more natural and connecting these words together. There’ll also be a video for vocab, the more complicated words in this episode. And then, I also go through eight interesting expressions that I’ve used in this episode. So, if you’re really into learning English on your own and you want to sort of boost your English learning and speed things up and absorb a lot more out of these episodes, I really suggest signing up at theAussieEnglish classroom.com . It’s just one dollar for your first 30 days, guys. So, you’ve got plenty of time to try it to see if it’s for you. So, give it a go.
Remember too, if you just want the transcripts or the MP3s for these episodes and all the other episodes on the podcast, then you can sign up at theAussieEnglishPodcast.com for the small fee of about $4.99 a month. That’s a coffee, guys. One coffee a month to get access to all of the transcripts, all of the MP3s, and you can download them, read them, listen to them anywhere, anytime, whenever you want. Anyway.
Today’s Aussie English fact, guys. So, today’s fact, because when I searched ‘Bob’s your uncle’ in Google, I found that it was a cafe in Melbourne. Bob’s Your Uncle Cafe. I thought, you know what, I’ll talk about coffee. Coffee’s a big thing in Australia. Not many people realise this until they get here and quite often they get shocked. They show up and they’re like, “Wow! There’s a lot of coffee and the quality of the coffee is really good and Aussies are obsessed with their coffee!”. So, I thought that I would do the Aussie English fact today on the history of coffee and some interesting coffee facts in Australia. Okay.
So, where does the love of coffee come from in Australia?
Obviously, British people who settled Australia in the late 1700s were obsessed with tea. So, they didn’t bring coffee with them. It actually wasn’t until the late 1920s that Australia got espresso coffee, and previous to that, they only had filter coffee, which you might know from the US. So, espresso coffee only arrived in the 1920s. The first commercial espresso machine was actually installed in Cafe Florentino, which is on Bourke Street in Melbourne in the year 1928, so ninety years ago. (It) seems like a long time, but compared to, say, places like Europe, we haven’t had coffee very long.
However, espresso coffee was still pretty niche until the 1950s when the Aussies really started to appreciate the bean. after World War II, two major things occurred which kicked off the coffee culture in Australia. Firstly, the Australian government lifted controls on the import of coffee. And secondly, the Australian government began a new immigration program, which brought in a heap of non-British European migrants. So, this is where we got a load of people from Greece and Italy, and these people were espresso-loving migrants. They loved espressos.
So, Italian style coffee lounges soon began popping up all over the shop in Australia, and by the 70s and 80s and then into the 90s, coffee culture really started to ramp up as coffee shops began to fill laneways, street corners, shopping centres, and other places all around Australia.
So, why is Aussie coffee so good?
There’s several reasons for the great quality of Australian coffee. Firstly, Aussie cafe owners use quality coffee beans. So, they sourced these from all over the world, they get them here, and then they bake the coffee beans themselves, and then they use espresso-based methods to create the coffee instead of, say, filter-based methods, like in places like the USA. Beans are also ground fresh-to-order, which gives the resulting coffee its full and flavourful taste. They’re ground just before the coffee is made. And then lastly Aussie barristers are highly trained, so they have to undergo practical barista training when they learn to master the art of making the perfect cuppa.
And as a side note, I think it’s a great profession to get into if you are a migrant coming to Australia and you want to get a job in, say, hospitality, working in cafes, getting trained up as a qualified barista is it going to lead you to always having a job, because cafes and restaurants always need good barristers.
So, a few more facts about coffee. Unlike in the US, 95% of coffee shops in Australia are owned by Australians independently, so they’re not owned by really big franchises. In fact, as an Australian, I specifically avoid big franchises when I want to get good coffee. So, I pretty much never go to Starbucks unless I’m in a bust and I really need my caffeine kick.
American-owned Starbucks tried to enter the Australian coffee market opening 84 stores Countrywide in the year 2000, but after only eight years, 61 of these stores were closed and that was because they couldn’t live up to the high-quality coffee standards of the average Aussie.
The most popular coffee in Australia is the cappuccino, which is sold on average 50,000 times every 30 minutes during the day.
A few more interesting facts.
Beethoven needed a precise 60 beans in one cup of his daily grind.
The coffee taste for the coffee company Costa–bit of a tongue twister that–has his tongue insured for 10 million pounds. Jesus!
The average Australian spends $494.59, nearly $500, every single year on coffee.
And the best time of day to consume coffee is between 9:30am and 11:30am, because your cortisol hormone, the one that regulates your metabolism and immune system, has plummeted in levels and caffeine causes it to rise in the morning.
So, that’s it for today, guys. I would love to know if you are a coffee fan yourself, and if so, what’s your favorite kind of coffee? For me, it’s definitely a medium sized cap with no sugar, a medium sized cappuccino.
Remember too, I’ve got a vlog on ordering coffee in Australia. So, if you go to YouTube type in “Aussie English ordering coffee”. You will see my vlog of me going around ordering coffee in Canberra.
Anyway, thanks for sticking with me today, guys. I hope you enjoy this episode and I will chat to you soon. Peace!
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