Learn Australian English in this interview episode where Kel and I chat about our recent news as well as being 20 weeks pregnant!
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AE 527: 20 Weeks Down & More News!
G’day, guys! Welcome to this episode of Aussie English. I thought I would drag my beautiful wife onto the podcast tonight. It has been a sweltering day, Kelly.
Yes, horrible.
It has been boiling, but it’s been quite hot.
It’s not pleasant at all.
I think it got up to, apparently, according to the news, it was meant to get up to 49 degrees in South Australia, in Adelaide. So, you’re glad that you missed out on that?
Yes, definitely, and I was, I mean, I wanted to go to Melbourne today to do a few things, but yeah, I was just like…no, because last time I went to Melbourne it was like 36 degrees. I remember I was sitting, basically, I was sitting on the street, just like a found a shade, shade?
Some shade, yeah. You found some shade.
And just, sat there for a while and there was this homeless guy sitting by my side and people were just almost walk on over us just like so, Melbourne is so busy and it was the most horrible feeling like, I can’t do this anymore, so…
It was pretty brutal, it was pretty brutal. I’m glad we stayed inside all day working away on the podcast, hanging out, Kelly is doing heaps of stuff on Pinterest and Instagram and she’s coming a machine at making photos, aren’t you, Kel? How is it all going?
Yeah it’s alright, I’m getting better, but it’s hard.
You want to talk about your podcast too? So, we’re expanding out. I should tell them about it so, I’m thinking about starting, thinking about starting, I am starting another business where the idea is going to be to create other podcasts or at least enable creators to create other podcasts similar to Aussie English but for other languages and other dialects of English. So, I’ve got a few friends at the moment working on Canadian English and American English, which is awesome. They’ve done the first few episodes of their podcasts so, we’re going to be launching maybe in February and Kel has been unleashing, she’s been working hard on a Portuguese one.
Yeah. Trying to improve it.
You’re doing so well. It’s so funny like I give her a hard time, not necessarily a hard time, but I critique her after each episode because I want you to sort of speed up and get really good at doing it, as opposed to me where if you go back and listen to my first episode I was very nervous so, I was very quiet, bumbling kind of shy, kind of I, don’t know, awkward episodes and so, I’m trying to speed track her through that so, she doesn’t have to worry about, you know, that learning curve, all the difficult stuff.
It’s been good fun. But lots to improve still…
What do you think of it? Are you enjoying it at least?
Yeah, definitely I can’t wait to see, you know, what people think about it and if they like, what they want too, you know, like if they want different expressions and things in Portuguese or grammar, it’s going to be, it’s going to be interesting.
Well, I’ve been for a while wanting something that was along the lines of Aussie English for Portuguese, because I’m dying to improve my Portuguese by listening to content and it’s just so, happens that I can harass Kel to make a podcast because we obviously have all the gear here for making this podcast, and so it’s pretty easy to just sit her in front of it and do it in Portuguese and then I can help with editing and stuff and then hopefully learn from it later on, it is good because you’ve been using a heap of different vocab that I’m not used to, which is sort of the point, right? Like… to talk a bit about how I design my podcasts, the reason I think the expression episodes are so effective and so enjoyed by you guys is because of the way that it’s laid out, right? Like, I introduce it, I chat about the introductory scene at the very start which gives you a chance to hear someone else’s voice using a different accent, talking about a different subject and then I go through and explain an expression to find some words, define the expression and then one of my favourite bits is the fact that I give you different examples. I think that’s really useful because it’s a chance to use completely different vocab, right? You can talk about three different topics that tie in to also teaching you how to use that expression. So, that’s why I design it that way. I think it’s so useful because not only does it give you three separate examples for how to use an expression, but we’re talking about three completely different topics, hopefully, that will give you access to new vocab, new expressions or new slang, situational stuff and you get to hear me talk and then obviously at the end you have the content about some kind of topic, historical or cultural or biological, whatever it is.
Yeah, I love it. I love the way you designed it. It’s really good.
And I think, that’s why it’s so good, it’s so good to listen to your episodes now because even though we’re talking in Portuguese every day it’s the same stuff, we’re going on in the same cycle, right? Which is it’s good because it reinforces my abilities, but I found it’s really kind of difficult when like the other day we went away on a road trip down the coast down the Great Ocean Road to see the Twelve Apostles and Lockard Gorge and we were with the Brazilian friends and we were speaking and it was all good, but it was funny because we go into different topics and I’m kind of like going…”I’ve got to use Google Translator. Kelly, how do you say this?”.
I think you did well like, you know, saying they you never, you’ve never been to Brazil and you don’t have a strong accent when you speak Portuguese and you understand pretty much everything, you might get lost every now and then, but then you find a way around it and it’s really, that’s the trick I guess.
It’s so weird, though that it is I’m so sort of empathetic and understanding of you guys listening to this podcast now because I’ve been going through this situation especially more recently with you Kel where, at first, when I met you I was used to speaking a different accent and speaking to different Portuguese speakers so, it took me a while to get used to your accent. So, I appreciated that kind of boundary how, even if I can say a little bit or understand other Brazilian Portuguese speakers from say Sao Paulo, it took me a while to get used to your accent and it’s funny because now my accent switched, right? Like now I speak with a Northern accent.
Yes.
Erra diacho!
The best one!
And so, but it’s funny because it took a while to get used to that with you. And then when I am in a group of people that’s another level of difficulty, right? Because yeah you guys always say to me, you’re like ”yeah, I mean, you know, fuck, I have to talk with all these Aussies at work or all these, you know, native speakers out and about in a group. I feel like I don’t understand them and I can’t, I can’t respond” and I totally appreciate that because one: people speak differently in groups, right? Because you forget how much people anticipate what you’re going to say when they are at your fluency level, in your language, when they’re native speakers they know where you’re going with what you’re saying. Quite often they’ll interrupt you and your sentence won’t finish, right?
True.
And yet they can piece it together and work out what you want to talk about, what your point is and the conversation kind of almost moves forward quicker than usual, right? And so that aspect speaking with you and William and Glaucia in the car really made me appreciate how much you have to be good at interpreting and improvising and working out where are they going with this conversation and it was so frustrating at times because you like I can understand the words, but it’s said so fast or the sentences are incomplete and you just like ”oh, man, I can’t keep up, but you kind of fake it. You kind of like….I understand most of it.
Well, I think you did pretty well, at this stage I don’t think you have any massive problems with you understanding of Portuguese.
But it is funny though, right?
You know, you have room for improvement, but as I always say, if you go to Brazil tomorrow, you’ll be absolutely fine.
Well what was it like for you? I mean we’ve talked about it a few times, but did you notice that you had those same kind of steps with learning English, especially in northern Queensland, right? Where everyone speaks with a really strong accent, was it really brutal getting to the point where at first you could understand individuals that you were conversing with if they spoke slowly, then eventually it got to groups and it just took a very long time, right?
Because it took a very long time and you start seeing the patterns, like and that’s why I think… when I tell you ”oh that’s how I speak in the north of Brazil” it’s not that I, I do want you to have this accent because I’m proud of it, but at the same time I think it brings a lot of the cultural aspects as well, like understanding how people speak in Queensland was, you know, really good for me because I could understand how the culture works. It started with my teacher or like my friends and then I was able to understand most people and you can… things like oh I know you’re probably from the countryside you know what I mean? Like you get more familiar with those things.
Yeah it is so funny how much nuance there is. Like if I watch the average English TV show, and it’ll be the same for you guys listening to this podcast in your native languages, I can pick up on very subtle differences in accents. So, even in other countries, right? If I watch American TV I can tell people from the south, from the east, from the West and the same with Britain. And yet, when you learn a foreign language, when I’m learning Portuguese, if I hear someone speak Portuguese I can pretty only tell the difference between Portugal Portugal, Portuguese from Portugal, sorry, and Brazilian Portuguese, whereas Brazil has like 25 accents and they’re so, so subtle that I have no idea. So, it’s amazing how much the human brain can kind of tune in to those tiny subtle differences, right?
Did that take you a long time to get used to the Australian accents? Was it just exposure that got you over that hurdle?
Honestly, I thought…when I came to Australia I was expecting it to be really, really hard and it was because you hear things like ”oh the English they speak in Australia is the hardest one” and you know and it was really hard in Queensland, but then when I…
What do you think that is?
What do you mean?
Well, people have said that a few times and I think if you were to break down the actual English we use, it’s no different really from anywhere else. I don’t think we’re using a different vocabulary. We’re not using different grammar or anything like that, right? If we are it is so subtle or I don’t even, I can’t think of a word of what it would be. Is it that we’re using a lot more slang and that we use a lot more connected speech?
Yeah. Definitely, connected speech and the intonation as well like it’s very different from your, the way you speak, for example. So, I was saying when I met you I was like oh… it’s actually easy to understand him because, you know, I thought Australians they all speak like that, .
Like the Northern Queenslanders.
Like the Northern Queenlanders. So, I remember I went to Melbourne for the first time I was like wow like those people…. I thought I remember there was this girl I met I thought she was Canadian because she was so clear and like wow that’s very different and then yeah, I realized ok, North Queensland.
Is it is a…it is a very funny thing that the accent kind of gets thicker the less dense the towns are so, the fewer people that live in a certain area.
Absolutely.
It’s almost certain they’re going to have a stronger accent whereas the more built up areas like Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane, even Ocean Grove here where it’s very connected to civilisation the accents are very weak, right? They’re not very strong. Everyone here, at least, in Ocean Grove would speak like me, right?
Yeah, absolutely.
It’s not like you’re going to come across those people going ” hey how is it going?”….
Then you go to Townsville for example and, you know, five out of 10 people speak like….
Did that help you, do you think? Because you jumped in the deep end.
Yeah, true, I love it.
As soon as you go to Australia you went to one of the most, you know, rural cities I guess, you know, in Australia and that they had such a strong accent. Did that make you feel like the hurdle was even taller, though, when you were learning English?
I felt…I felt really lucky because one; everyone goes to Sydney, Melbourne, and honestly, I didn’t want that, I mean, those cities are way too big for me and I come from a small place in Brazil.
A small place in Brazil where the city is bigger than Melbourne.
Yeah. Well, we have more people.
Your state probably has more people than our country.
No we don’t have more people, but I mean, even nowadays I go to Melbourne I feel really lost and confused and overwhelmed, but anyway so going to a tiny place was really good. And with regards to the language I just felt one for everyone…every single Australian spoke like that, I thought that was this standard sort of accent everywhere.
Which makes sense if Townsville is the only place you’ve been.
Yeah, I just felt there was…that’s it, I have to learn how to understand them and wherever I go they speak like that. It really helped me because I got… nowadays I feel like if I talk to someone from Queensland, I’ll probably struggle a little bit because….
You’re not used to it anymore.
Yeah and it’s not something I hear every day. I don’t, you know, but yeah, I really love it. I think it’s great, it’s great accent.
Yeah I guess though going back to my point the main thing was that I appreciate it because you have those levels of difficulty aside from just learning the language and trying to communicate in it, even if you’re good at communicating, you can communicate with one person, you might not be able to communicate with three people in a group and then sometimes you put movies on and it’s so weird going from you and I conversing and me understanding 90, 95 percent of what you say, to understanding 50 percent or less, right? Because you put on a film where they’re using slang or they’re just cutting sentences off or they’re talking about things like the police, we watch the police show and guys, man, this is the best! If you guys want to improve your accents sort of, or the listening comprehension of different accents, get on YouTube and type in, in English, police TV show and then the country that you want to practice because there are TV shows on police and there was one in Brazil, right? I was like Kel, see if you can find one in Brazil and you were like I think I’ve seen one.
So, we’ve been watching, one is from Manchester in Britain as well as.. where else? Essex.
Essex, yeah.
London as well. There’s been a few, all these different small places in Britain and they all have completely different accents, right? Because the policeman will have different accents, the people they talk with will have different accents. They have to drive around to different locations. You can find TV shows in America, in Australia, in New Zealand, in South Africa and so, you can get so many different accents and it’s all good conversation, right? Because it’s between…I mean, it’s about, you know…
It’s everyday English, right?
Well, that’s it, most of the time ‘hey, mate! What do you doing?” like ”how come you’re here? Why are you drunk?” you know, ”calm down, mate, calm down!”.
”There’s no need for it!”.
That’s it! It’s all calm, I mean, calm, it’s all very simple kind of English so, the police shows are good in that sense and so that’s why I’ve been watching Brazilian one with you.
Yeah it was funny.
I thought that was a gold mine, though, I thought that was a really good find. I was like ”oh, my students need to hear about police TV shows” because there’s so many sort of small talk, interactions and there’s so many different accents that I think it would be really helpful for you. So, check that out on YouTube because a lot of the seasons are up on there, but yeah that’s been really helpful.
Even the one…the one about pregnant women that we watch.
Well, tell them about that.
One Born Every Minute.
Yeah.
And, I mean, I don’t really know, but it feels like they always get low class sort of people.
Who have strong accents.
Strong accents and they’re struggling with things, they use a lot of slang and like, it’s really good, if you’re pregnant…
If you want to practice your baby vocabulary and pregnancy vocabulary look up One Born Every Minute.
We’re obsessed with it.
It’s pretty interesting. It’s weird, though, for me as a man, I don’t think… I obviously would have never watched this prior to having a wife who is pregnant… that would have been weird if I was… but it is weird now knowing that we’re going to go through the same process. So, tell them what it is about effectively, like, right One Born Every Minute is effectively following midwives in Britain in a hospital. Do you want to tell them what midwives are compared to obstetricians or to the female doctors that take care of pregnant women?
I would probably compare them to nurses, like specialists or something like that. Like they only work with helping women to give birth and like prenatal classes and everything related to pregnancy.
They’re effectively specialised nurses for pregnant women.
Yep, yep. So, this show us shows their day at work, for example.
The place they work.
Yeah, I mean…
So, you have women coming in, right?
Yeah, like, giving birth.
Who are in labour, they’re about to give birth and they always come in and the place is filled with video cameras, right?
And they tell their stories and like I come from this place and like, that’s our first child, for example.
This is how we met.
That’s how we met and it’s really interesting and you get to see all sorts of people.
This is how I want to give birth, I want to give birth in a bath. I want to give… ”Oh my Gosh! I’m giving birth in the foyer!” in front of, you know, people on the ground and it’s pretty interesting because I guess they fill that out with back stories. I think they interview two couples, right?
Yeah, they do, yeah.
So, you get to hear about how they met and which baby it is.
And the interesting thing for me is like how women react differently to like…
The process.
Yeah.
Of giving birth.
Some women are just screaming their heads off and some others are like ”I’m ready for it, I’m prepared, I can do it!” and they really like…calm…yeah, I wonder how I’ll be.
I have no idea what it’s like. I can imagine, you know, it’s one of those things where it be like, you know, going to the toilet and after you finish there’s a coconut in the toilets. I can’t imagine, I can’t imagine what if feels like.
That’s horrible, but, that’s the most accurate comparison you can have. That’s actually on like videos about birth and stuff. That’s what they actually say.
Jesus, pooping out a melon, far out.
And you just have to go with the flow and your body would know what to do, and that’s it, trust your body.
So, what about…Have you learnt anything that you were surprised about going through the process now that you’re at 20 weeks? Where there any sort of preconceptions that you had before getting pregnant that you were like oh pregnant women they do this, they’re like this and now you know it’s completely different?
Like the pushing thing.
Yeah, yeah, talk about that.
I thought, your waters break and you have to start pushing and it might take like 16, 18 hours and you’ll be exhausted by the end of it. That’s true. You’ll be exhausted, but you don’t have to start pushing.
Until your body tells you to start pushing.
Until your body tells you to do it. Exactly. I didn’t know my body was so capable of doing it.
Well, clearly, right? Evolution has set your body up to push that thing out (?).
But it’s so wonderful like you actually, your body actually tells you when to do it and it’s painful, like, I think there are three stages, three sort of…
Stages of the birth.
Of the birth, yeah.
And what are they?
Oh, I don’t know the names, but like your contractions start and they only get worse, like, more and more intense.
So, they get closer together, right? And strong.
Yes, and stronger and that’s when you’re, because your dilating.
Your cervix is dilating. So, the contractions are specifically pulling the cervix wider and wider, are they? That’s the main purpose.
That’s like a lot of like hormonal sort of things happening and your baby’s actually being affected by all those hormones and stuff. So, it’s a bit more complex than that, but what happens is when you have to push, you feel like a urge to push. You can’t hold it. Your body will do it.
It’s really funny how watching this TV show has gotten me so used to the prompts that the nurses give them too, like ”push as hard as you can all the way down into your bottom!” The amount of times they’ve said! “Push down into your bottom, it should feel like you’re doing a poo!”
Exactly. So, that’s, there was one of the things I like wow because you see like movies and stuff everything looks so… it feels that it happens really quickly. Your water break, you have to run to the hospital and your baby is coming out.
That’s pretty rare, right?
It doesn’t happen like that.
There’s a few… Kel’s been following some people on Instagram and different channels or whatever that show, you know, births and I think we’ve only really seen, you’ve showed me one where some lady gave birth in the car, in the car, in the front seat of the car!
Yeah, yeah, yeah, this one! On Facebook.
So, Jesus! They’d got in the car, they were driving to the hospital and she literally gave birth to the baby on the front seat and within, what? Like, an hour?
Probably.
Of the water breaking.
That’s very rare.
It’s insane!
There is this couple on YouTube that she… her first child, I’m saying her first child because the first child was the hardest one, tends to be the hardest one to be born.
Well, it’s like having to do the splits the first time, right?
It takes longer.
You want to have worked up to it, not just do it your first time.
So, usually your first baby will be… the process will be much harder for you because your body is not used to it, like your muscles need to work really hard. She actually gave birth on the ambulance.
Jesus, in the ambulance?!
In the ambulance!
Far out!
On the way to the hospital, she just didn’t have time. She was fully dilated, baby is coming out.
You almost hope for that, right?
I do!
You want it to come as fast as possible, as long as everything goes well, right? Because you don’t want to be there for 36 hours in labour.
I’m not going to Uluru and then I’ll be like ”oh, I’m the middle of nowhere and I’m giving birth!”, but, you know, we live like 30 minutes from the hospital and I wish I could just start like, baby is coming out in the car, we just have to get to hospital, like that would be a dream.
So, have your fears been, I guess, have your fears subsided a little bit the more you’ve gone through the pregnancy or have they gotten stronger? You know like, I mean, I imagine for most women it must be fucking terrifying to be contemplating giving birth before you’re even pregnant, right? To think ”oh my God, these small children come out of my… come out of my vagina, how the hell does that ever happen?”. Has it gotten easier when you think about the actual process or has it gotten more difficult?
Yes, actually, now you said that, it has… it is becoming much easier to think about and to…I think it is a natural thing that as you get closer and closer to your due date, you somehow become confident. I don’t know. I am scared, but at the same time I’m reading so much and trying to prepare myself, like studying. It was such a relief when I learnt that yes, your body will know what to do and that really helped me, to know that, because I thought.
I must be good comfort.
Definitely! It’s just like well, it doesn’t matter…if everything goes fine, some people go through complications and stuff.
Even if they know what’s going on, my body should be bale to handle it.
My body knows what to do. You accept that there’ll be pain and a lot of pain, but it is temporary, right?
I’ll laugh so hard if you actually end up giving birth and you’ll be like ”oh actually it wasn’t as painful as I thought!”.
I don’t know.
I’m still yet to ever hear a woman say that.
Yeah, it’s getting easier to think about it, I guess.
I heard by the time you get to nine months, you’re at the point where you’re like ”I am willing to take the pain, get this thing the fuck out of me!” like it’s that uncomfortable and unpleasant, obviously you’re not on it yet, but I’ve heard that that most women get to that point where they’re just like ”I am willing to go through the pain to get this thing out of my body”.
Yeah, I don’t know. Like for me I feel like… I’m a bit of a control freak so, if I have to face something that is really challenging, I’ll try to get ready for it and prepare myself and study and be like, you know, every now and then I’m like ‘ok, let’s talk about how we’re going to raise this baby!” and like I’m already trying to control things.
No, more like ”alright, let’s talk about my birth plan”.
Yeah, I have to give you this paper with everything I want because I don’t know if I’ll be able to…the thing as a one to be concentrated and calm so, I don’t want to stress about ”oh the midwife left the lights on”. I’m just like, seriously, that’s not my job, my job is to be concentrated and just give birth so, I’ll give you a list of things that I want to be exactly how they should be.
I thought it was really presumptive,” I was like what makes you think I’ll be there?”.
Of course, you’ll be there.
I’ve got to make podcasts. What you’re talking about? I got stuff to do.
No, no doubt you’ll be there.
Really? What if I have classes?
No. There’s nothing more important than the birth of your child.
I’ll be on Skype teaching a few students while you’re pushing out our son.
No, I don’t mind you being on your phone, but you have to be there.
So, let’s talk about the 20-week scan that we had on Monday, right? A few days ago.
Yes!
Wednesday, was it? I can’t even remember now, which day was it that we had the scan?. Was it Wednesday morning? Yesterday morning.
It was tomorrow.
Tomorrow?
Oh sorry! Yesterday!
Yes, yes, Yesterday morning.
That was Wednesday, right? So how did that go?
It was…It was great. I guess I left feeling really positive because we had the first ultrasound it was like 12, 13 weeks or something.
It’s kind of one of those fears, right? Where… it’s like having a blood test. You know, the likelihood of anything being wrong is pretty small, but you kind of like, they always tell you ‘oh, you don’t have AIDS, you don’t have hepatitis B” and you’re like ”oh my God, what if I find out I have AIDS or something?” you know, you still like ”I don’t know, I have to wait for them to tell me” so, it’s like that with the scan, right? You’re like ”what happens if they put the thing on there and it’s a cat?”
But the thing is it with the pregnancy there is so many things can go wrong and they are not rare, to be honest.
Well, I don’t know. I think we’ve been watching a lot of the shows where it probably pumps them up to be more common than they really are.
Man, I’m in almost every single group of moms and mums to be on Facebook.
I think that’s your problem, that’s your problem, right there.
The June ladies, the ladies who are giving birth in June, I think 2 or 3 actually had a miscarriage.
Jesus!
And that’s another girl, her baby, the heart of the baby just stopped beating. It’s not rare for things to go wrong and well, I was feeling good and again, if there is something wrong, you might feel bad. If you’re sick or something, you’ll bleed but you don’t know so, it was such a relief to see everything is fine, especially with the heart. I was like ok, heart’s fine, brain’s fine so, baby is growing.
Yeah, it’s so funny how many different measurements they take. I didn’t realize for the 20-week scan especially, it was like ”oh my God, we’re here for so long!” I mean, they were learning a new machine, right? So, we were in there and they had some sort of new ultrasound machine that they just bought from Phillips or whatever electronic company it was and they had that lady there teaching them how to use it so, it took a while.
Pretty much.
But I still didn’t realize just like they are taking the length of the hands, the length of the feet, the length of the bones, the length of the…. every organ, the stomach, the heart, the kidneys and I’m like all my God…
The frustrating thing is they are technicians, they aren’t doctors are like midwives. So…
They can’t say anything.
When it’s due, they’re like ”there you go! Your DVD and your photos and you go home” you’re like I just want to double check, is everything alright?
And they’re not allowed to say anything.
They’re not allowed to say anything, well, they were really positive, like ”oh yeah everything’s fine, la la la ”
But they can’t tell you something’s wrong, right? So, either they’re lying or they’re telling you the truth, but if there is something severely wrong that they’re going to be like getting doctor, or at least passing the details on to your doctor, right?
So, that’s what happened with your sister, for example, she had a cyst?
Cyst. She had a cyst on one of her ovaries which is like a… I don’t know, how would you explain what a cyst is? It’s a buildup of liquid inside a tissue, kind of like a tumor but it’s not cancer or anything, but it’s a it’s like a circular thing, right? That has to be removed, it was pretty low pressure on the uterus and everything but yeah.
And the ladies saw it and she was like ”ok, I’ll get a doctor” and your sister was like ”oh my God…”.
That’s not what you want to hear ”just let me get the doctor!”. Why is that? I can’t tell you!
It’s a secret.
I’s a secret!
So, yeah, everything was really positive, but now I have to wait until my next appointment to when I assume they have the results and they will be able to interpret the results and tell us ”your baby is 100 percent fine”.
Do we know what gender it is like, is it gender fluid? Is it, is it trans?
Gender fluid.
Do we know if it’s black or Asian? Did they tell you that information?
You can’t see any of that, you only see bones.
Bones and flesh.
And liquid, I mean, you don’t see the liquid, you see little empty spaces, like filled with liquid, right?
Yeah, I laughed pretty hard when they were like ”oh I show them the face” and then they’re like ”wait do it from the side because if you do a front on view it’s freaky, it looks like a skull”, but I keep making that joke with Kel and like ”what happens if the baby comes out and it’s like black. How funny would that be? Not really!”
I had this dream, I had a…my baby was black and nothing wrong with that, but it would be hard to explain how this baby came out black because…
That was the joke, sorry guys, we weren’t being racist was just then, the joke is that Kel gives birth to a baby and the joke is that it’s clearly not my baby.
Yes. It’s a terrible joke.
And I’d be like….so, we’re going to have to talk.
So, in my dream I was talking to you like ”babe, we’ll be fine!” It’s just we have to accept it”, and you were like ”how can I explain that to my parents?” and I’m like…
It’s a miracle, it just happened.
Like nothing happened, was just like… the baby was… anyway.
Far out so, yeah, when’s the next scan?
Next month, probably in two weeks or something.
Two weeks we have another scan?
Not another scan, appointment. I have no idea when we’re having another scan.
When I’m having it?
We are having another scan.
I should have done that, I should have jumped on the table and be like ”can you do me next time?”
It’s like those guys, the same documentary, there is a…this gas, the lady, the pregnant women are just breathing in.
Oh, the gas that they’re breathing in to sort of calm them down.
To soothe the pain and everything, and the husbands always want to try and they get really high.
Lightheaded, they get lightheaded, like oh…. I think it’d just be NOS, like, happy gas, right? That they use at the dentist.
So, thanks for coming on, Kel!
Not a problem.
It’s good to be chatting about this sort of stuff, hopefully you guys aren’t getting sick of baby talk and hopefully it’s given you access to, you know, heaps different expressions and vocab and all the pregnant women listening to the podcast, I know there’s a few you guys, hope it’s all going well. A few of you have been messaging Kel.
True, my friends.
Do you want to make any shout outs? Do you want to say hello to anyone who’s currently pregnant?
Beatriz, not necessarily pregnant, but with children, Ana. Flavia, she just had a little girl and she’s gorgeous.
Oh, Congratulations, far out! It is pretty funny how many of you guys come out of the woodwork, as soon as Kel’s pregnant and she puts up something on Instagram it was like all these girls were messaging her like ”I’m pregnant as well! Let’s chat!”.
I think with Beatriz, for example she is also a student, and she doesn’t have Medicare or anything, so we were like ”oh my God, we’re in the same boat!”.
Yeah, yeah.
It’s been good for fun.
Well thanks again, Kel and we’ll have to keep you guys updated with how things go in the future with everything that we’ve been chatting about, but most importantly the baby.
Yes.
It’s going to be interesting. I don’t know how… how it’s going to be with the lack of sleep, I think that’s the thing that…
Next time we need to talk about your feelings.
True. Well…
Fatherhood.
As a final note, I think the aspect of not sleeping much is terrifying.
Yeah.
I like my sleep. Anyway thanks, guys. Chat to you soon! See ya!
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AE 460 – Interview: Tips for Overseas Students in Australia with Melbourne Vibe
Learn Australian English in this interview episode of the Aussie English Podcast where I chat with Dave and Jocelyn from Melbourne Vibe about tips for overseas students in Australia.
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AE 460 – Interview: Tips for Overseas Students in Australia with the Melbourne Vibe Team
G’day, guys. Welcome to this episode of Aussie English, the number one podcast for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English, and in this interview episode specifically, for anyone wanting to learn about how to get a job, how to buy food, cost of living in Australia, everything for students and new arrivals to Australia, okay?
So, remember guys, if you would like the transcript for this episode as well as all of the other episodes, you can get access to every single transcript and MP3, you can download these when you sign up via theAussieEnglishPodcast.com.
You will see the words “Sign Up” in the menu, click that, and then it is just a small fee per month if you would like access.
Also, don’t forget, guys, if you would like to take your English to the next level, this podcast is brought to you by the Aussie English Classroom, an online learning environment with quizzes, with videos, with MP3s, all the bonus content for anyone interested in taking their English to the next level. And you can try that at TheAussieEnglishClassroom.com. It is just $1 for your first month. Go over there and give it a go.
Anyway, today’s episode is an interview episode guys, and I have a special set of guests, not just one guest, I have two guests, for you today in this interview. The first is David and the second is Jocelyn, and these guys are the team at Melbourne Vibe.
Now, Melbourne Vibe I found on YouTube and these guys are a start-up, obviously set up in Melbourne, down in the south east of Australia, and these guys produce awesome, awesome videos. They’re taking off on YouTube at the moment and the videos are all about being overseas students in Australia. So, if you are currently an overseas student, you’re living in Australia, you want to find out where you can work, you want to find out about which cities you can live in, how to rent somewhere, the kinds of prices you’ll have to pay for renting, where to find food, all of those kinds of pieces of information for people living in Australia at the moment in these different cities, this channel, and Melbourne Vibe the start-up, is just a brilliant, brilliant resource for you.
So, I want to say a massive thank you to both David and Jocelyn for coming on today’s podcast. It is full of so much good information that is going to make the lives of a lot of you guys listening to this podcast easier if you’re trying to find work, food, somewhere to live, all of that sort of stuff.
So, anyway guys without any further ado, let’s get into it. Jocelyn, David from Melbourne vibe, thank you so much. Let’s go.
****
G’day guys, welcome to this episode of Aussie English. Today I have Dave and Jocelyn from Melbourne Vibe, a YouTube channel that I found recently that’s sort of become my secret little addiction. David and Jocelyn welcome. How did you guys get started?
How did we get started? Basically, there was a gap in the market and there wasn’t that many videos that were catering to international students and we played around with a few different things like travel and vlogs and things like that, and we fell into this one.
Yeah pretty much. These are the things that a lot of people that look for, they are coming here and there are so many people coming to Australia. So there was nothing there. like I myself before coming here was looking for these things and it wasn’t there. So we just decided “Why not just make it?”.
So what were you left with Dave? And when did you get to Australia? Do you want to talk a bit about that story and how you discovered all these things on your own before there was a resource for you to search for and get this information?
Yes. I’m in my 3rd semester at Monash University. I’m doing my Master’s of Business there and I came here late last June and when I was coming here… Before coming here obviously I was looking for things like how is Australia and how are people and what’s the weather like all the basics questions that a lot of people that are coming here they have. So I was just looking for it and there weren’t much things, like if you talk about the United States there are a lot of things that by each State you would get to know. But in Australia particularly they weren’t videos and these days a lot of people don’t wanna read pages and pages.
Exactly! I’m one of those people. I’m always… I open an article and I’m like “oh my God! more than 500 words! Can’t be bothered.”
So that was pretty much it. And they’re… It’s pretty surprising; students from almost 200 countries come to Australia every year.
Yeah.
It’s amazing. And then we just started and in a month or two the response that we got was pretty amazing.
I definitely noticed that. But I mean how did you guys meet too? And how did you… Did you come up with this idea together or was it something one of you is doing beforehand and you just decided we’re going to work better as a team?
Well basically… So I already had a YouTube channel, I just stopped uploading. I was originally a make-up artist and then I started uploading make-up tutorials and things like that back in the day, 2014/2015, when it was really popular. And then I’ve also got a background in photography as well. So I had all the equipment and everything and I knew how YouTube worked and social media and things like that. Then I actually went to India and when I came back I met Dave and we started talking randomly at a party and he also had an interest in photography, so then we just basically kept talking. And he’s wanting to do YouTube and things like that, and he already sort of had an idea of where he wanted to take things, and obviously I had that technical background in everything. So we just kept brainstorming and this is what happened.
So what was it step by step? For any of the listeners right now thinking “I want to start a YouTube channel!” How did you go through that process and how did you get started? Did you just jump in and you were like “Look, it’s going to be quick and dirty to begin with but we’ll just give it a go and see what happens and get better as we go,” or did you fully plan things out and try and make it as professional as possible from the beginning?
I’d say we researched and planned a lot. Like I said, I had the technical and experience on youtube and I had somewhat grown a channel. I also had friends that are doing really really well on Youtube; it’s their full time job, so I had that support. But in saying that it came down to knowledge about SEO and basically the knowledge that we had in the videos. So making sure that… Obviously we had all the information for the particular videos and then… I don’t really know what I’m trying to say, to be honest…
I know what you mean…
…It safeguards…
I think the most important part to somebody who was actually goiing to start a YouTube channel is think of an idea, shortlist it, and just go for it. You never know whether it’s going to be successful, it’s not going to be successful, but you don’t do it to make it successful. You do it because it’s your hobby. So just do it that way, because a lot of people… I think there are 22 million YouTube channels these days…
Probably!
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Yeah! But the important part is the consistency. Like the way you keep uploading your new language lessons that we have been learning, it is really cool! So that’s what you have to do. That’s consistency is the key.
I know. It does feel like throwing shit at the wall quite often, where you just like “I keep having to just keep doing it and eventually something random will happen and suddenly people find it…” But yeah, you can sort of nail or cut down on the “buying lottery tickets” kind of style of making videos when you can implement really good SEO, definitely learnt that the hard way after probably a year of doing really really bad search engine optimisation and then finally sort of having friends go, “Maybe you should try this,” and that made a huge difference. So what have you with… Some of the videos that I like that I really wanted to chat to you about was cities around Australia and things like cost of living and lifestyle. If I was a foreign student thinking of coming to Australia and I came to you guys and said “Okay I want to study at university,” could be anything, but which city would you recommend if I could live anywhere in Australia and why?
So what would we recommend to those people? We’re biased! Melbourne, obviously!
Why Melbourne then? Why Melbourne? I’m sure people always say that because they will here all the time “Melbourne! Melbourne! Melbourne!” What makes Melbourne so much better than everywhere else in Australia? And then what’s the number 2?
So I actually come from New South Wales. So I was brought up about four hours away from Sydney itself. I lived on the coast and it was beautiful and I love NSW’s beaches, and the bush and everything. But when it comes to Melbourne it is a totally different atmosphere and there’s so much more culture here. There’s a whole art scene which I’m really into as well. So personally for me I feel like I fit in better here in that respect, because there is more things for me to do, more of my interests that are based here. And it’s just… I think it’s a more relaxed city and for me I feel like it’s easier to get around, but I’m in the city basically 24/7, so I’m just on TransLink and so… If you want a really relaxed lifestyle, obviously then you’ve got Brisbane. It’s a lot more quieter. It’s basically like a country town to be honest.
Yeah, I’ve been there to pass through, but never actually hung out spent some time getting to know the place.
I’ve only gone for holidays and things like that but people that I know that’ve liked there a long time; they really get to know the community and everyone around there. So you want that community and you want that small town and you want to know pretty much everyone who’s anyone then Brisbane is the place to go. And I guess coming third for me would be Sydney. The only reason coming in third is because to me it’s just too big, like Crazy! And for me the traffic – I can’t deal with that.
I found out recently… My girlfriend and I drove in for the weekend to go to some restaurants and we saw three accidents in a single day and I’d never experienced that, where a car had… And it wasn’t like big accidents it was just they’d gone into the back of someone. That same accident I kept seeing. I couldn’t believe it, three times! and I was like… I never see this in Melbourne so I don’t know if these guys are just overly aggressive, or if this was a chance thing, but it definitely did feel more claustrophobic too. I don’t know if it’s like… Everything’s very close-in. There’s nowhere to park. There’s yeah… Seems crazy but it is very beautiful there. But what about you?
So I was just going to say that I’m taking Dave and his friends to see Sydney this weekend. So it’s their first time, so it’s going to be really interesting.
What are you planning to see? Are you planning to go to restaurants? You planning to see the sights or?
As much as possible. Obviously all the touristy things like Sydney Opera House and Sydney Harbour Beach. We’ll be staying on the beach so they’ll get to see the Bondi Wharf, everything like that.
So what about you Dave? What was your experience coming to Australia and obviously you ended up in Melbourne. Did you start in Melbourne?
Yeah I pretty much started in Melbourne, but I friends all around the country. So because… Whenever we make a video we obviously talk to somebody who has lived there, who knows everything there. I mean, I would I like Melbourne, and I had heard it has come 8 times straight “The Best City to Live in.” But I don’t know why do people not complain about the weather here!?
Yeah! The weather, you can’t deal with it! Was it a shock? Were expecting it to be pretty…
I was not expecting it! I was not! I didn’t think it! Any commercial about Australia… What is shown? It is shown that it’s sunny. There are beautiful beaches. It’s amazing. Nobody ever talks how cold that is!
Yeah that’s pretty surprising! I think too… We just moved to Canberra. So we’ve been here for maybe three months now and aside from it getting pretty cold at night, I was really shocked with just the consistency of the weather, to be honest. That was like reverse shock for me because I’m used to Melbourne. I’m like “Okay, it’s going to be cold in the morning. It’ll probably get hot when the sun comes out, it might rain and that’s probably gonna be cold again. But in Canberra it was like even when it was cold you walk outside and there’s no clouds and the sun just burns you and you’re like “Oh okay, well it’s like this for the rest of the day.” Yeah it definitely is pretty funny. So have you ever travelled around Australia as well, much in your time whilst you’ve been here?
No. I’ve travelled around Melbourne but Melbourne is pretty much where I’ve been based. So next thing would be Sydney, this weekend.
Oh wow. Awesome. Well I hope it goes well. And how did you find acclimating to the language here in Australia? How how did that go? And was it a tough experience, or did you come prepared, or..?
I definitely did not come prepared. If I talk about myself… I think it was my second day in Australia, and then somebody was showing me around and they just took me to some mall and they just greeted and they must have said “How are you going?”, and I had no idea what they said. I’m just staring at them for two second then I’m like “This is gonna to get awkward, so I’m just going to smile and leave,”.
Man, I came up with the best response. My girlfriend… We were walking – she’s Brazilian – so we’re walking into Safeway the other day and there was a guy there who must have been from somewhere in Southeast Asia working there. He walked up to us and he was just like he said something like “Angi mangi maa!” I just had no idea what he said and I’m just like “That’s it!” And the guy just started laughing and was like “Yeah man!”, and we walked off, and my girlfriend’s looked at me and she’s like “What the hell did he say!?” and I’m like “I have no idea, but if you just point at them and say ‘that’s it’, it doesn’t matter if it is a question. It doesn’t matter what it is!” So did it take long to get used to the slang?
I mean… it pretty much did. I don’t really understand a lot of slangs, but because a lot of people that come here, they are pretty comfortable with English, so that… Obviously you’re going to be able to communicate well and that’s… It not gonna to be a major issue. But when it comes to really Australan language, those slangs and everything, then you know this goes top of my head. I don’t get it at all.
I think it’s one of those things. It takes time and you have to not really think that all of your English is going to require you to understand every single slang word. It’s like context or give it away or you just asnk someone and they’ll be like “oh you know.” Anyone who keeps using too much slang with a person who’s clearly from overseas too is just an arsehole right. Especially if they can see you don’t understand and they keep doing it… So what about you Jocelyn? How have you go on with learning Australian English? Obviously you’re native, you’ve been doing this a while!
Obviously. Growing up, born and bred!
Do you have advice for students or foreigners like Dave coming over here that would better prepare them for the language and the difference… The differences they may experience compared to the US or the UK?
I don’t think there’s much you can do to prepare yourself particularly Australian slang. It’s something that you just learn once you get there. But the more people you talk to and the more open you are to meeting people, you’ll start to get used to it. And obviously people understand that you’re not from the country so if you’re just like “what does that mean?” you’re not you’re not gonna look like an idiot, because… Some of the stuff even I understand. sometimes I go to other states and I’m like “I don’t even know what that means and I’m from this country. What are you talking about?”.
I think it was a rude awakening for me when I finished high school and left Geelong and then I remember… I think we went somewhere interstate and someone was talking about “togs” and I was like “What the hell togs!?”… “Swimmers!” and I was like “Oh my God. Bathers, Jesus!”, but now I use “togs” all the time and I’m just “Togs, of course!” It’s so funny that you kind of absorb these things all the time. Crazy. And so what about getting used to uni life here in Australia? I saw that you had a lot of videos talking about paying for university fees, finding a university. Do you have any advice for students who are thinking about coming to Australia or who may already be here, with regards to just setting up their lives as students in Australia?
Yeah so primrary thing that I think benefited me was that I was very open to talk to people from all over the world. And that’s one thing that I want everybody to do. What happens is that because you don’t have family here, you may have come out of your house for the first time in a different country, you don’t know anyone. So you try to speak with people of your country. Which would be with Indians and Saudis… All the countries. It’s just more comfortable because you can talk to your language, you’re a little bit homesick but you don’t want to accept and… I would just say that just have more friends from all over the world, because it’s just amazing fascinating to know everything. To know a different culture. Just journey with other people. And once you start doing that another thing that you don’t even consciously do but you’re going to network like crazy. And that’s going to come handy so much.
So is that how you guys obviously met, too? You were putting yourself out there, getting social and going to events, and you guys obviously met as a result?
Yeah!
Yeah.
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What kind of activities or events would you suggest people do then? Because I know you know if I… Tomorrow I move to Sri Lanka or Africa or something I would be thinking “I have no idea about what activities to do here, I’m just gonna look for Australians or people who speak English.” And obviously if you want people to avoid doing that what can they do in order to try and do that as seamlessly as possible without it being really traumatic?
Yeah I think the easiest is going to be is if they’re student, they have the university.
They’re forced to meet other students.
Yeah there are going to be students from all over the world so that is the easiest, and if… So i always tell everybody when you go to university and when you graduate you should have five people that you should count on that’s going to be even when you die. So those five things… Those five people you should care about, you should have in your life…
And make sure they’re not from your home country!
Exactly! And that should be from different countries.
You can have one! your allowed one from your own home country, that you can talk with in your native language in breaks when it’s just you two. So would you put a lot of emphasis, though, on having native speakers as your friends if you want to improve your English or is having people who don’t speak your mother tongue but speak English as friends just as good because it still forces you to be using English all the time?
Yeah. I think if you want to be good… If anybody wants to be good at English they shouldn’t have the best friend who’s Australian, because their English is going to get stuck!
Why is that?
That’s just a joke!
Could be true!
No, but definitely they should not talk… Even when they are with their people from their country, they should make sure that they talk in English, because it’s just about being comfortable with that language. So when you reach a level when you start thinking in English that’s when you’re going to get comfortable speaking, and it’s very difficult.
Was that something you had to sort of build over time? build that confidence? Or did you just come in all-guns-blazing and you were like “I don’t care, I am just going to just put myself out there,” or is it something you just have to be obviously conscious of growing over time?
Even myself, I was very conscious that if I had to talk to anyone, I have to walk and talk to anybody you say, I don’t think I still can do. I can if I need something from them or if I have something to talk about, but if it’s just like “Hey, yeah, what’s up? What’s your name?” That’s something that is really difficult… But it starts from there. You have to put out there, not everybody’s going to respond to you well, but it’s just practice; You’re gonna learn, you’re going to understand what to say, when to say, how to say, how to present yourself, how to market yourself. And that only comes with practice. You cannot read it. You cannot watch any videos. I mean you can learn little bit, but if you want to master it you have the practice it.
Well I’m always saying that if you wanna run a marathon you don’t learn on YouTube, you can get tips, but she ultimately have to do the running, you have to do the time on the road, and it’s the same with any language, I think, where you just have to keep doing it, doing it, doing it. That’s awesome. Jocelyn I’ve got a question for you: with regards to Australia compared to the US, Canada, Britain, New Zealand, what would say, obviously from a biased point of view, are the reasons you should choose Australia compared to those other countries for studying or living abroad?
Well I mean…
I mean, you can go to new beaches for 27 years straight…
Is that once a day is it? If you go to one new beach a day you’ve got to take 27 years or something, is it?
Literally! That’s what brought me here, and then came to Melbourne and then I realised I cannot even go to swim, it’s so cold!
Yeah, and there’s sharks right?
Honestly just being able to travel so freely in Australia, obviously with the road trips, the a country itself, and the people. The people are amazing and I love Australia.
So what would you say people don’t expect? Are there any things you would warn people about… When they come to Australia, are they any things that most people get shocked about, that they had no idea about before getting here?
That we have so many metropolitan areas. People seem to think they come here and it’s the middle of nowhere. Again, the weather. So many people have said to me “Why’s Melbourne so cold? Where is the summer?”, we get three months of summer, guys… You got to go to Brisbane.
And it’s 40 degrees on several of those days, so it gets hot but it still sucks!
Exactly! So just expect a lot of that.
I think another reason why… Because I personally, before coming to Australia, I was looking at different countries and I was 99 percent sure that I was going to go to the United States and then Trump happened! And that’s it. I’m not going there!
So that wasn’t so much that you were unable to go there., did you just see that and you were like “Nope. Not doing that.”
I mean… I had a visa, I can go today. But the point is that Australia is, if you think about it, United States, Europe… Australia is still growing, and growing quite fast. So that’s exactly why people… A lot of people from all over the world wants to come to Australia. Canada is growing as well, but then Canada comes… They don’t even get three months of summer that we get here. And you need that. You want to go to the beach, you want to stay there, chill for a weekend, all the things that you want. It’s this quality life here. Australia has pretty much everything; if you want a little bit chill yet fast life, you come to Melbourne. You want really fast life, you go to Sydney. You want chill life, good weather, amazing, you go to Brisbane. And there’s so much to do. So I think Australia has been pretty much on top three countries that people want to go to, even to stay, to study, for anything.
And are you thinking about staying here long term after you finish studying, or would you like to live elsewhere, or go home, or what is it sort of like from a student’s perspective and is it easier to get PR and citizenship if you were wanting to stay here than, say, America or Canada?
So based on our research, and obviously we’re not… You have to give any advice regarding immigration, you have to be authorized, but we’re not. And personally, I’m not really sure if I want to live in Australia because the reason I wanted to come to Australia was to explore, and there is so much, and the world is so huge. So I wouldn’t be able to say that I want to live here or not. And in fact… I come from India. And India is so diverse and so amazing, so if I can live in my country I would be more than happy there. But thinking about it, I think I would… I personally would, and a lot of people who are thinking that they just want to go to Australia, you guys come to Australia, it’s great, but also main thing that anybody comes to Australia should have is an open mind over everything. Think about what you have been doing; these languages, listening to 50 sentences every day. Learning these things. That takes a lot. And that happens when you want to do something new, maybe you wanna grind. That’s so amazing. That’s the thing everybody should have: an open mind to learn things.
So do you think in your experience too Jocelyn, have you met people where they tend to do a lot better if they do have an open mind and are a lot more open to opportunities as opposed to “this is what I’m doing and I’m not deviating from that path at all”?
Yeah definitely. And I think… Going back to the English thing as well, I’ve seen so many people that have come from overseas just so intensely with their language themselves just by hanging out with English speaking people or just forcing them and their friends to speak English. And then even with myself, just in career and everything, when I started there I was like “This is what I want. This is what I’m doing. this is where I’m going.” I was opening myself to other opportunities and then the last couple of years I was like “No like I have to stop doing that,” and so many things grown from that including obviously Melbourne VIBE, and meeting so many people and… So I agree, definitely. Open up yourself to as many possibilities as you can because you’ll definitely grow tenfold.
And switching now on to cost of living in Australia. How does that compare? Because you guys have done quite a few awesome videos comparing the different cities in Australia and the cost of living in these different cities, which I really recommend anyone listening – if you’re thinking about coming to Australia to check out these Melbourne via videos on the different cities… When you were doing that, did you find anything that surprised you? And what is the average cost of living? Does it vary a lot? Could you talk a bit about how it differs between cities in Australia?
The most variation is going to be your accommodation. That is where it’s really gonna get you. So obviously if you’re looking at Sydney, I think it is the most expensive city in Australia by a lot.
Canberra’s catching up.
Yeah Canberra is crazy. All of the politicians they’re buying out of all of the houses probably.
We got here and we went to some inspections that had a hundred people inspecting this… Like crack dens, horrible houses and the rent for our little room, which is this tiny, tiny room we can’t fit a desk in It’s 350 dollars a week for two of us.
Yeah I used to live in Canberra. Even 10 years ago, it was stupid amounts of money for studio apartment. I pay half in Melbourne than I was 10 years ago in Canberra, and I get more in Melbourne.
I left Melbourne thinking “Oh my gosh this is one of the most expensive places in Australia! I can’t wait to get elsewhere and save money,” and it was like “WRONG!”
No unless you’re making twice as much money!
So it’s going to be a culmination between these places and can you offset that, though? Even if you look these numbers up and you see, “Okay, oh god. Melbourne’s 600 bucks a month to maybe 900 dollars, depending on where you want to live,” is it easy to offset that with working as well? I remember I just saw a video from you David, talking about making up to three thousand dollars a month, right? from 20 hours of work. So obviously if you do the right hunting, you can actually make enough money, as even a foreign student, to cover costs by a mile.
So one video that we are coming up with, and that blew our mind, that is something that we have never heard, is I just… I was talking to somebody who grabbed a job for $55,000 a year, and she only has to work 20 hours a week! And that is unbelievable! I still cannot digest that!
What job is that? Can you tell us?
It’s part of her degree. She’s doing part-time work, or a project-management company, so she’s actually able to study in her Masters..? She’s studying a Masters but she’s already got some form of work experience, so that obviously helped her. The advice would be if you have a degree behind you, find companies that you can try and work part time for, because you’re going to half the wage, which obviously when you have a degree in Australia your wages are going to generally be higher than working in hospitality or as a delivery driver or anything like that.
And you’re pretty much set up for a job once you graduate.
Exactly. It’s obviously harder in the beginning to try and get those jobs. Once you lock something that is going to set you up for the next 20 years, or however long you want to stay.
And I think the important part is that if it comes to work… Because students can work for only 20 hours. Or even in future, even if you can work for 50 hours 60 hours, just work your ass off! That’s what happens! A lot of people who just don’t do that!
That’s it. they want a free ride, right?
Yeah yeah. So they’re like, “When am I getting promotion?” But you’re not putting enough hours made… That’s what you have to do. Even if as a student, somebody gets 20 hours, then make sure you work for 30 hours in those 20 years.
Don’t just go there, cruise along, take your paycheck home and think “I did a good job,” but put the effort in and try and build the relationships or show them that maybe after you finish studying you’re worth hiring. And so what else was it like? If accommodations obviously really expensive and that’s the biggest thing people need to worry about, obviously after they’ve paid for their degree, assuming they paid for that upfront, what are the other things that they should factor into cost of living in Australia?
Obviously putting aside the essentials like eating and accommodation and utilities, things like that, we mention all of that on our videos. So a student can generally around a thousand dollars to $1500 a month, depending on how they choose to live. Obviously as a student you don’t need that much, so we always recommend you share your room, share as much as you can, barely going to be there anyways…
Prioritise, right?
Exactly. I work full time and I even keep on costs because I want to save for my future as well. I mean… Exactly, prioritise. But I think the biggest thing is when you do come to a new country you want to experience that country as well and travel, so that’s going to be another big expense for you. So obviously working three to six months and then wanting to go and travel in your university breaks, it can set you back a couple grand just travelling around Australia itself, which is crazy and I think a lot of people don’t realise that when they come here…
So they come empty handed, expecting they can do everything, but then realise…?
Yeah. Obviously travelling around in your own city… There’s so much you know Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, where ever you end up, so much you can do for free. But obviously once you start looking at travelling to different states it’s going to get expensive.
So maybe also factor in, “Okay, where do I want to go and visit Australia as a holiday or as a tourist?” And maybe think about cities that are close to that location so that you can just peak your head out on the weekends as opposed to having to take an interstate flight.
Yeah exactly. And as you probably know, flights in Australia are not cheap. I think it’s cheaper to go to Bali than it is to go to Sydney.
So overall, you should be able to live off about 1000, maybe 1500 if you’re a bit extravagant a month, and how much you’re expecting to make? Even the lower end, I think I remember from your video David, was even if you’re on like 15 dollars an hour, 20 hours a week, that’s 450 what’s that 900 a fortnight? So about eighteen hundred bucks, and that’s the lowest end. So as long as you can find a job as a waiter or something somewhere, you should be easily able to make the money that’s that’s required for all of your living expenses and a bit to save to travel right?
Yeah 100%. So students generally get jobs of 20 dollars an hour and they can work for 20 hours, so thats 400 dollars a week. So that’s around $1600 to $2000, so what you said was right. So that’s what they can. And the things that we see in our videos is it’s very… We ask people not to spend a lot of money, because this is the time – if a student is watching – this is a time when you can save money. This is the time when you don’t have a lot of responsibility. This is a time… This is the only time probably, the last time that you to share your room. Because after you’re 25, 26, 27, you just want your space, you have started working…
Pretty much! Until you meet someone and then you’re like, “Oh I guess I’m sharing the room for the rest of my life!”
So that’s why all the amounts that we say is low. Because I’m sure you will have experienced, we know people that they actually their minimal expense in Melbourne and at least $2500, $3000, and it’s not something extraordinary. It’s just that they’re $1,300 is going in the rent! So it’s just for students, that these $1000 or $1200 dollars that we say, that they can manage it.
What sort of tips would you guys have for ways to save money in your research for making some of these videos? Have you found any unique or things that most people might not think about with regards to being able to save a bit of money here and there? Or is it just the standard stuff of “Don’t eat out, don’t buy extravagant stuff, don’t waste money on things you don’t really need.”.
That’s obviously, having said that, it is very important. Another thing is that, I personally have started this only after coming here, because when you are your own country, life is very comfortable. So one thing that I was wait for sale if you want to buy something. Very simple!I was like, “I like this! I’m gonna buy this,” and I buy it. And then I realise that it’s fifty dollars less. I think, “What did I just do!?” So just think about it, if you want to do something there is going to come a Boxing Day. All you get to do is wait for 4:00am or 5:00am in the morning if you want to but that laptop!
I keep having those moments at the moment, where I’m out. And I love my camera gear as well, as you can probably se I’ve got a whole bunch of stuff. And I always walk into Teds and check out their camera gear and I’m like, “Crap I really want it. Do I buy it?” And I’m like, “No, go home, Get on the internet, find a cheapo, you just have to wait two days for delivery,” and I always end up saving like 60 bucks and I’m like, “Oh thank god!”
That’s so important, that’s amazing. It’s just self control, it’s don’t buy this right now, just for two hours, you’ll find something 100%.
I think we’re almost trained nowadays, with social media and being able to get access to anything any time, to just not want to wait. A lot of the time I have an idea, I want something, it’s like, “Well I’ve got I’ve got money, I’ll go do it. Bam,” and I don’t think about it, I just do it. And it’s like you have to retrain yourself to be patient, to be a little more frugal, to save money and not be so wasteful.
True. In fact, what you say was, I think I was listening to Gary Vaynerchuck from the United States, and he said the exact same thing that you just said right now.
Well I think… Was it him who was just saying, “Stop eating all the effing smashed avacados!” And it’s so true. Eating out in Australia is frickin ridiculous… Even for me, if I go out and I’m like, “Oh my God! two burgers and two beers? that was $65? Are you serious!? Are you kidding me?” And you could do that everyday easily, if you had the money, but it adds up quickly.
Yeah, really quick!
Alright guys, well finishing up, what’s next for the channel, Melbourne VIBE? You guys are running out of cities to review, with regards to living expenses, where are you guys heading and what are you going to be covering in the near future?
Actually it’s pretty exciting because Melbourne VIBE is actually turning into a Startup, and that is going to provide a one stop solution for all international students, no matter where your from.
Good stuff.
Yeah. So in the near future hopefully if you talk about accommodation, we’ll be able to provide. If you talk about jobs, we’ll be able to provide. You just name it, we have it.
How are you planning to do that? Is it going to be something like a website? A walk-in company? An app on the phone?
Yes so it obviously will be a website, everything will be online. As of now we just don’t… We don’t want to reveal everything because in the pipeline right now. It’s going to be a portal it’s just basically going to make all those hundreds and thousands of students who are gonna come to Australia every year. It’s going to make their lives easier. So that’s what Melbourne VIBE started with, that’s what we want to do, and that’s what we’re going to do in the future.
Do you have any timeline on when that might be ready? If people are listening right now and they’re like, “Oh man, I’m coming to Melbourne soon!” How long ’till you think things will be up and running?
Well we’re basically going hard for the next three months. So we are working we’re with a whole team at the moment to get this up and running but we don’t have… Well we have a deadline, but we don’t have a launch date at this stage.
Yeah and in fact the amazing thing is that I think a lot of people are listening and planning to come to Melbourne, is that Melbourne VIBE is launching and having a party, a meet-up, for all the new people that are going to come here in July. And that’s something that’ll be very regular. For the people who want to hang out and meet people from all over the world. That’s that’s something pretty interesting happening in July.
Awesome! So how can people find out about that? Obviously you’ll be mentioning this through social media, where can people go to hear about parties?
The best thing to do to keep in contact with that would be to join our Facebook group. Facebook.com/groups/MelbourneVibeStudyinAustralia. Basically because we can put announcements on there and that’s just going to go through to everyone’s Facebook. If they don’t have Facebook, there’s obviously Instagram and Twitter, and they can follow us on social media like that or we’ll announce it on YouTube as well.
Awesome guys! Jocelyn and Dave thank you so much for coming on the podcast today.
It was lovely talking to you!
No worries, Cheers guys!
****
All right, guys. That was Melbourne Vibe, the team from Melbourne Vibe. Thank you so much again David and thank you so much again Jocelyn.
Remember guys, if you want to find out more about these guys, if you want to check out their amazing videos, you can jump on to YouTube and just search ‘Melbourne vibe’. That is two words: M E L B O U R N E, Melbourne, and the second word is ‘vibe’, V I B E. Okay? And make sure you give them a thumbs up, give them share, and give them a comment saying “G’day from Aussie English”.
Anyway, guys, I hope that helps. I hope your stay in Australia is going really well if you happen to be an overseas student who has just arrived and needs this kind of information, and if not, I hope it was still helpful. I hope you guys have an amazing week and I’ll chat to you soon. See ya!
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AE 449 – Expression: Get Cold Feet
Learn Australian English in this expression episode of the Aussie English Podcast where I teach you how to use the expression to GET COLD FEET like a native English speaker.
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AE 448 – Expression: Get Cold Feet
G’day, guys. What is going on?
I hope you’ve been having a ripper of a week. I’m back again. It’s another Sunday and it is another expression episode, guys, and today’s episode is going to be a ripper. So, it’s going to be awesome. We’re going to be talking about penguins. That was the intro scene there that you had at the start. It was a video clip from BBC Earth’s YouTube channel. So, there’ll be a link in the transcript for that. If you love wildlife, definitely go check out that channel. But that was David Attenborough speaking.
I’m a massive fan of David Attenborough and it was his 92nd birthday probably two weeks ago on the 8th of May. He was born and a few days after the Queen of England. So, he’s 92 years old. Pretty crazy.
Anyway, a quick anecdote. Yeah. I grew up always watching David Attenborough films. So, my parents were both zoologists and they met at Melbourne University, I think, in the 70s, maybe the late 70s is when they met, and yeah, obviously got married, had kids, and we grew up with a heavy dose of wildlife. So, we would watch docos, we’d go camping, we’d go to the zoo. Absolutely loved animals. So, that was my sort of upbringing and obviously why I ended up going to university, the same university that they met at, and studying the same thing they did zoology.
Anyway, guys, this is the Aussie English Podcast, the number one podcast for anyone who wants to learn Australian English. Whether you want to understand it or you want to speak like an Aussie, this is the podcast for you, and it is brought to you by the Aussie English Classroom, which you can sign up for at theAussieEnglishclassroom.com. Remember that it’s only a dollar for the first month at the moment. You can get in there for one buck. What is that, like three and a half cents a day? And you can try the Aussie English Classroom. You can use all the materials in there. You can complete this episode as of course with bonus videos, learning vocab, expressions, there’s quizzes, there’s all sorts of good stuff in there if you want to take your English to the next level. So, this podcast is brought to you by the Aussie English Classroom.
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Anyway guys, let’s dive into today’s episode. We’ll be covering the expression ‘to get cold feet’, and this was suggested by Dan in the Facebook group. So, we’ll get into that.
But First let’s do a joke. So, the joke here is related to penguins. You know, had to connect these two things.
What Do penguins eat for lunch? So, penguins, the small little birds that live in the ocean. What do they eat for lunch? ‘Ice-burgers’. ‘Ice-burgers’. Do you get it?
So, Obviously, icebergs are those large pieces of ice that break off in Antarctica or in the Arctic, in the north… northern hemisphere.
And ‘burgers’ are obviously, you know, hamburgers or chicken burgers. They’re a kind of food where you have lettuce and cheese, bacon, other kinds of meat, and you have bread on top. That’s a burger, right? So, the joke here is ‘ice-burgers’.
Anyway, guys, today’s expression, ‘to get cold feet’, and you may also hear this as ‘to have cold feet’. So, let’s go through and define these words guys.
‘To have’. If you have something, you possess something, okay? You own the thing, you have the thing, you possess the thing.
‘To get’. If you get something you acquire that thing. So, you didn’t have it to begin with and then you got it, you acquired it, and now you possess it. And this can be physical things like, you know, a burger or it can be, I guess… well, still physical, but not like an item, okay? Like, you can get cold. You can get hot. You can get wealthy. You know? It doesn’t have to be something you can hold in your hands.
‘Cold’. ‘Cold’. I’m sure you guys know it’s the sort of… the temperature that is incredibly low. It’s not hot. If you’re shivering, if you’re out snowboarding in winter, you’re probably going to get cold.
And The last one here, guys, ‘feet’ the plural of ‘a foot’. This is the lower extremity of the leg below the ankle and you would usually stand on your feet. You would walk on your feet. You would run on your feet, right? Your foot, each foot, has five toes, a big toe, a little toe, and the three toes in between.
Anyway guys, what does the expression ‘to get cold feet’ mean? So, if you ‘get cold feet’ it means that you lose your nerve, that you lose your confidence, that you become timid, and it’s usually used as a polite way of saying… well, not necessarily polite, but a nice way of saying something like ‘to chicken out’, ‘to wuss out’, or ‘to bail on’ something and these are sort of phrasal verbs that mean to abandon something because you got too nervous, right? You wussed out, you chickened out, you bailed out.
So, where did this originate from? We’re not really sure but it originates from about the 19th century, the late 19th century, though again, the exact origin isn’t known. However, experts suspect that this expression may have something to do with the military, an environment which certainly offers a plethora of things to fear, situations to run away from, to bail on, to get cold feet from, and you would also imagine that there are plenty of situations where you could get cold feet, literally, in the army, you know? You’re running around in your boots and it rains, you got cold feet.
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So, as usual guys, let’s go through some examples of how I would use the expression ‘to get cold feet’ or ‘to have cold feet’ in day to day life. Okay?
So, example number one. Example number one is that you are at a wedding. Okay? And there’s a bride and groom, there’re two people who are about to get married. I mean, well, in Australia there’s gay marriage so it could be two grooms or two brides, but I imagine it’s a bride and groom in this example.
So, the bride hasn’t shown up. She hasn’t come to the wedding ceremony. And this is a classic example of where you’re likely to hear this expression. So, maybe she’s running late because of photography. You know, they’re trying to take photos of somewhere and she’s not happy with the photos. Maybe she is trying to do her makeup still or get her wedding dress on. Or maybe there’s transport issues, you know? Maybe they’re getting delayed because of that, the bridal party is getting delayed. Or maybe she’s changed her mind. Maybe she doesn’t want to get married to this guy anymore. So, she’s decided, “I’m scared. I’m nervous. I’m not confident about this decision. I’ve got cold feet.”. Okay? So, she’s got cold feet. She’s changed her mind. She’s lost her nerve, her confidence. She’s got cold feet. And if the crowd start murmuring, maybe they’re gossiping. It’s been a long time. She hasn’t shown up yet. They might be thinking, “Is she going to leave the groom standing at the altar because she’s got cold feet?”.
Example number two. Alright so pubs in Australia, these are places you can go and drink, and you can eat food, usually alcoholic beverages, and you’ll often see things like bands or single musicians playing at these venues. Pubs in Australia often have events called ‘Open mic nights’. So, ‘an open mic night’ is where you have the microphone for someone to sing into or play into… is it’s open for anyone to use. You just have to get in line. Right? You have to put your hand up and say, “I want to sing. I want to read out some poetry. Maybe I want to do some stand-up comedy.” Right? So, you’re a performer. You’ve gone to a pub. It’s a… it’s an open mic night, and you’ve told all your friends to come with you, because you want to get up and do some stand-up comedy or maybe you want to read a poem or maybe you want to sing a song. If your turn comes up, though, and you freak out, you get a little nervous, you lose your confidence, and you become timid, you might decide not to get up on stage and sing the song, read the poem, do some stand-up comedy. You’ve got cold feet. You have cold feet, because you’ve wussed out, you’ve chickened out, you’ve got cold feet.
Example number three here, guys, and this was something that I used to get faced with all the time. When I was doing jiujitsu my coach would always be hassling us, always asking us, always pestering us, trying to sort of guilt trip us into competing, because obviously he wanted the team to compete as much as possible and do really well. So, he would always be like, “Everyone needs to compete!”. I’m the kind of person that despite, you know, being able to create these kinds of podcast episodes and videos, I don’t like really being in front of a lot of people, to be honest, especially, when it’s like you fighting someone and there’s half a thousand people watching you. Okay? So, he would ask us to do this and quite often I would chicken out of entering the competition. I would wuss out. I would get cold feet. So, I would get too nervous. It would… the thought of standing in front of all these people and fighting someone else and potentially losing in front of all these people would give me cold feet. It would make me nervous. But imagine, okay, I did end to this competition. You could also use this expression if the time came to get on the mat and fight, so, they’ve said “Pete and…”, you know, the other guy “…Tim! It’s your turn to fight. Come out on the mat!”. If I ran away, if I didn’t show up, if I chickened out, if I wussed out, I’d gotten cold feet. I had become too timid and lost my nerve. Okay?
So, I hope you understand the expression, guys, ‘to get cold feet’ or ‘to have cold feet’. It is just to lose nerve, to lose confidence, and not do something. To bail on something. And then, if you want to kind of belittle the person a little bit and make it a little bit more sort of like you’re judging the person and making fun of them, you can say ‘to wuss out’, ‘to chicken out’, and then, just in general you can say ‘to bail on something’, which is just to leave something, to avoid something.
So, hopefully, those are some good phrasal verbs you can use when talking to your friends.
So, as usual, let’s go through a listen and repeat exercise, guys. This is your chance to practice your pronunciation. So, just listen then repeat after me, guys. Whether you want an Australian accent, whether you just want a prefect an American accent, a British accent, or just work on whatever accent you have, just try and say these words after me. Okay? Let’s go.
To
To get
To get cold
To get cold feet x 5
A lot of stop consonants in their sentence, guys, when we’re talking about connected speech. A lot of stop consonants.
So, we’ll do this now using the conditional, guys. So, we’ll say “I would never get cold feet”. We’ll conjugate through that. And I’m going to contract a ‘would’ on to the respective pronouns for each sentence, right? So, instead of saying, ‘I would’, I’ll say ‘I’d’. Okay? So, listen and repeat after me.
I’d never get cold feet
You’d never get cold feet
She’d never get cold feet
He’d never get cold feet
We’d never get cold feet
They’d never get cold feet
It’d never get cold feet
Great job, guys. Great job. Remember, if you would like to learn the pronunciation of Australian English in much more depth. I really recommend signing up to the Aussie English Classroom, guys, where you will get a video breaking down all of the connected speech, the pronunciation, and other aspects of spoken English from this exercise as well as previous exercises in the podcast episode. So, sign up to the Aussie English Classroom, guys, and give it a go.
Anyway, before we finish up, I want to talk about fairy penguins or little penguins. Okay? So, today, we had at the very start of this episode a scene where David Attenborough was at Phillip Island talking about the smallest penguin in the world, the little penguins.
Now these guys weigh only about a kilogram and they only stand about 30 centimeters tall. They’re incredibly small and they are the world’s smallest penguins.
You can find these little penguins in southern Australia and in New Zealand in scattered colonies along the coastlines of these countries. And in Australia, you’ll find them all the way from out west in the city of Perth all the way east to Sydney, and then in the south, you’ll find them around Melbourne and in Tasmania. Okay?
So, if you come to Melbourne, though, they’re very easy to see, and you will see them at Phillip Island at night. This is probably the best place to go if you want to see them coming out of water and walking up the beach to their burrows. You can go to the Penguin Parade at Phillip Island and you can also see them at the St Kilda pier in Melbourne.
There are estimated to be about a million penguins left, these small penguins, little penguins, 32,000 of which live at Phillip Island. So, that’s pretty crazy. I guess, that’s only about 3.2%.
How do you tell the difference between a male and a female? That’s a good question. Well, you can’t ask them. So, you have to look at beaks. The adult females have a thin beak, much thinner than males, and the males have a distinct hook on the end of their beaks.
What do they eat? Every day, little Penguins have to go into the water, into the ocean, into the sea, and they eat up to 25% of their body weight, which is about 250 grams. And they’re eating fish like Barracouta, Anchovies, Red Cod, Pilchards, and even cephalopods like squid.
They can swim about two to four kilometres an hour, and for reference, humans can swim about six kilometres an hour.
Little penguins live in holes in the ground and we call these holes ‘burrows’, and this is a place where they can rest, they can nest, they can moult, and they can obviously get protection too from things like predators and extreme weather in Australia. Like, quite often it gets to about 40 degrees in summer and the best way to avoid that is going underground.
So, depending on the season, they can spend anywhere between 1 and 30 days at sea. That blows my mind. Imagine swimming around for a month. So, while breeding they return regularly to incubate the eggs and feed their chicks. So, that would be during the summer season. But during the winter season, they spend most of their time out to sea hunting for fish and squid for food.
These penguins don’t mate for life and if the breeding success of a couple of penguins is really low, they might look for new mates.
Little penguins lay two eggs similar in size to a chicken’s and both parents take turns incubating these eggs, which takes about 35 days.
Both parents then feed the chicks by regurgitating fish and squid caught at sea, and the chicks leave their parents and head out to sea for the first time at 7-11 weeks of age.
Their parents don’t teach them anything. They don’t learn how to swim. They don’t learn how to catch food. They don’t learn when they have the nest. It’s all based on instinct.
Penguins spend about 80 percent of their lives in the ocean. So, what’s that? One out of every five days on average they get out of the water. And on average, every single day they swim between 15 and 50 kilometres.
They’ve been recorded diving as deep as 72 metres. However, an average dive is between about 5-20 metres when they’re hunting prey.
Little penguins also have some really cool adaptations. Like all penguins, they have modified wings, which are called ‘flippers’, and the only flying they do is through the water.
They have a gland to spread oil on their feathers when they’re preening in order to keep the outer feathers waterproof so they don’t get soaked, they don’t get drenched and then get cold.
They have a streamlined shape, waterproof feathers on the outside of their body, a layer of down next to the skin to trap air and keep them warm under those waterproof feathers, and they also have a salt gland above their eyes, which helps them filter salt from seawater so they get access to freshwater.
Anyway, guys, that is the episode for today. I hope that you think little penguins are as bad-arse as I think they are.
Don’t forget to jump over to YouTube guys and check out the Aussie English YouTube Channel. Come to Facebook. Join the community and just take part, guys. Start using your English. Come and say ‘G’day’.
I’ll chat to you soon and hope you have an awesome weekend. See ya!
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