Learn Australian English in this interview episode of the Aussie English Podcast where I chat with my girlfriend Quel about our recent experience where our landlord kicked us out and stole our money!
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AE 434 – Interview: She Kicked Us Out & Stole Our Money!
G’day, guys. Welcome to this episode of Aussie English. Today, I have a special episode for you where I sat down and I chatted to my girlfriend Quel, and we had a bit of a chat about a recent… how can I best describe it? A recent drama, a recent event, that we went through where we had recently moved into the Pakistani embassy, as you guys may or may not know from the previous episode Canberra Renting Nightmare, and we actually got chucked out.
So, anyway, you’ll find about what the hell happened with that story in today’s episode. So, sit back, relax, and enjoy this interview episode with me and Quel. Let’s go!
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We should talk about what it was like trying to find somewhere to live in Canberra and that process, and see if we can give anyone some advice on house hunting. Don’t trust old ladies… I’m joking. Cuidado as vovozinhas! Cuidado gente! Meu deus! (Watch out for old ladies. Watch out, guys. My god!)
So, alright, so what happened? We came to Canberra and we were thinking initially we would try and find a house for ourselves. It’s like a two or three bedroom house. We would rent the whole thing and pay for the bond, pay the rent, kit it out. Like, we were crazy. Like, how… We could never afford to do that? Well, we could have, but it would’ve everything we had. It’s like… So, we were hunting around for a while, and I guess, there were loads of places, but the competition was just ridiculous. There was 20, 30, 40 applicants every single time we went anywhere to look. Yep. It was funny, because at the beginning, I think you’ve got fed up within a few days. Yep. And, I was like, okay, we’ll be fine, like just let’s keep looking. And then, five days later, I was like, I can’t keep doing this. Just please let’s… I think the most frustrating part was that you would go to these house inspections, you would check the house out, and you would fall in love with the house and think, oh my gosh! This is perfect. I can see myself living here with you. We could totally, you know… Oh there’s a balcony! We could have dinner on that! And then you would submit your application and within two days you would get the, “Sorry it’s been unsuccessful!”, and you’re like, “Fuck! Again?” Like, we went through probably like six of those, and then, we just decided, right, we were like, you know what… And it was funny, we both did it independently on this day, I think. I sent you a message being like, “Should we just want to sharehouse? Like screw this let’s just find a house where there’s already people. We don’t have to pay for a bond.” And I was like, “I’ve already found one.”. That’s it. You’d already been looking for ads online to suggest we go and check out. I just couldn’t do this, like, it’s really tiring, and when you don’t have your own space, your clothes are all over the place, like, you don’t really have a routine, ’cause you’re always moving, and it’s not your house so you have to, like, you know, be aware of and considering to towards all of them. Like, I don’t know. You just can’t completely relax. It’s always like, “Oh, am I moving tomorrow?”. But that’s more, that was more, when we were staying with our friends, where we weren’t paying rent and it wasn’t really our place at all, so you couldn’t just relax. You kind of had to be respectful of their space and time. Yeah, no, yeah, totally. And we didn’t want to, you know, take advantage, like, “Oh, yeah, I’m not paying! Let’s stay for another week!”. You know, like, I wanted to find a place. We had some very kind friends that we were very very… We were very fortunate to know. Yeah, and we got to hang out with the dogs, and, I guess the… We were there for three weeks, housesitting, taking care of their dogs, which was fair enough. We’re at least doing them a favour too. And they’re pretty well-off so it wasn’t like it was going to cost them money. Yep.
But then, so we we applied to some of these share house places. And so what happened, Quel? I’ll let you talk so I have a breather. So, what happened that day? You submitted two replies, I guess, to these people.
So, we had two options. One was this massive house and the other one was a bit smaller, but the second one, the guy didn’t have time on the same day to see us or something like that. He was away I think. ‘Cause we were always checking out a house, the inspection, and you had applied to those two places before. And I got replies from them. And then after it, one of them was like, “Just come round in an hour or something”.
Yeah, and the other guy was like, “Oh you know like next week or something.”, and we were like, “Oh?”. And we had to be out by like… Well, people were back the next day that we’re living in the house we were housesitting.
So, we decided to give it a go and we went to see the mansion. Yeah, the Pakistani embassy in Canberra, the old Pakistani embassy. They got booted out for reasons unknown. Everything’s so shady. Yeah. I don’t know. So, what happened? We got there. We drove through this place and it was like this suburb full of mansions and embassies, and we were like, “How are we… Are we in the right place?”. We can’t pay for that. Like, that’s probably a trap. And then, we drove up the driveway and the lady… you called and she sounded really rude, right?
Yes. So, I’m… How can I say that? I’m really sensitive. So, I do pay attention to the way people talk to me and like the vibe that I get from them. So, the moment I called her, she was a bit rough. Abrupt, short.
Yeah, she was a bit weird. It was like, “Okay, I can’t… you know, I don’t know this person so I’m not judging, and maybe she’s had a bad day.” Yeah maybe she had a bad day. And then we got to see her she was really full on, like she was a bit… I don’t know. You know, one those people… She was kind of half funny and lighthearted, but serious at the same time.
I didn’t… I couldn’t say, “Yes she’s kidding or like she’s serious”. It was a bit like, “What are you talking about?”. Because it was kind of like all business, but then the odd joke. And you’d be like, “I don’t know how to gauge this person.”. And something that I… yeah, like if I can give one advice always… One piece of advice*. Yeah, always trust your instincts.
I had this feeling… it was a really strong feeling, like, we shouldn’t be here, because she was saying horrible things about old housemates. People who’d lived there previously. Yeah, and I was like, “That’s not really nice.”, but we were laughing, and sometimes you do say things like, “Oh, this person, you know, like…”. Well maybe they had been a nightmare. We didn’t meet them, but yeah.
Yeah, but it was really weird that she was complaining about everyone, and I was like, “Okay, anyway, like, maybe they were horrible and she’s just a poor little old lady, that…”. That’s the thing too, I think she got us in that trap of being an old lady, and we’re like, “Oh yeah, vovozinha, which is “old lady” in… “little old lady” in Portuguese. We were like, “Oh, she’s probably right.”. She was not all right, guys. She was not alright. She was really nasty.
So, what happened? We said yes that day, right? We said yes, and then we moved on… two days after that.
Yeah, and we paid 1800 dollars, straight up, for the month. Yes, because… We texted her. We said, “Can we have four weeks? We’ll try it, see how we go.”. We gave her $1,800, $450 a week, for a room that was alright. It was a pretty big room, lots of space, and then a walk-through robes. It wasn’t that bad, honestly like… Walk-through robes, wardrobes, and then a nice big bathroom.
Yep. It was nice to have you know bathroom, and, like, I personally don’t like sharing bathrooms and, you know, things. So, I was really happy with that, and the fact that she was going to cook for us was a big thing. Yeah, that was another thing included in the bills. She was going to cook for us.
Yeah, and another, you know, another way to save money. We don’t have to go, you know, go out and buy food every day. She would provide it. So, it was, “Yeah, let’s definitely stay here.”.
The funny thing was, like, the food was… it was all right, but it was pretty… it wasn’t junk food, but it was very… I don’t think it was healthy. It just depended, I guess, on what she cooked, but a lot of was…
I think the food was really good. The problem for me was I never… I didn’t know what to expect. Yeah. Like, on Fridays, for example, she would… “Oh, yeah, we’re having pizza!”, and, like, “Okay, like, you know, I’m trying to be healthy, like, at least say, and, like, just, you know, say something beforehand so then we can, alright, we don’t really want pizza. So, we going to plan something else.”. Yeah, but some days you would just come and like “Oh, we’ll have fish and chips”. I was like, “Oh, we had pasta, yesterday.” So, it’s like, I don’t know, just very…
Anyway, so, yeah, we moved in, we were doing that, it was okay, but the funny thing… I guess, “the penny dropped” we say in English, when we… when you suddenly realise what what’s happened, “the penny dropped”. We had dinner with her and, I guess, I was… I say “Jesus” a lot and I say “God” a lot. Yeah, I do the same. And it’s not because I’m trying to be offensive to religious people, nor trying to swear, it’s just… it’s kind of something that’s just said in English. I think I got it from you, actually. Like, we… when we’re shocked or surprised, we’ll say just, “Oh, Jesus!”, or we’ll say, “Oh my God!”, you know, like, you just say those… It’s kind of like a verbal tick, like an expression that’s used. So, I was saying those unwittingly, unknowingly, at dinner, and the next day, what happened? So, you got in the car.
I was… she would give me a lift to the bus station in the mornings. So, she was like really… I don’t know. She was really careful with her words. She was like, “Oh yeah, you know, like this is a Christian house and I don’t like swearing. So, if you guys can be more…” And, I was like, “I’m pretty sure Pete wasn’t swearing. So…”.
Yeah, I think I was making an active effort like “shit” or “fuck” or anything like that whilst talking with her. Yeah, and I normally don’t say… don’t swear, like, unless I’m with friends or something.
Or you hear them doing it. And that, I think, was the thing that confused me most, ’cause when you told me that, I was like, “I specifically remember her saying “shit” at the dinner table, and maybe even “fuck”, and dropping that.”, and that’s why I was so confused when you were like, “Yeah, she doesn’t like swearing.”.
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And we were, like, just confused. Like, what does she mean by ‘swearing’? Like we didn’t do that. So, then I went to work and she came back home, I don’t know, and she went to talk to you.
Yep. She sat me down and she went through the same spiel, and I was like, “Oh, here we go”, ’cause she told Quel. And I was like expecting it first, right. I was thinking, “Alright, she’s just Christian. She doesn’t like it.”. I didn’t think she was going to be absolutely bat-shit crazy. I did not expect for her to be bat-shit crazy. So, she sat me down and she’s like, “You know, this is a Christian household. I don’t like swearing”, and this is where I was thinking like, “I don’t remember swearing.”. Yeah. And then she said, “You can’t say the words ‘Jesus’ or ‘God’ in this house, because I believe in the power of prayer and it interrupts or interferes with my prayers, and the Holy Spirit gets confused”. Like, honestly if the Holy Spirit gets confused, that… you should rethink that, like…
Yeah, it’s a bit presumptive to think that God and the Holy Spirit and Jesus are going to get confused and not answer your prayers , ’cause two people in the house are using the words. But I think then the thing that freaked me out and really made me think, “Oh, this chick is nuts. This lady’s crazy!”, was when she was telling me about how she believed in the power of prayer to raise the dead. So, to bring people who have died back to life. “Not she wants to brag!”. And she said she had done it twice. She’d prayed twice and people had come back to life.
That’s really… That’s really crazy.
But I guess to put this in perspective, guys, and I don’t know how many listeners will be of the same faith, and I don’t mean to offend anyone who is of the same faith, you know, it’s probably just this old lady, but she was a Pentecostal Christian, and introduced herself that day, at least after we’d moved in, so too little too late. Yeah. After we’d paid all this money and settled in. She introduced herself as a “fundamentalist Pentecostal Christian”. Yeah, the combo. And it was weird because most people don’t refer to themselves as a fundamentalist anything, right. You know, that’d be like introducing yourself, as “Hi, I’m a cult leader.”.
Yeah, like, what? It was a bit strange. I don’t know. We don’t have any problems with religious people. Not at all. Like, my family’s Catholic. Like, my best friend was really for many years. The problem is she was just getting worse and worse and worse.
Well, that was the thing that really shat me, really annoyed me, was the fact that it wasn’t that she was Christian at all, I don’t care about that, but she kept pushing it on us. Yeah. She kept trying to sneakily get you to come to church. She kept trying to be like, “Did you want to come and do this, and then afterwards we can go to church?”. Yeah, she was like, “Oh, I’ve noticed you don’t have wear the clothes.”. I was like, “Yeah, like, I haven’t got paid so I’m waiting for my money to come through, and then I can go. Hopefully, winter will hold back a little bit.” She was like, “We go on the weekend and we can go to church or something…”.
And I was like, “Ehhhh…!”. There was a lot of that too, right, because she was saying, “Oh, this is a Christian house”. And then, later we find out that there’s only one other Christian living there. And so, she’s kind of just forcing her faith on everyone else.
And, like, there was a guy living there who had a boyfriend. So, he was gay, he was a homosexual, and she seemed to be at least, obviously, knew and tolerant. Yes, because I would talk about it all the time. But she won’t or wouldn’t allow him to have his boyfriend come to the house and visit.
So, stuff like that where it’s kind of like, “Oh, it’s a share house and you live here and you can do whatever you want. Oh, but you can’t if it’s against my faith, even though I’m not going to know or be here because I live upstairs in a different room.”.
I think for me the last straw was when the Brazilian couple went there. So, we became friends. Like, they needed a place to stay. It was like, “Yeah, you know, I’m living at his house and there’s so many rooms. You guys can come and talk to the lady. She seems to be nice. Just come.”. And they did, but I don’t know what happened, and she… they were supposed to stay for like a month or something, for three weeks, and after five or, you know, seven days. She accepted their money. Yeah, she accepted the money, and then she was like, “You know what, you guys have to leave. I have this other house, like, in the middle of nowhere that you can stay (at) if you want.”. Like, why are you doing that?
And that’s the reason we ended up leaving. It wasn’t because of her religion. You know, we tolerated her doing her thing. It was more the way that she treated the people living there, and she treated it like we were dolls on a shelf that she could just rearrange. “Recycle”. And… she kept referring to people as like, “Recycling them”, anytime she wanted to get people to leave the house, because she didn’t like them, because of some problem, or because she wanted them to move into a different room, because she thought, “I could get a couple to move into the room this other person’s in, and then up the rent and charge them more money. And then, I’ll be able to make more money”. Because that was the problem, I guess, ultimately for us was that she’s paying for the entire house, and then subletting to all of us, and she’s trying to make as much money as she can. So, she wouldn’t just get you into a room and let you stay there, at least, for some of the other people whilst living there. She would get into a room and you would sign up, you would pay your rent or whatever, and then afterwards, if things change with other people in the house. She would just move you. She would try and move you around, and switch you, and move rooms, and you’d… Yeah, it was very bizarre. Not really respectful.
And so, we had two people leave, and… because, I think, they were sick of it. Yeah. And just the way that she was very busy body. She was very yeah like, you know, I’m going to tell you what to do, where to go, how to move, and I think also she was very set on helping people, you know, in quotation marks. Not really helping them, but helping them in a way that makes her feel better. Yeah. So, for instance, she was saying apparently to some of the other housemates, “We need to find a real job, because he doesn’t have a real job”. And I was like, “She doesn’t know anything about me. How do you know that I’m not making billions of dollars from Aussie English. I could be a billionaire. You don’t know anything. You don’t know who I am!”. I just happen to like this house, you know? I’m not a billionaire.
Yeah, she was really, honestly, one of those people that they try… they do the wrong thing, they can be really nasty to you, but then, “Oh, you know, I had the best intentions, and like…”. Yeah. I was saying to Quel, I was like, “I think she is a really evil person’s idea of a good person.”. So, someone who is really horrible at heart, like, I think she’s… She’s good because she wants to be good, not because she’s genuinely good. She wants people to think she’s good. Yeah. So, it felt a lot more about, “I want people to feel like or think that I’m doing the right thing by other people, but then when it comes down to it, I’m doing everything for me and other people’s needs and wants don’t matter.”.
And so what happened with us? In fact, first, the Brazilian couple, she decided to kick them out, because one of them didn’t have a job yet, and they’d just moved to Canberra. But that girl has a job and they, you know, they… if they went there, they probably had money to pay for it. So… They offered to pay the rent. They offered to pay for everything. But she decided because he didn’t have a job yet, she wanted them out.
And for me, the worst was she kicked them out, and then, I think the next day she felt bad about it. I don’t know. And she was like, “Oh, you can have this fridge if you want. You can have this mattress.”. And then, the girl would get excited, like, “Oh, yeah, sure! I’m moving, like, I don’t have anything. I can definitely take it.”, and she was like, “$300. $500.”. Like, if you say, “You can have it if you want.”. You assume that you don’t have to pay for it. She was like “You can have it if you want.”, “Oh yeah, I’d love it.”, “Oh, it’s this much money.”. Yeah, so if you want to pay that’s what I forgot to say.
I think, too, the thing that really irritated me was that the fridge she was going to sell them was one she’d given us in our room and it didn’t work. Yep. And that felt really dodgy.
And it just… we are so nice, because… that… having this fridge in the room was one of the things, “Yeah! That’s awesome.”. And then, you got there. It wasn’t working, and you didn’t say anything. We were like, “Oh whatever.”. You know, we didn’t even care, because… yeah, it was really intense. It was a very very intense situation, but the worst thing, and the thing I guess I was most annoyed about, was that she was trying to get us to pay the next month’s rent two weeks early , because obviously, she wants to be in control and have money ahead of time. Yep. And we decided when she asked for that… So, that was two weeks. We decided to tell her, “Well, look, we think we’re going to move, ’cause we don’t really feel like this is where we want to live. So, we’ll stay here for the month. We’d given you the $1,800 for the month so after a month, we’ll move out.”, and she raged. Because… she got… she was furious.
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Yeah, she was really angry. And honestly, it really irritated me, ’cause I was being extremely polite to her. Like, “Hey, thank you! Thank you for everything. Like, it was nice to stay here. I’ll give you two options. We can leave in five days, and then you give the money back, or we can leave in two weeks, which is like more than enough for you to find someone else, and you don’t have pay us.”.
And I guess, the thing to mention, the thing we’d worked out whilst… when we told her that, we had found the place that we’re currently living in, and had accepted that. And so, we were okay. Yeah. The problem was that we couldn’t move in for a week. Yes. Yes. And it was also that, yeah, we had two weeks more at this other place. So, we were like, “Yeah, we’ll just stay up until the date, and fair enough, we said that we would stay here for a month. Keep the money. Keep the money, yeah. And we’ll move to the new place.”. She didn’t want us there anymore. She was just like, “You know what? You’re leaving in five days.”.
No, it was even less. She decided to back track the rent and increase it per day, the per daily rate, so that she could kick us out. So, instead of paying for a month, you pay for 18 days. Yeah, she said, “Oh well, because you guys only want to stay for a month. I’ve decided to charge you 100 dollars a day, so you have to be out after 18 days.”, which was like three days after we’d told her.
Yes, the funny thing… like, thank God we were going to Ocean Grove for the weekend. So, you know, we had a place to stay otherwise we’d be like, “Okay, so we’re not… What are we going to do, because of this crazy person’s kicking us out?”.
The funny thing was we kind of pretty much packed up the car when we drove back to Ocean Grove for Easter all the way down in Geelong in Victoria. So, we pretty much brought all of our stuff back with us, anything of value, because I was like, “I don’t trust this lady. I don’t want her to have any control over us and go into our room and take things.”. I mean everything, computers or the camera. Yeah, anything worth anything. Except the clothes. She can have those.
Yeah. So, we ended up getting kicked out after 18 days. So, she effectively owed us $720. She does. And we could have stayed, we could have fought it, but obviously it was so uncomfortable at that point that we just didn’t want to bother. Yeah, like… And our friends had said, “Just come and stay with us.”.
Yeah, at the beginning, I was like, “You know, like, I’m not giving in. I want my money back and everything”, but then we realised, it’s just not worth it, it’s just money, you know. Like, I don’t want to be around this person. She would be completely nasty to us, and I just want to deal with that.
And, we hadn’t signed anything too. That was the part that really irritated me, was that she said, “Don’t you remember me telling you that if you were going to only stay for a month…” And it was like, you didn’t say that. You’re saying that now because you’re annoyed that we want to move out, because, you know, a few other people have moved out at the same time, you’re not making enough money to pay for the rent without going into your own savings. Absolutely.
And so, yeah, but I guess one lesson to you guys, if you guys end up having issues with landlords, you can go to what’s called the Fair… I think it’d be Fair Rental or Fair Housing Work… no, not work, Ombudsman. So, you’d be able to go to other Ombudsman in whatever state you’re in. And if someone’s doing something dodgy to you, don’t just take it, ring up and ask for advice. Yeah. ‘Cause I found out afterwards too, after doing some research, that actually we could have stayed because the documents that we had signed said that she had received the money for a month, $1,800 for a month. There was nothing else in it saying that if we decided to leave after a month that she could change the rules. Yeah, absolutely. So, we could have stayed if we wanted to, but the trouble was as soon as we moved out, we would have no due course to complain or to go back, ’cause we had willingly and purposely moved out.
And maybe… we were a bit naive as well. Like… We rushed into it. Yeah, we were like, “Oh, yeah, it looks really nice. let’s do it.”. So, if you guys can just ask as many questions as you can. Just… and make sure everything’s really well explained.
And that’s the trouble, though, because I feel like… you… those sorts of questions are so hard. Like, if I’d gone back, I would have said,” Are you religious? Are there any sorts of…?”. But even then, 99% of the religious people I know are normal. And you don’t have any problem with religious people. Like, that’s not something that would… So, it’s difficult. You can’t just be like, “Are you a fruit loop?”. Yeah. “Are you crazy? Can you just let us know ahead of time?”. “Do you speak in tongues?”, “Are you nuts?”. Yeah. “Have you ever brought someone back from the dead?”, “Just to make sure”. Yeah, that’s it. “Without bragging, can you tell me?”. Yeah, it’s really hard. You can’t think… You know, you can’t really, “Okay, this prison is extremely weird so assume that it’s a horrible person”, maybe not. Maybe they’re really funny and nice. I don’t know, just make sure you sign… you read everything you sign, and don’t… yeah, don’t be naive.
Yeah, that’s it. So, that was the experience in this previous house, guys. And, I guess, it was funny because Quel and I were watching a, I guess, a Walking with Pete kind of vlog/video that I had made this day after we had accepted moving into this house, and my… what I say on there, you’ll see when it goes up on YouTube eventually, I’m very positive about my thoughts about this place. And I’m like, “You know, this old lady, she seems a bit weird, but…”. You even said that she was lovely. Yeah, that’s it. “Oh, but she’s probably lovely, and we’re going to move in, and it’s going to be good, and it’s crazy, because it’s this old mansion, the Pakistani embassy.”.
Little did I know. Quel and I were both watching this video and Quel’s like, “Don’t do it! Don’t do it! She’s going to kill you! She’s a witch!”.
Yeah, so. Oh, it was funny. But where are we now, Quel, and how has it been, you know, three days, two days in? We found another place. Yeah. Yeah, seems alright so far. Been here for like three days, four days. Yeah, something like that. Yeah, it’s a bit hard for me,’cause I have… now have to take two buses to work, but honestly, like, just coming back home and being… Peace of mind is a bit better. It’s fine. Like, we have a dog and everyone seems alright. Like, the girl is lovely, the guy who lives here is alright. These people are both our age and really friendly, especially, Elena, the girl who we’re renting from.
So, I thought that was a good idea, because we would have someone our age who we. could be friends with, and chill out with, and have stuff in common with. So, it seems to be working out. Knock on wood. You know. Maybe. Just in case. Maybe she’ll come to us tomorrow and tell us that she’s, you know, a fundamentalist Buddhist or something crazy. “I’ve changed the rules!”. But, it seems to be. going alright.
Yeah, I’m really enjoying it, and it’s a nice area as well, like, it’s a. nice area as well. Like, the apartment’s a bit small. It’s definitely smaller, and we have a share bathroom. Yeah, so… But, it’s not that bad to be honest. It’s definitely cheaper. We’re saving, like, 100 bucks a week now. So, 400 bucks a month, which is worth it, I guess, to put into savings, and put towards other things, whether it’s our own food, or, get to chill out. Yeah, I like it here. Let’s see what happens. Exactly.
Well, we should probably finish up there, I guess. We’ve been talking for almost 50 minutes. But, I thought it would be good to have you on the podcast again, and I guess, give the listeners more of a… an experience listening to us talking in a conversation. So, I hope you guys enjoy this episode. I hope you guys got a lot out of it. Lot’s of vocab in there.
Yeah, hope I didn’t say anything wrong. Yeah, that’s it, hopefully, you didn’t get too offended by our views on this old lady and the occasional swear word in there. I’m trying to swear a little more often in these podcasts. Not because I don’t swear normally, but because I swear normally, and I have been trying to keep keep it off the podcasts as much as possible, but I think I’ve realised that it’s not… I want exposure to real English and I want show you how I actually speak, especially, in informal friendly conversations and environments. So, don’t be offended if you hear the word, you know, shit, fuck, cunt. That’ll happen from time to time. Menino! É doido! (Boy! You’re crazy!”)
But, I guess, as a disclaimer that if you’re ever in doubt with regards to swear words in English… Say it! NO! Don’t say it. Don’t say it. If you’re ever in doubt, don’t say it. Joking! And feel free to ask me, guys. If you ever have a situation arise where you’re like, “Well, I heard this and I wasn’t sure if it was okay, or I felt like I want to say this, but I don’t know if it’s okay.”, feel free to ask me.
But, yeah. That’s it. Thanks for hanging out, guys, and we will try to do more like this in the future. Bye! See you, guys!
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Alright, guys, so that was the interview. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you though that it was an interesting story. I hope you got a lot out of it. And I would love to know what you think of it, guys.
So, make sure that you comment on Facebook or on the website and let me know. Was this lady crazy, or maybe she was normal and we just deserved to be turfed out? Thanks, guys, and I’ll chat to you in the next one. See ya!
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Ep073: Pronunciation – Would not have = Wouldn’t have, Wouldn’t’ve, Wouldn’ah
In this episode, I teach you how to pronounce “Would Not Have” in its different contraction forms, “Wouldn’t have”, “Wouldn’t’ve” and “Wouldn’ah”.
Note: “Wouldn’t’ve” and “Wouldn’ah” are never written in English. When said they’re still written as “Wouldn’t have”.
[sdm_download id=”1065″ fancy=”1″]Ep073: Pronunciation – Would not have = Wouldn’t have, Wouldn’t’ve, Wouldn’ah
G’day guys. Welcome to this episode of Aussie English. Today I’m going to do another pronunciation episode, and in today’s episode we are going to focus on the contraction of “Would not have”. And there’s a few different contractions. It gets more and more contracted depending on the speed at which you’re talking. When you’re talking with another native. So, you’ll start with “Would not have” and then you can contract the “Not” onto “Would” so you’ll have “Wouldn’t have”, and then not written but spoken you’ll have “Wouldn’t’ve”, “Wouldn’t’ve”, and then quite often if someone has a really strong Australia accent, I’m not sure about American or English, they could also say it like this but at least in Australia you’ll hear “Wouldn’ah”, “I wouldn’ah”, which is “Would not have”, “Wouldn’ah”.
So, you’ll have “Would not have”, “Wouldn’t have”, “Wouldn’t’ve” and “Wouldn’ah”. So again this episode isn’t necessarily to emphasise that you guys need to speak this way it’s more just to give you exposure to these different ways that “Would not have” is pronounced by natives without them realizing when they speak incredibly quickly so that you can understand what they’re saying when they’re saying it without having to ask them to repeat it and you’ll know instinctively.
So, I should probably cover first when and when not to contract “Would” onto the pronoun beforehand, such as, “I would”, “He would”, “She would”, “We would”, “They would”, it often becomes “I’d”, “You’d”, “He’d”, “She’d”, “We’d”, “They’d”, sometimes you don’t contract the “Would” because there are other words following “Would” that are contracted, and it just gets too messy and I think as a native speaker who listens you would just miss too much of the message if all of those words are contracted. For instance, if you have “Would not have” you can contract all of those words in different cases but because you’ve got three in a row it would be “I’dn’t have” or “I’dn’t’ve” and it’d be very weird. You wouldn’t really get the message. So, any time you negate the sentence, that is it’s in the negative, you use the word “Not”. So, “I would NOT have”, “I would NOT have done”, “I wouldn’t have time”. Any time the “Not” is in the sentence and it’s negated, it’s in the negative, you don’t contract “Would”, at least as far as I know it sounds incredibly bizarre when I try and um… think about saying “I’dn’t have” or “I’dn’t’ve”. It’s just not… it’s not said. So, don’t focus on that. But yeah, the little cheat is if it’s negated, if there’s a “Not” in there, you would have “Would” as it’s full word and then you would contract either or both “Not” and “Have” onto “Would” after the word. So, for example, “I would not have done that” can become “I wouldn’t have done that” or it can become “I wouldn’t’ve done that”. So, that was the conditional past tense but if it was just in the conditional then you would have “I wouldn’t have time”, “I wouldn’t have chocolate”, “I wouldn’t have that much to say”, etc. So if there’s a “Not” don’t contract “Would”.
Anyway, let’s get to some examples. So, say for example when talking about going to a party if, say, someone made you go to the party and they thought you didn’t have a good time you could say, “I wouldn’t’ve come if I didn’t want to”. So, even though that person is worried you didn’t have a good time you can say, “No no no no no, it’s fine.” You know, “If I didn’t want to come I wouldn’t’ve”. So, “I wouldn’t’ve come if I didn’t want to”, “I wouldn’t’ve gone if I didn’t want to”, “I wouldn’t’ve come if I didn’t want to”.
If someone’s moving house and you’ve offered to help the person move house and it turns out that moving has been a lot more work than that person anticipated before asking you to do it, and so, you say, uh…. spend the entire day pack their things, helping them move, unpack at the new house, and it takes a lot of your day up, the person could say to you “Oh look I’m sorry it took so long” and you could say, “If I didn’t want to help I wouldn’t’ve”. “If I didn’t want to help I wouldn’t’ve”.
Another example could be a couple go out on a first day and one of them is an incredibly busy person and has to rush to the date straight after work, you know, they… they’ve got to get the tram, they’re running effectively because they’re worried they’re going to be late, because of their busy schedule, and the other person might say “Oh… sorry we probably should’ve chosen a better day. Today was obviously a bad one for you.” And you could say, “No no no no. It’s fine. I wouldn’t’ve come if I’d been too busy”. “I wouldn’t’ve come if I didn’t want to come”. “I wouldn’t’ve come. But it’s fine. I wanted to come so I came.”One last example could be that someone could say something to another person who gets confused and asks “Are you sure that’s what you meant to say?” and you could say in response “Yeah, I wouldn’t’ve said it otherwise”. “Yeah, I wouldn’t’ve said what I said if I didn’t meant it or if I didn’t want to say it. I wouldn’t’ve said it if I didn’t want to. I wouldn’t’ve said it if I didn’t want to”.
Note: Neither “Wouldn’t’ve” nor “Wouldn’ah” is ever written in English. Even if said this way when speaking, it’s always written as “Wouldn’t have”.
So, now let’s do a little conjugation exercise guys where I’ll just conjugate the conditional past tense, and I’ll go through the different contractions as they get progressively more and more contracted. So, listen and repeat after me.
I would not have…
I wouldn’t have…
I wouldn’t’ve…
I wouldn’ah…
You would not have…
You wouldn’t have…
You wouldn’t’ve…
You wouldn’ah…
He would not have…
He wouldn’t have…
He wouldn’t’ve…
He wouldn’ah…
She would not have…
She wouldn’t have…
She wouldn’t’ve…
She wouldn’ah…
We would not have…
We wouldn’t have…
We wouldn’t’ve…
We wouldn’ah…
They would not have…
They wouldn’t have…
They wouldn’t have…
They wouldn’ah…
So, we’ll do some more listen and repeat exercises here guys because I want to put these contractions into sentences with context around them so that you have a better way of remembering and understanding how and when you would use these different phrases.
So, the setup here for the phrases that I’ll go through afterwards is that someone invites you to a party and it’s inconvenient for you because you’ve got a really busy schedule but you make the effort to go to the party anyway. So, when you arrive they say to you, “Oh I know you were so busy. You should’ve just said you couldn’t make it, you know. Like, I realise you were busy and had other things to do, and that it was quite an effort for you to come. So, you should’ve just said, “Sorry I couldn’t make it.”” And then you could say, and repeat after me.
I wouldn’t’ve come if I didn’t want to.
You wouldn’t’ve come if you didn’t want to.
He wouldn’t’ve come if he didn’t want to.
She wouldn’t’ve come if she didn’t want to.
We wouldn’t’ve come if we didn’t want to.
They wouldn’t’ve come if they didn’t want to.
And now we’ll just go through some random sentences. So, again some listen and repeat exercises here, but this time I’ll say “Wouldn’ah” instead of “Wouldn’t’ve”. So, you get an opportunity to use both.
I wouldn’ah gone if I couldn’ah
I wouldn’ah come if I couldn’ah.
You wouldn’ah asked if you didn’ wanna know.
You wouldn’ah been much older than me.
He wouldn’ah shown up if he didn’t wanna.
He wouldn’ah stayed if he didn’t wanna.
She wouldn’ah been awake that late last night.
She wouldn’ah arrived by that time.
We wouldn’ah played football even if you’d paid us.
We wouldn’ah gone to bed much later than 10.
They wouldn’ah ever wanted to know.
They wouldn’ah seen you I’m sure.
So, you’ll notice int here also guys, I’m sure if you go back, that I also contracted a few other things like “Couldn’t have” I turned into “Couldn’ah” um… “Didn’t want to know” I turned into “Didn’ wanna know”, and there’s a few other ones in there. But again it’s just listen and repeat, practice this pronunciation stuff here guys. If you have a bit of an issue understanding what these sentences are saying when I speak with a really strong accent with a lot of contractions jump on the website, I’ll have for these episodes the transcript out so you can read it and then practice your pronunciation and this hopefully is going to really help you in understanding when other native Australians, and other native speakers as well who use these contractions, speak to you, you’re going to know exactly what they’re saying straight away. So, you’ll pick up on it, you’ll have heard it before when listening to these episodes and it’ll be like “Oh I remember that! Boom! It’s all good I understand.”
Anyway, this is a long episode guys. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions or any doubts or anything you want to talk to me about or suggest I do an episode in the future on let me know on Facebook, send me a message or a comment. If you can, also review the podcast on iTunes, that always helps, and don’t forget to click like on these Facebook posts and share it with any of your friends who are also learning English. Thanks for listening guys. All the best!
Check out all the other recent Aussie English Pronunciation episodes below.
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AE 518: An Aussie Christmas with Kel and Pete
Learn Australian English in this episode of The Aussie English Podcast where Kel and I chat about Australian Christmas and compare it to Christmas in Brazil.
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AE 518: An Aussie Christmas with Kel and Pete
G’day, Kel! Welcome to this episode of Aussie English. So, today we’re going to be talking about a bit of Aussie culture. Aussie culture. We’re going to be talking about Christmas! Or Xmas, as we sometimes call it.
Oh really?
Yeah.
Well, I don’t know why I think it’s cross, right? Chris, on a cross, Xmas. it’s called Xmas for people who aren’t really Christian like very very religious they tend to refer to it as Xmas.
Never heard that.
I would usually just call it Christmas, but sometimes I’d write it, when I’m writing quickly I write Xmas, Xmas Xmas Xmas. So, thought we could talk a bit about, I don’t know, what Christmas was like for each of us growing up, obviously with a focus on me and Australia, but also to hear about your experiences with Christmas growing up because, you know, it’s one of those things I grew up doing a certain, you know, having a certain set of customs and rituals that we do each year and I think everyone else does them everywhere else in the world, just the same as I do.
Yeah, I thought the same.
What questions do you have for me the start us off?
I don’t know. Was the same, every year the same for you? Christmas, or it was something you would be looking forward to as a child and be all excited about, or it was like oh… my God, family gatherings…
Think that happened a little later, when I was a little kid I used to love Christmas because you always got presents, right? So, to sort of run you through how it’s, how it usually occurred for me growing up when I was a little kid, my earliest memories of Christmas were…we would have in Australia so, Christmas Eve, the night before Christmas Day, that’s the 24th of December. Then we have Christmas Day, which is the 25th and then we have Boxing Day, which is the 26th and so, Christmas Eve we would usually celebrate with some of my dad’s family, because we’re just the two families, my mom and my dad’s families, would never get together, it would always be you see one then you see the other.
So, on Christmas Eve I would see his family, we would exchange presents, we would usually have a more versatile dinner so, it could be anything, really, with them. Someone would bring you know chips and dips and little things to eat, but it would be at my auntie’s house and she would usually cook something, but it wouldn’t be the same thing every year. So, she just cooked some kind of meal like, you know, maybe a salad, maybe they’d be cold meats, like ham and salami to put in rolls or could be anything.
So, we would do that on Christmas Eve and then we would usually exchange presents with them because we weren’t going to see them on Christmas Day so, we would usually sit down after dinner and then each family would give everyone else in the other family a present or two each, and they were you know, just wrapped up, might have a ribbon on it, might have just wrapping paper with sticky tape on it with a card on it saying, you know, Merry Christmas, Dave. And then they open the present oh, I got Lego! Uhuh! you know, depending on who it was or it could be a voucher or clothes could be anything, but then on Christmas Eve we would usually be, me and my sister, would usually be incredibly excited because we would go home knowing that Santa was coming that night, right? So, we would be like I can’t wait to get home! Got to sleep!
Did you actually believe in Santa?
What are you talking about, Kel? What do you mean believe? Santa is real, Kel.
Ok.
Well, of course! Yeah. What else are you going to believe, right? You get told this by your parents and why would you not? You go to sleep, you wake up the next day and there’s all these gifts under the tree.
Yeah, definitely, the evidence.
That weren’t there the day before… So, yeah. I would go to sleep with my sister in the same room or in separate rooms as we got older and we would always be like…”can’t sleep, I can’t sleep! What if Santa comes while we are wake? Oh my Gosh!” . You know, we’d be like “try and listen and hear if we hear his reindeer and his sled land on the roof” and I remember too thinking ”Mum Dad we don’t have a chimney, how does he get in the house?”
Oh that’s so cute!
And mum’s like… we leave the door open, don’t worry, him can get in. And so we would go to sleep thinking that he was coming and he would put the presents under the Christmas tree so, we would have a Christmas tree set up, usually a plastic one. Some people would buy small pine trees that you can like real trees and you’d hang decorations on them like Christmas balls and bells and angels and, you know, gingerbread man, candy canes, holy reindeer, snowmen, everything to do with Christmas on these trees and the presents would usually go under the tree that people had bought one another and then Santa would usually leave our presence in a special sack. So, Mum and Dad had like pillow cases with our names on them and they would be under the tree empty on the night.
For Santa to put the gifts inside.
On the 24, yeah and then the next day we would wake up and we would like, you know, before anything we’d run out and have a look at the tree and look underneath and be like Oh my Gosh! The sacks are full of presents!!!!
This is so cute!
And we were patient, we’d have to go in and wake mum and dad up and be like…
So you couldn’t open the presents before….
No, they had to be there. They had to be there. Yeah. We’d have to go… and it would be so annoying cause sometimes you wake up and it would be like 5am and you’d be like It’s time! It’s time! you know, the sun is not up, but it’s time! And Mum and Dad go back to bed. Yeah because it was so early, they’d be like going to sleep for another hour or two and then we’ll wake up and do it and I’ll be like noooo we have to wait so long to see the presents!
So, what would you usually get? Like, what was like…cars?
Oh yes, so toy cars. I remember Lego used to be something I always wanted! So, we would wake up my parents, they’d come out and they would usually sit on the sofa and we would sit on the ground, Annika and I, my sister and I, in front of the tree and each have our sacks and be pulling the presents out and comparing sizes and being like ”she got more than me! Santa!” or ”she got a bigger one than me or I got a smaller” oh ‘what is this? It’s the shape of a CD or a DVD”.
You know, so you’d be trying to guess what it was. I remember always shaking it hoping that you would hear that jingle of Lego pieces. So, you shake the box and you’ll be like…is it going to be a lot of little pieces? and then you like yeaaah cause you can normally tell the difference between a puzzle or Lego or a DVD or something. And you know the box sort of shape of Lego as well, right? So, yeah I used to get Lego, you’d get all sorts of toys like, water guns, robots, stuffed toys, could be anything.
So, you would get more than one present?.
Yeah, they’d usually…not necessarily spoil us. I remember the presents were never ridiculously expensive. My parents were never really well-off. They were in a similar position that you and I are today when I was very young, maybe a little bit better off, but I think also they never wanted to spoil us, so they would never be like, you know, hundreds and hundreds of dollars worth of toys. And I think too because they knew that you’re not going to be playing with that toy for that long, right? You’ll play for it for a few weeks,max, maximum and then you cast it aside and be asking for the next toy and so, they were like well…
What’s the point?
And Lego, far out, that get expensive. You look at some of those huge things and it’s like hundreds of dollars.
Yeah, still!
So, that used to be it, we would get out in the morning, wake the parents up, go through the presents and then, you know, be like oh man, Santa! What a bad ass! So awesome! Thank you, Santa! Oh, he didn’t give us coal! you know?So there’s the stereotype in or the story, I guess, in Western culture that Santa, he knows who’s been good and who’s bad and you as a child have to be good in order to get presents, if you’re bad, you get coal, right? Like burned wood. He’ll leave you some coal.
Oh really?
Yeah. So there’s always that song, right? “He knows if you’ve been naughty he knows if you’ve been good”, whatever it is, but would, you would your parents put like coal l inside the bag just like oh… that’s because I did this thing…
No, I think that would be like child abuse.
No, I mean, you would get presents but just one piece of coal, just like oh yeah I remember.
I think they probably would have done that if we had had a an open fire at the house where they could have readily access, had access to coal. Maybe, but that never happened though.
I didn’t know this thing.
But we would also leave out, before we went to sleep on the 24th, we used to leave out food and milk for Santa. So, that would, that would be something we would do too, where our snacks were or the Christmas stockings are. Some people buy stockings, like these huge kind of like sock, kind of things for you to put presents in, you quite often in Western culture in America, in Britain, in Australia probably other parts of Europe as well, kids will put food and drink for Santa, because he’s obviously tired, right? After going to what three billion kids homes. So, we would leave milk in a glass and often biscuits that we’d made or something for Santa to eat.
So, in the morning the food would be gone?
It would always be half eaten, my parents would always come and just like take a sip of the milk and probably a few bites of biscuits or the carrot or whatever that was there.
It’s just so cute!
And be like “look! Santa’s eaten some of the stuff! Obviously he liked it and kept going on his way” and we’d always, you know, joke around like oh that’s why Santa’s so fat! He was always getting treats! Poor Santa with his diabetes from all the biscuits and milk.
Just leave him a beer, man. Next time, there you go, Santa.
So, that would be Christmas Eve and Christmas morning and then for Christmas Day we would usually go to my grandmother and grandfather’s house on my mother’s side so, my mother’s family and her parents and that was always much bigger than what I did with my dad’s family because part of his family lives overseas so, it would be a small thing with with his family, with my mum’s family on the other hand we’ve got bigger and bigger as we got older because of her siblings all having children. So, it used to be used, it used to be wild, like we would go to their place in Melbourne so, we’d have to drive for like an hour and a half and then they would have morning tea. So, like shortbread, tea, coffee whatever drinks you want and you sort of wait for everyone to arrive to the party. And then there was a sort of very regimented and strict lunch, it was pretty much the same every single year so, my grandmother would organise a very traditional roast, which was usually turkey and lamb. They would have a turkey and lamb roast beef and they would have their vegetables, the sort of traditional roast and veggies so, you would have things like pumpkin, potato, green beans and I think it would usually be those three and then maybe some salad and she would have other people in the family bring other food too, so someone would bring things like chips, like lollies and.
Chocolate.
Chocolates. Yeah, someone will have to bring the rum butter, a special kind of like sweet butter with rum in it.
Yeah, I think I’ve tried it, with cake or something.
Yeah, exactly. And so, we would eat, we’d go through all these courses, you have the first course, which is a little entree with salad, the main course with all the meats, the meatballs, the veggies like potato, pumpkin and she would have peaches, that was a very strange thing I remember always, they always had these like canned fruit peaches that you can have with your dinner. And then dessert would usually be mouse, ice cream, and then the Christmas pudding, the special Christmas pudding, which was a… I think a plum pudding? So very, very it’s like a fruit cake that’s been boiled, a plum pudding that’s been boiled and she would usually pour brandy on it, liqueur, and then light it on fire as they brought it out, right? So, this cake would usually enter the room on fire.
WOW.
And there was just normal from me, like, everyone does that, right?
I’ve never seen it. I mean we went…I think two weeks ago we went to see your grandparents?
The year before for some reason they failed and they couldn’t light it. I remember. Then last time they just skipped it. The lighting it on fire. And my grandmother does a very strange thing where she puts old Australian currency into the cake, right? So, she takes coins from before 1966, that was in circulation then, but like I think like a threepence and a penny and that kind of old money and she puts that into the cake and if you find certain currency, certain valued coins in there, in your piece of cake, she’ll exchange it for a dollar or two dollars or ten cents or something.
I think I got two dollars or something last time?
Yeah, you got two bucks this year. Yeah. So, that was always, that was my Christmas, and again gift with them we would usually exchange gifts amongst everyone in all the different family members before lunch so, everyone would sit down in the living room in sort of like a big circle with like 20 25 of us and then each family would take turns in handing out gifts to all the people in the different families and it would be anything from like wine or food or jam, like food that people had made or it could be usually toys and small gifts and Barbie dolls that sort of stuff for children.
Yeah.
More interesting things for them to play with, Nerf guns, water pistols. Yeah. So, that was, that was really Christmas for me and then Boxing Day was usually just, the 26th, was usually just a day to rest and chill out. That’s when the Boxing Day sales begin in stores in Western countries so, that’s usually the all of those big commercial stores like Myers, JB HIFI, all of those places that you buy gifts from before Christmas, usually have massive sales when they sell things for like 50 per cent off on Boxing Day and so, there tends to be a whole bunch of crazy capitalism going on as well.
I have experienced that in Townsville, it was great, everything just like half price stuff, yeah, great.
One more thing to add. The interesting thing about Australian Christmas is that it’s during summer and the weird thing for me growing up was… and I never even really thought about this until I got older… that all of the trinkets and decorations and things related to Christmas that you buy, are all winter related.
Yeah, snow and..
You know, like the stocking, snow, snowmen angels, all of these like the decorations on them pine trees, the pine trees, which are from the North, right? You know, pine needles, all of this stuff was always winter related because it comes from Europe and western, western Europe and like the US so, that was always funny for me because we would have Christmas where it’s probably could be anywhere between 30 to 40 degrees and it hasn’t snowed for four months anywhere in Australia and you will go down to the beach and like, you know, play cricket on the beach, go for a swim here and that would usually be our sort of Christmas afternoon so, enjoying the sun so, it’s a bit strange.
It’s the same for me, always hot so, I never really had this like stereotypical Christmas when you have snow and you go outside to play with the snow and things. It doesn’t make sense to me.
Yeah well, I always thought, why are we playing with snowmen? And it’s like… we don’t…
We don’t have it!
We don’t have snow, exactly! Why is Santa dressed in such warm gear? And so, that would be the stereotype those jokes on TV and stuff we’re Santa is wearing shorts and a singlet or something at the beach.
Same in Brazil.
Yeah, exactly.
So, what was it like for you growing up then Kel, in Brazil, compared to the sort of Western Australian, British and American Christmas, what was it like for you in Brazil?
It’s a bit different, I would say, it was…was something I would be looking forward to during the year as a child just like Yeah, Christmas! Not so much because of the presents I would get, but because of the food.
Oh really? So, you’re sort of the opposite of me, I’d always be like presents first and then like ah, do we have to eat?
I think it depends on your financial situation in Brazil, it depends a lot on it. So, if you… if your parents have more money or your family has more money you may have a bigger party, but my family is quite big and we didn’t have a lot so, it was this one time of the year there we would do something really big and it was amazing. So, yeah I would be all excited about it, but the thing is we celebrate it differently like we…our party happens on the 24th.
Yeah. I remember you telling me this and being like, what do you mean it happens on Christmas Eve? You celebrate Christmas Eve more than Christmas Day?
We spend the whole day, Christmas Eve, cooking, preparing the house, cleaning and then we get ready, like usually you have new clothes, and you stay awake until midnight, that’s when you have dinner with your family and you open presents.
Really?
Yeah. So, I would be so excited because I didn’t really have rules in my house like children go to bed at 8p.m, but it’s hard for a child to be awake, you know, until really late, so I would…that would be one of the very rare occasions when my sister and I would be awake until midnight or 1a.m.
See, for us that would be New Year’s Eve that we were like oh we get to stay up late. Christmas Eve would never be one where we could stay up to midnight. And I think mainly because our parents wouldn’t stay up that long, right? Because they’re in bed by whatever time so, we would be in bed before then. Specially as little kids, whereas for New Year’s, New Year’s Eve, they would be up all night. So, of course we were more able to stay up late on those sorts of days.
So, for us yeah we would stay awake until like midnight, 1:00a.m. and then at midnight to have fireworks and, you know, you say Merry Christmas and you hug and you exchange presents and you have food.
Did you have that thing with Santa, though, too? Are you waiting for Santa to come? Some people do, but honestly, I’ve never had this thing in my house. Mum would never, like my family just would never be like Santa Claus is coming… we didn’t, I don’t ever remember thinking about it. Like, oh yeah he’s coming. No. I knew my mum would get the presents and it was like… listening to you explaining how exciting it was, I kind of feel like I wish I had had it, you know, so magical and like I can’t imagine be so excited about something. I was excited, but you know, just thinking ”oh is he going to give me a lot of presents?”. I already knew it was my mum or my grandmother.
I think is one of those things you snap out of it pretty, pretty quickly and you realise that I think for me I discovered when I walked into my parents room one day and they had the receipt for all the gifts on the wall.
NOOOO
I was like, mum how come the receipt here is like literally all the gifts that I got for Christmas?
What did she say?
”We bought them for Santa. So, that he could give them to you” and I’m pretty much walked out like ”Annika, Santa is not real!”.
No way. That’s so funny. I never had this moment. Like, I always knew it was mum or dad or someone so, I didn’t have….I was excited about what I would get, but not because of Santa like it was just like I know Grandma it’s probably going to give me something, so…
Looking back on it, though, I think… how did we not think Mum, Dad why haven’t you given us any presents? Santa gave us all this stuff, you gave us nothing!
Can Santa be my dad?
Yeah so, then we would have dinner with the family and there was a really, you know, massive sort of dinner, we would have like…my family doesn’t like turkey, is very popular in Brazil, but we never really liked it so, we’d have this big chicken, full of chemicals or whatever, but yeah really a massive chicken.
Been given steroids, had it?
It’s like first of December, something happens all the chickens are massive! I’m like ok… So, a lot of rice with raisins. All the other things are in Portuguese so, I know I’m not quite sure.
How to translate them.
How to translate them, but yeah.
So very traditional food then?
Very traditional food, lasagne…
That’s italian..
Well yeah…brigadeiro, things like that we would have for Christmas.
This chocolate desserts.
Yeah there was it. And then we would eat and go to bed.
So, was it a very religious event for your? Or celebration too, we should talk about that.
Some people, not for me personally, my family… we would watch the, what do you call it, mass?
Mass? Mass.
Mass.
I was thinking Mars, the planet.
On TV.
With the Pope?
With the Pope and everything.
Because obviously you guys are catholic.
Yea but I remember grandma going to church, but I wouldn’t, it was just like ah, whatever, you know?
It was the same for me.
But some people really follow like the traditional, they go to church and the mass finishes before midnight so, you have time to go home, you know, have dinner.
Wow, goes that late, though? Holly Molly.
It’s quite late, but IT has to finish before like 11:00, I would say.
So that the family can celebrate.
Yes. Yes.
So, in Australia, I guess, is a Christian holiday, right? It’s about the birth of Jesus and, you know, celebrating new life, everything like that, but I think the average person in Australia isn’t very religious. They will probably… the average person’s probably atheist, right? At least not actively practicing a religion. So, if anything they’re sort of Christian through their family, but they don’t go to church and they don’t actively pray and that sort of stuff. So, for us it’s still the holidays kind of now detached from Christianity and going to church and practising it like that. We never did that growing up, but my mum and her family were Christian when she was young or at least her family still is, she’s not anymore, but they would go to church and they still do. So, they still go to church on Christmas Day and I think it’s the morning service on Christmas Day that they go to so, we always have to arrive after they’ve gone to church and that’s usually I think, that usually starts at like 9:00 or 10:00 in the morning and finishes after an hour or two.
Yeah.
Yeah. So, it is a Christian holiday, but it’s not just for Christians to celebrate. That’s, that’s the point I’m trying to get at. In America, in Australia, in many parts of Europe, Christian countries have this celebration, but everyone takes part, whether you’re Christian or not so.
Same in Brazil.
So yeah. So it’s not weird to meet people who are Indian or people who are from the Middle East or from Africa living in Australia and still celebrating Christmas with the rest of us, because you don’t have to be a Christian to still, you know, want to get a Christmas tree, put decorations on it, buy presents for people say thank you to everyone and kind of just celebrate being a big community and what you’ve got.
Well, it is it is a family sort of thing in Brazil and it’s very, you know, related to religion, although my family is not extremely religious, but yeah my grandma would go to church, if I’m not mistaken, but then yeah, some people do, some people don’t. So yeah. So that was my 24th and then on the next day, the 25th, we would just eat the leftovers, for lunch and for dinner, and if there was anything else where we would eat the next day.
How much did you cook?
Oh man. You have no idea. We literally cook for like four or five days because everyone is so tired after that.
It makes sense.
My poor mum, she would cook the whole thing by herself. And, you know, that’s when my sister and I would get involved. We would help her with things like cakes and stuff just being so curious around the kitchen and that was really exciting. And she would give as like oh you make the brigadeiros or you make this cake and things. So, the very few things I know how to cook, are because you know my mum doing Christmas cooking around the house and me watching and helping her. So, yeah and I think that’s when it differs from your celebration in Australia because we don’t have like…some people do have Christmas lunch on the 25th, but the main thing is the midnight thing on the 24th.
Yeah.
That’s the main party when everyone gets together, we open presents and everything. The next day is like some people get together. Some people don’t and we don’t have Boxing Day. So, all the sales and things would be before Christmas, before the 24th because you need to buy presents for people to open on the 24th. So, if you want to buy cheap stuff it has to be before Christmas, we don’t have Boxing Day, I’m quite sure it’s a holiday. And then that’s it and then we start a for a New Year’s Eve and yeah…pretty much. You were mentioning the presents you would get. I’d get one present. One, like, it would be a toy or it would be new clothes or new shoes or, you know…
Something useful too that you kinda needed.
Definitely. My mum and my grandmother would just like put a little bit of money into something a bit better, like I’m gonna get you a new dress.
So, it was a much more practical sort of present.
Yeah. I would get toys from my dad because he wasn’t living with me so, he was like oh I’ll visit you, he would come over, drop a few, like one present for me, one present for my sister and that was it, but my, the family I was living with, my mum my grandma, my aunts, they would give me useful sort of things like shoes, clothes or whatever.
I remember too, when we used to go through this stage on Christmas Day all the kids in the neighbourhood used to leave the house after they’d gotten the gifts, right? In the morning and you would see all these children playing in the street with new toys. So there’d be kids with like electric race cars, new skateboard, maybe a kite, always playing and especially if you knew the kids quite often you would be like taking turns
What did you get?
Yeah. What did you get for Christmas? Wow, that’s awesome. Can I have a go? Can I try your new skateboard? And so, that was always really fun. Oh and we used to have, on the 24th, Santa would come around on the fire engine and so, we were showing you this recently. So, the fire brigade , he CFA, I forgot what that stands for, the CFA in Australia is the fire brigade, the people who sent out when there’s a fire and often they would pay…they would fund themselves, they’d buy little bags of candy or lollies, as we call them in Australia, lolly bags and Santa, someone dressed up as Santa, would usually be on the top of one of these red and white fire engines and that would drive around the streets playing Christmas music, Christmas Carols and hand out the lolly bags to children. And so that used to happen as well, you would hear the music in the background on the 24th and be like ‘Santa is nearby, where is he?’ and, you know, you walk out in the street and he’s waving on the back of a truck and you’d be like ”yeah, lollies!!” and he’d walk out and just give you some lollies and be like HO HO HO.
I’m sure we have that, I remember that in my city, but Santa doesn’t drive around, you know, he is somewhere sitting down in his chair and you go to him, you take photos and then he might give you a lollipop or something.
Well, we have those at the moment set up in like malls. So, we saw it today. If you go to malls anywhere nearby, you’ll often see this big chair with Santa on it and you can get photos, that’s usually for children to get photos with Santa. So, that’s something else, but I guess sort of finishing up if you guys want to celebrate Christmas in Australia, the good thing is there is no one way of doing it. You can make it as big or as small as you want, but probably the biggest things, I would say, is just get a Christmas tree. However you sort of want to get it like a real tree, a plastic tree, it could be a gumtree that you bought, a small one, you can have whatever you want, but the spirit, the idea there is just to have some kind of tree and then to put decorations on it and again you can sort of make whatever you want. I remember my parents and my grandparents when we were growing up used to get us to sort of do creative art and make things out of native plants, like gumtrees, we’d use the gum nuts and like other things and glue them on to like horse shoes or something and put them on the tree so you can make your own gifts and do that with the kids and be involved and I guess the biggest thing is just share presence with those people that are important to you on Christmas day, whether it’s food, something you’ve cooked, something you’ve made.
That something I really like about Australia. I don’t think we have the same sort of tradition, not so strong in Brazil. Like you cook something for someone, you make something, like it can be just a card or something. I love that. We are much more like you buy something new. It doesn’t have to be expensive, but you usually buy something.
I think my parents and my family and my extended family have sort of gotten to a point now where you realise it’s just capitalism, right? You’re just spending money on things people aren’t necessarily needing. They don’t necessarily want, that they’re not going to use for very long and so a lot more, at least in recent years, my family, my immediate family like my sister and my parents as well as my extended family, now make things like their own wine or they’ll put together some kind of like Protein Balls or a bag of nuts or some lollies or they’ll make food, they’ll cook gingerbread, gingerbread man like my sister is going to do tomorrow. And then they give that to the family so, you can do that with your culture, right ?Like whatever it is. If you guys are from say India and you can cook some really good food there that you could give to other people, people really appreciate getting interesting new things and I would be like…like Kel’s planning on cooking food that’s Brazilian and handing that out to the family.
That will be really nice.
Yeah, exactly. Anyway, so, hopefully you’ve enjoyed this episode and it has given you some understanding of Australian culture and what Christmas is like here in Australia and how it compares to Christmas in Brazil, but I would definitely love to know from you, guys, how you guys celebrate Christmas or what you celebrate instead of Christmas during this period of the year, and I guess until next time, guys.
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas. See you soon!
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AE 262 – What’s the difference between COULD, CAN, WOULD, WILL, SHALL and SHOULD?
Learn Australian English in this episode of Aussie English where I discuss the difference between could, can, would, will, shall and should.
AE 262 – What’s the difference between COULD, CAN, WOULD, WILL, SHALL and SHOULD?
“Hi Pete. This is Aly. I’m one of your English Podcast listener(s*). Could you please show me what are the difference(s*) and use(s*) of these verbs: could, would, can, shall, should etc. Thanks for your efforts mate.”
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So your question today, Aly, was if I could tell you the difference between the different modal verbs can, could would, should and shall.
This is a pretty complicated question and would require a lot of time for me to go over all of these, but I’m going to try and sort of give you the down low, give you a brief introduction to when and where to use these different modal verbs.
Can & Could
So “can” and “could” are the same as “to be able to”.
And “can”, “could” and “to be able to” are used to express a variety of different ideas in English.
I might just go through them quickly.
They can express the idea of ability or lack of ability to do something.
So the ability or the inability.
For instance, “Tom can write poetry”, “I can help you”, “Lisa can’t speak French”.
That’s all about whether or not you can do something, whether or not you’re able to do something.
And so you can also substitute in “to be able to” instead of “can” in this instance where we’re talking about ability.
So you could say “Tom is able to write poetry”, “I am able to help you”, “Lisa is unable to speak French” or you could say “Lisa is not able to speak French”.
And when we do this in the past tense we use “could”.
So you could say “Tom could write poetry”, “I could help you, yesterday”, “Lisa could speak French when she was young”.
And if you want to substitute in “to be able to” then you have to obviously… with “to be” you have to use “was” or “have been”.
So you would say instead, “Tom was able to write poetry”, “I was able to help you”, “Lisa was able to speak French” or you could say “Tom has been able to…”.
“I have been able to…”. “Lisa has been able to…” etc., depending on the tense you are using.
So there you go.
That’s the first one.
Ability or inability to do something.
We can also use “can” and “could” for possibility or impossibility.
So “You can catch a train at 10:43”.
It’s possible you could do it.
“He can’t see you right now”.
It’s impossible that he sees you.
And again if we do this in the past tense, “You could catch a train at 10:43 yesterday.” or “He couldn’t see you yesterday”.
So that’s possibility and impossibility.
We can also use it for asking permission or giving permission.
So for instance, “Can you lend me ten dollars?”, “You can borrow my car.”, “Could I have your number?”, “Could I talk to you?”.
However, in this form “could” isn’t the past tense.
It’s the conditional tense, I believe.
So it would be like saying “Would I be able to have your number?”, “Could I have your number?”, “Would I be able to talk to you?”, “Could I talk to you?”.
We can also use it when making suggestions.
So we can use “could” to make a suggestion.
“You could take the tour of the castle”, “You could go there tomorrow”, “You could do this”.
And again that’s the conditional.
“You would be able to take the tour tomorrow”, “You would be able to go there”.
However, “could” sounds a lot more natural.
Shall & Should
So “shall” and “should”.
“Shall” and “should”.
And this also goes with “ought to”, but that’s not really used that much at least compared to the other two.
So we can use “shall” or “should” to offer assistance or as a polite suggestion.
And I might add here first “shall” is only used in the first person.
So it can be singular plural. “Shall I…”. “Shall we…”.
But it’s only used with “I” and “we”.
“Shall I…?”, “Shall we…?”, “I shall…”, “We shall…”.
So we can use them to offer assistance or as a polite suggestion.
So, “Shall we go for a walk?”, “Shall I go to the shops and buy some milk?”, “Should I go for a walk?”, “Should I go to the shops and buy some milk?”.
So we can also use “should” as a prediction or an expectation that something is going to happen.
“The proposal should be finished on time”, “I shouldn’t be late, the train usually arrives on time”.
And we can also use it to give advice.
“You should check that document before you send it out”.
And we can also use this when giving advice about something that we think is wrong or unacceptable.
So, “He shouldn’t teach words like that to children.” or “He shouldn’t do that. It’s dangerous”.
Those are examples of something that you would be better not doing, that you shouldn’t do, because it’s unacceptable or it’s wrong.
Will & Would
So the last one that you wanted to go over was “would” and “would” sort of pairs well with “will” when it comes to modal verbs.
“Will” and “would”.
So I might go over both of these.
So “will” and “would” be used for polite requests or statements.
“Will you please take the trash outside?”, “Would you mind if I sat next to you?”, “I would like to sign up for the workshop”.
So polite requests and statements.
You can also use it for habitual past actions.
So we can use “would” to talk about things that we did habitually in the past so something that happened many times that we used to do all the time say as a kid.
For instance, “When I was a child I would spend hours playing video games” or you could say, “Peter wouldn’t eat broccoli as a kid”.
So notice how I’ve said “as a child” or “as a kid I wouldn’t…”. and then… or “I would…”, and then “the thing”.
And that just means that “that thing” happened all the time.
So, “I would spend hours playing video games”, every single day, every single week, every single month.
It happened a lot.
Or, “I wouldn’t eat broccoli” at all dinners.
So periodically, all the time, as a habit.
“I wouldn’t eat broccoli”.
So I hope that helps Aly.
It’s a bit of a shallow attempt at covering those different modal verbs.
It’s kind of hard for me to go into them in great lengths all together.
That would definitely require individual episodes.
So I hope this is kind of helped.
Go over it a few times and try and get sort of the basic idea of how I would or wouldn’t use these.
And then get out there and practice them.
I think that is one of the biggest tips that I can give you for practicing modal verbs and auxiliary verbs is to focus on one at a time, to look for real examples sentences, and then to play with those sentences.
So like conjugate through them using different pronouns. I would rehearse them myself alone in my room.
So I would, like, speak to myself and say things like “When I was a kid I would do this. He would do this. She would do this as a kid. We would do this. They would do this”.
And then, for instance, I would go to “should”.
“I should help. I should do this. I should do that.”
I would try maybe picking one at a time, spend 30 seconds coming up with sentences off the top of your head, and just play with them.
You could also do this writing if you really really want to practice your writing skill and practice these modal verbs.
And I would again conjugate through, use them in as many different ways as you can while writing.
And eventually the meanings are going to sink in and you will do it naturally.
But I think it’s one of those things if you want to chop down a whole forest you do it tree by tree.
You look at the first tree you want to chop down and then you chop that tree down. Repeat the process.
And eventually there’s no more forest.
You don’t look at the forest and think how am I ever going to chop down all these trees.
You just have to do a bit by bit.
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And Aly thank you so much for the question.
Thank you so much for leaving me a voicemail.
See you guys.
I’m totally chocked! Crazy vovózinha!!!
Hehe foi isso cara!