AE 535 – Expression: Fly On the Wall

By Admin — 2 days ago

Learn Australian English in this expression episode of the Aussie English Podcast where I teach you to use the expression FLY ON THE WALL.

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AE 535 – Expression: A Fly on the Wall

Well, this is Outback Australia. Look at these flies.

Yeah, try not to eat too many, ‘cause if you get stuck, I think you’d get a feed off of these fellas.

Eventually, you get used to them and you don’t blink. That hasn’t happened to me yet. I still blink.

I don’t think they’ve got anywhere to go. (It’d) be a good place to test fly spray.

Anyway, Outback Australia.

****

G’day, you mob. How’s it going? Welcome to this episode of Aussie English.

Man, I have just gotten back from whisking Kel off, taking Kel, driving Kel to the station. So, I get to do that a few times a week as she goes off into Melbourne, which is about an hour and a half’s drive from here. Although, we don’t drive the whole way. I take her to the station. She gets on the train. The train takes it to Melbourne. She crosses the road and she gets to class. So, she’s up there at business school at the moment studying. Anyway.

So, I hope you guys are going well. Welcome to the Aussie English Podcast. If it’s your first time listening, it is an absolute pleasure to have you here. Thank you for joining me. If you are a long-time listener, thank you for joining me once again.

So, this is the Aussie English Podcast, the number one podcast for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English. But if you want to up your English in general, it is a podcast that focuses on advanced English, so you won’t hear me dumb things down, you won’t hear me speaking incredibly slowly, apart from maybe in the listen and repeat exercises.

Remember, guys, if you would like to sign up to the podcast to get access to the transcripts and MP3s, you can do so at www.TheAussieEnglishPodcast.com. Just for the price of coffee a month. And if you would like to get access to my 50 plus online courses in the Aussie English Classroom, you can try that at the moment for just one dollar for your first 30 days. Go to www.TheAussieEnglishClassroom.com.

And there’s a bit of news, there’s a bit of news, guys. I have my guys working on merging these websites. So, before we get into the episode, I’ll tell you a little bit about that and what I’ve got planned. I want to merge these two websites together so that they’re all in the same place. (I) Don’t know why I didn’t think of that earlier. And then, I want to turn this into an app that you can use on your phone. So, you’ll be able to listen to the podcast directly and you’ll also obviously be able to sign up to get the transcripts and the MP3 downloads as well as sign up to the classroom too all through this app. So, that is coming this year. I’m not sure when. I going to do my best to get it done ASAP, but you’ll just have to wait and see. Anyway.

With all that aside, guys, big intro. Thanks for putting up with it. Let’s get into the expression episode today.

So, the video at the start there was from Gavin Clark’s YouTube channel. There’ll be a link in the transcript if you want to go check out his channel and have a few views. And it shows how numerous and invasive the flies in outback Australia can be. They have no sense of personal space. If you come to Australia, especially in summer, you’re going to be swatting your face, you’re going to be giving “the Aussie salute”, as we call it, quite a lot.

Anyway, let’s dive into an Aussie joke. And I had to tie this in with flies today for obvious reasons.

What do you call a fly without wings? What do you call a fly without wings?

Are you ready for this? Hold your sides, hold your sides, because it’s going to be funny.

What do you call a fly without wings? A walk. A walk.

Do you get it? Because a fly flies, and if he can’t fly, he can’t fly anymore, obviously, he’s got no wings, so he is “a walk”, because he has to walk. Oh my gosh! So, terrible! So, terrible but hopefully you guys like these ‘punny’ jokes, right. These jokes that are funny because they are puns.

So, today’s expression is “to be a fly on the wall”, and it was suggested by Vivian in the Aussie English Classroom group. So, good job, Vivian. It was a great suggestion. And she won by a landslide. She won. Everyone voted for her expression. So, I’m happy to be doing it.

So, let’s go through the words in the expression, okay. A fly. *Bzzzz*. A fly. I’m sure you guys know what a fly is. It’s a flying insect in Australia. There are heaps of different kinds of flies. They normally land on poo, on your food, in your face, everywhere, and they’re trying to, like, suck up moisture with their sucking mouthparts, right. That is a fly.

‘On’. I’m sure you guys know the preposition ‘on’, right. My hand is on the table. It is physically in contact with and supported by a surface. ‘On’.

The last word here a noun, ‘the wall’, ‘a wall’ is a continuous vertical brick or stone structure, right, something that encloses an area. It could be land, it could be the walls in your house, right, (they) are enclosing a room. But that is ‘a wall’.

Alright, let’s move on to the expression. So, have you guys heard the expression “to be a fly on the wall”, right. If I said to you, “Man! I would love to be a fly on the wall.”, do you think you know what that means, right. If you’re a fly on the wall, if we say that you are a fly on the wall, it means that you would like to hear what is going to be said or done without being noticed, right. So, it’s to be an unnoticed observer of a particular situation. And we’ll go through some examples of that in just a sec.

But expression origin wise, it alludes to the position, right, of being on our wall as a small fly and being freely able to observe some kind of situation without being noticed. And it dates back to about 1920-1921 when it was used in America in the Oakland Tribune, which I assume’s a newspaper, and they said “I’d just love to be a fly on the wall when the right man comes along.”.

So, let’s go through some examples, guys. Imagine, example number one, that you are an architect or an engineer or a scientist, right. You have a job, you have a career, as one of those. You’re working hard to advance your career. You know, you’re putting in the extra hours, the extra… you’re going the extra mile, you’re putting in a lot of extra hard yakka, right, meaning working hard, you’re working really, really hard, and your manager or your boss, the people above you, have a meeting each week to discuss their employees and discuss what needs to be done that week. So, you don’t get invited to that meeting, but if you wanted to go, you might say to the other employees, to the other architects, engineers, or scientists, “Man! I would kill to be a fly on the wall in that meeting. I would kill to be a fly on the wall and be able to hear what they’re talking about or to see what they’re doing, right, but without being noticed. I wish I could be a fly on the wall.”.

Example number two. Imagine you’re out with your mates, you’re having a drink, right. You’re sinking some piss, as we say, which means to be drinking some alcohol. So, you’re at a pub or you’re at a party or you’re at a barbie hanging out with your mates and you get a call from your missus, right, from your wife, from your girlfriend, from your better half, from your partner. She is raging up at you because you meant to be home with her for date night, but you forgot and you went out with your mates and you started drinking some beer with them. So, you hang up the phone and you say, “Look, guys, I’ve got to bail. I’ve got to go home. My missus is really pissed. She’s really angry and I need to hang out with her tonight or I’ll be sleeping in the dog house, right.” That means I won’t be in the bedroom with her, I’ll be sleeping somewhere else because she’ll be so angry. So, when you leave, your friends might all turn to one another and say, “Man! I would love to be a fly on the wall when he gets home. I would love to be a fly on the wall when he opens the door and she loses it. You know, I would love to see what’s going to happen between those two, all the drama, everything that’s going to go down, I would love to see that but without being noticed. I’d love to be a fly on the wall.”

Example number three. Imagine you are a coach of some kind of sports team, maybe a footy team, right, AFL footy, Australian Rules Football. Imagine you’re a coach and you’re trying to train your team with a bunch of new training techniques, you know, different kinds of drills, in order to sharpen their skills up and give them a better chance of dominating this year in the footy season. So, other coaches from other teams hear about this. They hear about your plans through the grapevine. They’d heard it through the grapevine, right. You know, they hear it through a whole bunch of other people, and they want to sneak into the stadium and see what you’re doing, to learn what you’re doing, to see the techniques you’re using in order to learn from them and beat you, right. Fortunately, they can’t get in, but I’m sure they’re all thinking, “Man! I wish we could be flies on the wall to be able to see what he’s doing, right. We would love to see what he’s doing, we’d love to take his ideas, to steal his ideas, to flog his ideas, to learn from them, and then beat him this season.”.

So, that’s it, guys. Hopefully now you understand the expression “to be a fly on the wall”. If you say you wish you were a fly on the wall, it means you wish you were an unnoticed observer of some situation, some particular situation.

So, as usual, let’s go through a little listen and repeat exercise where you guys can practice your pronunciation, and then after that, we’ll smash out the Aussie English fact and I’ll let you guys finish up your weekend, okay. Let’s go.

A
A fly
A fly on
A fly on the
A fly on the wall x 5

I’d love to be a fly on the wall.
You’d love to be a fly on the wall.
He’d love to be a fly on the wall.
She’d love to be a fly on the wall.
We’d love to be a fly on the wall.
They’d love to be a fly on the wall.
I’d love to be a fly on the wall.

Good job, guys. Good job! There’s a lot of connected speech going on there with some contractions as well. And remember, I’ve just released a course in the Aussie English Classroom about spoken English where you will learn heaps and heaps of different contractions, how to contract words, how to use connected speech, in order to sound more like a native speaker, but also to tune in your listening comprehension so you can hear when native speakers use those kinds of contractions or connected speech, right. “I’d love to be a…” “I’d love to be a…”. So, anyway, let’s get into the Aussie English fact and finish up.

So, today I wanted to give you the lowdown on flies in Australia. ‘The low down’, that is like information about them details about them. The lowdown on flies in Australia. And I’m also going to tell you how flies will help turn poo into birds. That’s right. They can turn poo into birds.

So, no summer barbecue in Australia would be complete without a certain uninvited guest who always shows up before the meat even hits the barbie and begins to sizzle, and has you giving the great Aussie Salute to keep them out of your eyes, ears, and mouth. The Australian fly. However, there isn’t just one type of fly. There are estimated to be more than 30,000 species of flies in Australia more than enough species to make sure every single cubic inch of Australian airspace is occupied whether in the desert, rainforest, or at the beach.

Despite the extensive fly diversity in the Land of Oz, in the land Down Under, you’re only likely to come across four different groups of flies, which aren’t necessarily all equally as annoying. And these groups are: the bush fly, the housefly, the blowfly, and the mosquito. Yes, the mosquito is in fact a species of very specialized fly, right. The mouthparts of mosquitoes have obviously changed to become much more about injecting, well, piercing, and then sucking blood.

So, why a fly population skyrocket in summer. This occurs because of the warmer temperatures, which really speed up the life cycle of flies as well as other insects, obviously. So, it allows their numbers to explode into fly-swattingly irritating proportions. Their life cycle from egg to maggot to pupa and to adult is only between 7 to 14 days usually. So, imagine when that speeds up, right. Imagine how many can breed and how quickly their numbers can increase.

How long have flies been pissing off the average Australian? Well the earliest records show that from the moment Europeans set foot on the Land of Oz in Australia they were wholeheartedly welcomed by millions sweat-thirsty flies invading their eyes, ears, mouths, and any part of their body that they could get their suckers on to. Their aptitude at being a formidable nuisance was instantly noticed by Captain Cook who discussed them as being “horrendous”. Needless to say, though, Indigenous Australians would have been thinking, “Yeah, mate! No shit Sherlock! We’ve had to deal with these pesky things for 40,000 years or more.”.

Although, I am sure most of you think flies are incredibly irritating and you wish they would just buzz off–Get it? “Buzz off”.–they’re actually an integral part of the Australian environment and without them, we’d be up to our necks in poo.

So, what would happen tomorrow if flies just disappeared from Australia? Well, I’ve been a number of year thinking, “Pete, they’d probably just cross the ocean from Indonesia or Papua New Guinea from our neighbouring countries and repopulate the country within a few weeks.” Yes, okay. You got me. Well done. But let’s imagine that their return was indefinitely put on hold. Their absence would lead to a number of unpleasant and unforeseen issues.

So, there’d be a cascading effect on the food chain, right? And it would sort of be a cascading upwards effect, because flies are at the bottom of the food chain. So, you may not realize it, but flies are actually an integral part of the ecosystem because they feed so many other animals like spiders, reptiles, frogs, and birds, and other insects, and those animals would all be affected and they may die off. Animals that feed on these flies would all die if they no longer had food.

As this famine started picking up pace and more and more bodies started dropping–“dropping like flies” you might say–there would be no flies to lay their eggs on the carcasses of these dead animals as well as the poo that these animals had deposited prior to kicking the bucket, prior to dying. And normally, these eggs would hatch into larvae, into maggots, and then consume the poo or the rotting carcasses of these animals, and then themselves grow into nice juicy flies that can continue the cycle of life as they get eaten by birds or spiders, etc..

So, that is why flies in Australia may be an incredibly irritating pest, you may have to swat your face a little bit when you get here and it’s summer time, but they are definitely an important part of the ecosystem in Australia, and we should all be thankful that we have flies here, because without them, we’d be up to our necks in poo.

Anyway, guys, I hope you’ve enjoyed this episode. I hope you have an amazing weekend. I hope to see you in the Aussie English Classroom. And I hope to see you next week as well. Peace out.

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AE 533 – Expression: Once Bitten, Twice Shy

By Admin — 1 week ago

Learn Australian English in this expression episode of the Aussie English Podcast where I teach you to use ONCE BITTEN, TWICE SHY like a native speaker.

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AE 533 – Expression: Once Bitten, Twice Shy

My home Australia is the land of ‘the deadlies’, in fact, what I’m going to show you next is the second most deadly snake in the world, our common brown snake. (There’s) nothing common about his poison, though. (It) kills you dead.

I’ll just slip him out on the ground here. You can see they’re quite quick by snake standards, even though snakes are reasonably slow.

See, unlike the cobras, these things want to run away all the time. But (they’re) pretty quick, as you can see.

Some people mistakenly think that little snakes are more dangerous or deadlier than big snakes. The venom’s exactly the same potency, but this thing’s got longer fangs and a lot more venom than a little one, so that’s a silly notion.

I say it’s like putting Mohammad Ali in a ring with a kid, so the kid hits harder. (It) ain’t true.

****

G’day, you mob, and a welcome to this episode of the Aussie English Podcast.

I hope you guys have had an amazing week. Hope you guys are going well. It’s been a little while since I’ve put an expression episode up. I’m still sort of getting into my rhythm of things at the moment in 2019. I tell you what, guys, I’ve been doing a lot of interviews recently, as well as My Country episodes. There’s so much content that I’ve sort of built up. I have this folder full of episodes that I need to finish and put on the podcast. So, there’s a lot coming back and there’s a lot more interviews coming as well. I’m looking forward to chucking those up. Anyway.

This is the Aussie English Podcast, guys. If you’re listening for the first time, guys, welcome to the Aussie English Podcast. The podcast is focused on Australian English, although, it will help you improve your English in general.

If you want to get access to the transcripts and the downloads for this episode, check out TheAussieEnglishPodcast.com where you can sign up for the price of a coffee a month. And if you would like to get access to all of my courses in the Aussie English Classroom, you can try that at the moment for one dollar for your first month, just head over to TheAussieEnglishClassroom.com, and you’ll get access to all of my courses. So, that means bonus content for these expression courses, which includes videos and quizzes, stuff built to improve your vocabulary and speaking abilities. And then, there’s a whole bunch of other courses in there put together to help you improve your speaking and listening comprehension. Okay? So, go check that out, guys. It’s a dollar for a month and it’s an amazing deal you, can cancel at any time, and you’ll get to upgrade your English.

Anyway, you mob, that clip at the start today was Rob Bredl. It was his YouTube channel that I took that clip from. So, go over there and check that out where he handles the second deadliest snake in the world. And… if we’re talking venom that is, and the snake in Australia that causes the most deaths, and we’ll talk a bit more about that at the end of this episode. But go check out his channel, subscribe, and you’ll get to tackle the Broad Aussie accent. Okay. So, it’s worth it. Go check it out.

Alright, so the introduction aside, guys, as usual, I have a joke for you guys, I have a joke, and I was thinking I have to find an animal that can bite me, because the expression is related to biting today. So, I was on there. I was searching, you know, “big cat joke”, “leopard joke”, and here we are. Here’s the joke, okay. It’s atrocious, but it’s a joke.

Why can’t a leopard play hide-and-seek?

You know that game hide-and-seek where it counts to 10 with your eyes closed as a kid and the other one has to go hide somewhere, and then you have to go try and find them, and then “(I) found you!”, and they, you know, you switch turns.

Why can’t a leopard play hide-and-seek?

Are you ready for this?

Because they’re always “spotted”. Because they’re always “spotted”.

So, the joke there, guys, “spotted” in this case is an adjective, right, but it can mean two different things. If you’re a leopard and you are spotted, it means you’ve got spots on your body, right. A leopard is a big cat from Africa covered in spots, as opposed to, say, stripes like tigers.

But if you spot something, and that thing is spotted, we can use that verb to mean that you see the thing, you’ve noticed the thing, you’ve found the thing, right. So, in this case the leopard is always spotted, because it’s always found. Right? So, that’s why he’s so bad at hide-and-seek.

So, anyway, today’s expression is “once bitten, twice shy”, “once bitten, twice shy”. This was suggested by my lovely wife in the Aussie English Classroom. She’s been winning a few of these in the last few months. So, good job, Kel.

So, let’s go through and I will define the words in the expression “once bitten, twice shy”, I’ll go through the expression definitions itself, talk about its origin, give me some examples, do a pronunciation exercise, talk about an Aussie fact, and then we’ll finish up, okay?

Alright. So, “once”, “once”. “Once” means one time a single time.

“Bitten”. “Bitten” is the past participle of the verb “to bite”, which is when you seize something with your teeth or your jaws so as to enter, grip, or wound that thing, right? To bite.

“Twice”, as opposed to “once”, “twice” means two times, you know, two times.

And the last word “shy” is an adjective for when you are nervous or timid, right, in the company of other people. You’re incredibly shy. So, kids are often shy. They don’t want to talk much. You know, they kind of hide behind their parents when they meet new people.

So, let’s define the expression “once bitten, twice shy”. I wonder if you guys have heard this one before. “Once bitten, twice shy”. If you say that someone is “once bitten, twice shy”, it means that they have been hurt once, and as a result of that, they are doubly cautious in the future. Right? So, you use this, you say this when you’re frightened to do something, because the last time that you did it you had an unpleasant experience doing it, right? So, you have to be cautious, you have to be vigilant. So, an unpleasant experience that induces caution. “Once bitten, twice shy”.

So, this would probably originate… expression wise, it would probably originate from the observation that when you walk up to an animal and it bites to you, you’re going to probably be shy about touching that animal again, you know, whether it was in a zoo back in the day or someone’s pet. But it dates back to the 1800, the late 1800s. So, this expression is 100 or so years old.

So, let’s go through three examples guides of how I would use this expression in everyday life, “once bitten, twice shy”.

Alright, so example number one. Imagine you’re in your first relationship. So, you’re a teenager, you know, a young boy or a young girl, and you’re with your first boyfriend or girlfriend ever, things are going well, but after a little bit of time, as always, or pretty much always, the relationship fails, it falls apart. Maybe because something bad happened where things got rocky after one of you cheated on the other one, right? You burned the other person, you upset them. Maybe you dumped them all of a sudden. You know, it doesn’t have to necessarily be cheating on them. Or you strung them along and then you lost interest in the person. Either way the person who’s been hurt could say if they’re sort of avoiding getting into a relationship in the future, they could say, “Well, once bitten, twice shy”. So, because I was rejected or hurt the first time, i.e. I was once bitten, I now find it difficult and I am reluctant to get into a new relationship, i.e. I am twice shy, right. I don’t want to fall in love again. So, once bitten, twice shy.

Example number two. Imagine you’re a young kid and you’ve grown up without any pets in the house, right? So, you’re a little naive when it comes to dogs or cats or, you know, more exotic pets like lizards and snakes, ’cause you just have never been around them. Your parents take you to a dinner party. You get to… you get to hang out with friends and they happen to have some pets. They have a dog or a cat. So, you don’t really know how to behave around these animals. You don’t know that you shouldn’t pull the tail. You shouldn’t pat them too roughly. They may get narky. They may get angry. And worst-case scenario, they may have a swipe at you or scratch you or even nip or bite you if they’re really upset. So, you do something like that where you pull the cat’s tail and he turns around, scratches you or bites you, you might get scared to pat the cat in the future, because you’re worried you’re going to get bitten. So, once bitten, twice shy. In this case, literally and figuratively, right. Once bitten, twice shy. I want to touch the cat, because it bit me. So, once bitten, twice shy.

Example number three. This is a real-world example. Okay, because I’ve been doing so many interviews recently. I had one of my mates who recently got his black belt in jujitsu, and I thought, you know what, I’ll try and get him on the podcast so I can talk about his journey learning a martial art and fighting in Australia, and ’cause he’s got a pretty good accent. Anyway, so I organise this interview and organise the time, told him to add me on Skype, everything like that, it was all set. The time came up and he was a no show. He didn’t show up. So, I sent him a message and said, “What are you doing, (are) you coming to the interview? We’re on for three o’clock today.” And he said, “Oh, I forgot about it. I’ve got a meeting at work. Sorry, man.” And just left it at that. So, now, I’m a little bit sort of reluctant to get him back on or to try and organise another interview in the future, because I can’t rely on him being there when I want him to be there. So, once bitten, twice shy.

So, hopefully now, guys, you understand the expression “once bitten, twice shy”. It’s effectively that you get hurt whether physically or metaphorically, and then as a result of that, that event where you’ve been hurt or upset or scared, you’re doubly cautious in the future. So, once bitten, twice shy.

All right, guys. So, let’s go through a little listen and repeat exercise where you guys can practice your pronunciation. As always, guys, if you want to nail your Aussie pronunciation, well, first and foremost, jump over to the Aussie English Classroom. Get in there and do the courses in there. But secondly, copy my accent as best you can. Okay? If you’re not after an Australian accent, because I’ve seen plenty of you guys listening to this podcast from places like America, Canada, and New Zealand, and plenty of other countries around the world, if you guys don’t want an Australian accent, just practice, just work on whatever accent it is that you are perfecting. Okay. So, let’s go.

Once

Once bitten

Once bitten twice.

Once bitten twice shy x 5

I was once bitten twice shy

You were once bitten twice shy

He was once bitten twice shy

She was once bitten twice shy

We were once bitten twice shy

They were once bitten twice shy

It was once bitten twice shy

Good job, guys. You might notice there too that I’m sort of pausing between “once bitten, twice shy”, and that’s because there’s a comma between these two, okay. They kind of opposing clauses or phrases in the single expression “once bitten, twice shy”.

Anyway, guys, let’s go through the Aussie English fact today where I want to talk to you about snakes and snake bites in Australia. Okay? And then we’ll finish up.

Alright, so why is Australia renowned for its snakes?

Australia has approximately 140 species of land snakes, just land snakes, and 32 recorded species of sea snakes, and they’re recorded because there are other species that scientists are sure they haven’t found yet.

So, a hundred of these are venomous snakes, although, only 12 of those are likely to inflict a bite that could kill you. And there are many different types of snakes in Australia including solid-toothed non-venomous snakes such as pythons, blind snakes, and file snakes; as well as the venomous rear-fanged snakes, snakes with fangs at the back of their mouth, at the rear of their mouth, such as brown tree snakes and mangrove snakes; and then, we have the venomous front-fanged snakes, and these are the ones that are the most numerous. The elapids. Okay. And they include things like tiger snakes, brown snakes, taipans, death adders, and some sea snakes.

So, of these, the most dangerous snakes are the last mentioned, the front-fanged snakes, the elapids. These snakes are found all across Australia in most if not all of the different habitats in Australia, although, the warmer areas, the places with a warmer climate in the north, are going to have many, many more species that are more active in general compared to the south, you know, in places like Tasmania.

So, as a result of their ecological diversity, Aussie snakes have a really wide-ranging palette, meaning they eat a very wide range of different animals from tiny insects, frogs, crustaceans, lizards, birds, fish, rats, mice, and even larger animals like crocodiles and kangaroos. You know, some of these huge pythons will actually eat kangaroos and crocodiles. So, if you can pass through their jaws, they’ll pretty much eat it.

How many people are bitten by snakes down under?

So, approximately 3,000 people are bitten by snakes each year, between 3 to 18 per 100,000 people, but only 200 to 500 of these people receive antivenom. So, these are the ones that end up in hospital. On average, only one to two bites are fatal annually. So, in comparison, and this is, you know, to give you an idea of how many deaths occur from other things, heart disease kills 20,000 people, between 10-20,000 times as many people die from heart disease as they do snakebites. 1,200 people die in car accidents. And 190 people die at work every year.

So, how do they stack up though against other animals? Snakes kill about as many people as crocodiles and sharks, between one to two year, as we’ve said, granted sharks and crocodile attacks are much fewer in number, but much more likely to kill you due to the fact that they’re large animals treating you as prey compared to small snakes that are defending themselves against you with venom. However, you might be surprised when you compare this with other animal-related deaths in Australia where you’re much more likely to be killed by things like horses, from falling off of horses while riding them, or cows and kangaroos, albeit, when you’re driving a car and you hit one during the night, and even bees, bees are more likely to kill you than snakes. And in fact, dogs kill as many people as snakes at about 1 or 2 a year.

So, why are Aussie snakes so venomous? The most venomous snake in Australia is the Inland Taipan, which has a venom strong enough that a single bite could kill 250,000 lab mice. That said, this snake lives in the desert on the, you know, inland of Australia and far, far, far away from most humans. And interestingly, there is not a single recorded death attributed to this snake. Number two on the list, however, is the Eastern Brown snake. That one you heard about at the start, which does leave around humans and claims the deaths of about 65 percent of human snake bite sufferers.

So, these snakes have such potent venom, one, because it has evolved to target rodents. So, no surprise that the lab mice were particularly susceptible. But, two, snakes use their venom to either incapacitate or kill their prey as fast as possible. You know, they want to be able to safely consume their prey without the chance of that prey inflicting injury on themselves. This obviously makes life much easier when you have no arms and legs, right, to secure your prey. You just inject them with venom, the thing dies, and you swallow it.

Furthermore, it’s likely that there is an evolutionary arms race going on between natural prey of these snakes and the snakes themselves. So, this is where you have the prey item of a snake, for example here, evolving some resistance to the snake’s venom over time, and in return, the snake has to evolve a more and more potent venom. And this keeps escalating.

Anyway, that’s a little window into the world of snakes in Australia, guys. I recently interviewed a guy called Ross McGibbon, and he talked was all about snakes. That interview will be out soon. So, stay tuned for that.

Thanks again for joining me, guys. Don’t forget to review the podcast on Facebook, on iTunes, or whatever platform it is that you’re listening to this podcast on. Join the Aussie English Classroom, guys, get access to all my courses. This is the best way to help me keep doing what I’m doing as well as improve your English at the same time. And other than that, have a ripper of a day and I’ll see you soon! Peace out!

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AE 525 – Expression: Go Down the Gurgler

By Admin — 3 weeks ago

Learn Australian English in this episode of the Aussie English Podcast where you’ll learn how to use the expression GO DOWN THE GURGLER like native speaker.

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AE 525 – Expression: Go Down the Gurgler

First, and today’s Sydney reporter Lara Bella in Bondi. Lara, what is it like where you are?

Karl, it’s really no wonder that our emergency services were so concerned about this low-pressure system. You can see behind me, it is a total white out down here at Bondi. It is absolutely bucketing down right across Sydney this morning. But, it’s not just this pelting rain, Karl, it’s also these really gusty southerly winds that are making the temperature feel a lot, lot, cooler, and also, down here at Bondi, we’ve had lightning snap across the sky. So, as a result, we’ve actually had to move under cover, because it was just getting a little bit too wild and woolly.

****

Oh, good morning, guys. It’s an early morning today.

I have woken up early to smash this podcast episode out, because I didn’t manage to get it done yesterday. I was hoping to, but I got a little bit side tracked, I got a little bit distracted, I was a little bit busy, because the new computer arrived. So, yay! The computer arrived and now I will have time to put my laptop through repairs.

So, I don’t know if you guys know the story there or not, but I have a laptop that I use for work and the keyboard started breaking. So, now when I type, there are lots of spelling mistakes because letters get type twice instead of once. So, it’s a real pain in the arse, because you have to go back, you have to delete different letters that you’ve typed twice. Anyway.

So, I’ve finally had sort of saved enough money to upgrade to a better computer a desktop now that I can use a lot more powerful and I can edit videos on it and audio and everything with no problems at all, so that finally arrived yesterday and the funny story was that I wanted to go to the shops to get some food and Kel was like, yeah, let’s go to the shops, and I thought, that the computer’s meant to be arriving at some point in the next few days, so maybe we should just have someone at home and I’ll go get some food or something, and then come back, and then we just decided, alright, nah, we won’t go. It’s all good. So, as soon as that happened, the person showed up with the computer. So, there you go. That was pretty funny. Anyway, guys.

Long intro aside, welcome to The Aussie English Podcast. This is the number one podcast for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English. I hope you guys are having an amazing week. Don’t forget if you would like to get the transcripts and the MP3s for all of these podcast episodes, go to TheAussieEnglishPodcast.com and sign up, and, I guess, a little bit of news there, The Podcast site is about to be upgraded, so we’re going to put in a new player, a new transcript reader, and there’s going to be a better way of just using the podcast on your phone or on the site. So, stay tuned for that, and yeah, I’m looking forward to that.

Also, The Podcast is brought to you by The Aussie English Classroom, guys. Now, with this new computer and the new studio that I got, I have been able to record a heap of new videos, and I’m currently learning about how to put them together a little bit more professionally. So, this new course that I’m working on is all about spoken English as it is spoken by native speakers, right, like contractions, intonation, rhythm, everything like that, all the stuff you don’t really often get to hear about in classes. So, stay tuned for that.

And remember, if you were to like all the bonus content for this episode, as well as all of my other courses, go to TheAussieEnglishClassroom.com and for just one dollar you can try it for the first 30 days, and then it’s just a monthly payment after that.

Anyway, guys, the video at the very start there was all about severe weather. And now, that was from the Today Show’s YouTube channel. So, go and check them out via the link in the transcript, watch the whole video on YouTube if you would like to learn more about Australian news, Australian culture, everything like that. And I thought of this one because it’s linked in, it’s connected to, the fact in today’s Aussie English fact where we’re going to talk about floods.

Anyway, guys. Time for a joke. We always have a joke at the start here, right.

Why do we tell actors to break a leg?

And if you don’t know this already, in English you often say ‘break a leg’ to an actor when they’re about to go out on stage and perform, because it’s considered bad luck to say something positive, so, like, good luck, or whatever. I don’t know why we have this sort of thing. It goes back a long way in our history, but any time someone is going to go on stage, if they’re in a play or something, often if people want to wish them luck without being positive, they’ll say ‘break a leg’ wishing that something horrible happens to their leg. Break a leg.

So, why do we tell actors to break a leg?

Because every play has ‘a cast’.

Did you get it? Did you get it, guys? So, ‘a play’ is obviously the show that’s played at the theatre, right, with people on the stage, and the group of people in the play are called ‘the cast’, ‘the cast of the play’ all of the members in that play all of the people are the cast. But, ‘a cast’ is also like a mould, right, or it’s something that you can put around your leg made out of plaster, for example, when you break your leg or maybe your arm. So, if you break your leg, you’ll often have a plaster cast put around your leg to protect it while it heals. Okay?

So, why do we tell actors to break a leg? Because every play has ‘a cast’.

Anyway, today’s expression, guys, is ‘to go down the gurgler’, ‘to go down the gurgler’, and this is from Djib in The Aussie English Classroom Facebook group. Remember, guys, if you are in The Aussie English Classroom, jump over to the Facebook group, and each week I ask for people to suggest expressions that they’re having trouble with or that they’re interested in learning more about, we vote on them, and then they end up… the winning one ends up being the episode for the week.

So, as usual, let’s define the different words in ‘to go down the gurgler’.

Right, so you’ve got ‘go down’, this phrasal verb, and I’m sure you guys know this means to descend, right, to move downwards, or sink into something, right? To go down.

Now, ‘a gurgler’, this is Australian slang, and it is slang for ‘a drain’, right? So, you could have a drain in the bottom of your sink in the kitchen or the drain in your bath.

And when you have the bath or the sink full of water and you pull the plug out, the water goes down the gurgler, it goes down the drain. And the reason… I think the reason that we call it ‘a gurgler’ is because when water goes down a drain, it gurgles, it makes the sound that we call gurgling, right. It makes a hollow bubbling sounds like that may when water runs into or out of something. That’s to gurgle. So, we call ‘a drain’ ‘a gurgler’ in Australia.

So, what does the expression mean ‘to go down the gurgler’ or ‘to go down the drain’. So, it was originally the expression ‘to go down the drain’ and we’ve obviously changed it in Australia to be ‘go down the gurgler’, and it just means to be a wasted. Okay? So, you might waste a lot of your money. The money goes down the gurgler. You might waste a lot of your time. Your time has gone down the gurgler. Okay. So, to be wasted.

So, as usual, let’s go through three examples of how to use this expression.

So, number one. Imagine that your father has started a company selling tools, you know, things like drills or screwdrivers, saws, whatever it is, chainsaws. So, he’s opened a warehouse, he’s invested a lot of time, a lot of money, a lot of energy, into growing this business. He’s hired people, he’s taken people on to work for him, and it’s been doing really well. Then all of a sudden, business dries up, people stop buying things, maybe there’s some sort of financial crisis and no one wants to spend any money anymore, so everything goes down gurgler, right. Business has tanked. Business has dried up. Business has really slowed down. So, all of a sudden, his business went down the drain, it went down the gurgler. So, all that hard work, time, money, energy, it all went down the gurgler.

Number two. Imagine you’re an athlete and you’ve been training for years to be an amazing runner or maybe an amazing… I don’t know. What are some of these other sports that are at the Olympics? A javelin thrower or a shot-put thrower or discus thrower, you know, someone who’s trying to compete in the athletics at the Olympics, and your dream is to compete at the Olympics one day. So, it’s been your dream since you were little. You always showed up early in the morning to training sessions many times a week almost every day, and you’ve finally gotten to a skill level and the height of your development where you can compete in the next Olympic Games. You’re in your prime. However, just before The Games, you get injured in training, maybe you break a leg and it gets put in a cast, and you can’t compete. So, because you couldn’t compete and the next Olympic Games is like four years away, which is going to be a very difficult thing to sort of, you know, maintain your level of that amount of time until the next Olympics, you feel like you’ve failed and everything’s gone down the gurgler, right? All your hard work’s gone down the gurgler. The effort, the time, all those mornings you got up early and trained really hard, all that energy you put into developing and honing your skills has gone down the gurgler. It’s gone down the drain. It’s all been wasted.

Example number three. Imagine you are a single guy who’s on the dating scene at the moment. You know, you’re trying to meet the right woman. You’ve been going out with many different women over the past few months, getting to know them, but none of really tickled your fancy, none of them have been a catch. You know, your soul mate, ‘the one’. You haven’t clicked with any of them enough to say that you’re interested in pursuing a long-term relationship. But finally, the right woman comes along and you guys hit it off and you get along like a house on fire. You go out on numerous dates and end up in a relationship with this dream woman of yours, however, you end up doing something careless, reckless, or stupid, that leads to you guys breaking up. So maybe you cheat on this girl when you’re drunk or maybe you forget to show up to your anniversary dinner one day. If that happens and the relationship ends, it’s all been for nothing, it’s all wasted, you’ve screwed up, and, you know, you’ve wasted your time, your energy, everything you put into this relationship, the relationship has gone down the gurgler. It went down the gurgle out when you screwed up, okay. It went down the drain. It went down the gurgler.

So, hopefully now, guys, you understand the expression ‘to go down the gurgler’. This is a great Aussie expression. And it just means for something to be wasted, whether it’s money, time, whatever resource it is.

So, as usual, let’s go through a little listen and repeat exercise, guys, where you guys can practice your pronunciation so just listen and repeat after me, guys. If you are working on your Australian accent obviously really try and mimic me. If you’re working on a different accent, you know, British or American, don’t necessarily try to copy my pronunciation exactly, but say these words after me. Okay. Let’s go.

To go

To go down

To go down the

To go down the gurgler x 5

My business went down the gurgler

Your business went down the gurgler

His business went down the gurgler

Her business went down the gurgler

Our business went down the gurgler

Their business went down the gurgler

Its business went down the gurgler

Great job, guys. Great job. Now remember, if you would like to go through the video today breaking down all of the different connected speech and pronunciation aspects of this exercise, make sure to go over to TheAussieEnglishClassroom.com and sign up where you can get access to all the videos for this episode and all the other courses as well.

Now, before we finish up, let’s go through the Aussie fact today where we’re going to be talking about severe weather, and specifically floods, right, you know, way too much water.

So, floods are a common occurrence in Australia and they happen when water from heavy rainfall causes rivers to overflow, to break their banks, and the surrounding, usually dry land, to be covered in water, to be submerged in water.

So, they occur every year in Australia and they cost the country between 300 and 400 million dollars in damages. Sadly, floods can also cause loss of life, most of which is 100 percent preventable, but occurs when people don’t take the right precautions and/or underestimate the severity of a flooding event.

Now, usually, heavy rainfall underpins most flooding events. In some places in southern parts of Australia, this can be due to snow melting at the end of winter or particularly severe storms caused by low-pressure systems in late winter or spring. Whereas in the north of Australia, they’re often caused by cyclones, which dump vast quantities of water once they make landfall in these wet seasons.

So, floods of this kind are often affected by the El Niño Southern Isolation. This is the oscillation between, I guess, amount of water in the climate. So, in the El Niño period, there’s less water. In the La Niña years, in the La Nina period, there’s a lot more water. So, in the La Nina period, heavy rains fall on Australia and floods can be even more common.

What are the different kinds of floods though?

So, we have slow-onset floods, which usually occur on inland rivers, and as the name suggests, they take a week or more to develop and they can hang around for months, and they’re caused by long periods of consistently heavy rainfall.

We have rapid-onset floods, which occur quickly and, as a result, they can be more catastrophic as there’s much less time for warnings to go out, you know, and subsequent time to react compared to slow-onset floods. Now, these occur on rivers in coastal areas and mountain headwaters of major rivers usually, so these river types that drain a lot more quickly, and thus, flooding begins and ends more rapidly than slow-onset floods.

Now, the last kind are flash floods and these occur when there is extremely heavy precipitation, so when it rains incredibly heavily, due to intense storms, which are more than local drainage systems, either natural or manmade, can handle. So, they occur with little to no warning and as a result have the highest propensity of any floods to cause loss of life. They’re often a big problem in cities due to ineffective drainage.

So, to protect against floods, there are a number of flood mitigation projects including building dams up river from flood-prone areas, as well as building levees and walls around river banks to prevent water from overflowing and reaching inhabited areas. However, these defenses can fail and extreme events and early detection is the best defense against floods. Thus, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology monitors river levels and rainfall in order to issue warnings as early as possible.

Now, a severe flood that I got experience with was in 2010-2011 in Queensland, ‘the Queensland Floods’ they were called, and these floods hit Queensland in the beginning of November in 2010 when I was doing fieldwork up the east coast of Australia catching goannas for my Master’s degree. And it was crazy, because there were thousands of people that had been evacuated from towns and cities. There were at least 90 towns with over 200,000 people affected. Damages for this flood cost something like 2.3 billion dollars, and tragically 33 people died in these floods with three still missing today.

So, that was a really bizarre time, because I remember seeing that story about a 12-foot-long bull shark, a man-eating shark, somehow swimming upstream out into the flood waters and swimming through a McDonald’s takeaway restaurant. So, there was a shark inside this restaurant. You’ll find that article online. Yeah. Anyway, floods in Australia.

I hope you enjoy this episode, guys. I hope you have an amazing weekend and I will chat to you soon. See ya!

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AE 515: 13 x Hand Expressions + TEST

By pete — 2 months ago

Learn Australian English in this episode of The Aussie English Podcast where I teach you 13 HAND EXPRESSIONS in English and give you a test at the end too.

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AE 515: 13 x Hand Expression + English Test

G’day, guys! What’s going on? I am Pete, the host of Aussie English and today I want to teach you a whole bunch of expressions to do with the hand. Let’s go!

Alright, so, number one, guys: is to live hand-to-mouth. To live hand-to-mouth. This means to live with the bare minimum of food of money of whatever resource it may be and to have none left over afterwards, to have none spare. For example: While studying at university I really lived hand-to-mouth. I’m still living hand-to-mouth even with this new promotion.

Number two: to be caught red-handed right? The idea there being you have blood on your hands because you have been caught in the act of doing something wrong or committing a crime. So, for example, the examiner caught the student cheating red-handed on the exam. I caught my son red-handed taking a cookie out of the cookie jar.

Number three: Second hand. Second hand. If you get something second hand, you’re getting it and it’s not new. It’s not brand new, it’s second hand, someone else has owned that before you so, for example, I’m going to buy a second-hand car. Did you get that jumper second hand from the op shop?

Number four: to give someone a hand, to give someone a hand, this means to assist someone with something they’re doing. Could you give me a hand with this heavy couch? I can’t really lift it on my own. I’m gonna give James a hand with his car on the weekend. We’re gonna repair it.

Number five: to be good with your hands. To be good with your hands. That one tends to be pretty obvious, but it’s usually used to mean that you are skilful with your hands when making something or when repairing something. Dave works as a plumber and has always been good with his hands. If you’re good with your hands, can you help me fix my broken camera?

Number six: at hand. To be at hand. I guess that’s you can reach that thing if it’s at hand, right? So, it is to be close by or to be readily accessible, you can get to it. So, for example, I’ll ring up the police and see if they have an officer at hand to investigate this crime. Do you have your mobile phone at hand?

Number seven: to wash your hands of something. To wash your hands of something. This means that you refuse to have anything more to do with something and it can be someone as well. After our fight, I washed my hands of Peter and I want nothing more to do with him. She washed her hands of cigarettes years ago, hasn’t touched a smoke since.

Number eight: to have your hands tied. To have your hands tied. If you have your hands tied, it is that you are unable to act freely and you have to follow the rules or abide by the law. The cop pulled me over and wanted to let me go, but his hands were tired and he had to give me the fine. The judge says her hands are tied and the law requires a harsh sentence.

Number nine: to know something like the back of your hand. If you know something like the back of your hand or more specifically if you know a place like the back of your hand, it is that you know that thing incredibly well, right? You would imagine you know the back of your hand pretty, well better than anyone else. I’ve lived in Melbourne my whole life and I know the place like the back of my hand. She knows this neighbourhood like the back of her hand.

Number ten: hands down! Hands down. This means easily and decisively, right? So, will usually use this when talking about the most extreme something, the best thing, the worst thing, right? For example: this restaurant is hands down the worst restaurant I’ve ever eaten at. The Matrix is hands-down the best film we’ve ever seen.

Number eleven: to take matters into your own hands. To take matters into your own hands. This means to deal with a problem yourself because the person who was meant to be dealing with it was unable to do so. After the police gave up the investigation, we decided to take matters into our own hands. I might have to take matters into my own hands. If you don’t deal with your misbehaving son.

Number 12: on one hand… on the other hand… So, we use on one hand or on the one hand to introduce a statement that we’re then going to compare to an opposite statement usually or a contrasting statement on the other hand. For example:

on one hand, I want to go to the party tonight, but on the other hand I have to study. On one hand, she wants to go to the gym and get fit, on the other hand, she’s too busy with work.

The very last one, guys, the very last one, number thirteen is: first-hand, and you can also hear this as second-hand and third-hand, fourth-hand etc. So, when we use first hand this usually means directly it’s happened to you directly. So, you’ll hear something first hand, you will learn something first hand, you will see something first hand and that means that you personally did that thing. If it’s second hand, it’s that you did so through someone else. If someone tells you a rumour about someone else, you’ve heard that rumour second hand or you’ve heard that information second hand through someone else and not the direct source, ok? So, examples: when the dog growled at the girl, she learned first-hand not to pull its tail. I heard second hand that Bill’s going to divorce his wife. So, there you go guys. There you go!

Those are 13 expressions that you can use that are related to the body part the hand. They’re very common, they’re very useful! So, learn those and if you have a video that you would like me to do in the future on expressions like this surrounding a theme, make sure to comment below and let me know which you would like me to do. And also, don’t forget to hit that like button and subscribe to see more videos like this. Thanks for joining me, guys. See you soon!

Let’s review with the test. I’ll show you the question followed by the answer if you need more time pause the video. Good job guys, well done! I hope you scored well, and I’ll see you next time.

****

Let’s review with a test!

I’ll show you the question followed by the answer. If you need more time, pause the video.

If you’re comparing two contrasting things you use the expression _______.

On the one hand, on the other hand
Hands are tied

If you’re comparing two contrasting things you use the expression on the one hand, on the other hand.

If you only make enough money for the bare necessities in life, you __________.

Live hand to mouth
Give someone a hand

If you only make enough money for the bare necessities in life, you live hand to mouth.

If you decide to deal with a problem because the person who should have dealt with it has failed to, you have _______.

Taken matters into your own hands
Your hands tied

If you decide to deal with a problem because the person who should have dealt with it has failed to, you have taken matters into your own hands.

If something is easily and decisively the best, it’s ______ the best.

Hands down
At hand

If something is easily and decisively the best, it’s hands down the best.

If you know a location incredibly well, you ______.

Know it like the back of your hand
Take matters into your own hands

If you know a location incredibly well, you know it like the back of your hand.

If you catch someone in the middle of committing a crime you _________.

Wash your hands of them
Caught them red-handed

If you catch someone in the middle of committing a crime you caught them red-handed.

If someone or something you need is readily accessible, it’s _______.

At hand
Second-hand

If someone or something you need is readily accessible, it’s at hand.

If you are amazing at repairing or making things, you are ________.

At hand
Good with your hands

If you are amazing at repairing or making things, you are good with your hands.

If you learn information directly from the source, you’ve learnt it _______.

Hands down
First-hand

If you learn information directly from the source, you’ve learnt it first-hand.

If you assist someone with something, you ________.

Give them a hand
Are good with your hands

If you assist someone with something, you give them a hand.

If you have to follow the law even if you don’t want to, your ________.

Hands down
Hands are tied

If you have to follow the law even if you don’t want to, your hands are tied.

If you buy something that isn’t brand new, you’ve bought it _______.

First-hand
Second-hand

If you buy something that isn’t brand new, you’ve bought it second-hand.

If you no longer want anything to do with someone, you’ve ______.

Washed your hands of them
Caught them red handed

If you no longer want anything to do with someone, you’ve washed your hands of them.

****

Good job, guys! Well done! I hope you scored well and I’ll see you next time!

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AE 511 – Expression: Not Have a Bar of It

By Admin — 2 months ago

Learn Australian English in this expression episode of The Aussie English Podcast where I teach you to use the expression NOT HAVE A BAR OF IT.

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AE 511 – Expression: Not Have a Bar of It

I’m Barry, living in American River, Kangaroo Island. I trap feral cats and give them another home. I keep a record of every cat that I catch and the total’s 1438.

I’m not that fussed if people have their cats. I just have the thing for the feral cat. People think I’m a cat hater, but I’m not. We just hate the feral ones. (The) domestic cat just sits and meows and says “Meow, feed me!”, but it’s the feral ones.

The cats that I’ve removed will probably have killed millions of birds. Birdlife around the river has dramatically improved.

****

G’day,
guys!

Far out! Far out! It is a boiling day today. It is sweltering. It is steaming. It is incredibly hot. So, yesterday, it was like 34 degrees, I think, today’s 36, and I know some of you are from places around the world where that is nothing.You know, I understand that, but for me in Australia, especially, in the very, very south part of Australia, the mainland, in Victoria, 36 is getting pretty hot. Although, yeah, we’ve had some days in the past that got up to 48. I remember it being 51 degrees inside my car at one point in the past and that was just ridiculous. Anyway.

It’s been hot, and I guess, I’ve been suffering from it more because I’ve been moving house. So, as you guys may or may not know, Kel and I recently moved into our new house, in fact, we moved in two days ago, but didn’t stay there the night, because we had all our stuff at my parents’ place still, the bed stuff and everything, so we stayed here, and they had air conditioning. So, that was one thing. But then last night or yesterday, we went down there and stayed the night there and I’ve been running around like a headless chook, running around like crazy, buying second-hand furniture and all sorts of things off Gumtree and Market Place on Facebook. You may have seen the video I did on that on YouTube. So, lots of collecting stuff, filling the car up, going to the new house, unloading the car, and doing that in the heat has been a massive chore. Anyway. I won’t rabbit on too much about that, but that’s what I’ve been up to.

Today, the movie scene at the very start there, guys, was a clip from a Vice documentary called ‘Shooting Cats’. Now, Vice is a really good organisation.They do lots of these interesting sort of docos and news articles, news items online that you can find if you just search, Vice, V-I-C-E. This documentary was about the problem of cats in Australia and the hunters who tried to reduce the numbers of these feral cats. So, it’s a contentious issue. You know, the house moggy, your average house cat, vs. the feral cat, the native animal assassin inAustralia.

So, watch that doco ‘Shooting Cats’. It’s about 20 or 30 minutes long. It’s a great chance to learn about Australian culture and to introduce yourselves to a few of Australia’s more colorful characters. Strong accent warning too. And there’ll be a link to that in the transcript. Anyway.

That aside, guys, this is the Aussie English Podcast, the number one podcast for anyone learning Australian English or anyone learning English in general and trying to get from intermediate to advanced and beyond in their English abilities.

So, it’s brought to you by The Aussie English Classroom. That is my online website with the courses that I put together for these episodes and a lot of other content to help you improve pronunciation, expand your vocab, and learn these expressions, as well as meet a lot of other people who are also learningEnglish. That you can sign up for at TheAussieEnglishClassroom.com and is just one point for your first month so get in there and give it a go. If that’s not your thing and you’re just after the transcripts for these episodes and theMP3s and you want to download them so you can listen and read anywhere, anytime, go to TheAussieEnglishPodcast.com, and click sign up, and for the price of one coffee per month you will get access to all of the transcripts, all of the MP3s for all of these episodes.Anyway.

That aside, let’s get into the Aussie joke for today, guys. So, considering we had the doco at the start they’re ‘Shooting Cats’. I thought, you know what, I will find a cat joke. Okay, so here’s the joke:

Why don’t cats like online shopping? Why don’t cats like online shopping online?Why don’t they like shopping online?

They prefer a ‘cat-alogue’. They prefer a ‘cat-alogue’.

Do you get it? Cat-alogue, right? So. you can shop online via websites, but you can also shop using catalogues, right, those sort of like magazine-style things, but for just selling products. So, that’s the joke.

So, today’s expression, guys. Today’s expression is ‘to not want a bar of something’ or ‘to not want a bar of it’ or ‘to not have a bar of something’ or ‘to not have a bar of it’, right. You’ll hear this in many different ways.Sometimes it will be with the verb ‘have’ sometimes with ‘want’, sometimes it’ll be ‘of something’. Sometimes you’ll just say ‘of it’ and this expression was suggested by Shiny in the Aussie English Classroom. Good job, Shiny. So, every week we suggest the expressions we want to vote on and the winning expression becomes the one for the week. Anyway.

Let’s get into it and define the different words in this expression.

So, obviously, ‘to have’, if you have something or you don’t have something that is that you possess the thing or you do not possess the thing, right. Like, I have a t-shirt on at the moment. I have two parents. I have a car. You know, I possess those things.

‘To want’. I am sure you will all know what ‘want’ is, guys, to desire something, to feel like something. You know, at the moment, I want it to be less hot. At the moment, I want a cold drink. ‘Want’.

And the last word there, guys, ‘a bar’. Now, I don’t exactly know why this has been used in this expression and what exactly it is referring to, but I would imagine that somehow it is referring to a long rigid piece of wood metal or similar material. So, for instance, if you go to jail, the… I guess, the metal sort of fence that is in front of your cell is made up of bars, right, bars of metal, bars of metal. So, it’s usually something that’s like long and thin, right. So, you could have a chocolate bar, right, a chocolate bar. So, if you don’t want a bar of something, I guess, in this case, it just means… ‘the bar’ means that you don’t want a part of that thing, right. I’m not 100% sure.Anyway.

Let’s go through the expression definition. So, ‘to not want a bar of something’. If you don’t want a bar of something, that is that you want nothing to do with that thing or it could even be someone. So, you want… you’re not interested at all in having anything related, to do, with that thing, right. So, I don’t want to be involved. I don’t want to… I just want nothing to do with it.Okay, I don’t want a bar of it. I want nothing to do with it.

And if you don’t have a bar of something, or if you’re not going to have a bar of something, you won’t have a bar or something, you wouldn’t have a bar of something, that can mean something slightly different meaning be unable to tolerate something, to dislike something, to not accept something, or to not allow something to happen. Okay.

So, let’s go through three examples of how I would use this expression or these expressions, right, to not want a bar of something and to not have a bar of something. Alright.

So, example number one. Imagine you’re a teenager, you’re at school, and the next class that you have to go to is PE, and ‘PE’ stands for Physical Education, right, so sports. So, maybe you’re a bit of a fat kid, you know, you’re a little bit chubby, you’re overweight, and you can’t run very well, you’ve always been a bit bad at sports, you know, you’re not very athletic, you’re not much of a jock, and you get out of breath really quickly. So, you really dislike exercise overall and you think it’s pointless and an unpleasant endeavor. In order to try and get out of PE class, you tell your teacher that you’ve got a trumpet lesson, and unfortunately, it clashes with the PE class, meaning it is on at the same time as the PE class. It clashes with it. So, you have to go and you have to do this trumpet lesson and you have to give the class amiss. However, the teacher knows how much you hate PE class and also that you’re not currently learning the trumpet, so that’s a bit of a lie, it’s a fib, you’ve made up that story, okay. So, although, you don’t want to have a bar of a class, because you hate it and want to get out of it, the teacher isn’t going to have a bar of your excuses and he won’t let you skip class. So, you don’t want a bar of PE class, you want to skip it, but the teacher isn’t going to have a bar of it, of your excuses, and makes you stay and do a class instead. So, you dislike PE class and you want to avoid it, you do not want a bar of it, but the teacher won’t allow you to do that, so he’s not having a bar of it. He’s not going to put up with you trying to skip class.

Example number two. Imagine you are a gymnast or maybe an athlete, you know, someone who likes to do parkour in the street where people run around the streets and treat stairs and other structures as a sort of obstacle courses to jump through and under and over, all of that sort of stuff. So, you were out training one day with your mates, but you had a fall and busted your leg, right, you hurt your leg on the concrete when you landed. It’s nothing too serious or severe, but after seeing the doctor you are told that you need to rest up, you need to take it easy, you need to recover, you need to recuperate, and give your leg a few weeks to heal before you go back to training. Despite the advice the doctor’s given you, you’re incredibly impatient and you can’t be bothered waiting. So, you want to go out and train a few days after the accident, but your leg is so sore that you can’t do it. Your leg isn’t going to have a bar of it. Your legs not going to allow you to do it, right. It doesn’t want anything to do with training. So, you might complain and say, Ah, my damn leg! I want to train, but it’s not having a bar of it, or it doesn’t want to have a bar of it.Your leg isn’t going to allow you to train, it won’t tolerate training, it won’t have a bar of it. You’ll just have to rest up for a week or so.

So, example number three. So, let’s use some informal Aussie slang. Okay. Imagine you’re a bloke, so an Australian male, and you’re married to a ripper of a sheila, right. And ‘a ripper of something’ means ‘an awesome thing’, and ‘a sheila is ‘a woman’. So, ‘a ripper of a sheila’, ‘a great woman’. You’re a bloke married to a ripper of a sheila, and you guys have a bun in the oven, she’s up the duff, she’s expecting, she’s pregnant, right. They’re all different expressions for pregnant. And your first little nipper, your first little child, is going to be born in a few months. So, when your little bub is born, ‘bub’ as in ‘baby’, you think it’s still all good for you to nick off down the pub, so ‘go down to the pub’, every other night or so, go to barbies with your mates, sink a few tinnies a few stubbies, so these are cans and glass bottles of beer, tinnies and stubbies, and leave your wife at home who’s a recent first time mum all home alone with the bub to deal with it all herself.If she snaps though and she won’t tolerate you doing this, she won’t put up with you leaving her all alone at home having fun with your mates, she’s not going to have a bar of it, right. She doesn’t want a bar of it. She’s not going to have a bar of it. So, she won’t allow you to just leave her at home all alone with the baby, with the bub, and let you go off and have fun with your mates. Maybe she’s upset too, because she thinks you don’t want a bar of her.So, maybe she thinks you want nothing to do with her. You’re annoyed with her, right. You don’t want a bar of her. You’re not interested in her or the baby.You want nothing to do with them, you dislike them, you don’t want a bar of them. So, being a ripper of a new dad, though, you decide you’ll take it easy, you’ll stay at home, you won’t party anymore, you’ll spend some quality time with your ripper of a sheila, with your wife, your missus, and your bub for the near future and you’ll do your duty. Good man. Good man. Alright, guys.

So, hopefully now, you understand the expression ‘to not want a bar of something ‘or ‘to not want a bar of it’ meaning to want nothing to do with it, with something, with someone. And the expression ‘to not have a bar of something’ or someone or ‘to not have a bar of it’, and this means to be unable to tolerate something, to dislike something, to not accept something, to not allow something to happen.

So, as usual, let’s go through a little listen and repeat exercise, guys, where you guys can practice your English pronunciation, okay. So, concentrate on the wayI’m linking these words, the intonation I’m using, the pronunciation, and remember, if you want to get the video breakdown of this exercise and all the other exercises in all the other courses, make sure that you sign up at theAussieEnglishClassroom.com.It’s just one dollar for your first month. The link will be in the transcript, but check it out if you want to work on your spoken English. Anyway, let’s go.

To have

To have a

To have a bar

To have a bar of

To have a bar of it x 5

I’m not going to have a bar of it.

You’re not going to have a bar of it.

She’s not going to have a bar of it.

He’s not going to have a bar of it.

We’re not going to have a bar of it.

They’re not going to have a bar of it.

It’s not going to have a bar of it.

Good job. There is a lot of connected speech going on there, right.

‘I’m not going_to have_a bar_of_it’.

There is a lot of connected speech. Remember, to check out the video guys in theAussie English Classroom to learn all of those tricks and tips. Anyway.

Let’s go through the Aussie English fact for the day guys and then we will finish up and I will let you continue on your merry way, with your day, you know, I’ll let you keep doing whatever it is that you’re doing.

So, as we had that little documentary at the start that I was showing you that was’Shooting Cats’ talking about feral cats in Australia, I thought that we could talk a bit about feral cats in Australia and why there’s such a problem. Okay.

So,
how did cats get to Australia?

Cats first arrived obviously with the first Europeans. So, on the first ships that came to Australia, from when the First Fleet arrived and onwards there were definitely domestic cats in Australia, and it’s even possible that the earlierDutch ship wrecks around Australia released domestic cats onto the continent.

So, why were they on ships in the first place, though?

Cats were on ships, as they had been used elsewhere for millennia, for pest control, right. They had been there in order to keep rats, mice, and even cockroaches at bay, to try and control those pest species, to control their numbers.

So, once the First Fleet arrived in Australia, these cats were brought ashore and allowed to sort of roam freely in the hopes of controlling pests around the early colony. So, these free-roaming domestic cats, obviously, escaped or just simply wandered off into the bush, but they were also intentionally released around farmland and homesteads in order to control rats and mice and rabbits as well. And rabbits are another problem pest in Australia that had also been released at about the same time as a source of food that people could hunt.

So, historical records date the introduction of cats to Australia to around 1804, and that the first cats became feral around Sydney by about 1820. And by the early 1900s, concern was expressed at the pervasiveness of the cat problem. So, they were already a cat problem by the early 1900s. Okay.

So, cats became feral and they lived in the bush in Australia, but why is that a problem? You know, why are cats… why are cute, cuddly nice little cats a problem in Australia?

So, terrestrially speaking, that means in terms of talking about the land as opposed to the ocean, cats as a group, a group of mammals, are some of the most successful predators to currently be inhabiting any parts of the world, so, the world’s environments and habitats, cats are an amazing predator. They are killing machines. In whichever environment you find them, they are stealthy assassins, stealthy killing machines, and despite being relatively newcomers toAustralia, they are as successful here as anywhere else in the world, potentially even more so, because so many of the animals in Australia are naive to cats, they do not understand that cats pose a threat, right, because they haven’t evolved with cats in the local environment.

So, cats also have very few predators, namely dingoes and wedge-tailed eagles, Australia’s largest eagle, and dingoes are native dog that we have here in Australia. So, where these native Aussies don’t live, the dingoes and the wedge-tailed eagles, cats reign supreme as the local apex predator, meaning the predator at the top of the food chain. They don’t have to fear anyone eating them and they can pretty much eat anything else.

Feral cats also have a vicious and voracious appetite. They will eat pretty much anything that lands on their plate, anything that walks in front of them, right, anything that they come across. Thus, they are very bad news for any ground-nesting birds, any lizards, small mammals, frogs, insects that also live on the ground, and they have likely underpinned, that is they have caused, the population collapse and extinction of many Australian native animals, which is quite tragic. So, they are currently thought to threaten the existence of at least 35 birds, 36 mammals, 7 reptiles, and 3 amphibians. Really, really tragic.

So, today there are estimated to be about 3.3 million pet cats in Australia, that is domestic cats, living in houses, and they’re found in about 29% of Aussie homes. In comparison, so keep that number in mind, 3.3 million pets, there is between 18 and 23 million feral cats living, prowling, stealthily moving about all corners of the Australian continent except tropical rainforest. So, there’s almost one cat… there’s potentially one cat per person roaming around free in Australia killing native animals.

So, what does this mean? Well, greater than 18 million cats need to eat a lot of food and that means 7 million native animals a day, to be precise, which equates to a staggering 27 billion animals per year that these cats eat in Australia. So, obviously, it is a heavy toll on the Australian environment, well, and the animals.

Besides the obvious threat to native wildlife that this ferocious apex predator poses, they also pose a significant threat to your average household moggy, your average household cat, as they can transmit diseases, they can fight and injure your cats as well. So, they’re a big, big, big problem. This is why manyAussies, including your average Joe to your hunters as well as your conservationists and environmentalists have declared war on the feral cat and want to see them eradicated from the wild.

So, though, you may compare them to your average domestic cat, they are completely different, they are a completely different beast. They are vicious wild animals that pose a threat to the existence of numerous native species.

If you own a cat in Australia, this is why it’s so important to keep them inside at all times so as to keep them away from other feral cats or people’s pet cats next door and also to prevent them running away, getting injured, and killing native animals too, most importantly. Anyway, guys.

I hope you enjoy this episode. I hope you sort of have a bit more of a deeper understanding of Australian culture and to understand why cats are an amazing pet, but it’s so important to keep them inside. Keep them locked up. Don’t just let them roam around freely. Okay. Anyway.

I hope you have an amazing weekend, guys, and I will chat to you soon. All the best. Peace out. See you later.

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AE 507 – Expression: Out of the Blue

By Admin — 3 months ago

Learn Australian English in this expression episode of The Aussie English Podcast where I teach you to use the expression OUT OF THE BLUE.

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AE 506 – Expression: Out of the Blue

A male surfer’s been killed in a shark attack near Wedge Island north of Perth. The attack happened just after 9 O’clock local time. Joining us now for more on the story is Sky News Perth reporter Michael Hopkins. Mike, what do we know at this stage?

Yes, hello. Well, what we know at this stage is that police have confirmed that it was, indeed, a fatal shark attack at Wedge Island, a holiday spot to Perth’s north at 9 O’clock this morning. Now, police are still searching the area with boats and also with quad bikes on the beach in a bid to find the surfer’s remains.

****

What is up, guys? What is up, you mob? How are you going? This is the first episode where you guys get to hear from ‘married Pete’.

So, how’s it going? Sorry, it’s been a little while with these expression episodes. I hope, as well, that you’ve got to check out the marriage and wedding episode that I published recently on the podcast and on YouTube. So, go and check that out if you haven’t and if you want to hear about all of what happened last weekend with Kel and me getting married. It was an amazing day. Anyway.

So, the video from the start there, guys, the video from the start was from Sky News, which you can check out at SkyNews.com.au. You can also check them out on YouTube and Sky News if you would like to watch stories about Australia and other parts of the world.

So, that was about a shark attack that occurred in Australia, and Australia is relatively well-known for having shark attacks relatively commonly, I guess. It’s up there in the most dangerous places in the world for sharks, but we will talk about that later on in the Aussie Fact as well as about some other animals that are more likely to kill you than sharks, and those animals might surprise you.

So, as usual guys, if you would like to support the podcast and you would like to get access to all the transcripts and all the MP3s for these episodes, make sure that you go to theAussieEnglishPodcast.com, go to the menu click ‘Sign Up’, and for just $4.99 per month you will get access to everything.

On top of that, guys, if you would like to get access to the Aussie English Classroom and all the courses that I make for these expression episodes with vocab, with expression videos, with pronunciation videos, and other courses too with Australian interviews and Australian pronunciation, make sure that you go to theAussieEnglishClassroom.com, and then click ‘Enroll’, and sign up and get in there and start levelling up your English.

I want to say a big thank you to all of you guys who signed up in the last week. We had been doing a special promotion for year memberships and 3-month memberships and a heap of you guys signed up. So, it is so good to see that the Aussie English Classroom is expanding and helping so many people. And it was a way of thanking you guys for your hard work and giving you an amazing deal when you sign up for three months or a year.

Now, those deals are gone, unfortunately, for now. They are gone. However, you are still able to sign up. You just won’t save the same amount of money. Okay. So, you’ll just jump over to theAussieEnglishClassroom.com if you’re interested in that. Anyway. Enough of talking about all that stuff, guys. Get that out of the way and let’s get into the Aussie English joke.

So, today’s expression’s ‘out of the blue’ and that have me thinking about sharks. You might see the connection later on. And so, I thought I’ll try and find a shark joke. Okay. So, here’s the joke.

What did the seal with a broken arm say to the shark? What did a seal with a broken arm say did the shark?

Do not consume if ‘seal’ is broken. It’s so stupid. Do not consume if ‘seal’ is broken.

I wonder if you get that. Alright, let me explain. So, often when you go to the shops, if you buy something that’s in a jar or in some kind of packet, quite often it will say that if the seal of the jar of the seal of the packet is broken, don’t consume the food inside, because it means that air has gotten in and there may be bacteria in there and the food may have gone off, it may have gone bad. Okay. So, you’ll often see, ‘Do not consume if seal is broken’.

So, the joke here is that obviously a seal is also that animal, you know, that lives in the ocean and jumps on the land sometimes to sunbathe than have babies, but they are often hunted by sharks, and so, the seal with a broken arm says to the shark, ‘don’t consume if seal is broken’. Jesus. Anyway, guys.

Today’s expression is ‘out of the blue’ and this came from Fatimah in the Aussie English Classroom. We have the Facebook group. We vote on these expressions. Fatimah suggested this one and she crushed it, she did very well, and it got voted on by everyone. Let’s go through and define the words in ‘out of the blue’.

So, ‘out of something’, right. ‘Out of something’. If you’re out of something, it’s that you’re coming out of something, you’re exiting something, right. It’s sort of the opposite of going into something, ‘out of something’ is leaving something, from being within something. Okay. Pretty self-explanatory. I’m sure you guys know what ‘out of something’ is.

‘The blue’. Now, this might be more confusing. ‘Blue’ is obviously a colour, right. The sky is blue. The ocean is blue. My eyes are blue. What else is blue? I don’t know. Other things are blue. Anyway. In this case, though, it doesn’t refer to the colour, specifically. It’s referring to the sky, which I guess is blue. But ‘the blue’ in this case means the sky.

So, let’s define the expression ‘out of the blue’. I wonder if you guys have heard this. Something happens out of the blue, right. If it’s… just appears out of the blue. What could that mean?

‘Out of the blue’ means out of nowhere, to appear unexpectedly or surprisingly, you know. You’re not expecting that thing to happen or to appear. It is appearing out of the blue. It’s appearing out of nowhere.

So, ‘the blue’ in this case refers to the sky, the blue sky, as we said, and usually, thunderstorms with, you know, thunder and lightning, don’t tend to happen when there’s a clear blue sky. But when it does happen, it’s a surprise that no one expects, it’s unexpected, it’s surprising. And apparently an older version of this expression was ‘a bolt out of the blue’ or ‘a bolt from the blue’, which referred to a completely unexpected and surprising appearance of a thunderbolt from a clear blue sky, right, out of nowhere.

So, we can use this literally, if someone, say, appears in front of you. They appear out of nowhere. You know, it’s shocking, it’s surprising, unexpected. But we can use it to for things that people say or maybe emotions, you know, non-physical things, right. So, if someone suddenly says something or burps or yawns or, you know, does something like that where you could say, oh, that was out of the blue. You know, I got upset and it was out of the blue.

So, let’s go through some examples, guys, to try and show you how I would use this expression in my day-to-day life. Okay.

So, example number one. Imagine that you are going to the beach with your mates. You’re about to hit the beach. You want to go for a surf or a body board or a body surf or maybe just a cheeky dip in the ocean at your favourite beach, your favourite Australian beach, maybe Bondi Beach or Bell’s Beach down here where Rip Curl Pro is often held each year, the surfing competition. So, you all dive into it. You pile out of the car when you get to the beach. You put your wettie is on, or maybe you’re wearing board shorts, you put your boardies on, your grab your boards and you dive into the water to catch a first wave. The waves are about six foot. It’s incredibly clean, you know, it’s not choppy, it’s not… the water’s not rough, there’s an offshore wind as well making the waves perfect, and you and your mates are carving it up each time you catch one of these incoming waves. When all of a sudden, out of the blue, one of your mates spots a large fin pop above the surface of the water a few metres away. Now, you all panic, you all frantically start swimming to shore and fear the worst. You think, oh no, it’s going to be a shark and it’s going to ruin our awesome day. But it turns out to be a lone dolphin who wants to join your ranks to catch a wave or two itself. So, it just appeared out of the blue, unexpectedly, out of nowhere.

Example number two. You’re at home on a weekend and you plan on binge watching your favorite TV show, right. I was doing this recently watching The Walking Dead. So, you’ve got to drink out of the fridge, you know, your favorite beer, your favorite soft drink, you’ve got some chips or your favorite snack, and you’ve kicked back on the couch and you’ve put the first episode on. So, you get through most of the show, but the tension starts to build, the show starts to climax, there’s a bit of suspense, something big is about to happen in the show when all of a sudden, out of the blue, the power goes off, the TV screen goes black. You might scream out, no! I wanted to see what was going to happen. You’ll lose it, you get upset, because you can’t see what was about to happen on the show, because out of the blue, unexpectedly, surprisingly, out of nowhere, the power went out.

Example number three. You’re at home one day cleaning the house after your kids have been playing and they’ve made a bit of a mess of the place, right. They’d been mucking around with finger-paint or food or something. They’ve made a mess. So, you’re busy cleaning away, when all of a sudden, the doorbell goes or someone knocks on the door. So, you go and open it up and it turns out that it’s a long-lost friend who you haven’t seen since you were at school, you know, maybe 20 years ago. So, you might say, Wow! How did you know I was here? That’s so out of the blue. Where did you come from? I haven’t seen you in yonks. I haven’t seen you in donkey’s years. I haven’t seen you in ages. But what an awesome surprise. It’s great to see you even if it is randomly and out of the blue.

So, hopefully guys you understand the expression now ‘out of the blue’. It is for something to appear physically or figuratively out of nowhere, unexpectedly, surprisingly.

So, as usual, let’s go through a listen and repeat exercise where you guys can practice your pronunciation. You can work on your Australian accent if that is something that you are trying to master at the moment. Listen and repeat after me. Or work on the accent that you are currently targeting, you know, British, US, whatever it is, and say these words with that accent. Let’s go.

Out
Out of
Out of the
Out of the blue x 5

It’s pretty interesting, actually. There’s quite a bit of pronunciation and connected speech modifying there when I say those words by themselves or when I say them together, right. Out, out of, out of the, out of the blue. That’s interesting.

Anyway, we’ll go over that more in the Aussie English Classroom pronunciation video for this episode, guys. Remember to sign up to that if you are interested in improving your English and improving your pronunciation. TheAussieEnglishClassroom.com. Oh! And I almost forgot, we’ll go through a sentence and now we will conjugate through, ‘I appeared out of the blue’, ‘you appeared out of the blue’. Okay, so listen and repeat after me.

I appeared out of the blue

You appeared out of the blue

He appeared out of the blue

She appeared out of the blue

We appeared out of the blue

They appeared out of the blue

It appeared out of the blue

Man, there’s a lot of t-flaps going on there. ‘It appeared out of the blue’.

Alright. Aussie English Fact for the day, guys. So, sharks. I wanted to talk about shark attacks as they tend to occur out of the blue, right, and they’re a common occurrence in Australia, at least the media would have you believe this. It tends to always be one on the on the TV every week or two, you hear about a shark attack. And then I want to talk about shark culling, okay? And this is a hot topic that pollies, politicians, are always yacking about on the telly as well.

Alright, so unsurprisingly shark attacks have been happening in Australia since the first humans arrived here nearly 50,000 or 60,000 years ago when they first surrendered to the enticing ocean waters that surrounded the continent. The earliest shark attack that was fatal that’s on record occurred in the early years of British colonisation in Port Jackson where an Aboriginal woman was swimming and she was, quote, “bitten in two” by a shark.

Between the years of 1958 and 2018, there have been 536 shark attacks in Australia, and we are number two on the list of shark attacks in the world. 73 of these shark attacks proved to be fatal to the victims. Australia comes in at number two with the US at number one with more than double the number of shark attacks at 1104. But despite this, there are actually twice as many deaths in Australia as there are in the US who recorded only 35 fatalities in the same period of time. Interesting. It seems that, statistically speaking, in Australia you have the highest chance of being attacked and killed by a shark than anywhere else in the world.

If you’re interested in taking your chances at the most dangerous beach in Australia, then I suggest heading off to Coffin Bay in South Australia whose name seems appropriate, although, there may not be enough of you left to warrant using a coffin.

Although, shark attacks often receive a lot of air time on national and state news, you’re far more likely to be killed by a bunch of other less-suspecting and cute and cuddly animals Down Under.

In 2011, Australia’s National Coronial Information System, or NCIS, released its first report into the trends and patterns surrounding animal-related deaths in Australia where they evaluated the first decade of this century from the years 2000 to 2010. The report discovered that horses, including ponies and donkeys, were Australia’s most deadly animal causing 77 deaths in a 10-year period. So, 7.7 deaths a year.

Next on the list of cute and cuddly but more likely to kill you than a shark were cows, including bulls and cattle, which accounted for 33 deaths, 16 of which, interestingly enough, were during motor vehicle accidents. So, to any cows listening, get off the bloody road!

Number three on the list was man’s best friend, dogs, who killed 27 people from attacks most of which were children under the age of four and the elderly.

And the final unsuspecting death bringer to humans on this list before sharks is the iconic and much beloved Australian kangaroo, which accounted for 18 deaths, albeit, indirectly, through motor vehicle accidents. So, again, Skippy, get off the road!

Place five and six was a tie with bees and sharks both accounting for 16 deaths in a 10-year period. So, 1.6 deaths per year. So, there you go.

Next time you’re second guessing taking a dip at Bondi Beach for fear of being devoured by the tooth-filled gnashing jaws of a shark, remember, that you’re much more likely to die from animals like horses, cows, kangaroos, dogs, and even bees than you are sharks.

So, why do sharks attack humans? Are they hunting us like the movie Jaws famously depicts? The answer is definitely no. Feeding is not the reason that sharks attack humans. In fact, humans don’t provide enough high-fat meat for sharks, which need a lot of energy to power their large muscular bodies. Sharks are just inquisitive animals and have no hands to explore the world around them and these unknown objects that they might stumble across bobbing around in the ocean. Therefore, they’re left with a jaw full of razor-sharp teeth to satiate their curiosity and explore any objects they may come across. Unfortunately, for us though, one simple exploratory nip from a large shark is usually a grievous and life-threatening injury to any human when coming from a great white, a tiger, or a bull shark, the three sharks that are the most common culprits for human fatalities.

Unfortunately, beach-loving Australians are insistent on partaking in one of their favorite pastimes, their favourite hobbies, enjoying the beaches and oceans around the country. And shark attacks often cause hysteria in the media and are quickly commandeered by politicians looking to gain favour and win votes by stirring up fear and promising easy solutions.

This is where the contentious issue of shark nets and drum lines come into play in Australia. Shark nets are often placed in the water to prevent sharks entering certain beaches, but they are criticised by environmentalists and conservationists alike who claim that these nets are extremely destructive to marine life and often harm or even kill sharks, which are an important part of a healthy marine ecosystem.

Drum lines are unmanned aquatic traps used to lure, capture, and kill large sharks using baited hooks connected to floating drums that indiscriminately kill any shark curious enough to take a bite of the bait. They’re often deployed in locations after an attack in the hopes of catching the perpetrating shark that attacked a human or at least reducing the numbers of big sharks in the area. However, like shark nets, drum lines have been heavily criticised as being ineffective, cruel, unethical, non-scientific, and environmentally destructive. One analogy I saw was if a tradie murdered one person and then disappeared, would killing five other Australian tradies at random make Australia safer?

So, finishing up, every time you decide to take a dip in the ocean you’re obviously at risk of a shark attack. True. But you’re much more likely to die from things like kangaroos and horses in car accidents than you are from a shark. So, just be safe, be smart, and if you want to bring your risk to 0%, stay out of the water. Simple as that.

Anyway, guys thank you so much. It’s always a pleasure when you guys join me and listen to these episodes. I know that they’re helping a lot of people. You get back to me, you send me emails, you send me comments on Instagram, on Facebook, and it means a lot to me, guys, and I’ll want to give you a big, big, big thank you from both me and Kel to everyone who gave us their well-wishes and congratulations after the wedding. That really meant a lot to both of us. So, thank you so much, guys, and we were so happy to be able to share that experience with you as well on Instagram and on YouTube.

So, that’s it for this week guys. I hope you enjoy the episode. I hope to see you in the Aussie English Classroom and I will chat to you very soon. See you, guys.

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AE 502 – Expression: Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

By pete — 4 months ago

Learn Australian English in this expression episode of The Aussie English Podcast where I teach you to use PUT YOUR MONEY WHERE YOUR MOUTH IS.

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AE 502 – Expression: Put Your Money Where Your Mouth Is

The National Museum has acquired a rare 1813 ‘holey’ dollar, the first currency minted in Australia.

The coin dates back to early New South Wales when the colony faced a currency shortage.

Governor Macquarie imported 40,000 Spanish dollars and cut their centres out creating 80,000 distinctive coins known as ‘holey’ dollars and dumps.

They circulated only until around 1822, and by 1822, they started to get recalled, and by 1829, they were taken out of circulation completely, and most of them of course, because they were made of silver, were melted down and reused for other purposes or sent back to England as bullion. So, there’s not that many actually survived.

The museum paid $130,000 for the coin. It’ll go on display next year next to Governor Macquarie’s desk and sword in the museum’s Landmark Gallery.

****

G’day, guys. What is going on?

I have just popped back from the gym and I am wrecked, I am stuffed, I am buggered. Oh, I did legs day today. So, I’ve been trying to get back to the gym, hit the gym, you know, three or four times a week. Kel’s been coming as well and trying to learn how to swim.

So, there’s a gym up the road that has, like, basketball courts, a swimming pool, and a weights area to do workouts. And so, I usually go to the weights area and try and, you know, run for a little bit, do some free weights, do some weights on the machines, work out, and Kel tries to come up a few times a week and learn to swim, ’cause she can’t swim.

So, obviously, in Australia, that’s a very important thing for us. It’s a very big cultural thing where we learn to swim usually from day one, right, as kids, as soon as you’re born we… like, for example, my niece is getting swimming lessons and she’s not even a year old yet.

So, yeah, that’s been really fun, but I am buggered, I’m wrecked. I got back, did legs, it was legs day, and I’m very tired after doing some squats, deadlifts, and a bunch of other exercises on the machines. Anyway.

That was a bit of an intro, you mob. Welcome to today’s episode. That intro scene was about the ‘holey dollar’, which was something I’d never known about. I actually learned about this only when I started learning about convicts and early Australia thanks to Aussie English. So, there you go.

That was a story from ABC News the YouTube channel is ABC News on YouTube, obviously. Check it out. It is a great resource if you want to practice the Australian accent.

Guys, remember that if you would like access to all the transcripts and MP3s for the podcast episodes, go to theAussieEnglishPodcast.com, go to ‘sign up’ in the menu there at the top left-hand corner, sign up, and for the price of one coffee per month you will get all the downloads that come with the podcast.

And also, the Podcast is brought to you by the Aussie English Classroom. So, this is where I have all of my courses full of lessons with video lessons, with quizzes, exercises, and it’s designed to get you from intermediate to advanced, and beyond in your English. So, make sure that you go to theAussieEnglishClassroom.com, sign up, give it a go. It is a dollar for your first month, guys. You’ve got nothing to lose and you can cancel at any time. Anyway.

All of that blah, blah, blah aside, welcome to today’s episode. The expression is ‘put your money where your mouth is’, but before we get into that, let’s do the Aussie joke.

So, the Aussie joke is:.

Why didn’t the 50-cent piece roll down the hill with the 20-cent piece?

Okay? So, why didn’t the 50-cent piece… that coin that is octagonal, I think. It’s got eight different edges on it. Octagonal. Why didn’t the 50-cent piece roll down the hill with the 20-cent piece? Here’s the answer. Here’s the answer.

Because it had more ‘cents’. It had more ‘cents’. Get it? So, we can use ‘cents/sense’ two ways there.

‘A cent’ is one hundredth of a dollar, right. So, fifty cents or twenty cents, right. That is half a dollar, fifty cents, or twenty cents, a fifth of a dollar.

So, we can also use the word ‘sense’, though, if you’ve got some sense, or you’ve got a lot of sense, to mean that you are very clever. Okay? That you are practical and you avoid stupid things, right. You’ve got a lot of sense. Okay. So, that’s the pun there.

Anyway, today’s expression, guys, ‘put your money where your mouth is’. This is from Lima. She suggested this in the Aussie English Classroom Facebook group. Good job, Lima. This is a really good one and she has been vying for the expression… well, to have the winning expression for quite a while now, and she finally got it. Good job Lima.

So, let’s go through and define the different words in this expression. It’s quite a long one, ‘put your money where your mouth is’.

So, ‘to put something somewhere’, you know, put your something where your something is. If you put something somewhere, you place it somewhere, right. Maybe you’re holding something and you put it down, or you put it on something, right? You put it, you place that thing.

‘Where’. I think you guys are going to know what the word ‘where’ means. ‘Where’ is in a location, right. Put your money ‘where’ your mouth is. In this case ‘where’ is referring to the location of your mouth. Okay?

‘Money’. Now, ‘money’ is currency, cash, coins, banknotes. The thing that you used to pay for things, right, to buy stuff. You buy stuff with money. Okay? ‘Money’.

And the very last one, ‘mouth’. ‘Mouth’. I am sure you know what ‘a mouth’ is. I am currently with my mouth. I put food in my mouth when I eat. My teeth in my mouth, my tongue is in my mouth, my gums are in my mouth, my lips are round my mouth. You know what ‘mouth’ is.

So, the expression ‘put your money where your mouth is’, what does it mean? I hope you’ve heard this one before. It’s a good one. It’s a good one.

So, literally, you could say, ‘put your money where your mouth is’, if you’re asking someone to back up what they’ve said with money, right, with cash. So, they’ve said something and you’re challenging them to place a wager on what they’ve said, right, to bet money on what they’ve said being true. So, ‘put your money where your mouth is’.

But, figuratively, it can mean to take action to support your statements or opinions, right. So, the same sort of thing you’re challenging someone to do something or to show that something is true, what they’ve said is an opinion or a statement is true, but they don’t necessarily have to put money down on it, right. They don’t have to wager anything. They don’t have to bet anything.

And also, to show that your actions are not just your words, right. It’s kind of like that expression ‘walk the walk as well as talk the talk’, right? So, you… ‘walk the walk’ is like actually do the physical thing that you had said ‘talking the talk’, right? You always talk the talk, but never walk the walk.

So, usually, this kind of expression is used when you’re challenging someone to prove what they’re saying is true, right. If they’re boasting about something or saying something that you think, mmmm, I don’t reckon that’s true, you might say to them, ‘put your money where your mouth is’.

So, let’s go through some examples of how I would use this in day to day life, okay.

Example number one. Imagine that you are having a bit of a yarn with your mate, right. You(‘ve) got a few blokes over at your house, you’re having a barbie, chilling out, you are having a beer, you’re relaxing, it’s a party, and for one reason or another you’re chatting to this guy who turns it into a competition and starts boasting about his achievements or his abilities, right. So, he’s trying to outdo you, he’s trying to say he’s better than you by saying he can do certain things you can’t. You know, maybe he says, I can do a backflip, you know, or I can do a handstand for 10 minutes. And you might say, if you don’t believe him, well, why don’t you put your money where your mouth is? You know, I bet you fifty dollars you can’t do a backflip right here, right now. I bet you fifty bucks that you can’t do a handstand for ten minutes. You know, put your money where your mouth is, walk the walk, don’t just talk the talk, show me that you can do this. I’m… I want you to prove it, okay. Don’t just boast. So, that’s the literal example, right. You’re asking someone to bet money.

Example number two. Imagine you are a girl and you’re out with the girls one night at a nightclub, you know, you’re having a girls’ night out. You’re a single woman, you know, you’re available. You are looking for some kind of man to get to know and hopefully have a relationship with. So, you’re looking for a hunk. That’s a word we use for like an attractive man, you know, and men don’t tend to use that word. Women use that word to define or talk about other men, right. I would never call another man ‘a hunk’ unless I was gay and was attracted to that man, the same way I wouldn’t call another man ‘beautiful’, right. It’s gendered language. Women call men ‘hunks’, and men call women ‘beautiful’, but they don’t use those words on the opposite sexes. So, you’re chilling out with your girls, your mates, your girlfriends, in a booth in a nightclub and you having a few drinks, and this drop-dead gorgeous man walks in, you know, this hunk of a man walks into the club, up to the bar, and he orders a drink. One of the girls might say to you, if I wanted, I bet I could get him to buy me a drink, to which you might reply. well, why don’t you put your money where your mouth is? Go and do it. You know, prove it. Take some action to support your statement or your opinion that you could get this guy to buy you a drink. Go and actually do that right now. Put your money where your mouth is. You know, show us all that you’re right. You’re talking the talk, but we want you to walk the walk.

Example number three. Imagine you’ve got a company that’s always talking about how it puts the environment first and cares about being green and fighting climate change, you know, it’s trying to reduce emissions or it’s donating money to reforest land. However, you find out it’s actually polluting the land a whole lot. It’s not donating anything to fight climate change, and thus, by its actions, doesn’t seem to care about what it says it does. So, you could say, this company never puts its money where its mouth is. The company talks the talk, but never walks the walk. It never puts its money where its mouth is, right. It doesn’t donate this money. It doesn’t do what it says it does.

So, hopefully now, guys, you understand the expression ‘to put your money where your mouth is’. You know, (it) could be used literally to say back up your words with money, you know, place a wager on what you said as true. But it could mean figuratively, take some sort of action to support what you’ve said is true, right, to support your opinion, to support your statement that you’ve just made.

So, as usual, let’s go through a little listen and repeat exercise, guys, where you can practice your pronunciation. I’m going to say a few phrases and I want you to listen and then repeat after me. Okay? Let’s go.

To
To put
To put your
To put your money
To put your money where
To put your money where your
To put your money where your mouth
To put your money where your month is x 5

Good job. Now I’m going to do this in the present continuous tense, okay? We’ll conjugate it and will use the different pronoun so that you can practice these conjugations. Let’s go.

I’m putting my money where my mouth is
You’re putting your money where your mouth is
He’s putting his money where his mouth is
She’s putting her money where her mouth is
We’re putting our money where our mouths are
They’re putting their money where their mouths are
It’s putting its money where its mouth is

Good job, guys! Don’t forget if you would like to go through these different pronunciation exercises with a fine tooth comb and learn a lot more about English pronunciation, connected speech, intonation, all that good stuff, make sure that you sign up at theAussieEnglishClassroom.com, as today I will have a long video explaining all the different little bits and pieces that are going on here when I speak quickly and fluidly that make me sound a lot more natural. Okay. So, you can sign up and you’ll get access to the video for this episode, the other videos for this this course as well for this episode, and all the other content, all the other past courses as well.

So, Aussie English fact wise. I was thinking, how can I tie in the Aussie English fact today with money, right, because obviously ‘put your money where your mouth is’, that’s the most obvious theme for this expression. So, this is what have me think about the ‘holey dollar’, that ‘holey dollar’, the dollar with a hole in it, from early Australian history. So, I thought about doing a little bit of a fact on currency, money, in early Australian history. Okay? So, let’s go.

When colonists first arrived in Australia establishing a stable and acceptable currency was obviously far from the top of the important to do list of the colonists here.

The First Fleet arrived on Australian shores with only the currency it had onboard the ships, which included about 300 pounds of English coinage. And I don’t know if that’s pounds as in a pound of, you know, unit currency from England, or pound as in weight, which is… what, 2.2 pounds is a kilogram. So, I don’t know which one of those it is.

This money was held by Captain Phillip, and the only other money that was there on the ship and that made it to the colony was a bunch of other foreign currencies that had been brought over in the pockets and purses of officers, sailors, and passengers, a.k.a. convicts or British slaves. So, these other currencies included English guineas, shillings, and pence, Dutch guilders, Indian rupees, that was surprising, and Spanish reales.

So, the fact that numerous different currencies were being used simultaneously was really confusing for early colonists. The value of these currencies often related to their metal content, but arguments, disputes, and disagreements often arose, often took place, when people didn’t agree on the value of these different currencies.

The other issue with currency was the fact that there was a lack of these coins and they were often taken out of the colony by trading ships, ships that came to the colony and then left after selling stuff. And this is where promissory notes came into play.

Promissory notes were signed documents with a written promise that a person would owe the holder of that promissory note a certain amount of money. So, effectively, an I Owe You (‘IOU’), right, I owe you some money. We often call those IOU’s.

So, colonists tried paying trade ships with these notes that promise traders would be able to exchange this for cash payment when they arrived in England. However, as you would imagine, many traders often refused and wanted cash in exchange for the goods that they were selling on their journey.

So, promissory notes were an unreliable way to trade and could be easily forged as well. People could make fake promissory notes, right. I mean, you could have just fake someone’s signature. People often argued about their value, and some used them to pay for goods even though they knew that they could never actually get the money in the future to cover those promissory notes.

And there was even one story of a baker who would take his promissory notes, he’d put them in the oven, heat them up, in order to make them more brittle and likely to fall apart so that the person who received this note would, you know, lose it, it would fall apart, and they could never reclaim what they were owed.

Rum was also used as a currency beginning in 1790. So, rum, as in the liquor, right? Johnny Depp drinks rum on Pirates of the Caribbean. You know, ‘Yar! I’m a pirate and I drink a lot of rum’.

So, it was brought to the colony and controlled by a small group of people who became exorbitantly rich as a result. The issue with rum as a currency was that, as you can imagine, many workers who were paid in rum actually drank it instead of using it to buy goods and services that they needed.

So, the rum trade grew and grew to the point that it became the most popular form of currency in the colony to the point where major building constructions, including the Sydney hospital, were even paid for with rum alone. Only with rum, right. Imagine that! Building a house and only using some kind of liquor or even beer to pay for that house. That’s a lot of slabs, guys. That’d be thousands and thousands of slabs. I can’t imagine that. Remember, ‘a slab’ is 24 beers.

So, the practice of using rum as a currency was prohibited by Governor Blight in 1806 and this decision culminated in the overthrow of the government in the Rum Rebellion. That’s a really interesting story that I might have to leave for another day.

To overcome the shortage of coins, Governor Macquarie, obviously the next governor, came up with an ingenious idea to use 10,000 pounds of Spanish dollars sent by the British government to produce a more stable currency. So, Spanish dollar coins had a hole punched through the middle of them creating two coins, the larger ring-shaped coin or ‘holey dollar’, because it has a hole in it, and the smaller punched-out middle of the coin called ‘a dump’, because it’s obviously being dumped out of the hole, right, in the other coin. Doing so turned 40,000 Spanish coins into 80,000 Australian coins making these coins the first currency to be minted in Australia.

These coins entered circulation in 1814 and they began to be taken out of circulation only eight years later in 1822 and onwards when the government began to replace them with sterling coinage instead. By the year 1829, these coins were completely gone from circulation, and because they contained a large amount of silver, quite often they were melted down and used for other purposes or sent back to Britain as silver bullion, and this makes them incredibly hard to find today and also incredibly valuable. And I actually looked to see if I could buy one of these online and I found one for auction that was $459,000. That is the price of a small house. Mind blowing.

Anyway, guys, it’s been a long episode. I hope you found that interesting. I definitely did when I was researching this episode. I won’t keep you any longer. I hope to chat to you soon and I hope that you have an amazing weekend. See ya, guys.

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AE 499 – Expression: — Up a Storm

By pete — 4 months ago

Learn Australian English in this expression episode of The Aussie English Podcast where I teach you how to use — Up a Storm like a native speaker.

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AE 499 – Expression: — Up a Storm

We’ve been talking a bit this week about the 40th anniversary of Cyclone Tracy, the devastating cyclone in Darwin, and a caller mentioned, (it) might have been Annette, talking about the sound that was captured by a bishop at that time, Bishop Ted Collins, and the noise. We’ve managed to track it down. Here’s a bit of that noise that ripped through Darwin close to Christmas in 1974.

****

G’day, you mob! Welcome to this episode of Aussie English, the number one podcast for anyone and everyone who wants to learn advanced English, obviously, too with a tiny little hint of Australian English in there as well, although, it may not be that tiny at times. Depends. Depends.

Anyway, so, the intro scene there, guys, the intro scene was from a radio segment from 2GB Sydney that was aired in 2014. You can probably check out 2GB if you’re in the Sydney area and it was on the YouTube channel Des Poeling-Oer. (I’m) not sure how to pronounce his name, but there will be a link in the transcript if you would like to check out that entire video, although, it was a short one.

But yeah, that was about Cyclone Tracy, which took place in northern Australia, in the Northern Territory, back in the 70s. But we’ll get into that in today’s fact.

Anyway, guys, this is the Aussie English Podcast. This is where I try to help English learners who’ve come to Australia, but elsewhere in the world as well, learn advanced English. So, I’m interested in trying to help you sound more like a native speaker when you learn English, when you’re speaking English, ok? So, that’s the whole point of these episodes. So, obviously you’re listening to the Aussie English Podcast, if you would like to get access to the transcripts and the MP3s unlimited access so that you can download these, make sure you go to TheAussieEnglishPodcast.com and you can sign up there for the price of a coffee per month and you’ll be able to download these anytime, anywhere and practice wherever you want.

Also, the Podcast is brought to you by the Aussie English Classroom, guys. Now, this is where I put all the other content the courses, the videos, the other bonus MP3s, the exercises, the quizzes, everything else that I create I put into the Aussie English Classroom in the form of a course. Except there are many, many, many, courses. So, each week for these expression episodes I create three videos at the moment for pronunciation, for expressions and for vocab and then I guide you through 10 or so different pieces of vocab expressions etc. and I try and help you expand your English so, if you want to join up there, you will get access to this episode’s bonus content as well as previous episodes. You’ll also get access to the interview course that I have in there with other Australians and the pronunciation course so, that you can work on your English pronunciation. Just go to TheAussieEnglishClassroom.com, don’t get it confused with the podcast website of TheAussieEnglishClassroom.com hit sign up, you can enroll and it’s just one dollar for your first month so, give that a go! Anyway, guys, let’s get into today’s joke.

So, today’s expression is obviously about the weather, it’s about storms. So, I thought I’d try and find a joke that is related to the weather. So, here’s the joke: what does a cloud wear under its raincoat? What does a cloud wear under its rain coat? Are you ready? Thunderwear. Thunderwear. I told Kel this one earlier today and she was very underwhelmed with the joke. She was like… *claps*.

What does a cloud wear under its raincoat? Thunderwear. So, it’s a pun on the word ‘underwear’ and the word ‘thunder’, right? From a cloud, thunder that comes from a storm cloud. Anyway, dumb jokes aside, let’s get into today’s expression, guys.

Today’s expression is to ‘verb’ Something, ‘verb’, ‘verb’, ‘verb’ + up a storm, right? So, up a storm, but there’s often a verb before the expression ‘up a storm’, ok? We’ll get into that in a sec. This one was from Zinnia who suggested this in the Aussie English Classroom, a Facebook group we all voted. Good job Zinnia, she won!

So, ‘up a storm’ it’s an interesting expression, because this expression, the first part of it can change. So, you might hear this as to cook up a storm, to dance up a storm, to work up a storm, to kick up a storm, to stir up a storm. The verb at the start there can change, ok? But before we get into how it is defined, let’s talk about the words in this expression.

So, obviously, the first word can be a verb of some kind that can change and the definition of that verb is going to depend on the verb.

But the word ‘up’, the word ‘up’ here isn’t literally talking about the direction upwards, right? So, like, above you, in that direction, the opposite of down or downwards. In this case, the word up is a preposition and it’s part of a phrasal verb. To cook up, to dance up, to work up, to kick up. And in this case, it means to something into a desired or proper condition, right? So, if you cook something up, you are changing something so, that it is cooked. You are completely cooking that thing so, that is how ‘up’ is working here, when it’s combined with a verb, it’s kind of like to completion or into a desired state or proper condition.

The other word in here ‘a storm’, right? ‘Storm’ is a violent disturbance of the atmosphere, with strong winds, usually rain, thunder, lightning, and snow, but no thunderwear, right? So, often you know, there’s storms. There was a storm here last night with a lot of rain that came, though, and there was a lot of wind. Fortunately, though, there was no lightning or thunder and there’s never been any snow, not at least here, not at least here.

So, the definition of the expression, right? ‘— up a storm’, but with a verb before it. So, as I said, it’s interesting because it can change, you could say Cook up a storm, dance up a storm, work up a storm, kick up a storm, but the most common one here I’ll ever hear is ‘cook up a storm’. I think this tends to be the most common one that you’ll hear and it may seem confusing, right. It’s effectively acting like an adverb though, up a storm, right? You’re adding it to have before it it’s modifying the verb. And so, ‘— up a storm’ is added to mean the action of the verb, to a great amount, with fury, with intensity. So, you’re doing something, the verb, you’re doing that verb with enthusiastic spirit, to great amounts.

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If you’re cooking up a storm, you are cooking something up a lot in a furious manner. If you are working up a storm, you’re working something up to a great degree, in an enthusiastic spirit, ok? But it can kind of change the meaning depending on the verb you use. You cook up a storm, you can imagine you are cooking a large amount of food all at once, you’re preparing a great deal of food. If you talk up a storm, you are talking to a great extent. You are talking to a great amount, with a lot of intensity. If you kick up a storm, in this case, if you kick something up, it’s more that you’re creating a situation in which people are very angry or upset or critical so, you’re like causing a fuss, ok?

So, let’s go through three examples using three different versions of this expression. So, this is how I would use these in day to day life, ok? So, the three examples will be for cook up a storm, talk up a storm and kick up a storm.

So, number one: cook up a storm: and this is a true story. So, Kel and I are getting married in the next month and my mum is very keen to have a really big family party of some kind, to have all my family and friends over, my extended family and grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins, third cousins. She wants all of those people over at the house to introduce Kel to them, to the entire family. So, she’s invited them all over to our place in Ocean Grove for a Brazilian style barbecue, because Kel is Brazilian, they want to cook up some Brazilian food. So, they’ve decided to theme it with a Brazilian theme and they’re going to cook up a bunch of Brazilian foods from recipes that they get online. So, hopefully that means lots of farofa, feijão, and churrasco. So, that is like… Farofa is this kind of cassava flour powder that you add to food and it’s really tasty. Feijão is beans, black beans, and churrasco is just barbecued meat. So, hopefully will have lots of that. So, because they are planning to cook up a lot of food and for so many people at the party I’m sure on the day they’ll be cooking up a storm, right? They’ll be cooking up a storm in the kitchen, they’ll be cooking loads of food up, they’ll be doing it with intensity, with fury, with enthusiastic spirit. I hope that while they’re preparing this food, they’re going to be cooking up a storm.

Number two: to talk up a storm. To talk up a storm. My sister got pregnant last year, ok? She had a bun in the oven. She was up the duff. She was pregnant and nine months later, obviously, she had a baby. This was in November last year and her daughter is named Isabell. So, my niece is now almost a year old. She is beginning to walk, she can say a few words, you know, things like ‘mama’, ‘dada’, but I’m sure that in no time at all she’s going to be able to talk up a storm, right? She’s going to be able to learn to speak. She’ll start talking everyone’s heads off, she’ll start saying all these other words and so, she’ll be talking, she’ll be speaking non-stop, all the time, enthusiastically, to a great extent, she’ll be talking up a storm.

And, example number three: to kick up a storm. So, in this case, imagine you are going into the city one day for a bit of retail therapy, and retail therapy is something that women quite often use. They use this expression retail therapy to refer to buying clothes or buying things when they’re upset or they’re in a bad mood or they’re sad, right? So, imagine you’re a girl, you’ve broken up with your boyfriend, you’re feeling really bad after the breakup, you want to cheer yourself up, you might go out and have a bit of retail therapy, right? Because you going to buy some stuff in retail. So, if when you go out to get some clothes, some food, some whatever it is that you want to buy for your house or for yourself, you go into the city and there’s a massive protest going on in the street. Thousands of people holding up signs, holding up placards, shouting slogans, are making a lot of noise, and you might want to know what all the fuss is about. You might want to know why they’re kicking up such a storm. So, what’s all the fuss about? Why are they protesting? Why are they kicking up a storm? So, if you find out it’s a relatively trivial matter. Maybe, you know, they want a 1% increase in the wages of teachers. And you think that’s not really important. You might say they’re kicking up a storm over nothing and that these protests are nothing but a storm in a teacup, meaning they’re a very small problem. They’re very trivial, it’s not a big issue, they’re kicking up a fuss over nothing. They’re making a mountain out of a molehill, they’re kicking up a storm over a very trivial matter.

So, hopefully now, guys, you understand the expression ‘Something + up a storm’, right? To cook up a storm, to talk up a storm, to kick up a storm. When we add ‘up a storm’ as an adverb to a verb before it, it means that we’re doing that verb to a great degree, with fury, with intensity, or with enthusiastic spirit, ok? So, as usual, let’s go through a little listen and repeat exercise, guys. So, in this one I use the example to cook up a storm and I want you to listen and repeat after me and practice your English pronunciation, ok? Let’s go!

To cook

To cook up

To cook up a

To cook up a storm x 5

Good job! Now, let’s practice using ‘to kick up a storm’ in the future continuous tense, ok? For example: I will be kicking up a storm. I’ll be kicking up a storm. However, this time, I’m going to use contractions and connected speech as I would when I’m normally speaking English at a natural pace, right? At a natural speed. So, try and pay attention to how these words link together and how the changes in sound occur. And if you want to get access to the exercise, the video where I break this down step by step, don’t forget to join the Aussie English Classroom, remember, it’s just one dollars for your first month at TheAussieEnglishClassroom.com and you’ll get access to this video, in the course, as well as all the previous courses where I break down exactly how I am changing my pronunciation when I’m speaking more naturally, how these connections in words occur, how the contractions occur. Ok? So, let’s go.

Tomorrow, I’ll be kicking up a storm.

Tomorrow, you’ll be kicking up a storm.

Tomorrow, she’ll be kicking up a storm.

Tomorrow, he’ll be kicking up a storm.

Tomorrow, we’ll be kicking up a storm.

Tomorrow, they’ll be kicking up a storm.

Tomorrow, it’ll be kicking up a storm.

Good job there, guys! Good job! You may think why am I using words like tomorrow in these sentences when we use certain tenses like I’ll be kicking, I’ll be doing, I’ll be thinking, because it’s placing it in the future, I think it’s always important to try and give context in the sentence itself so that you attach the tense with a time, ok? So, that’s why I tend to try and use words like tomorrow, yesterday, next year, until tomorrow, etc., to place those verb tenses in context.

Anyway, guys, let’s get into the Aussie English fact for today and then we can finish up and there’s a phrasal verb with up. Alright, so, now I want to talk about Cyclone Tracy.

So, obviously today’s expression was about the word storm or had the word storm in it. So, I thought, you know, what could I do about storms in Australia? And I thought about the severe cyclone storms that Australia gets every year in the monsoon tropics. This is the part of Australia in the north, above the Tropic of Capricorn, right? That goes through, roughly, halfway through Australia and separates the south from the north so, to the north of Australia cyclones hit the coast all the time whether it’s in the Northern Territory or Queensland, they get cyclones each year. Cyclone Tracy was a tropical cyclone though that made landfall on Christmas Eve and Christmas day in 1974 and it devastated the city of Darwin in the Northern Territory in Australia. So, really tragic, because… not just because it was such a devastating storm, but the timing couldn’t have been worse. It arrived on Christmas Eve and it, you know, destroyed Christmas Day as well for all the people there. So, it was the most compact cyclone storm to have ever occurred in the Australian basin and southern hemisphere, with gale force winds extending only 48 kilometres from the centre. So, outside of 48 kilometres from the centre of the storm, the eye of this storm, the gale force winds dropped off which is very weird. That’s a very small, compact, concentrated storm. So, this made it the smallest-ever tropical cyclone worldwide until the year 2000 and I think 7, 2007, 2008, when Tropical Storm Marco broke the record with gale force winds extending only 19 kilometres from the centre, massively compact storm.

So, Cyclone Tracy first started as a storm that formed over the Arafura Sea. And then it moved southwards and affected Darwin with category four winds. The highest sustained winds during this time were up to 205 kilometres an hour with gusts nearly 250 kilometres an hour, right? That’s crazy. I don’t think I’ve ever… I’ve never been in a car that’s driven that fast. That’s insane.

And so, these storms, I guess, they form over the warm water in the tropical areas and then when they hit the land they start to dissipate, but they build up all that energy from the warm water in the oceans. And that happens around the tropics.

So, Cyclone Tracy completely devastated Darwin and it killed 71 people and many thousands of people were injured. In 1974, the cost of the storm was $837 million dollars in damage, which today is more than $6 billion dollars. Initially, after the storm 65 people were killed, were found to have been killed, with six missing and it was only in 2005 when the Northern Territory Coroner proclaimed that the six people that were still missing had perished at sea. So, this cyclone knocked down more than 70 percent of buildings in Darwin, including 80 percent of people’s houses.

And if you search for Cyclone Tracy in Google images you’re going to see the full extent of this cyclone’s destruction. It’s just insane. Everywhere is flat it looks like those photos you see of the U.S. when a massive tornado has gone through a town.

So, 25,000 of the 47,000 inhabitants of the city were made homeless prior to landfall of this cyclone and they were evacuated. Most of Darwin’s population got evacuated to places like Adelaide, Whyalla, Alice Springs, Brisbane, and Sydney and many of these people actually stayed in these cities and never returned after the storm. After the storm had passed and people had assessed all the damage from the storm, the city was eventually rebuilt using more stringent standards to cyclone code so that, hopefully, in the future, the city would be more cyclone-proof and you would prevent any of this sort of destruction to the same extent in the future.

So, that’s the story of Cyclone Tracy, guys. It was a very small and compact storm that hit Australia at a very unfortunate time, during Christmas, in 1974 and it killed 70 people making it the deadliest storm in Australian recorded history, as far as I’m aware.

So, if you come to Australia, I’m sure that if you mention knowing information about Cyclone Tracy the average Australian here is going to have heard of that cyclone and if they were alive during 1974, they may have even been there.

Anyway, guys! Thank you so much for joining me. I hope you have an amazing weekend and I’ll see you in the next episode, episode 500, which I have something very special planned for.

So, I’ll see you then. Bye!

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AE 498 – Expression: Down-to-Earth

By pete — 4 months ago

Learn Australian English in this expression episode of The Aussie English Podcast where I teach you how to use DOWN-TO-EARTH like a native speaker.

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AE 498 – Expression: Down-to-Earth

Australia is a vast and lucky land. Beneath our feet is a treasure trove of unimaginable riches. But this story is about much more than precious minerals and dusty mineshafts. For 150 years, mining has changed the lives of us all in unexpected and extraordinary ways. It sparked waves of mass immigration and ignited political revolt.

****

G’day, you mob! Welcome to this episode of the Aussie English Podcast, the number one podcast for anyone and everyone wanting to learn English so… and the Aussie English Podcast guys is brought to you by the Aussie English Classroom. If you would like to learn English even faster and have access to weekly courses, videos, quizzes, vocab lists, all the extra stuff that will help you get your English to the next level, make sure that you go to theaussieenglishclassroom.com, sign up and it’s just a dollar for your first month. So, get in there and give it a go! You’ve got nothing to lose!

If you’re the kind of person who just wants access to the transcripts and MP3s for the podcast, you can get access to them at theaussieenglishpodcast.com, you can sign up and for the price of one coffee per month you’ll get access to all of the transcripts and MP3s.

Anyway, that aside, today’s intro scene, guys, was the intro to a documentary called Dirty Business: How Mining Made Australia, and this was on the Sterling Documentaries YouTube channel. So, I will put a link into the transcript today so that you can watch that entire documentary on their channel on YouTube if you so choose, it’s pretty interesting. And in today’s Aussie English fact we will go through mining and the history of mining in Australia.

Anyway, guys, as usual, let’s get into an Aussie joke before we go through the expression, the definitions, the examples of how I would use it, the listen and repeat exercise and then the fact, okay?

So, the Aussie joke today guys:

My dog used to chase people on a bike a lot. It got so bad, finally, I had to take his bike away.

So, this isn’t a question and answer joke this time, it’s a story and it’s funny because the first sentence has you thinking there is a dog chasing someone on a bike. A person who is on a bike, but actually it’s the dog who is on the bike chasing people, right? So, that sentence can be actually taken two ways and this is something interesting about English, right?

So, I’ll say the sentence again. My dog used to chase people on a bike a lot. So, he could be chasing people on a bike, as in people riding bikes or it could be that his dog was chasing people whilst the dog was on a bike, right? And then the last line, it got so bad, finally, I had to take his bike away. So, now you’re like, ahhhh, it was the dog’s bike. (I) got it, got it.

So, we have those jokes all the time in English where the first line sounds normal and then the second line shows you that it is not what you thought the first line was, okay?

So, today’s expression is ‘down-to-earth’, to be ‘down-to-earth’. And this was suggested by Lily in the private Facebook group for Aussie English Classroom members. Good job, Lily!

So, as usual guys, let’s go through and define the words in the expression ‘down-to-earth’, ok? ‘Down-to-earth’. I’ll break it up into the individual words.

‘Down’. Obviously, ‘down’ means downwards, right? The opposite of up or upwards, downwards is towards the ground, right? ‘Down’.

‘To’ is towards, in the direction of something.

And, ‘earth’ is the name of the planet, right? The planet Earth. But we often use this to mean the ground or the soil, right? If I’m standing up, usually my feet are on the Earth. If I am digging in the backyard, I might be moving earth around as in the ground or as in soil.

So, what does the expression ‘down-to-earth’ mean? And you’ll often hear this as a compound adjective, as in, someone is ‘down-to-earth’, or Pete is a ‘down-to-earth’ person, right? It could be an adjective in front of a noun as well.

So, if you are down-to-earth or if someone is down-to-earth, it can mean a few different things, although, they’re sort of similar, okay? Practical, reasonable, and friendly, if you’re a down-to-earth person. It could be also that you are practical and directly deal with people so you don’t sort of beat around the bush, right? You’re very straightforward. You’re down-to-earth. But, it can also mean someone who’s very easy to talk to, right? So, they’re not up in the clouds, their head’s not in the clouds, they’re down-to-earth, they’re easy to talk to.

So, let’s go through three examples of how I would use the expression to be ‘down-to-earth’, right? If someone’s ‘down-to-earth’, alright.

Example number one: imagine that you are a foreign student and you have arrived in Australia from somewhere overseas. You’re studying English, you’ve organised your school, you have organised your accommodation, but you need to find a job, right? So, you have asked your friends maybe at the school that you’re learning English at, where can I apply for a job? How do I apply? What do I need to do for my CV, my résumé? And then you get that all sorted, you print out a few copies of your résumé and you head down to a local coffee shop or a cafe where your friends have suggested that you could submit your resume or your CV and apply for a job. So, you do that, you go down there, and you find out the people there are really down-to-earth. So, you get along with them really well, you get along like a house on fire, and they decide that they will give you the job. So, lo and behold, you get the job, you really had a good time with them. They were really down-to-earth, you got hired and the rest is history. The people you talk to were really down-to-earth. They were very easy to talk to, very practical, very reasonable, very friendly.

Example number two: so, you are going to a party where you know that there are going to be loads of rich people, but you’re just an average Joe, right? You’re just an average middle-class, white-collar, or even blue-collar worker. So, you’re worried everyone at the party is going to be really pretentious, really pompous, stuck up and, quite frankly, unpleasant to be around because that’s your opinion. That is the stereotype of rich people, right? So, you show up in your modest car. Maybe it’s a Holden Commodore or Ford Falcon. You get out and you see Ferraris everywhere, Lamborghinis, Mercedes, BMWs, Audis, everywhere around you. The party’s in this huge house, a mansion with butlers, waiters, servants, gardeners running around at the guests’ beck and call the whole time. The grounds of the house are huge, massive lawns, fountains, statues, and you go in. Everything’s really extravagant. Everything is really gourmet food wise and everything is very luxurious. However, when you start chatting to people, you realise that despite these people being loaded, despite them having a lot of money, many of the guests are actually incredibly down-to-earth people. They are really down-to-earth, meaning that you can have great conversations with them. They’re very practical, they’re very direct, they’re very friendly. They just seem like normal down-to-earth people, right? So, the idea here being that you thought that they were going to be stuck up with their heads up in the clouds, you know, on a different level from you, but it turns out they were down-to-earth with their feet firmly placed on the ground, they were very well-grounded.

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Example number three: Imagine you’re a young lady. You’ve gone out on a date with a boy, you’ve hit it off, you’ve done really well, you decide you’re going to be in a relationship, and you want to take him home to meet the family, but you’re worried that your dad he has high expectations and he’s very judgmental when it comes to boys who want to date you, right? For your romantic partners. So, you’re worried about his high standards and how this boy that you’re seeing is going to perform. So, you take him over and when your dad meets your boyfriend, he quickly realises that he is a great kid, he’s a great guy, he’s got a good head on his shoulders, his head isn’t in the clouds. He’s very practical, direct, easy to talk to. Everyone gets along like crazy at dinner and when he leaves your father might talk to you and say, well done, he seems like a great guy. He seems like a very down-to-earth guy. I approve. Your boyfriend is very down-to-earth. He is an awesome guy.

Awesome, guys! well I hope you now understand the expression to be ‘down-to-earth’. This can be to be a practical, reasonable or friendly person. It can be that when you deal with people you do so in a very direct and practical manner and it can also mean that you’re very easy to talk to so, you’re very realistic when you talk to people.

So, as usual, let’s go through the listen and repeat exercise now, guys, where you guys can practice your pronunciation. So, listen and repeat after me, guys. If you’re working on your Aussie English accent, obviously, try and mimic my accent as much as possible as I have a general Australian accent. If you are working on a different accent just go with that, practice that accent. Let’s go!

To be

To be down

To be down to

To be down-to-earth x 5

Good job, guys, good job! So now we’re going to go conjugate through the sentence. ‘I used to be down-to-earth’. ‘You used to be down-to-earth’. So, we’ll be using ‘used to’. And remember, if you ‘used to’ and ‘do something’, ‘be something’, whatever it is, it means that that thing used to happen previously quite a lot in the past, right, but it’s no longer happening. For example, I used to go to high school, I used to like surfing, I used to have a lot of friends, I used to live in Melbourne. It’s something that happened in the past, but no longer happens today, okay? So, let’s go!

I used to be down-to-earth.

You used to be down-to-earth.

He used to be down-to-earth.

She used to be down-to-earth.

We used to be down-to-earth.

They used to be down-to-earth.

It used to be down-to-earth.

Good job, guys! Remember, if you would like to go through this pronunciation exercise in more detail where I take you through step by step all the aspects of pronunciation, I talk about intonation and rhythm, things like that in a video make sure that you go to theaussieenglishclassroom.com. Sign up and you will get access to two days of video for this course that will go with this expression episode, as well as all of the previous courses and you can complete them in your own time, anywhere you like, online in the Classroom.

Anyway, guys, let’s get into the Aussie English fact for today and then we will finish up. Alright, so today’s expression was about Earth as in the ground. Therefore, I was thinking for the Aussie English fact maybe we could talk about mining in Australia, because mining is a relatively big deal in Australia.

So, mining in Australia is a significant primary industry and contributor to the Australian economy. I’m sure if you are here already, you’ve probably seen it on the news as they, the politicians, are always talking about mining.

Numerous different kinds of ores and minerals are mined across the continent and, historically, mining booms have encouraged immigration to Australia.

In the early days of Australia, when the colonies were being developed, mining contributed a significant amount to preventing potential bankruptcy of these early colonies so they were making a lot of money from mining.

Copper and silver were discovered in South Australia around the 1940s, which led to the export of the ore and a great deal of immigration of skilled miners and smelters into Australia.

The first economic minerals in Australia were silver and lead, and that started in 1841 in a mine at Glen Osmund in Adelaide, South Australia. The value of these mines though was soon overshadowed by the discovery of copper at places like Kapunda, Burra, and the Copper Triangle, they are three towns called Moonta, Kadina and Wallaroo. These are all indigenous names, I take it, and this was located at the top of the York Peninsula.

About 10 years later in 1851, gold was found in New South Wales and Victoria and the Australian gold rushes took off. The influx of wealth that the gold brought soon made Victoria Australia’s richest colony by far, and Melbourne, the largest city on the island.

By the middle of the 1850, 40% of the world’s gold was dug out of Australian soils.

Today, mining activity occurs in all states and territories across Australia, but only an estimated 0.02% of Australia’s land surface has directly been impacted by mining. That was actually a lot less than I had expected.

So, major active mines in Australia include the Olympic Dam, in South Australia. This is a copper, silver, and uranium mine believed to have the world’s largest uranium resource. And the Super Pit gold mine, which has replaced a number of underground mines near Kalgoorlie in WA, Western Australia.

So, which minerals and ores has Australia primarily mined? We mine iron ore and we’re the second largest supplier after China, supplying about almost a billion metric tons of iron ore every year, and that is 25% of the world’s output.

We mine nickel, 9% of the world’s output, aluminium that’s almost 30% of the world’s output, number one we are for aluminium. We mine copper, we mine gold, we mine silver, and we mine uranium. Those are the biggest ores and minerals that we mine in Australia. But we also mine diamonds, opals, zinc, coal, oil shale, petroleum, natural gas, silica, and other rare elements as well.

Despite the value of mining in Australia and the revenue that it generates for the Australian Government and obviously the Australian people, many people would like to see an end to mining in Australia, especially, for certain minerals and ores others such as coal, which is a relatively contentious mineral or that is dug up from the ground and burnt in order to create electricity, but it is relatively inefficient and it contributes heavily to climate change. That said, mining is arguably the backbone of the Australian economy and it will likely remain a big part of Australia into the future for better or worse.

So, I hope you enjoyed today’s episode, guys. I hope you have a great weekend and I’ll chat to you soon.

See you later!

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AE 497 – Expression: On Thin Ice

By pete — 5 months ago

Learn Australian English in this expression episode of The Aussie English Podcast where I teach you to use the expression ON THIN ICE like a native.

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AE 497 Expression: On Thin Ice

I came from the other end of the Snowy River down in Victoria on a farm out from Orbost and my father, who had the farm, said, ‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful if they could do something about stopping these bloody floods?’.

Every snowmelt the floods would come down and cover the crops and so on.

It was difficult for them.

****

G’day, guys! G’day, you mob! How is it going?

Remember, ‘you mob’ is a slang term in Australia for ‘you guys’, right, and it is from, I guess, a mob of kangaroos, a group of kangaroos. So, you mob, I hope you’re going well. I hope you’ve been having a ripper of a week.

So, today’s intro scene was about Australia’s greatest-ever engineering feat, the national heritage listed Snowy Hydro Scheme, and the video at the start there was from the Environment Department’s YouTube channel. So, I will leave a link in the transcript if you guys would like to check that out. I would obviously recommend that as you will get exposure to other people speaking with Australian accents and obviously using all kinds of different vocab and everything in English. So, check that out.

Anyway, I’m pretty wrecked, I’m pretty stuffed, I am exhausted. It’s been a lot of running around this week. We’ve had to organise a whole bunch of stuff regarding marriages. So, Kel and I are getting married soon, and we’re just… We’re not having a big thing, right? We’re not making a big deal of it. We’re not really doing a traditional marriage in a church or even with a lot of people there, to be honest, because Kel’s family’s in Brazil, so we just thought it’s probably easier to just do a small thing here in Australia and really just go and sign the papers. So, at the moment, we’re having to go through and get all of the documents ready, so like my birth certificate, my passport, her birth certificate, her passport, the documents to apply for marriage with witnesses. So, today we had to go to the cop shop, to the police station, and have a justice of the peace sign all of these pieces of paper as we were there signing them as well. So, that’s been a bit of a headache, and before that we tried to have our friends witness it, but they screwed it up, they stuffed it up, and signed as the people getting married and not as the witnesses. So, we had to go through it again. Anyway.

Welcome to this episode of Aussie English, guys. We’re getting close to episode 500. So, this is probably going to be the second last expression episode before we hit 500, and something special is going to happen once we get to 500, so stay tuned for that. Anyway.

Aussie English, the Aussie English podcast. Welcome. If you’ve been listening for a long time, it’s good to have you here again. If it’s your first time, welcome, thanks for joining me.

This podcast is brought to you by The Aussie English classroom. So, you can go to TheAussieEnglishClassroom.com, and this is the online learning environment that I put content in for these expression episodes, and I create courses that go with each of these expression episodes, and I have other courses in there too on pronunciation. I also have interviews in there that I’ve broken down with other Australians. So, it is a one-stop shop. If you are trying to get your English from intermediate to advanced, it is a great place to get started.

So, you can sign up for that, guys. Remember, it’s just one dollar for the first month. TheAussieEnglishClassroom.com. Go and give it a go.

And remember, if you were just in to the transcripts and the MP3s, if that is just what you’re interested in, being able to read the transcripts and listen to the MP3s on your computer anytime, anywhere, remember that you can get unlimited access to those when you go to TheAussieEnglishPodcast.com, and you hit ‘sign up’, and for the price of one coffee per month you will get unlimited access to all of the transcripts and MP3s for the podcast episodes. Okay? Anyway. That aside.

Welcome to this episode today, guys. This one is ‘on thin ice’. It’s a really good expression. I use this quite a lot, and to be honest, my father used to use this on me quite a lot as a little rambunctious and mischievous teen as I was growing up, but we’ll get into that shortly.

Firstly, let’s get into the Aussie joke, and this one is a good one today, because it involves Batman, right. Dunununah dunununah Batman!’. Batman. Alright. So, the joke is:

What’s man’s favourite food? What is that man’s favourite food?

Are you ready for this? Are you ready?

‘Just-ice’. ‘Just-ice’.

Do you get it? Oh my gosh… So, what’s that man’s favourite food? ‘Just-ice’ as in, ‘justice’, right? If you separate the word ‘justice’ into ‘just-ice’, it’s like saying ‘only ice’, he just likes eating ice, he is only interested in ice, but it’s funny because Batman is obviously a superhero who is interested in justice, justice. ‘Just-ice’, ‘justice’. Badoomsh! Alright.

So, today’s expression is ‘on thin ice’, right, ‘to be on thin ice’. This was suggested by me this week in the Aussie English Classroom Facebook group. So, that’s four members of the Aussie English Classroom. This week we all suggested expressions. I put this one in, I threw this in as my suggestion, and it got voted on and I won. Go me!

So, let’s go through the definitions of the words in the expression ‘on thin ice’, right. I’ll skip ‘to be’. You know what ‘to be’ is.

‘On’. If you’re on something, you’re physically in contact with and supported by something. So, you’re on the surface of something, usually, right? I might put my coffee here that I’ve got on a coaster, the thing that protects the table. I put the coaster on the table, I put my coffee on the table, and then after I finish the coffee, I might put it on the bench next to the sink. Okay? ‘On’.

‘Thin’. ‘Thin’. Something that is ‘thin’ is… it has the opposite surfaces or sides of it very close together. Right? So, a piece of paper is incredibly thin, because each side of the piece of paper is very close together, right. It’s very, very thin. You can use this for describing something like a piece of paper or maybe a stamp or a book. You know, you could have a thin book with very few pages or you could have a thick book with a lot of pages. But you can also describe someone as being ‘thin’ when you want to say that they are not fat. Right? So, like a piece of paper, both sides of the person are very close together. They are thin.

The last word here, guys. ‘Ice’. ‘Ice’ is frozen water, a brittle transparent crystalline solid, right. The crystal when water freezes, when it goes below 0 degrees Celsius, it becomes ice.

So, let’s go through and define the expression ‘to be on thin ice’, and I wonder if you guys have heard this before. I wonder if anyone has said to you are on thin ice. Be careful you’re on thin ice.

So, if we imagine this literally, if you were literally standing on thin ice, what do you think the message there is, right? It’s that you’re resting on ice that is thin and it’s likely to crack and break, so you’re in a precarious and risky situation. So, literally, if you’re on thin ice, you are standing on ice that is thin, it is liable to crack or break, and you’re likely to fall into the cold water below.

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Figuratively, it is that you are in a precarious or risky situation. So, you might not literally be on ice, but you might be in a dangerous situation, so you are on thin ice, right.

But this one is also often used to mean that you’re already in trouble and that you can’t afford to make another mistake. Right? So, my dad would say this to me when I was a kid and I had already misbehaved, I had already done something wrong, maybe I’d done a few things wrong, and I was at the point of pushing him over the edge. I was at his breaking point. If I had done one more thing, something bad would have happened, like maybe he would ground me or he would give me some kind of penalty or punishment, right? So, he might say to me, ‘Look, you’re on thin ice. No more. No more misbehaviour, Pete’. You’re on thin ice.

So, where does this expression originate from? This idiom is one that originated from Holland or the Netherlands. We also call Holland the Netherlands in English. So, skating, you know skating on ice, was popular there and that’s where it came from originally, skating on ice, on those blades on the bottom of your shoes on ice in winter, and the phrase that you were ‘on thin ice’ was commonly used especially when seas, rivers, streams, etc., would freeze during winter, and then people would skate over them. So, it would be like a warning. Right? You’re on thin ice. Be careful. Don’t, you know, jump up and do any pirouettes or something.

So, anyway, let’s go through the examples of how I would use the expression ‘to be on thin ice’ like a native speaker in my day to day life, right? Okay.

Example number one and this is the literal example. You’ve travelled up to one of the snowfields in the Australian Alps in Australia. So, imagine Thredbo or Mount Buller or Mount Hotham. You’re out snowboarding or skiing one day and you end up off the track, falling down the side of a mountain, a cliff, or ravine, or something, and landing on a frozen lake. You might get knocked out during this fall, you know, you get KOed, you’re… you go black, you’re not conscious, but when you come to, when you wake up, you hear you made shouting out to you from a distance saying, ‘Be careful! Don’t move suddenly or abruptly. You’re on thin ice!’. So, you’re literally on some ice that is thin. Be careful where you put your weight, because if you aren’t careful it might break and you might fall into the water.

Example number two, and I pretty much went over this earlier on. I used to get in trouble with my father all the time as a kid or a teenager. I’d push his buttons. I would push the limits. I would… you know, maybe I would swear or maybe I, you know, did something I wasn’t allowed to do, I misbehaved, I didn’t come home on time, I missed my curfew. If I was already in trouble, I’d misbehave several times before, as I said, my dad might say to me, ‘You’re on thin ice! So, if you make another mistake, you’re in for it. You’re going to be in trouble. You’ll be in real trouble and there’s no turning back. You’ll be grounded. I won’t give you your pocket money. You’ll be punished in some other way. You’re on thin ice.’. Right? It’s kind of like you’re on your final warning. So, don’t misbehave, don’t muck up, don’t do anything wrong.

Example number three. Imagine you’ve just got a promotion at work, but it comes with a probation period. So, probation period, as in, you have to be evaluated after three months, for example, the probation period is three months long, and after three months, they will tell you how you’ve done and if you’ve done well, you’ll get to keep the job. So, imagine, though, while you’re going through this probation period for three months you screw up a few things, you make a few mistakes, you don’t do your job ideally, but only just manage to scrape by. So, your employers or your boss might tell you, ‘Look, you’re doing okay, but you need to shape up, you need to do better, because you’re on thin ice. If you make any more mistakes, we might have to not give you this promotion, we might have to demote you’, right? So, you’re in a risky situation. You need to pay attention and shape up in order to maintain this position. You’re on thin ice.

So, hopefully now, guys, you understand the expression ‘to be on thin ice’. Obviously, literally, this would be to be on ice that is thin, that is likely to break or crack. So, you are in a precarious or risky situation.

Figuratively, this can mean that you are in a dangerous situation that isn’t necessarily related to ice breaking at all.

And lastly, it can mean that you’re in trouble, you’re already in trouble and you can’t afford to make another mistake, and you’re on your final warning. Okay? You’re on thin ice.

So, as usual, guys, let’s go through a little listen and repeat exercise here where you guys can practice your pronunciation. Okay? So, listen and repeat after me. Let’s go.

To be

To be on

To be on thin

To be on thin ice x 5

Good job! Focus on linking those words. There’s a few things going on there. You will see though, if you join up to the Aussie English Classroom, when I break this down in the 10-minute video that I do each week for the pronunciation exercises, you will see the sort of little tidbits, the little important bits of information, about connected speech there, okay? To be on thin ice. Hopefully, that makes sense.

So, let’s go through and conjugate this just in the present tense, guys. Okay, so ‘I am’, ‘You are’, etc., but we’ll contract ‘am’, ‘are’, and ‘is’ on to the previous pronouns. Okay? So, let’s go.

I’m on thin ice

You’re on thin ice

She’s on thin ice

He’s on thin ice

We’re on thin ice

They’re on thin ice

It’s on thin ice

Good job! Good job! And I hope you paid attention to how those words are linking together, the connected speech there, okay? Anyway.

Let’s get into the Aussie English fact for today, guys, and then we will finish up, and I will bid you farewell for this week. All right.

So, today’s Aussie fact. It’s all about the Snowy Hydro Scheme. And so, my thought pattern was, okay, the phrase is ‘on thin ice’. What is there in Australia that is ice or snow or the cold that I can talk about? And I thought about the Snowy Mountains, and then I thought about the Snowy Mountain Hydro Scheme. So, I wonder if you guys have heard about this.

So, what is it. The Snowy Hydro Scheme is a hydroelectricity and irrigation complex in south-east Australia. The Scheme consists of 16 major dams, seven power stations, one pumping station, and over 225 kilometres of tunnels, pipelines, and aqueducts that were constructed between the years of 1949 and 1974. So, (it) went for about 25 years.

Astonishingly, only 2% of the construction work is visible above the ground. It was completed on time and in budget in 1974 at a total cost of $820 million dollars, which today, is the equivalent of more than $6 billion dollars. Pretty Penny.

So, this scheme was the largest-ever engineering project undertaken in Australia and was overseen by Chief Engineer, Sir William Hudson. Around two thirds of the workforce employed in the construction of the Snowy Hydro Scheme were recently-arrived immigrant workers desperate for work who originated from over 30 different foreign countries. The total number of workers on the Scheme was more than 100,000 in that 25-year period, and the official death toll reached 121 people. I don’t know if that’s a lot or if that’s not very many. Sounds like a lot.

At the completion of the project, the Australian government maintained much of the diverse workforce and created the Snowy Mountains Engineering Corporation, SMEC, which remains an international engineering consultancy company up to today.

So, why was the Snowy Hydro Scheme built? You know, why was it put into place?

The Snowy Hydro Scheme was implemented to solve a yearly problem for farmers and inhabitants of south eastern Victoria. So, every year here in the snowfields in the Australian Alps the snow would fall on the Great Dividing Range and it would melt in spring time and summer time obviously, and then flood the low-lying flood plains and river flats in places like East Gippsland in southeast Victoria as the water flowed out into Bass Strait and into the Tasman Sea. Thus, each year, farmers didn’t know if their crops would be ruined by these floods or not.

In order to divert the excess snowmelt water and spare the farmers their yearly headache, the Snowy Hydro scheme was implemented, and this had numerous benefits including channeling the water away from the farmers crops into the Murray and Murrumbidgee River irrigation areas, which allowed farmers to access this water via the irrigation systems, and also, they were able to harness the power of the water and turn into electricity using hydroelectricity. Right?

So, how was this done? The water falls about 800 meters and travels through large hydroelectric power stations, which generate peak-load power for the Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, and Victoria.

And in 2016, The Snowy Mountains Hydroelectricity System/Scheme, whatever you want to call it, was added to the Australian National Heritage List.

So, whether you’re into skiing and snowboarding, hiking or camping, or you just want to check out the dams and power plants and other things related to these Snowy Mountains Hydro Scheme, the Snowy Mountains in the Australian Alps are definitely a beautiful spot worth checking out if you find yourself in the south east of Australia.

Anyway, guys that’s it for today. I hope you enjoy this episode. I hope you have a lovely week and I’ll see you soon. Catch ya!

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