Learn Australian English in this Aussie English episode of Walking With Pete where I show you how to use your dead time wisely.

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WWP: How To Use Your Dead Time Wisely

G’day guys.

How’s it going?

Welcome to this episode of Sitting Under A Tree With Pete.

I’m out in the park today, and I thought I would come out here and make some more episodes for you guys, have a bit of a chat, catch up, see how you’ve been.

I hope you’ve all been well. It’s almost the end of January, or I guess it’s the last day of January at the moment.

So, it’s the 31st, and for the last month or so I’ve just been taking it easy, doing quite a bit on the podcast, trying to get things up and going as well as studying, trying to finish the PhD at the moment.

So, I’ve been writing and writing and writing and writing and writing.

I hope you guys are all kicking arse with your English.

I’m sure some of you have had a bit of a boost in motivation following the New Year.

I’m sure a lot of you have had, you know, that New Year’s Resolution and have been working hard.

So, make sure you keep up with that, keep doing that, keep working hard, keep learning English, keep challenging yourselves guys, keep taking it to the next level, and keep… keep giving yourselves things to work on that aren’t necessarily easy, easy, easy.

So, always keep at that level of, “I’m not sure if I can do this”, but then prove that you can.

So, I guess today I wanted to chat to you a little bit about using your dead time wisely. Using your dead time wisely.

And what do I mean by dead time?

Dead time in terms of at least what I’m thinking of and what I want to talk about is when you have time during your day that you could do something else productive at the same time.

So, for instance, a great reason that I did, at least relatively well, all things considered, in learning French and learning Portuguese while also living in Australia and not living in these countries where these languages are spoken is because I spent a lot of time using my dead time wisely.

So, any time I was walking somewhere I had the podcast in my ears. I was listening to as much French, as much Portuguese as I could, and capitalising on the fact that I could do two things at once.

So, if I was walking somewhere and I had the ability to listen to music or the ability to listen to another podcast in English, or even the ability to just not listen to anything but I had to walk, or I had to sit on public transport, or I was driving somewhere in a car, or in a car being driven somewhere.

If I have this spare time where I could be doing two things at once, and you guys’ll probably remember the expression “To kill two birds with one stone” I tried to capitalise on this, capitalise upon this as much as possible. So, I would almost treat it like a strategy game personally.

So, what do I mean by this?

I think for a while I had a diary and every time I listened to an episode of Français Authentique, which is the French podcast that I fell in love with, I would mark down that episode and the time.

And I would write down how many episodes I listened to in a single day, and/or how many minutes of French practice that was in a single day.

And each day I would try and beat it.

I would try and beat it.

So, I would try and use as much of my dead time as possible also learning a language.

And I feel like you guys who are probably already doing this to some degree can definitely take things to the next level I’m sure with regards to listening to my podcast, listening to any other kind of English learning podcast or resources.

Maybe you download a course.

Maybe you use YouTube videos.

It could be anything, but if you’re walking somewhere and you have a lot of spare time a really wise use of this spare time is obviously to practice something, and in terms of learning languages, in terms of learning English, obviously, practicing it with an English podcast is a really really good way to get bang for your buck.

So, to get your money’s worth and to kill two birds with one stone.

So, anyway, back to what I was doing with this.

I was trying to up myself, I was trying to beat myself, I was trying to get more out of each day as I went.

And so, I would tally up each day, I would write down how many episodes I’d listened to, I’d write down how many minutes each episode was, and then tally that up, sum that up, calculate the total at the bottom…

(There’s a) plane going by.

…and then I would try and beat that every single day.

And it kind of turned it into a bit of a game.

And I am relatively competitive.

And so, I would just try and focus on beating yesterday’s record today, every day, every day, every day.

And as a result, I would listen to a lot, a heap of French.

I think one day my total was four hours of French podcasts.

And I think this was walking into work, which was like 40 minutes, I had to do a bunch of lab work, which meant sitting at a desk doing repetitive tasks in the lab.

I used to have to pipette, which is like using this little sucky thing to pull up liquids and put them into a different tube.

I had to do that for hours during one day.

And I spent all of that day listening to French podcasts.

And I’m sure that this was a big reason that my French listening comprehension got really good.

A good way too, I guess, is using these podcasts and shadowing the podcast during your dead time.

This’s probably content for another episode, but also in… how do I say this? Interacting with the podcast where you’re actually forced to speak.

And that’s why I put all of my exercises into the expression episodes and other episodes at the end so that you guys have to interact with the podcast.

And so, you’re not just listening passively, you’re actively being involved in practicing your English.

Anyway, let me know what you guys think.

How do you guys use your dead time?

Do you guys already use your dead time?

Do you use Aussie English in your dead time?

And, tell me about how many hours you could get out of a day.

How many hours do you think you could get out of a day using the dead time that you have that you may not necessarily already be using well?

Anyway, guys, that’s enough for this episode.

Put a comment below and tell me those things, and I’ll chat to you next time.

Peace out.

All the best!

Oral substitution exercises:

Download the Substitution Exercises MP3 via this link

G’day guys.

Welcome to this bonus episode for Walking With Pete: How To Use Your Dead Time Wisely. Today, we’re going to be going through two different substitution exercises. The first one is a substitution exercise where I want you guys to replace the following conjunctions with “As a result of”.

So, a few synonyms for the conjunction “As a result” are “As such”, “As a consequence”, “Subsequently”, “Thus” and “Consequently”. So, they all roughly mean the same thing and can be used interchangeably, and so I feel like this exercise is going to be really good for, 1. associating all of these different synonyms with each other, and obviously, 2. learning them. Learn them and using them yourself.

So, we often use “As a result” as well as all of these other synonyms when talking about something that is a result of something else. So, when something happens as a result of something else.

So, let’s dive into it guys.

Exercise 3: Oral Substitution

In this substitution exercise I want you to replace the follow conjunctions with “As a result”
- As such
- As a consequence
- Subsequently
- Thus
- Consequently

We use “As a result” and its synonyms when talking about something that is a result of something else.

I want to be rich and cure cancer as a consequence.

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You fell over and subsequently got knocked out.

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Higher taxes are causing prices to spike consequently.

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She isn’t a nice person and as such only has a few friends.

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Our car broke down, and thus we got home late.

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They smoked all their lives and subsequently got lung cancer.

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I worked really hard and consequently got a pay rise.

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As a consequence of learning English I made many new friends.

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He reads a lot and as such is a real know-it-all.

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She trains at the gym each day and is thus incredibly fit.

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All answers below in the Answers section.

So, the second substitution exercise here guys is sort of similar. In this substitution exercise I want you guys to replace the following phrases with “All things considered”. So, the synonyms for “All things considered” are “All in all”, “Everything considered”, “In sum”, “By and large” and “On the whole”. And as a small caveat here, some of these things can be used in different senses, in different occasions. Sometimes you can say “All things considered” and “Everything considered” when you want to talk about something that’s happened that is good even though part of it was bad.

So, for example, my dad has been in hospital. He had a heart attack, but all things considered he’s healing up well. He’s feeling better. Everything considered, he’s doing really well. He’s recovering. So, it’s that idea of considering all of the things he’s been through. Having a heart attack. Going to hospital. Potentially being close to death and really sick. All those things considered he’s doing well.

However, for this exercise I just want you to treat “All things considered” and “Everything considered” as a way of making a judgment about something after considering everything. So, “All things considered”, when we consider everything… this… All in all… this… Everything considered… this…

So, let’s go.

Exercise 4: Oral Substitution

In this substitution exercise I want you to replace the following phrases with “All things considered”
- All in all
- Everything considered
- In sum
- By and large
- On the whole

We use “All things considered” and its synonyms when making a judgement about something after considering everything.
These phrases are usually placed at the start or end of a phrase.

All in all, I think he’s a top bloke. (a great guy)

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Everything considered, it could’ve been much worse.

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In sum, we had an amazing day at the beach.

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By and large, they’ve had a great weekend away.

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On the whole, she reckons he has a great smile.

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My trip to the dentist wasn’t too bad, all in all.

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They thought your party was amazing, everything considered.

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She thinks that in sum, it’s a good plan.

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All of your friends are awesome people, by and large.

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People can be pretty selfish, on the whole.

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All answers below in the Answers section.

Yeah, just finishing up here, guys, these are relatively similar synonyms, but I would just point out that “Everything considered” and “All things considered” are probably going to most commonly be used when talking about things being okay even though bad things may’ve happened.

So, for example, “They thought your party was amazing, everything considered.”, this could mean something bad happened at the party but they still thought it was great. Or, “Everything considered it could’ve been worse.”, that’s a good example, where things could’ve been a lot worse than they were, everything considered, but considering everything, all things considered, it wasn’t awful. It wasn’t that bad even though obviously… and, it, obviously, could’ve been better than that.

Anyway, guys, I hope you enjoyed this episode. I’m going to try and make more of these in the future for you as a bonus set of substitution exercises for the people who’ve signed up for the Aussie English Supporter Pack.

So, again, (a) special thank you to all you guys who’ve signed up for the Aussie English Supporter Pack. It means a lot to me guys. It’s really helping me to support myself and do more of these episodes for you, and (to) create more content for you.

So, definitely let me know what you’re using out of the Aussie English supporter pack, because I am still tinkering with quite a bit of it. I’m trying to work out what I can add in there as well as what I can take away in order to leave you with something that is as valuable as possible, that you will use as much as possible.

Anyway. I’ll talk to all of you guys in the Aussie English Members Group. And once again thanks. And (I’ll) chat to you soon!

See you guys!